[evanbenjamin]

I just did an upgrade from a 4.1 8 core Nehalem to a 5.1 12 core Westmere, with an OWC SSD for a boot drive. The Geekbench numbers went from 11000 to 30000. The difference in responsiveness is tremendous. And you get a faster computer than most of the trash cans for far less money. In every respect, it's worth the money.

I had someone from Avid tell me at AES that in their tests, Westmeres outperformed the trash cans. For a third or less of the price.