[garuda_x]

this is not a real price comparison. you can add another video card for a 100-200 bucks...yo dont need the jeronimo card. scsi isnt really neccessary either. you can plug a couple of ibm gxp 75's and be fast enough to rock and roll. there you go. thats all. oh, and ram. i think that 512 MB of ram is about $450 for it.... and lets not forget that apple is giving rebates for the dual 450's and 500's i tihk that you get $300 and $500 respectively.

a dual 450g4 with 64mb of ram the 30gb drive, dvd, and the radeon graphics card is $1,949. add tax and i think shipping is free from the apple store. now add a single 256mb stick for $180 or a single 512MB stick of ram and you are golden. oh yeah, lets add a big drive for our audio. a 30 gig drive would do fine, an ibm 7200rpm ide drive is $150, or a bigger one, they go up to 75gb, for $4xx give or take. or maybe the maxtor drives...those are fine as well, but i usually go with the ibm drives.... there you go, lemme get the palm pilot and add it all up.... i'll guestimate and place it @ $2699 for a dual 450 with a 20 gig sys drive, 576MB ram, dvd, a radeon graphics card, another ati orion card, and a 40 gig drive for audio.... and it comes with a key and mouse. a really cool keyboard, but you might wanna buy a kensington pro mouse, or a ms trackball or something...or a wacom tablet.... but those are usb and universal...right?

well, they you go. that is pretty much what i would built. since you are building a machine just for pro tools.....you dont need to wait for the plugs to become available....they are here now. the machine is buf enough to do video, 3d, 2d, pro tools...(although if you are doing serious 3d, you want maya on mt or irix) and blah blah blah..... people say tings like "plan for the future" and crap like that. if you are in production you buy as good as what is available for your budget now and use it. i currently have my 001 running on a windows machine, but will move it to a mac as soon as i am financially able to. there are little things you come to like when you use both. i like the mac layout a bit more. no need to drag the app window across both monitors and reset all of you window positions.... when i go to a shop with pt on mac it always feels good. whatever, people like thier sonic foundry things and like thier games or whatever.... i use the 001 on my windows box and just live with my f*ed up screen redraws and my misplaced window options..... you deal with it.... but the ovewhelming majority of users of pro tools are on the mac. thats it.