My first Mac?

[shaunlafmotu]

Hey all,

I'm a MOTU user on Windows and looking at possibly buying my 1st mac and switching over to DP.

I can't afford a new mac, so will most likely go ebay or craigslist. Being that my range is $1300, what do you think I should get for a computer?

I have two montiors on my windows comp. that I can use, so I don't need that factored in the price.

I do want something that can handle some video editing as well.

Any thoughts?

[Prime Mover]

Any Mac under $2000 is going to come with a monitor. Unless you're needing to jump in on the top-end of things, an iMac will run DP just fine, though I don't suggest a Mac Mini. I'm assuming you're going the desktop route instead of the laptop route. Well, I use a 3-year-old dual-core Mac Pro, and it's still flying. Any new iMac will run circles around that, so I think that's a pretty solid route. I've mostly been researching laptops to upgrade my old PowerBook, so I don't know the specifics of the latest iMacs at this point.

Then again, if you're dead-set on jumping in on the tower-end of things, you can't go wrong with a Mac Pro, I've loved mine. The only problem is, the video cards are NOT expandable by any stretch of the imagination (try $600 for a new video card), which I'm having to deal with right now. But they're beautifully designed and exteremely expandable in every other way.

[malditoyanki]

I actually have an 8 core mac pro selling on ebay right now. I also bought my replacement mac pro on ebay. For video editing (which I did on my old one) the processor speed is key.

I still have good luck finding higher end electronics and audio equipment on ebay.

[FutureLegends]

Living in €urope, I'm not familiar with the U$ used prices.
But, get the newest computer you can afford.
I have an old original 2006 Mac Pro (albeit the high end one with quad 3.0 and great graphics card) and it still has plenty juice. Not sure what those sell for these days though.

Question is, will you use lots of VIs? Do you plan on using something like UAD or a PCI audiointerface? If you don't plan on using any PCI based solution, a new-ish iMac would probably do the trick just fine too.

[Phil O]

I can't afford a new mac, so will most likely go ebay or craigslist. Being that my range is $1300, what do you think I should get for a computer?

So much depends on what you'll be doing with it. A friend of mine just got the 2.4 GHz Mac Mini with 4 GB RAM for about $800. That would leave you enough for monitor, keyboard, mouse, and external firewire drive (all new).

My friend is a composer. He's running DP 7.22 (with Apogee Duet), Garritan Personal Orchestra, and Finale 2011 on this system. I was amazed at how well this is working on his rig. Cons: the Mac Mini is not expandable and difficult to take apart. Pros: A brand new Mac within your budget that will do a great job with DP if your projects are not huge.

Phil