Hello, i am thinking about buy a new computer. I want to work in OSX envoirment with Logic Express.

But i'm thinking the possibility to buy a Intel Core 2 Duo, and install the OSX cracked.

My dude is if the performance are the same of a similar hardware in Mac or not. I has searched information about this, but i don't find any comparative that compares two models of equal characteristics (For example, Mac Pro Quad 2,66Ghz and a PC with 2 processors Intel Core 2 Duo 2,66Ghz).

I would like to know if is worth the trouble to buy the original one or not.

PD:Sorry for my bad english.

I would suggest that if you are buying a brand new machine, go ahead and buy the real thing. Performance of a hackintosh with even the same processor specs as a real mac WILL NOT be the same as the real thing due to the lack of drivers. Think of it this way. For an extra hundred or two you will have a machine that can be updated with the click of your mouse and you will never have to worry about replacing kernel extensions manually.

Not to mention a better looking machine and the guarantee of leopard compatability.

yes, but the mac pro doesn't have any pci slots, and most audio things are pci. i wold get the mac pro for my uses, but for audio you might want a custom built

Aren't there firewire and USB based audio devices? But I agree with the others...aint nothing like the real thing. Buy a Mac-thats what i'm doing tomorrow!

good for you! if you can get firewire or usb based, go for the mac pro

Mmm in fact you could build a 8 xeon (core 2 duo based) 1.66ghz hackintosh with 4gb ram, 320gb HD and a better vga than the one included in the mac pro for about 200€ less than the entry level mac pro.

In addition to that since the boards needed to get xeons running are based in intel 5000x chipset (the same used in mac pro) you´ll probably get little to 0 compatibility problems. And well...most 5000x boards have PCI, PCI-X and PCI Express at the same time

I'm also building a PC based MacPro, here's the parts list: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=php...ftqUGPiSTst8RMw

Get a Mac Pro

No way, to expensive... Here in Slovenia MacPro with Xeon 3.0GHz / 1GB / 250GB HDD / NV7300GT costs €3670.00... That's €1600 more than mine. I can build another hackintosh with that money.

I know you get wonderful support from Apple, but still, it's too expensive. That's why I don't own an iPod, because you can get more for less.

Thanks for all answers!!

I think that i can wait for new Mac Pro with 8 cores (or almost for 4 core less expensive), anyone can to say that has the same performance (or similar) only VooD, but you don't has it, only you think this...

chipxsd, can you to post in this topic when you has your hackintosh, and expose your experiences?

nothing wrong with the PPC towers that came out just before the Intel switch.

I have a recording studio and also give lessons in others studios. I help people set up home studios all the time. Some on PPC, some on Intel Macs, and even some on PCs.

I swear I have never wasted more time then with clients of mine who have Intel Macs. So many updates to download. So many 3rd party problems. Certain plug-ins still haven't caught up.

Whether you're planning on using Logic, Pro-Tools or anything else, my suggestion would be to find a refurbished (or used but still under Apple Care) G5 tower and spend the money you'll be saving on as much RAM as you can afford.

I'm not even gonna touch "Hackintosh" discussion. If you're planning on doing any professional audio - stick with what I said.

Sure... I will also setup a blog, where you'll find all details and photos on how to build a hackintosh.

@Gloria: I agree. Many people reported having problems with ProTools HD on intel Macs. If you're building a professional studio, stick with PPC. For me building a hackintosh is just my hobby - never wanted to make money for making music.

If you don't intend to use a USB or Firewire audio interface, then there's no reason to even consider an Intel Macintosh or a hackintosh.
Since no new Mac has a PCI slot, and unless Apple decides to produce new PCI-slot Macs, you'll be in a dead end. No matter how extraordinary your audio card is, you'll probably stay stuck on Winblows...
No need to waste brain juice thinking about it..

the g4 quicksilver is powering my friends high end audio-shop

Depending on which audio PCI card you have you can run into problems either way. I know for quite certain that there's no light at the end of the tunnel for the RME DIGI series in terms of a universal binary driver.
On the other hand, if I had to make a decision now for a new pro audio interface I would avoid PCI regardless and go Firewire or PCIe. BTW I wouldn't consider USB audio interfaces being professional.

This is changing very rapidly. From what I've followed over the past 6 months or so I would estimate that the rate of UB plugs as opposed to PPC is already approaching 90%. The kvraudio site is a good resource, just for reference.

In terms of audio hardware, PCIe is also slowly catching up. Certainly not as fast as UB software but the day PCI will be as obsolete as ISA is certainly closer than for the other current formats.
If I had to invest today in a pro studio setup I might consider a bargain PPC only for certain things which will guaranteed never be UB and only if a project really requires it for some reason. It would have to be a real bargain though. Looking at the recent tendencies where certain vendors already started announcing that they will quit PPC support I wouldn't feel too comfortable being stuck with potentially obsolete technology although - and that's the point - the choice is in fact out there.

The Mac pro with quad core looks tempting indeed but I suppose there are still some interesting price drops to be expected.

BTW some of our preproduction is made on a Hack (see specs below) with Cubase 4 and a selection of VST plugs. Tracking is made mainly with outboard gear so there's never a lot of VSTi going on but just to give a rough idea - 40-50 audio tracks, each running 2-3 VST inserts (compression, EQ, tube emu etc) and 4 VST FX sends pushes the performance metre to somewhere around 30-40% at a latency of around 15ms. It's not even coughing and fairly rock-solid. And that's just a Pentium D...

I agree with Solar and others... I would just go with a firewire interface, regardless.

If you wanna get crazy for some reason: http://www.mobl.com/expansion/ will give you more options. (That's how my old powerbook became a portable recording studio about 6 or 7 years ago)

These days, no reason not to go with Firewire. It's fast as hell and affordable. ( I also would say that you're external HDs should be firewire and not USB)