Deciding whether to stay with mac or rock a toshibaor acer is here. I can get the same components for A LOT less, just with no OSX. the factor is the translator. Is running my AU and VST instruments going to need to be run through "rosseta" therefore using more proccessing power? or will ableton live be the translated and the AU source code can stay the same. If needing translating, then is it really worth it for a year or so till the source code catches up... any Xcoders out there I would love feedback.

First most stuff won't work with Rosetta, Rosetta is very bad at Altivec.

Second check our compatibility news. it helps.

Now if you run Ableton Live, it's better on a windows PC as Ableton is very bad at optimizing for Mac for 5 years now, which is a shame. Even if they started on mac OS… Maybe it'll be better on macintels but until we have the apps, we can't tell.

It'll move fast in the next weeks/months so if you're not in a hurry, better to calm down and wait. That's for software compatibility. For hardware, the macintels we have been able to see are great though sometimes expensive (but it must be relativised, you can't compare that way simply). On Mac OS, it's still one of the main reason I think people stick with macs (and the usual reliability of the computers) it must be weighted too.

one last point, the binary has to change due to the completely different CPU, the code in itself can change a lot or marginally depending of the way it's done (so it's use/coding technics dependant) in the end, we'll run only UB then intel binary anyway but on OS X. The time to modify an app varies from hours to months, some software like Pro Tools will have needed nearly a year first because it's a pro app, they need testing and reliability on the new computers, and you need the relevant computer to be available (no big desktop yet), also they have to change quite some code while still making the software evolve in between the announcement of the macintel move and the UB release.

Apple has already made quite some radical transitions as this one successfully, the only attitude when you have work to do is to keep cool and look when things are settled enough to make the move. For music it's early still. in six months from now, it'll be way clearer for sure. We can't decide for you what to do, but balancing with the macintel right now is bit early as some key parts in the puzzle are lacking still.

Ableton Live 5.2 is in beta on macintel, it's supposed to run way faster. The final 5.2 is expected any moment now… For plug-ins, see the announcements of editors or in the link I gave earlier. But as all the Mac line will be on Intel by november, expect the software to be available accordingly in majority before that. It's easier/faster than the 68K=>PPC move in fact thanks to OS X.

Hope this helps… (and not too confusing)