Mac Switching To Intel Processors, Is it worth the wait? Options

[Methanol]

Hey everybody,

I'd like to start off by saying that this is my first post on the forum.

Anyway, I've been a PC user almost as long as I can remember, and I've been recently considering Macintosh to do all of my music production on.

I've been hearing lots of news that Macs are soon to use Intel processors and I was wondering if I should wait until the new wave of Mac has begun. I'd like to have my own musical computer as soon as I can, but if it really is worth it, I will wait a bit longer before getting one.

What do you think?

[fastlanephil]

That depends on if you want to use a laptop or a desktop. The desktop Macs are already competitive with PCs and probably won't see a big boost in performance with the switch. They will be the last to go to Intel chips and I would guess that the iMac G5 will go Intel no sooner than next fall and the PowerMacs will follow either in January 07 or closer to Apple's WWDC later in the year. It's a no brainer that the PowerBooks will make the switch first and that will probably be on the same schedule as the PowerMacs but in 06. Forget the iBook and the Mac mini. Another reason to wait for Intel Macs is the possibility of being able to boot into Windows with not much of a speed hit but there are a lot of unknowns and possible problems with that. The plug-ins are all going cross platform anyway so if you are like me and have most of your resources tied up in sounds it's no big deal.

[swilder]

I'm never a big fan of being on the bleeding edge with software or hardware that might affect my bottom line. I like to let new products spend a little time on the market so the bugs a wrinkles can be worked out.

That's just me though. I've had clients pretty steaming mad because the sexy new whatever picked the perfect time to go down.

never do that again.

Scott

[rickenbacker]

Yeah, what he said.

If you need a computer now, buy one now - they're plenty fast enough (even the iBooks are pretty nippy for modest productions, editing and mastering). Then in a couple of years' time you can upgrade and get an even faster Intel-powered Mac that Apple have spent the previous two years perfecting.

How much you want to spend is also a factor. If you sprang for a Quad Core PowerMac G5 right now, that might keep you happy until something like 2010!