I have considered throwing my computer in a closet and running cables, and it isn't even that loud. My MacBook on the other hand sounds like a jet taking off, I can barely use it because of that.

BTW, how about laptops? I have seen some good deals on i7 2.2GHz machines around $900. Not that I'm ready to buy, but what laptops would you recommend? No Macbooks though

The trusted name for pre-built is Apple, I don't see any point in buying pre-built otherwise. Instead, I always recommend people build their own machine using the specs provided over at the DUC:

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=238426

As far as cases go, the Antec Sonata cases have been serving me well for years.

H.P or Lenovo laptops have been good for audio.

how about reasons NOT to buy apple..

1) more money period no if ands
2) more money for less performace with ALL cross platform software
3) less expandable (fewer PCIe slots far less HDD slots)
4) there is no its more stable and it hasnt been for a good while but with win7 its long gone.
5) far less support than one would expect. and no support for audio hardware/software
6) vastly behind the times on processors

the ONLY reason to buy Apple at this point is if you own logic period even DP is for windows shortly.

Scott
ADK

Yeah just an Apple tower is not in my price range. I am thinking iBuyPower will get my business, their online config tools are the most coherent from what I've seen.

If you're feeling religious like this, go Apple!!

Or you could use common sense and do some serious research (and still end up with an Apple, if that's what you need/want)

I'm using a Dell Latitude 6520, and as long as I'm not going nuts with Diva it will be my main music PC for a long time to come.

I recently switched from PC to Apple, and with lower specs than my PC I can get more power out of it.

You should never forget: Apple does offer only a limited range of processors, GFX cards etc., but the drivers you get with OSX are BOMBASTIC. That's, you wouldn't guess it, because they can tailor their drivers to the specific hardware they use, and don't have to include a lot of "common" drivers to ensure maximum compatibility. (Of course, that only goes for onboard stuff like GFX and controller chips. HDDs and USB/MIDI stuff work just as well!)

OSX is STABLE AS F*CK. I did have crashes already, but they didn't bring the system to a halt, because they weren't OSX crashes - they were crashes by badly programmed software, so only the badly programmed software crashed.

I bought a rather standard Mac Mini with an intel i5 2x 2.5Ghz processor, 4GB RAM and the standard 5.400 hard drive with 500GB.

First thing I did: screwed the sucker open, popped in 8GB of high speed DDR3 RAM (look for ones with low CL times!) and swapped the standard HDD for two (yes, theres room for 2x 2.5" HDDs) Crucial SSDs, one for OSX and one for my samples.
Nice extra you don't get told: Apple put a SATA2 drive in the thing, but the Logic Board and cables support SATA3.

So with 2 SATA3 SSDs and 8GB of fast(er) RAM, all of which I bought for the usual low price online from standard PC retailers, you wanna take a guess at which of my machines wins the performance race?

The PC is an intel i7 860 with 4x 2.8GHz (more than double the performance of the Mac's i5), 8GB of equally fast DDR3 RAM, and SATA2 OCZ Vertex2 drives.

Track count, plugin count, responsiveness, loading times, and ESPECIALLY the noise that's made ... each and every point is won by the Mac Mini.

That little tin literally laughs at my thoroughbred PC, but granted, not in ways of video performance. The teeny mobile GFX chip inside the Mini does in fact supply both my 26" displays with 1920*1200 resolution, without being "slow" or jerky, I can even play Portal AND have a YouTube video running without any problems.
Okay, with that much performance required at once, it will definitely start to become really noisy, but the fan does a good job, and as soon as you don't need the performance any more, it cools the system and quiets the fan in a matter of a few minutes.

In fact, with the SSDs and nothing but Firefox and a paused video open ATM, I can't even hear the thing. And just minutes ago I was mixing a 49-track project in Reaper.

Srsly, if you have the cash and there's nothing special you really NEED Windows for, like Cakewalk stuff or FL Studio and so on, then go for a Mac.
In fact, you could always let Windows run on your Mac later on with BootCamp or Parallels etc.

But since I have that supposedly lower-powered and slow Mac Mini, I only ever power up my Windows PC when I've got too much time and I want to play something really demanding (performance-wise), like BF3, MW3 or Dead Island.
Everything else the Mac does better and faster.

Speaking of "power", I just recently found out that the Mac Mini has a PSU with something around 85W MAX.? That's efficiency. Not a 750W tower going into standby after 3 minutes of idling.

Oh, did I mention that I'm using the wired Apple keyboard for my PC as well? And I don't need to change mice, screw the MagicMouse, I use my Logitech mouse on the Mac. Little Bluetooth receiver fits a treat in the USB slot on the Keyboard. Huh? Yeah, USB slots. Two. Under the keyboard.

One downside though: once you start screwing away at your Mac to put in new drives etc., the guarantee is voided. Don't think it's the same with the Mac Pro, but with all the others it is.

9 months would be about the time that something would f*ck up my Windows, or the time it would've taken to get really sluggish and "heavy", but after 9 months of intense everyday use of the Mac Mini for browsing the Internet, editing and watching HD videos, recording and "producing" music, creating graphical designs, installing and removing all sorts of programs and plugins and stuff (you've got to test it all), my OSX is nowhere near the state that my Win7 would have had by now, had I used it similarly.

I guess I'm sounding like a fanboy right now, but I've been using Windows PCs ever since the days of Win 3.1, that's quite exactly 20 years today, and so yes, I did learn to love Windows, especially Win7!
But I've had the Mac for nearly 8 months now, and for nothing in the world would I want to trade it back for a PC when it comes to making music.

Yes, it does take some time, effort and a whole lot of ignorance to learn the simplicity of a Mac with OSX. But once you're past that 2-4 weeks border, you'll start asking yourself why you were ever afraid of it.

And not to forget... they're just SO sexy!
"Where's your computer?" - "Ah, right here, on the stack of DVD cases."

Next notebook's gonna be a MacBook Pro, that's for sure. But that'll be some time.

If money is a deciding factor, DIY is the way to go.

It's funny, I was about to dismiss them, then I saw their free liquid cooling options and instantly swooned.

They have the option of the Asus P9X79 motherboard that's recommended on the DUC, too.

I always recommend DIY first. When a resource like the DUC exists, I just don't see any reason not to. However, if someone must get a pre-built system, Apple is a can't-go-wrong solution.

I agree. People are going to see red when they hear "Apple", but if you want a pre-built solution, you will have a much better time with a Mac (the Dell machine at work ran Cubase faster, but was unreliable). Even then, you'll probably want to tweak it a bit (more RAM, additional HD), but you'll probably never even need to open the damn thing.

Depends on your needs, and not everyone wants to switch operating systems.

Yeah, I used to be one of them.

Haha, me too.

Stay away from Toshiba. I bought an i7 laptop about a year ago and it is a major PITA. The video driver will freeze periodically with no warning or explanation, then the driver will reboot itself. The machine will occasionally reboot for no apparent reason. The driver for my audio interface will periodically quit working forcing me to uninstall/reinstall it. No, rebooting does not help.

I like the display and I like the keyboard, but that isn't enough to make up for the machine's shortcomings. My advice is to look elsewhere.

I like red apples. (please, no references to that film dude )