Best performance for the price is the PC, hands down. The Core-i7 3930K should be the sweetspot for price/performance right now. It will enable you to build an extremely capable system with 32GB ram (excluding drives) for around 1000 eur. With a couple of SSD's added I don't know if you would ever run into the CPU limit.

Windows 7 is also better performing than OSX for audio applications.

Thank you for your replies. Right now I'm looking at custom PC with Intel Xeon 2.4 Ghz(Westmer) 12 core with 48 gigs of RAM 5 WD Raptor 300(OS) and 600Gigs with either 4 of them in a Raid 0 or 2 Raids with 2 WD Raptors in each Raid 0. I was going for the bigger Intel which is a 3.46Ghz(Westmere) 12 Core but don't you think is better to save the extra $3,700 extra and spend it on fast drives and more RAM? I can still use part of my MacPro 2.93Ghz 8 core which also runs ProTools 9 4HD if I need to load more instead of loading tons of stuff which is what I'm doing now. Plus I can also load some more on my Mac Pro 2.26Ghz 8 core which runs Logic Pro 9. I want the PC to handle most of my sample libraries and use the other ones just in case I need load more stuff.

I'd still pick one 6-core 3930K or 3960X if you can spare the cash. The architecture is newer, I believe it would perform about the same as a 12-core "older" Westmere system for heavily multithreaded apps, but would be much faster for single threaded work. Total system price would be much lower, and it would still support 64GB ram with a 300 usd-ish motherboard. Spend the saved cash on some SSD drives.

You could have a look at this page for benchmarks between the two CPUs. As you can see, the Xeon you are considering is about half as fast as the 3930K.

Base system components:

3930K CPU: 544 eur

Intel DX79SI MB: 254 eur

8x8GB RAM: 450 eur.

Total: 1248 eur

Should leave some spare cash for SSDs 😊

Following up on this, I have to say that picking a Sandy Bridge architecture CPU over a Nehalem variant, might yield a huge performance increase for MIR Pro, since Sandy Bridge supports AVX, which is utilized by MIR Pro (on Windows).

What is the status on MIR PRO in a multi PC/MAC environment, I thought it was not possible or that you require two MIR licenses

see also my post about migrating my strings as VI pro in Logic 

best

cyril

MIR Pro comes with one license. If you want to use it on more than one machine, you need to buy more licenses.

I think everyone on the Windows side assumes you're building it yourself. But, a hex core, pretty sure that's the cost of the CHIP...there's a single 6 core intel that's about $500usd...the rest are closer to $1k....just chip costs. 

The Intel Xeon processors used in the latest Macpro 2x6 core  are at  1300 $ each, so it is 2300 $ just for the processors, you wonder why Intel is rich

@Gubik said:

Dear Martin Saleteg, You've mentioned a powerful PC around 1000 Euro (Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition 6-core or similar). Do you have any website/company that you recommend. The ones I found around 3000 Euro. Thanks

I never meant a complete system, but rather a system base. This would include CPU 3930K (550 EUR), Motherboard (250 EUR) and memory (200 EUR). Then you would of course need a case, harddrive(s), graphic card etc. But for 1500 you should have the whole kit with quality components.

I am always building the computers myself, so I cannot recommend any builder for you.

dont forget Window 7, this is a big price !

120 EUR.

Dont buy cheap memory, buy waranted memory

I use Crucial ssd and memory

Martin, as a long time user of VSL with a Mac, I am finally getting to the point (having purchased MIR PRO) of thinking of a change to PC. Would you be able to give me the name of a company who could build a pc for me with the latest top level specs (such as you described) designed to work with VSL and music? I am afraid that I have neither the ability or wish to attempt to build it myself.

Best wishes, Roy

Sorry, I don't have any personal experience with any DAW builders myself. I suppose these are usually local companies. Perhaps someone else might chime in?

Hi guys,

These are our officially supported PC builders that also offer VSL certified Workstations.

Best,

Paul

You need to be very carefull if you are thinking of a 5.1 MIR configuration, If I was you I will wait so all bugs of VEP 5 and MIR PRO are sorted.

We are  experimenting quite a few problems of clicks, pops, big cracks, hanging notes, missing notes. We are a lot asking for guidance from VSL [:$]  

I have just expand my system to 32 GB yesterday, I have to move today all my libs on ssd, so tomorow I should be able to do more test to see if it is possible to have a 5.1 or 7.1 Mir configuration on a Macpro 12 core 32 GB and a lot of ssd, today the best Macpro availlable !

With MIR PRO you need one license per computer, at 795 euro each, it is making the PC VERY expensive,

if you have to have 24 or 32 GB, one or two 256 gb ssd per PC,  the bill is very far from 1 000 euro

 Paul, Many thanks for your response. Regards, Roy