MINIMUM SPECS FOR MAC PRO? ANY SUGGESTIONS?

Well, I'd suggest you get the mid-range configuration: 2.66 quad, go for 4 GB RAM, stock video is more than enough, maybe get a 500 or 750 MB hard drive - and that's all, you'll be well set up for 3-4 years at very least. You could also get a 2.0 quad, that's still a great, great system and will save you some money. 3.0 quad and eight-core are just too much as to me.

Artemio,

The most significant question at this point seems to be . . . do I need "quad" core processors, or will "dual" core suffice?

What are the principal selling points of a "quad" system for a small home studio application? It almost doubles the price (i.e., quad core units are 2X the cost of a omparable dual core system).

Thanks again!

There are no "dual" Mac Pros. The old PowerPC PowerMacs used to have dual processors, but all Mac Pros have either two dual core processors (four cores in total) or two quad-core processors (eight cores in total).

If you have a small home studio, get the 2.0 GHz Mac Pro model, it will be more than enough even for large tasks. You will save some money compared to the 2.66 GHz model, which will allow you to buy the essential software you need - like the DAW (Logic Studio recommended).

Yo, Artemio!

Thanks for the additional insights amigo! And no, I don't believe I said anything about "dual" anywhere (I said "dual core"), but right on! That's precisely where I was inclined to go (i.e., 2.0 GHz dual-core Intel Xeon 5100s, 2GB RAM, 0.5 TB HD, 23" Cinema LCD, wireless keyboard and mouse, yada-yada. And then I'll upgrade where necessary in the months ahead.

Mahalos.

Hi Reef Ranger.

Good luck with your Mac Pro purchase. I'm sure you'll be happy with it. Keep in mind that Apple is likely to upgrade their Mac Pro line within the next 2 months (before the end of January). If you can wait that long, I'd suggest holding off as the refresh is expected to be moderately significant (faster memory bus and front-side bus speeds, lower power consumption and slightly faster Xeon CPUs with no price increase). If you can't wait that long, the configuration you plan on going with should be fine. One thing I would suggest though is to purchase either an additional internal hard drive or an external one at least as large as your main drive to use as a backup drive for the Time Machine feature in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). This may prove invaluable in backing up your hours of music work. Also, unless you're completely uncomfortable installing upgrades, I'd suggest getting any expansions (more RAM, extra hard drives, etc) from somewhere other than Apple as Apple charges way too much for these additional items in their built-to-order configurations.

+1 to Nathan for the built-to-order stuff. When I was buying my iMac, I saved about $200 this way (got 2 GB RAM and 250 GB instead of stock 512 MB and 160 GB).

Nathan!

Many thanks for taking the time to provide this additional feedback my-friend. Great stuff!

I had no idea that a change (upgrade) was in store for the MAC Pro, so I will indeed wait until January, and regarding the additional drives, yes, I think you're right, another slave drive would be a good idea.

Right now, I'm looking at the following system configuration:

2.0 GHz dual-core 5100 Xeons
2GB (4 X 512) RAM (I'll add another 2GB later)
250 GB Master HD (i'll add a 500 GB Slave later)
Single 16X Super (CD-RW/DVD-RW) Optical Drive
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT w/256MB
Wireless Modem
Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
23" Cinema Flatscreen LCD
iWork '08
Logic Express
Leopard v10.5

TOTAL: ~ $4,000 U.S.

Thanks again to all.