Thinking of a new production machine

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!

Sorry, I had to use that joke.

As Bender gets a little longer in the tooth, and one of my backup systems is getting flaky, I've started looking at what it would take to get a new system, to be named "Turanga". After doing some thinking and research and thinking, I've decided that I'm going to bite the bullet when the time comes and get a Mac Pro (I can hear Chris 'squeeing' from here as he reads this).

Why?

First of all, the Mac OS is "an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads." This is a big deal for me, because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Unix. I can make it sing and dance. I also love being able to "kill -9 (bad process)". I miss being able to use Unix regularly.

Secondly, while it is a Unix variant, Mac OSX runs "MS-Office", "iTunes", and a few other snazzy pieces of software I'm interested in.

Third, not only can I dual boot Windows, I can run Windows IN Mac using "parallels". Furthermore, it appears I can run several CONCURRENT instances of Windows. This is a big dealio for me. BUT, if I want to play a PC-Only game, I can fire up Windows under bootcamp and have NO overhead (except for Windows).

Fourth, I have an iPhone and, well, I've been VERY impressed by Apple support when I've had problems. I go in and I get my probs fixed fast.

Finally, because the Mac is actually a very standard set of hardware that is rather commonly used, I shouldn't have any probs with support of non-Apple software (Like if I need a Windows driver for standard Apple hardware). I still get 2 quad-core CPUs that will keep the system running several concurrent tasks nicely.

Something like this
Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6GB (6x1GB) <- Cheaper to upgrade later with non-mac RAM
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s <- OSX
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s <- Windows
2x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
One 18x SuperDrive
Apple Mighty Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User's Guide
Country Kit

Sadly, this is a ways off. BUT, I think this will be the best choice. It gives me the most options and the most solid choice of system.