new to macs - Old mac pro quad xeon - V - Newer imac - help needed please

[ambientdoll]

Hi, i'm new to macs and have a quick question - i have found a mac pro very cheap. It is new & warranteed at a dealers i trust & purchase from regularly

the price is amazing, but it's an older quad core mac-pro using 2 x 2.66 dualcore xeon processors (does that sound correct?) which apparently runs a slower bus and slower ram

the question is this:

for editing video and mostly for running music s/w including audio-plugins (Logic pro) - assuming both machines had the same amount of ram; which'd be faster/offer most power:

a. this older mac quad core pro

or

b. a newer dualcore imac - say a 2.8 imac



i've been told that in fact the 2.8 iMac would offer more power (i'll get more plugin fx, s/w instruments and tracks etc) cos it has faster buss and ram even tho it has less cpu cores

is that true? - i need to act fast cos this mac pro is sooooo cheap someone'll snap it up soon - but is it really a bargain?

oh, btw this old mac pro quad is priced WAY less than a 24" 2.8 imac... like 300 GBP less and it is a fully warranteed ex-demo unit


mac experts help please?

 

[TheStu]

If you already have a monitor and whatnot, I would opt for the Mac Pro. Although the iMac would be faster in single and double threaded things, the 2 extra cores of hte Mac Pro will be useful in OS X period, especially Leopard (10.5), but also in most things that you do.

Plus the Mac Pro is upgradeable. The CPUs, the HDDs, the RAM... all upgradeable.