Once again: The mac pro from apple it's the cheapest dual dual core xeon box out there. Norice that without a case and power supply, even a self-built rig is not cheaper: The base config at $2499 will smoke a dual opteron 280 system any day. Look at it completely smoke a core2extreme in rendering: Anandtech Mac Pro Review And you get to run both OSX and windows on one computer. Get any memory upgrades from here to save $$: OWC memory upgrades Just trying to save you some money!