Look at the prices too. The HP machine on the same level as the mac pro is way more configurable and thus can become way more expensive than the mac. (Gee, I'll take the dual vid cards, 64gigs of ram, etc.)

Do this, go to both websites (mac and hp), configure similar systems and tell me that pcs cost less than macs. The xw8600 HP machine is about the same hardware for about the same price, designed to do about the same kind of work (maybe more).

I did, and they do. I configured identical, near top of the line systems from both Dell (okay, not HP) and Apple, and the Mac was about $2000 more than the Dell, configured as equally as was possible. Going to a local builder I ended up with a price about $3000 below the Dell, and about half of what the Mac would have cost -- which allowed me to add a huge RAID array.

Depends on the system and what you want to do, I guess.

thats funny, cause the HP is about $1400 more than the mac, and so is the dell that I just priced out, though you have the option of a single processor with the dell and the HP if you like. Are you counting monitors, cause I was pricing out just the box, nothing else. I'm going to put forth more research towards this end. Pricing out similar workstaions it seems that a Mac Pro packs some serious value/performance. I'm up in the air on the whole mac vs pc issue myself, and to be honest, a little annoyed by the whole debate. You really can't compare a Compusa pc with a macpro, not in the same class. Price out similar workstations and compare. (I guess to be fair a turnkey adobe system is about $1500 less than a turnkey final cut system).

I'll also note that I dumped about $2300 into my PC just on storage, memory, a new monitor and an external optical drive, for all you DIYers out there.

As I said, I did. The best config I could get that was nearly identical for both on their websites at the time was Dual Xeons (5460?), 4GB RAM, 4x1TB HDD, a decent video card, and the 30" monitor.

Total Price: Mac Pro about $10K, Dell about $8K, Local Builder about $5K. Prices may have changed since a couple of months ago when I was pricing systems.

I have no dog in this fight -- I don't know or care which is "better," but I'm just reporting the facts. I'm sure there are config combinations where the Mac is cheaper than the PC, but I haven't seen them.

problem is you cannot compare 2 machines (even if both are PC) just by the parts.
it would be like considering cars performance just by their parts list.
in PC world i can put the same processore on a 60$ motherboard as well as on a 300$ one. Apple is not better since they are not building any parts you can find in their products, but they reach a high level of quality by merging ideas, hardware and software in a tight way.
This is often problem but also the warranty of a working product.
There is probably a price tag on this.
On the other hand, you can reach the same level for less money with carefully choosen PC Parts and software, but due to the huge choice available (and among it,the large crap found), you really must be experienced in this domain. Usually, it takes me months to fine tune a PC.
Personally i would go for a PC with premiere and cineform, because this domain (hd editing) is currently a changing world and i would feel more confident in a machine that is open for change.

The difficult thing about mac is that a raid card costs $800 while for a HP workstation the comparable raid card is only $19 (how can this actually be true???)

Also, every workstation (that I've seen) is packaged with ECC memory which is much more expensive than non-ECC and usually runs at a slower bus speed (667 vs 800). I'm not sure if ECC memory is even advantageous and may be a negative thing (I\'ve seen what I call hiccups in my editing program after I installed ECC memory in my present computer. I could be wrong about this but I\'ve heard that when the memory checks itself there can be that "hiccup" created in the data flow.

I wish there was a sticky, blog, or website which compared various systems and workstations and described the limits and advantages for the editing world. Anyone seen such a beast?

$19 for them to configure a hardware raid, you don\'t want this. You want a physical controller separate from you mobo. You should really build this your self, whether you go mac or PC. Funny thing, all of the xeon workstations out there have about the same hardware layout. It all comes down to what apps you\'d like to run and the best machine that fits your budget and needs. If you like and know PCs, then stick with vegas or move to premiere and pick your workstation based on that.