Ric,
Thanks for the quick reply and help! Thanks for the warm welcome, as well. I'm really geeked about my upcoming switch to Apple and Mac from being a Microsoft/PC person for pretty much all of my adult life so all the advice I get I am most appreciative of (seeing my last Apple Computer was a family Apple Mac IIe many many moons ago!).
My wife pretty much has to physically restrain me from going in to the Apple Store every week to play with the Mac Pro and 30-inch HD screen, as well as perusing the software rack to see what goodies I will be adding to my new Mac when I eventually get it. It's sort of like Wayne Campbell, in Wayne's World, when he goes into the music shop and asks to look at the guitar he salivates over, over and over again, week after week, and then eventually he buys that guitar!
The Mac Pro and the 30-inch Apple Cinema display is pretty much the basic configuration that I'm going to get when I finally -- and thankfully, may I add -- switch from PC to Mac. I'm going to save my custom built PC to use only for the cutting edge games coming out (like Crysis) that probably won't play as well on the Mac as a PC at this time.
I thought about the iMac option -- like you said at a much lower cost -- but I like having the flexibility of choosing a larger monitor/display and I don't mind paying the extra for that priviledge. One thing I've also learned from all my PC years is to get the most powerful machine you can get at the initial time of your purchase to afford more powerful apps and goodies that may come out down the line. This is why I've also chosen the Mac Pro so I have a powerful computer for the next few years (without having to consistently upgrade -- like I've had to do every 12 months or so in the Microsoft/PC universe).
What's saving me from bugging the fine people at the Apple Store every week is that my wife just got a 15-inch MBP for her birthday recently so I've been playing around with the Mac OS and the like so I at least get my fix for the time being until I get my bad boy in my home office.
I will probably get the 4x1 GB Memory configuration when I buy my computer at the Apple Store online so it will save me from having to go into the Mac Pro and do any initial installation of new hardware. I'm not that proficient at adding anything to computers so having all of this preinstalled and ready to go when I hit the "Power/On button" and have everything just work is just fine with me.
