Is your Mac Pro really compatible with the new HDX hardware?

There seems to be some confusion regarding what kind of Mac Pro you actually need to run the new HDX hardware. If you thought you were ready for blast off just because you own an Intel-based Mac tower you’ve got another thing coming.

This confusion can only be blamed on Avid. They have changed their website and haven’t been clear about the requirements. Sure, the HDX is still a while away from being shipped, but if you’re planning to make a $10K investment, wouldn’t you want to know if you had to buy a brand new Mac on top of that?

So here’s what the Avid website says today:

* Apple Mac Pro (Nehalem/Westmere models only)
* Mac OS X Lion (32- or 64-bit)
* 2 GB of RAM (4 GB or more recommended)
* Minimum 15 GB free hard disk space for Pro Tools installation
* USB port for iLok authorization (plus, Internet connection for software download)

That means Woodcrest and Harpertown are shit out of luck. Max Gutnik, Avid’s internet warrior, chimed in on the Harpertown:

There is an incompatibility with Harpertown Macs that does not allow firmware updates to the HDX card. Attempting to do so can leave the card in a useless state. As such, we cannot qualify the card with Harpertowns.

We tried to make it work, as we had many Harpertowns internally, but unfortunately it is not fixable on our end.

My Woodcrest is still going strong here. It should be waaay too old by now but despite what all semi-worthless bench tests say it still kicks my latest generation MacBook Pro for music production. I guess it’s hard to beat three internal hard drives. In fact, I’ve never had it hit the wall, ever. Until now that is, because it appears it won’t play nicely with HDX. By the way, all this is happening at times of rumors floating around that Apple will drop the Mac Pro altogether.

I’m still waiting for the last word from Avid. No disrespect meant to Max (keep rocking that web) but a random comment on an audio forum is not enough for me when the website has been changed back and forth. I guess I’ll finally find out when HDX is actually released.

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