Just a report for those who have an xw8400 or matrox mini, 

I uninstalled MC 6.5.3; installed MC 7.0; loaded up MC 7.0; it recognized all my magic bullet plugins (yes!), matrox mini, keyboard, bins, projects and user settings from 6.5.3 without a hitch!

I;ve been editing for 4 hours now (1080p full res) and the old xw8400 is still kickin', and the matrox mini is playing perfectly (drivers 7.1.0.1294).

I'm a happy camper.

Thanks Avid thus far.

Salud

Ah, another Xw8400 user. I just upgraded mine to 16Gb so I could try out the background transcoder. It works, but it's rather slow (when the Readme says a dual-quad is recommended, it isn't kidding). Other than that, my system is also running quite happily.

What do you think of the performance of MC 7? I did not do any systematic testing, but it feels like it's performing faster than 6.x (and this was before I added the additional memory).

Yes, I recommend the Dual quad setup (you'll notice the boost). Mine is  and it hums. At first glance, I didn't notice anything different from 6.5.3 (and that hummed too). I do notice sequences and clips load quicker.

I swear, xw8400 has been of their list for a long time ( I understand, it's a 7 year old computer), and one day I'll upgrade to an i7 computer, but she still works and pumps out a ton of projects for me with no issues.