The only problem with these comparisons is that the majority of people do not need ECC memory nor "workstation" GPUs which are in fact, inferior to their gaming counterparts on many workloads and mostly exist as expensive dongles for CAD applications.<p>Really, the Mac Pro sports a set of $3000+ "workstation" class FirePro W9000's, which are egregiously marked up versions of last generation GPUs. For the price of a single D700 in the Mac Pro you could buy 3+ Radeon 290X's.<p>A PC user building a high end system would not opt for Xeon CPUs, ECC RAM, and workstation GPUs. They'd put in top of the line consumer CPUs with liquid cooling, top-end current generation NVidia or AMD cards, all for a fraction of the cost.<p>And in an Apples-to-Oranges comparison on major benchmarks, there's be practically zero different in performance, the PC would whup the ass of the "workstation" class system in games, and some DCC apps might perform slightly worse.<p>To show what a rip off these workstation cards are, there used to be a jumper hack for NVidia cards that would turn a consumer GPU into a "Quadro" workstation GPU, which would allow the workstation class OpenGL drivers to work, and the result was no different in benchmarks.<p>That is, the "workstation GPU" turns out to be a HW dongle to allow OpenGL drivers tuned for triangle throughput to run.<p>The exception is if you are perhaps running long running simulations. ECC could be useful there. But for Final Cut Pro? The ECC and workstation GPUs are overkill.<p>There isn't an Apple tax, there is an "Intel tax" and "workstation tax" on unneeded/overkill HW that delivers marginal returns to performance for enormous extra cost.<p>I love the Mac Pro's design, I just wish it came in non-Xeon/non-FirePro GPU versions.
For the heck of it, I did the breakdown<p>CPU: $2,789 (<a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116925" rel="nofollow">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116...</a>)<p>RAM: I could not find the identical type but it seems like it's in the ballpark of ~$800 given the ones I found were either a tad slower or came in 8 pieces instead of 4 (but then they were faster).<p>GPU: It seems like the exact GPU was introduced only for Mac Pro so it does not seem like you can buy it normally. But let's say ~$700.<p>HDD: ~$500-$600 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch-adapter-Internal-CT960M500SSD1/dp/B00BQ8RGL6" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch-adapter-Internal-CT96...</a><p>Motherboard: Seems like best LGA 2011 motherboards are in the the ~$500 range.<p>Total: ~$5300 (given you'd probably spend a couple more hundred on a power supply, case etc). Note that when I was estimating the prices, I was generally estimating higher than lower.<p>So I'd really like to see their cost breakdown of the 11k they mentioned.
While I think the Mac Pro is a nice bit of kit, it feel heavily specialised for video editing, post production and 3D work with a quiet profile.<p>But if your speccing competing kit, why wouldn't you build a 'better' product, rather then trying to find the exact parts. Your never going to build an off the shelf system with the same parts, make it quieter and keep it under budget when apple is pumping them off the production line.<p>Why would you spec a wintel system with a single 12 core proc instead of 2x hex (or oct) core procs?!?!? The 12 core part is rare and expensive, compared to the commodity 6 core part.<p>Why would a workstation grade machine at this point in time not have a mirrored disk array?<p>Why would you not have either 10gbit or quad 1gbit ethernet. Bond these up and connect to fast NAS / SAN storage for storage. Alternatively use a SAS connector and directly connect to a JBOD. A dual proc server board might even have 14 SAS/SATA ports to allow you to have a nice local storage array running RAID10/5/6.<p>An Intel Xeon E5-2630v2 (hex core, 2.6ghz) can be had for $792 AUD a pop.<p>Not to mention that you can put hundreds of GB of ECC memory in a Dual proc Xeon board.<p>Some people will value size over performance/price and think that such a machine will never be a replacement. I think on the other hand having a RAIDed system disk and much more ram is more valuable for my workloads.<p>While they will sell thousands of them, I really don't see the value outside a small number of applications optimised for OSX. For these workloads the cost is insignificant compared to the productivity.<p>Its disappointing for those hoping Apple might finally build a decent general purpose workstation, but with such limited upgradability I can't see these being used for a lot of the applications that people considered the previous mac pro for.
This copy-paste job adds nothing to the original article: <a href="http://bgr.com/2013/12/26/mac-pro-windows-diy-cost/" rel="nofollow">http://bgr.com/2013/12/26/mac-pro-windows-diy-cost/</a><p>Edit: And the article they copied from is a shorter write-up of the actual original: <a href="http://www.futurelooks.com/new-apple-mac-pro-can-build-better-cheaper-pc-diy-style/" rel="nofollow">http://www.futurelooks.com/new-apple-mac-pro-can-build-bette...</a>
This has been a common observation since time memorial: equivalent Mac systems tend to be competitive. Apple just doesn't compete in the very low end of the market at all.
If you match exactly the specs of an apple system the price tends to be competitive; the reason there's a "tax" is the apple model range is a lot smaller. If you choose the specs to start with (e.g. the system requirements for some game), and then compare the cheapest mac you can get with those specs with the cheapest PC you can get with those specs, that's when a price difference tends to be visible.
Apple has unfairly gotten this rep that their machines are expensive when in fact equivalent windows systems are in fact more expensive. I realized this when I was searching for a display and naturally thought that I can find a display comparable to the Apple one from some other manufacturers at a much steeper discount. But found that most do not make equivalent displays or when they do (Dell) its priced higher than Apple's. I have found the same thing when it comes to Mac Mini's as well. For the form factor there is nothing on the market that is even comparable. Things might have changed now (I hope) have not checked.
Funny, I ran a similar comparison and came up with ~$9000 <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6937203" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6937203</a><p>I didn't include ECC RAM which might up the price a bit. My conclusion was that there really wasn't much of an Apple tax anymore.<p>However, I think the system is spec'd wrong. In same ways it's spec'd out like a server, in others like a high-end CAD workstation...but it's not really suitable for the former and the market for the latter is really small.<p>As a server the overly expensive video is completely unnecessary. And the form factor is all wrong anyways.<p>For gaming, music production, video editing, photo work, etc. the workstation-class video parts, CPU and expensive RAM aren't useful and the storage is too small anyways.<p>Nobody targeting either class of user would spec a system out like this.<p>So who is this targeted at? The more stationary rMBP users who do lots of virtualization and want more RAM with the occasional CAD work and/or bitcoin mining?<p>I dunno, this product line <i>feels</i> weird.<p>I just built a pretty decent system that I'm expecting to last for the next 4-5 years and spent well under $2k.<p>Core i7-4770K<p>Nvidia GTX680<p>32GB RAM<p>512GB SSD<p>4TB HD<p>Blue Ray writer<p>+ some other odds and ends and they tossed in 3 free brand new games.<p>However, I would have liked to have it running with fewer fans, in a smaller case (half the size of my current mid-tower would have been nice).<p>Had I gone with 2x the RAM and a pair of the top of the line video card I would have still been around the cost of the lowest end Mac Pro at better day-to-day performance. But then again, my case is <i>huge</i> compared to this thing. Hell, I think my CPU cooling setup alone is about the same size as a Mac Pro.<p>I think the good thing is that at least the small size and high power at least has the tech world thinking and talking again, about part sizes and shapes, airflow, heat management etc. I predict some fast followers in the PC market at various specs and similarly sized form factors, including the huge open gap in the Apple lineup.<p>Maybe my next system build in 5 years will be in a tube shaped case with a single fan and much smaller parts?
Typical fanboi-ism that is being repeated.<p>There are 2 different lines of AMD GPUs that use the same GPU parts: FirePro Wxxxx and Radeon xxxx / R7 or R9 xxx.<p>For instance, the W9000 uses the same GPU as the Radeon HD 7970 Ghz Edition. This card sells for a retail price of maybe $500. Even if it is instead based on the 7990, that card is not $3K either.<p>The difference between the W9000 and the Radeon is that the RAM on the card is ECC on the FirePro and not ECC on the Radeon series... and nowhere that I can see, does Apple say that the DDR5 RAM on the graphics card is ECC; only that the main RAM for the CPU is ECC.<p>See this for codenames of the various GPUs: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_7000_Series#Southern_Islands_.28HD_7xxx.29_Series" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_7000_Series#Southern_...</a> .<p>Look up the equivalent retail prices of the cards mentioned, on the Wiki page... note that currently the prices are higher at retail because of the GPU shortage due to people buying these for Litecoin / Dogecoin mining.<p>See that the Apple fanbois in their "I Want to Believe" behavior don't understand what is going on...
The original article states that the Windows machine is <i>without</i> any Thunderbolt 2 connectivity. If you wanted to match the hardware more closely, you would have to add the price of fairly expensive Thunderbolt 2 add-on cards.<p>I'm not even sure you could match the <i>6x Thunderbolt 2 ports</i> and <i>4x USB 3 ports</i> available on the Mac Pro with a DIY PC at this time.<p>The Mac Pro also has dual gigabit ethernet and built-in speaker, which this comparison does not seem to take into account.
Even if there was an apparent 'Apple tax' on the new Mac Pros, as long it wasn't too much, I wouldn't mind. They make great hardware and software, and sometimes it's worth it to pay a little bit extra to get this. After all, we don't go around testing the Apple tax on the iPhone, and comparing it to other smart phones, since the iPhone is one of the more expensive phones on the market.