Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How much do you spend per year (on average) on your workstation and peripherals

  • Less than $500 per year

    Votes: 13 31.7%
  • $501 to $1000 per year

    Votes: 11 26.8%
  • $1001 to $1500 per year

    Votes: 6 14.6%
  • $1501 to $2000 per year

    Votes: 3 7.3%
  • $2001 to $2500 per year

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • $2501 to $3000 per year

    Votes: 4 9.8%
  • $3001 to $3500 per year

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • More than $3500 per year

    Votes: 3 7.3%

  • Total voters
    41

VirtualRain

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 1, 2008
6,304
118
Vancouver, BC
Curious how much you spend or budget per year on your workstation and attached peripherals (storage, displays, etc). For example, if you buy a $3000 Mac Pro every 3 years, you're spending an average of $1000 per year. If you spend another $1000 over that 3 year period on upgrades, then your yearly spend is an average of $1333. If you spend another $1000 on a display that lasts two cycles (6 years), then that only contributes $166 to your annual spend.

So what is it?

In my case...
2009 Mac Pro Quad $3300
Dual 24" ACD Displays $1800
Additional GPU $200
Initial SSD storage $800
Current SSD storage $900
Spinning disk storage $200

Most of this (all but the spinning disk) I expect to recycle this year, so my spend over 4 years has been $7000 or about $1750 per year.

Note, I'm not counting misc. parts less than a couple hundred dollars nor am I adding my Audio Interface and Monitors which should last much longer and not be a significant contributor.
 
Last edited:

wonderspark

macrumors 68040
Feb 4, 2010
3,048
102
Oregon
Not sure what to do about the fact that I recently bought a MacBook Pro laptop, which is my new mobile workstation. I didn't include that in the figure, but perhaps I should have.
 

Varmann

macrumors regular
Jan 3, 2010
149
66
My 5 year old MacPro is only a 10th of the accumulated cost this period. And by far the best computer I ever had. Before I use to spend the same on home built PCs, one at least every two years. Today I spend more on high quality peripherals and much less on pc basics.
 

Baunkjaer

macrumors 6502
Feb 20, 2009
387
53
Copenhagen, Denmark
My 5 year old MacPro is only a 10th of the accumulated cost this period. And by far the best computer I ever had. Before I use to spend the same on home built PCs, one at least every two years. Today I spend more on high quality peripherals and much less on pc basics.
Same here. I´ve just bought a refurbished MBP as a supplement to my MP.
 

VirtualRain

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 1, 2008
6,304
118
Vancouver, BC
600 views and 20 votes? I'm not sure why this is not getting any participation. :confused: It's anonymous.

But the interesting observation so far is that 30% of people are spending less than $500 per year on their workstation. That implies buying used or entry level systems and not spending much on upgrades or purchased a high end system a long time ago and haven't invested much in it since.
 

wonderspark

macrumors 68040
Feb 4, 2010
3,048
102
Oregon
I've bought two GPUs so far, and am considering a GTX 680 Mac Edition. I also did the 6-core swap, and spent a ton on my Areca RAID system. Averaged out, it's not so bad. :)
 

Inconsequential

macrumors 68000
Sep 12, 2007
1,978
1
Mac Pro (£2k in 2009)
Disks (SSD/HDD) £500
GPU £100
Memory £200
CPU £400

£3300 over now what is 4 years.

So £825/year or $1200/year.

Although it is probably more like £3000 due to selling the old bits!!

But the base machine purchase was 66% ish of the total spend.
 

-hh

macrumors 68030
Jul 17, 2001
2,550
336
NJ Highlands, Earth
$5k every 5 years or so seems accurate.

That was along my thoughts for the 'major hardware' updates. There's then also a lot of other stuff that occurs on a relatively regular basis year-to-year, even before we consider the cost of an ISP (should this be included or not?). As such, I think that for most Mac Pro users, a number in the $1500+/year range shouldn't be unexpected.

Of course, the other part of this question is what should (shouldn't) be included. For example, in 2010, I dropped $8K on some new photo gear ... is it considered to be a peripheral to the Mac, or is the Mac considered to be a peripheral to it? For the purposes of this survey, I took the latter interpretation and ignored this expense as part of my "Workstation" averaged costs.


-hh
 

Designer Dale

macrumors 68040
Mar 25, 2009
3,950
100
Folding space
My workstation is a 5 year old 17 inch MBP so I didn't vote. If I did, it would be in the $500+ per year range considering all the stuff I have hooked up to it by now. In fact a nMP with all those dreaded expansion things would clean up my desk.

Interesting poll graph, though. A vote of zero shows as 1/2 of 1. Isn't zero zero?

Dale
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.