Are PCs becoming worse value than Macs?

[Gourlish]

For a long time Macs felt worse value than PCs, however at the moment I feel the reverse is true, possibly due to the RAM/SSD/GPU shortage that is currently hitting other brands harder than Apple.

Currently in the UK, here's a comparison of a Dell laptop and a well specced out 16 inch MacBook Pro with the same amount of RAM/storage:

Dell XPS 16 (£4199):

Intel Core Ultra 7 358H, Intel Arc graphics, 64GB RAM, 4TB SSD, Windows 11 Home, 16" 2K display (1-120Hz, 500 nits)

M5 Max MacBook Pro (£4918 with student discount):

Apple M5 Max (18 CPU cores, 40 GPU cores), 64GB unified RAM, 4TB SSD, MacOS Tahoe, 16" Liquid Retina XDR display

While the MacBook Pro costs a bit more, it is also a significantly better machine in numerous areas, most notably in terms of its GPU and RAM performance, as well as having a superior display resolution, and feels better value for the price. The Dell machine's CPU/GPU is similar in terms of multicore CPU/GPU performance to the M3 Pro or base M5, while its single core performance is roughly on a par with the M2. I don't know what SSD the Dell has, but I suspect the one on the M5 Max machine is faster (knowing that it is fast).

If the current chip shortage continues and Apple continue to find a way through it without significant price hikes, it makes me wonder if the Apple's computer market share will increase noticeably. Dell used to be around half the price of Apple when it came to machines with roughly equivalent specs.

 

[maflynn]

For a long time Macs felt worse value than PCs,

I have to disagree with the wording.
First off value is subjective and secondly, while macs were historically more expensive then some PCs, they were were generally on par with other high quality machines. Also Apple positioned them as a premium product, you got premium build quality, and user experience. Some may disagree, but overall the Macs were a great value over many PCs, even if they were more expensive.

While the MacBook Pro costs a bit more,

A bit more? It was 700 more. That's not a minor amount, plus are you comparing apples to apples? Are you using the student discount for Dell like you are for Apple? I suspect the difference will be much higher

As for performance, I used claude AI to compare the two, and this is what it does computationally and they're equivalent I'm unsure about GPU, but I'll probably say the Mac wins out there..

I'm going to say for nearly the same performance, the Dell represents a lot better value, though the Mac will win out battery wise, which has been the case now for many years.

 

[Steve Adams]

I am going throught all of this right now. and Spec for Spec, the Apples are much better values right now considering the pricing of ram and SSDs. If that settles down then it will swing the other way. But you cannot deny the value of macbooks in this topsy turvy messed up reality we are living in right now.

I have been playing with my iPad and it's really good. I have resigned to the fact that to get what I want, I am going to have to goto a 14 inch macbook pro. I am not sure if 16gb of ram is enough for me, but we will see. I found a refurbed M2 pro 14 pro on amazon for 1800 dollars cdn and I am going to give that a whirl for a bit. See if I can live with MacOS.

I am exhausted from shopping for a replacement for my aging, failing dell laptop. It has lived a hard life not in treatment as getting banged around and mistreated. But used extensively, travelling to various countries etc, ALOT when I got it first and just being used as I want. It's on its 3rd battery, third bottom case, it's second display and still I am typing on it now. The motherboard is starting to die so I NEED a replacement soon.

The connectivity is the major thing for me. I want ports in a 14 inch laptop. Windows PC makers have all but abandoned this idea. Apple has regained that thought process that people don't want to be lugging around extra gear with them and just want to do their work on the computer and be done. Again, we are now in an alternate reality where Apple has added ports increased thickness and weight a little to provide the creative pro the tool they need to get their work done. Windows based manufacturers have all but abandoned this with their 14 inch systems.

 

[Gourlish]

I have to disagree with the wording.
First off value is subjective and secondly, while macs were historically more expensive then some PCs, they were were generally on par with other high quality machines. Also Apple positioned them as a premium product, you got premium build quality, and user experience. Some may disagree, but overall the Macs were a great value over many PCs, even if they were more expensive.


A bit more? It was 700 more. That's not a minor amount, plus are you comparing apples to apples? Are you using the student discount for Dell like you are for Apple? I suspect the difference will be much higher

As for performance, I used claude AI to compare the two, and this is what it does computationally and they're equivalent I'm unsure about GPU, but I'll probably say the Mac wins out there..
View attachment 2633913

I'm going to say for nearly the same performance, the Dell represents a lot better value, though the Mac will win out battery wise, which has been the case now for many years.

These are the Geekbench 6 scores for the Dell's processor (most of the listings are for an HP laptop with the same Intel processor):

https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Intel+Core+Ultra+7+358H

I suspect Claude was likely hallucinating.

 

[Gourlish]

I am going throught all of this right now. and Spec for Spec, the Apples are much better values right now considering the pricing of ram and SSDs. If that settles down then it will swing the other way. But you cannot deny the value of macbooks in this topsy turvy messed up reality we are living in right now.

I have been playing with my iPad and it's really good. I have resigned to the fact that to get what I want, I am going to have to goto a 14 inch macbook pro. I am not sure if 16gb of ram is enough for me, but we will see. I found a refurbed M2 pro 14 pro on amazon for 1800 dollars cdn and I am going to give that a whirl for a bit. See if I can live with MacOS.

I am exhausted from shopping for a replacement for my aging, failing dell laptop. It has lived a hard life not in treatment as getting banged around and mistreated. But used extensively, travelling to various countries etc, ALOT when I got it first and just being used as I want. It's on its 3rd battery, third bottom case, it's second display and still I am typing on it now. The motherboard is starting to die so I NEED a replacement soon.

The connectivity is the major thing for me. I want ports in a 14 inch laptop. Windows PC makers have all but abandoned this idea. Apple has regained that thought process that people don't want to be lugging around extra gear with them and just want to do their work on the computer and be done. Again, we are now in an alternate reality where Apple has added ports increased thickness and weight a little to provide the creative pro the tool they need to get their work done. Windows based manufacturers have all but abandoned this with their 14 inch systems.

The one slight gripe about current Macs that I have would be the lack of USB-A (MacBooks have been like this for about a decade), although you can buy a small adapter for very little, and this has also been becoming the case with many Windows laptops over the past 5 years. The current MacBook Pros have a standalone HDMI port and an SD card slot which the 2016-2020 models lacked.

MacOS is a very good operating system for the most part. Some software is Windows-only, but if you have decent technical skills you can get it working with reasonable performance on MacOS via Wine, the same way as you can on Linux. It is also very easy to port Linux software to MacOS due to both operating systems being Unix based.

 

[Steve Adams]

For a long time Macs felt worse value than PCs, however at the moment I feel the reverse is true, possibly due to the RAM/SSD/GPU shortage that is currently hitting other brands harder than Apple.

Currently in the UK, here's a comparison of a Dell laptop and a well specced out 16 inch MacBook Pro with the same amount of RAM/storage:

Dell XPS 16 (£4199):

Intel Core Ultra 7 358H, Intel Arc graphics, 64GB RAM, 4TB SSD, Windows 11 Home, 16" 2K display (1-120Hz, 500 nits)

M5 Max MacBook Pro (£4918 with student discount):

Apple M5 Max (18 CPU cores, 40 GPU cores), 64GB unified RAM, 4TB SSD, MacOS Tahoe, 16" Liquid Retina XDR display

While the MacBook Pro costs a bit more, it is also a significantly better machine in numerous areas, most notably in terms of its GPU and RAM performance, as well as having a superior display resolution, and feels better value for the price. The Dell machine's CPU/GPU is similar in terms of multicore CPU/GPU performance to the M3 Pro or base M5, while its single core performance is roughly on a par with the M2. I don't know what SSD the Dell has, but I suspect the one on the M5 Max machine is faster (knowing that it is fast).

If the current chip shortage continues and Apple continue to find a way through it without significant price hikes, it makes me wonder if the Apple's computer market share will increase noticeably. Dell used to be around half the price of Apple when it came to machines with roughly equivalent specs.

I priced the current model of the dell I am typing on now. I have the inspiron 5406 with 64gb of ram added and 2tb drive. I paid 1099 for my laptop 250 bucks for the ssd and 249.00 for the 64gb of ram when I bought the machine.

So that's 2000. dollars. Fast forward to today, the same system with 32gb of ram with no way to upgrade and a 1tb ssd is now 2899.00. it's also had it's HDMI port, sd card reader and one usb port removed compared to my current system. For 100 dollars more, I can get the 14 inch MBP with m5, 32gb of ram 1tb of storage, A massively more performant cpu/gpu combo, a massively better display and much better build quality. I have to forgo windows 11 which (yes i am weird) i enjoy using. But, that trade off is worth it for the device I am getting.

Compare the XPS 14 to the macbook pro 14 and it's a slaughter for the mbp. 1/2 the price better the device.

 

[Steve Adams]

The one slight gripe about current Macs that I have would be the lack of USB-A (MacBooks have been like this for about a decade), although you can buy a small adapter for very little, and this has also been becoming the case with many Windows laptops over the past 5 years. The current MacBook Pros have a standalone HDMI port and an SD card slot which the 2016-2020 models lacked.

MacOS is a very good operating system for the most part. Some software is Windows-only, but if you have decent technical skills you can get it working with reasonable performance on MacOS via Wine, the same way as you can on Linux. It is also very easy to port Linux software to MacOS due to both operating systems being Unix based.

All software I use is available to the mac natively, so I am fine on that. I don't game, if I do want to it would be on my desktop system.

 

[Queen6]

I left the UK decades ago as didn't care for the lifestyle or agree with the governance. £4K for a Dell LOL, if Dell made toilets I'd opt for the bushes. My professional experience with Dell was safe to say less than great, companies use them as they are cheap, they have decent onsite repair that is frequently required as their HW is junk. Less than 1500 UK here gets you this...

Premium build full metal chassis, 16" 1200 nit micro led display, Ryzen 9 9955HX3D (unlocked CPU), 5070Ti, 32GB, 1TB (upgraded to 3TB), water cooling loop built in. For perspective it can easily take on a M5 Max on air. Doesn't do well on the battery, but that's not its purpose. If people stopped paying these absurd prices, they would drop real fast, however...

Would have preferred the 64GB model, but that SKU only has the Ryzen 9 9955HX and the HX3D makes a big difference when the SW allows. Can always upgrade the RAM in time as pricing remains static here.

 

[Gourlish]

I've noticed that most of the best x86 processors these days seem to be AMD ones. In the past Intel were usually slightly better.

 

[Gourlish]

All software I use is available to the mac natively, so I am fine on that. I don't game, if I do want to it would be on my desktop system.

In terms of incompatible software, a lot of games are Windows only (though some can run with a bit of configuration via Wine), along with I think some CAD software. There are some programs I have on Windows such as Exact Audio Copy and FocalFilter which are Windows-only, but in both of these cases, XLD and SelfControl are pretty much MacOS counterparts with almost identical functionality. There are some areas such as creative software and local AI where MacOS tends to have better support than Windows, the former due to a combination of the decent display/sound hardware that Macs have along with Apple's large creative userbase, and the latter due to a combination of the unified memory architecture and MacOS being Unix based.

 

[Queen6]

I've noticed that most of the best x86 processors these days seem to be AMD ones. In the past Intel were usually slightly better.

Ryzen 9 9955HX3D desktop performance on a portable platform, can easily push past 5GHz on stock settings. Mx Mac's are fast, the 9955HX3D faster again, 16 cores, 32 threads need to work hard to overwhelm this CPU. Reminds of the litre+ superbikes relentless acceleration regardless of what gear...

Q-6