Dr.Gargoyle said:
I doubt that Apple are able to charge the "normal" Mac premium after the intel transition, since it is much simpler to compare Macs with another PCs. Almost like Apple for Apple.
they'll be priced about in line with comparable systems. but that ain't cheap. I priced a dell precision workstation with dual xeon 5160 (3ghz woodcrest), 4GB 533 mhz DDR2 FB-DIMM RAM (apple may just use 667, only $50 more for the 4 gigs) , 2x500GB SATA 3gbps HD, 512mb Quadro FX 4500, no monitor, speakers etc. and it came out to just shy of $7800.
I then went on the apple store site, built a PM G5 quad with 4GB ECC 533mhz DDR2 SDRAM (4x1gb) which is not as expensive as FBDIMM memory, 2x500GB Sata HDDs (but i think sata 1.5gbps not 3.0), quadro FX 4500, and so on and it came out to a tad over $7000, just shy of $7300 when you add applecare in, since the dell workstation has an included 3 year plan.
if you add in a 20" LCD to each, the PM is cheaper by about 150.
I don't know how much more FB-DIMM will cost from apple, or how much they'll charge for sata3gbps HDs or how much more the woodcrests will cost versus the G5s. But we may see a price jump in the top end. Still we will see a nice jump in performance as well.
Of course if we adjust the above scenario away from the 3ghz Xeon 5160, to 2 of the more affordable Xeon 5150, 2.67GHz dual cores, ( 1333mt/s FSB, 4MB L2 just like the 3ghz) , the prices change a lot. $800 cut right there on the processors. The Dell is now cheaper by $350, no monitors.
FB-DIMM ram is pretty expensive. Apple cannot afford to put a huge premium on it though like they do now. Granted, it always has ECC so that is nice.
All i hope is that they have dual 3ghz woodcrests and are good enough that when I get one with clovertown MP or tigerton next year, i can get up to 64GB RAM, and at least 3 SAS or SATA 3g drives (its not called sata II).
