Why are Windows PCs pretty much as expensive as Macs these days?

[cjsuk]

It depends on for what purpose. A lot of it comes down to Apple’s investment in custom silicon and manufacturing processes. They are producing chips with performance and energy efficiency that simply cannot be beat by today’s PCs. Combine that with Apple’s superior build quality and they have become hard to beat on those metrics.

But if we ignore energy efficiency and design and just talk about raw gaming performance. Well, I was able to buy an RTX 5080 mobile gaming laptop with a 20 core Intel 255HX processor, OLED display, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB hard drive on sale for $1825. Even if I decked out a MacBook Pro with M4 Max for $3299 the PC still runs Cyberpunk 2077 up to 50% faster at native resolutions. Moreover the PCs upscaling solution, DLSS, is much more advanced and looks better than MetalFX upscaling. The Mac’s only advantage is that it doesn’t sound like a jet engine while it does it.

Why would you run that workload on a laptop? It’s the worst compromise ever. Tiny screen, weak ass CPU and GPUs, thermal issues, ergonomics, ridiculous price, the lot.

I have a desktop PC for that sort of stuff. You’re not getting this in ANY laptop…

 

[maflynn]

Their machines are garbage.

No argument there, while I used to have Dell laptops, and they were good back in the day, not anymore.

I've currently got a Precision 5690. Ultra 7 165H, 64Gb of RAM, 500Gb disk, 16" OLED screen, RTX 1000 in it. I just priced it up on Dell and it's £3308.

I looked over the various configurations in both the workstation class and their consumer class - very underwhelmed. Not really a build that exudes quality and excellent components. Most of the laptops seem to be using the intel arc GPU (not sure if they're integrated or discrete - I didn't look that deep)

 

[maflynn]

I was able to buy an RTX 5080 mobile gaming laptop with a 20 core Intel 255HX processor, OLED display, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB hard drive on sale for $1825.

How's the temps and/or fan noise on that puppy? One reason for me to build my own PC, was due to the fan noise and temperature of my 15" Razer. It was a great laptop but I found the fans to get annoying especially while playing games.

Also I used my laptop while traveling, and the power brick for the razer is large (not sure if your power brick is big or small). I used that laptop for years, and it was good, but the upsides of the build did not outweigh the downsides when I travelled. I have a Thinkpad T14s, small light, tiny power supply, long lasting battery. True, it won't play cyberpunk of Starfield, but that's ok. I'm not as much of a gamer now that I was a few yeas ago. I just play a handful of games, some are less demanding.

 

[maflynn]

I have a desktop PC for that sort of stuff. You’re not getting this in ANY laptop…

Not for nothing, buy my Studio can keep pace performance wise, all the while being quiet and not using up a crap ton of electricty and being tiny compared to that of a mini-tower

 

[ThailandToo]

Hello,
something that I've noticed is that Windows PCs are pretty much as expensive as Macs these days, but why?
And most PCs have 16GB of RAM. At least in electronic stores, but the difference used to be huge. I remember Dell with 3GB of RAM and 250GB HDD cost as much as MacBook 4,1 with 1GB of RAM and 128 HDD and the specs of PCs used to be a lot better.

Nowadays most computers have 16GB of RAM and cost as much as Macs. Is it because of Apple?

I sort of agree and disagree. I mean if you want a high resolution display and aluminum chassis, they all cost about the same. However, I have a Lenovo Thinkpad and it’s a much nicer experience typing and a much better value overall. I spent $2k and got a nice laptop with 32GB of RAM and an 8TB SSD. That isn’t even possible in a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro like I have with 64GB of RAM cost me $5k with a 4TB SSD and M4 Max. Now, the Mac is by far more impressive, but it’s not as good of value.

I do believe that the current MacBook Air on sale for $999 with 512GB storage (or $799 for 256GB storage) and 16GB unified memory on sale on Amazon is the best value Mac for the specs ever possible. It will literally do almost anything a basic user would need very inexpensively. I considered ordering one just for travel. Sort of tired of traveling with a 16” MBP.

 

[cjsuk]

Not for nothing, buy my Studio can keep pace performance wise, all the while being quiet and not using up a crap ton of electricty and being tiny compared to that of a mini-tower
View attachment 2532684

I’d point out that the configuration of that PC is more the £6000 end of the Mac Studio configuration. It is also near silent under full load. And the price was low enough that I have £4000 extra left over to pay the electricity bill…

Note my daily driver is an M4 Pro MBP. The PC comes out when I have workloads that need it. Or games to play.

 

[philstubbington]

Hello,
something that I've noticed is that Windows PCs are pretty much as expensive as Macs these days, but why?
And most PCs have 16GB of RAM. At least in electronic stores, but the difference used to be huge. I remember Dell with 3GB of RAM and 250GB HDD cost as much as MacBook 4,1 with 1GB of RAM and 128 HDD and the specs of PCs used to be a lot better.

Nowadays most computers have 16GB of RAM and cost as much as Macs. Is it because of Apple?

Cheapest Dell laptop is £373.81.... cheapest MacBook Air £999.

 

[maflynn]

Cheapest Dell laptop is £373.81.... cheapest MacBook Air £999.

The cheapest dell I found is on sale for 279 (from 379).

CPU: Ryzen 3 7320U and it seems comparing that processor to the M4, the M4 is over twice as fast.

GPU: Radeon 610m and that appears to be 6 to 10 times slower then the M4

Memory in that dell is 8GB and that's really threadbare in a windows machine imo, and 512GB of storage (SSD), which isn't bad.

All in all you pay a third of what the MBA is going for and you're largely getting a third of the performance.

 

[throAU]

Hello,
something that I've noticed is that Windows PCs are pretty much as expensive as Macs these days, but why?
And most PCs have 16GB of RAM. At least in electronic stores, but the difference used to be huge. I remember Dell with 3GB of RAM and 250GB HDD cost as much as MacBook 4,1 with 1GB of RAM and 128 HDD and the specs of PCs used to be a lot better.

Nowadays most computers have 16GB of RAM and cost as much as Macs. Is it because of Apple?

Because a lot of Windows PCs have now tried to include things like High res (retina equivalent or better) HDR displays, bluetooth, WIFI and trackpad that actually works, and these things cost money.

You don't see many 1366x768 TN backlit LCD 60hz TN panels any more, even in PC land.

Also there's been a bit more focus on de-bloating windows (outside of the built in Microsoft crap) - past PCs were heavily subsidized by included crapware like McAfee AV, etc. with a month free before paid subscription in the base Windows image.


In short, they're trying to get closer to the mac experience, at least hardware wise and it simply costs money. Apple do not in fact charge ridiculous amounts of money for their hardware, assuming you compare like for like. And not just including the RAM/CPU spec. Things like trackpad quality, display quality, enclosure build quality, fan noise, battery life etc. all actually matter.

 

[throAU]

Asus makes the ROG Strix Scar 18 inch laptop with similar specs to the MSI Titan 18. They are sold out at my store. I think that the reason is that there's a sale on them for $1,500 off bring the price to only $4K. It boggles my mind but I'm sure that it makes perfect sense for the people that buy these things.

A lot of people use these things as a portable gaming rig. Some as a portable high end workstation that can double as a gaming rig. Price up a high end "workstation laptop" and these gaming laptops often come out significantly cheaper and are a bit of a cheap-skate way to get some decent level of workstation performance assuming your app isn't limited to Quadro Nvidia drivers, etc.

They aren't using them as a laptop, just a luggable PC they can transport from desk to desk (e.g., home to work or office to job site) without needing a bunch of space in their car to transport a tower PC.

These PC gaming laptops are really not in the same market as something like a Razor or Macbook; slapping a bunch of desktop class parts in an oversized laptop chassis and giving it a 400 watt power brick and enough battery to run for 30 minutes when detached from AC power under any sort of load is relatively easy and cheap.

The macbooks and also higher end portables like Razor are more expensive (in terms of $ for the hardware performance you get in terms of outright performance) because they actually work as a laptop.

 

[throAU]

I get that, but I remember that back in 2010 you got much better hardware at 300€.
For example HP Compaq Presario CQ56-205so. It had 312GB hdd storage and 4gb of RAM and believe it or not, it ran pretty fast and smooth and it came with Windows 7 and was much better deal than a MacBook and same goes for Acers.

In terms of Apple products - this was competing with the 2010 Macbook air that had solid state storage and like 8 hours of real world battery life for light usage.

That compaq would have struggled to get 2-3 hours.

You need to look at far more than CPU and RAM. The air had a way better display, audio, trackpad, keyboard, wifi performance, storage performance, battery life, bluetooth that works, etc.

PC laptops back then in terms of all of those features were HOT GARBAGE. I was there. Standard was (and still is, lol) for PC laptop users to carry a mouse in their bag because the trackpad is crap. They carried the power adapter everywhere (and many still do) because the battery life was inadequate for even a trip to a client site for a 1-2 hour meeting using a projector.

Windows still doesn't reliably actually sleep when you close the lid and wake from sleep with any battery left after a few hours.

You can compare the cpu and memory all you like, but that isn't all that goes into making a functional laptop.

PC vendors have realized this and are attempting to make amends. This means paying someone more than 10% of the time required at minimum wage to write drivers that work with power management. It means including keyboards and trackpads that don't suck and screens that don't suck. it all costs money that wasn't previously being spent by PC OEMs 10+ years ago.

 

[GioGiusi]

What Apple charges is a small piece of it. Things are not doubling every 6 months like they were years ago. The average tech across the industry is stabilizing. You can still buy a $300 PC. It just isn't going to magically compete with a $1000 MacBook.

Believe it or not, with the exception of Apple's BTO prices, Apple's Mac's have maintained the lowest prices possible, and have not increased with inflation at all. A $1,100 MacBook Air is incredibly capable for the price. Beats the ever loving crap out of any $1,100 PC laptop.

 

[Homy]

You get "a lot more" with PC but what that "lot more" really is about is debatable.

 

[maflynn]

You get "a lot more" with PC but what that "lot more" really is about is debatable.

as @throAU mentioned those type of laptops are not mobile devices per say but rather luggable machines. I wouldn't want to carry that through an airport and then to a hotel.

That class of machines are more considered a desktop replacement, personally I wouldn't want to spend 6,000 dollars on a computer such as that. In all honesty, that laptop represents what is wrong with large laptops imo. That person loves the display but he has to deal with heat/fan noise because of the cramped space in the laptop

 

[salamanderjuice]

You get "a lot more" with PC but what that "lot more" really is about is debatable.

PCs come in a variety of form factors and features. That's a pro.

You can get ultra light notebooks, tablets that aren't randomly constrained in what they can do, gaming handhelds, weird little notebooks like this guy:

https://gpd.hk/gpdpocket4

And big desktop replacements for those that don't really need portability but do have to move it a few times a year for whatever reason. But do need power.

Apple doesn't do that. You have to fit into Apple's brackets. For some people that's what they want anyways and it's fine, for others it's a compromise at best.

 

[Ctrlos]

Another question might be are we at platform parity yet? Software is obviously debatable. There are still some Pro-level apps that aren’t on the Mac (like Revit) and personally I despise the Mac version of AutoCAD. The layout is terrible. But then again I don’t think there is a layer-based image editor on Windows that is anywhere near as good or competitively priced as Pixelmator and Apple’s Photos app is a million times better than the native Windows client.

But in terms of hardware I don’t think there is much in it. Maybe W11 isn’t to your tastes but then iOS Mac Edition might not be either.

I guess it’s difficult to buy a duff computer these days. If your computing needs are light then Chrome and iPad will serve you well. Otherwise pick the OS that runs the apps you need to get stuff done.

 

[AppleTO]

Prices for PCs are all over the place. You can buy cheap NUCs on Amazon for like $200.

But it doesn’t even matter. If the software you need to use only supports x64 Windows, then you have to use Windows. Much of the specialty software I use doesn’t and will never run on a Mac.

 

[headlessmike]

While you definitely can still get cheep PCs, the market for personal computers for the home has become more niche since smartphones and tablets have become more powerful. This has probably led to the lower end of the market shrinking as those who still need a PC are more particular about what they buy and don’t just fall for the lowest price tags.

Going by anecdotal evidence, I teach at physics university level and I’ve seen a clear trend that fewer and fewer students have their own computers anymore when starting with us, with many just having a smartphone. It’s remarkable how many of them don’t even know how to use a desktop OS anymore to do things other than browse the web. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had to teach students how to save files locally when learning to program because they’ve only ever worked in a mobile app or Google docs before.

I’ve seen this also with friends and family. The only ones with computers at home anymore are those who either use them to work from home or for specific hobbies like photography or gaming. The cheep PC for browsing the web or reading emails has for the most part been replaced by iPhones and/or iPads in my circles.

There always has been a market for premium PCs at price levels matching Macs, I just believe that the market for cheaper machines has shrunken in comparison. But as a few others have pointed out, Apple hasn’t seemed to raise their prices as much as some PC makers in recent years. My wife is a middle school teacher at a public school and her HP Elitebook costs more than the MacBook Pro I use for work costs and it doesn’t have particularly powerful hardware either.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

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As of today, they have a AMD Ryzen 3 with 8 GB LPDDR5 and a 512 GB SSD for $279.99.

 

[n8mac]

One thing is that Apple computers have actually gotten much cheaper. If you look at the cost of a low end MacBook over the last 20 years it’s actually stayed exactly the same in nominal dollars … about $999. This means that a new Mac notebook is roughly 40% cheaper in real dollar terms than before (consider inflation). When it comes to the baseline models the Apple “tax” is a thing of the past.

Another thing is that the low end market has been consumed by chromebooks, tablets, and phones. There isn’t as much reason to make super cheap Windows PCs anymore.

But they are still out there. It’s easy for me to find PC deals at $350 or even $299 for middling Windows 11 PC notebooks.

2010 base mac pro - $2899

2023 base mac pro - $6999

 

[ghanwani]

Doesn't matter how much a Windows machine costs initially. On the resale market, Mac is it. I can't believe how hard it is to get any interest at all in a used Windows machine. I guess you're competing with all the low priced new machines people can buy from Costco.

I've been trying to sell my Windows machine on Craigslist. Bought for over $2K a year ago and put it for sale for $600. Not one offer in over a month. Machine is in perfect condition. I want to buy a new one that is even lighter (1.88lb vs 2.3lb).

By contrast, I sold many Macbooks on Craigslist and I would get multiple offers within a day of posting. For a year old Macbook, I think I may have taken a $500 hit on a machine I bought for around $1200. That was a long time ago when massive discounts on Macbooks weren't the norm like they are today. So maybe things are different in the used market for Macs. But still. I'm offering 70+% off what I paid a year ago for a Windows laptop and no offers!

 

[maflynn]

2010 base mac pro - $2899

2023 base mac pro - $6999

The new mac Pro has virtually no expandability, unlike the 2010 model, where every component could be upgraded

 

[maflynn]

On the resale market, Mac is it. I can't believe how hard it is to get any interest at all in a used Windows machine

I won't dispute that point, but I will say that I'm under the belief that most consumers who buy computers don't consider resale, i.e., its not an important factor, nor do they move to sell the computer when its time to replace the computer. Doesn't matter if its mac or PC

I'm not making excuses for PCs but rather pointing out that I think reselling computers is for the hobbyist who replaces their computer every few years.

 

[holmesf]

2010 base mac pro - $2899

2023 base mac pro - $6999

I think this captures pretty well how it’s really the baseline Macs (and I’m not including the “base” Mac Pro in that) that are no longer more expensive compared to comparable PCs. But it’s a really different picture as you go up in specs or even start talking about RAM and storage bumps.

 

[dandeco]

View attachment 2532374

Note that there are 11 in stock at my local store which implies that they are selling these things. I've no clue as to what kind of person is buying these though.

This laptop has 2 Gen 5 NVMe slots and 2 Gen 4 slots. So you can put 8 TB of storage at 14K+ MBps storage and another 8 TB of 7K+ MBps storage for a total of 16 TB of storage.

It has four memory slots so you can put in up to 192 GB of RAM.

Yes, gaming PCs are often way more expensive than more typical Windows PCs, and the costs often match or exceed similarly-spec'd Macs.
Of course, I figured one reason why Macs were usually more expensive than PCs was because they're built to last. Seriously, I have a 2003 PowerMac G4 that cost $1300 when new and it still runs very well!