Why do I want to be a sucker?

[v0n]

Good point, the PC can run at 3.6Ghz on a bad day, 4Ghz on a good one, the Mac will always run at 2.93Ghz. Did I miss something?

That your Nahalem is not Xeon Nahalem. Not that it matters because besides flexibility and overclocking, what your equivalent machine will have, and new MP not, is no silly memory limitation and appropriate number of slots to run them in tri-channel configuration.

Current MP lineup will be revised and overhauled soon, it makes no sense at the moment.

 

[Plutonius]

I don't see it as a troll post at all. Discussing why Apple's products are priced so much higher than PCs of similar performance seems perfectly relevant for this forum.

You, and anyone else who cries troll, are probably just trying avoid thinking about the possibility that maybe they shelled out way too much for an overpriced laptop.

Discussions like this are fair but the thread title and the way he presented it = 100% troll.

 

[js81]

Need an operating system with that PC? Or are you planning to run Linux? Or, worse, a pirated copy of Windows? That Mac Pro includes OS X Leopard and iLife. To make it an even comparison, let's include some equivalents: oh wait, they're ISN'T an equivalent OS and equivalents to iLife cost a pretty penny (not the cheap crap). When you buy a Mac, you're buying MORE than the sum of its hardware.

 

[Pika]

Good point, the PC can run at 3.6Ghz on a bad day, 4Ghz on a good one, the Mac will always run at 2.93Ghz. Did I miss something?

PC performance degrade over time. Macs does not.

 

[davewolfs]

That your Nahalem is not Xeon Nahalem. Not that it matters because besides flexibility and overclocking, what your equivalent machine will have, and new MP not, is no silly memory limitation and appropriate number of slots to run them in tri-channel configuration.

Current MP lineup will be revised and overhauled soon, it makes no sense at the moment.

You are completely incorrect, that board supports 24Gb or RAM in tri channel and I am not comparing this to the MP Octo lineup, I'm comparing it to the quad which as far as I know supports 8GB of Ram.

 

[belvdr]

You are completely incorrect, that board supports 24Gb or RAM in tri channel and I am not comparing this to the MP Octo lineup, I'm comparing it to the quad which as far as I know supports 8GB of Ram.

Think you missed it.

what your equivalent machine will have ... is no silly memory limitation and appropriate number of slots to run them in tri-channel configuration.

Looks to me he/she is complimenting that setup.

 

[iBeard]

You're using consumer grade products.
Mac Pros use workstation components.
You could do this same comparison w/ a Dell or HP Workstation.
If you want to have a discussion about how much more Xeons are than consumer i7s, that's fine, but that's not the same thing as the cost of a Mac Pro workstation vs. consumer components from newegg.

 

[belvdr]

You're using consumer grade products.
Mac Pros use workstation components.
You could do this same comparison w/ a Dell or HP Workstation.
If you want to have a discussion about how much more Xeons are than consumer i7s, that's fine, but that's not the same thing as the cost of a Mac Pro workstation vs. consumer components from newegg.

Besides processor and being forced to use ECC RAM, what is defining the rest of the Mac Pro as having workstation components? Looks to me like standard drives and connectors that are used on all machines.

 

[Bubba Satori]

PC performance degrade over time. Macs does not.

Gotta love this stuff. Almost as good as "troll be gone". Images of a fairy furiously waving her magic wand.

Besides processor and being forced to use ECC RAM, what is defining the rest of the Mac Pro as having workstation components? Looks to me like standard drives and connectors that are used on all machines.

Yep. Workstations can also use any professional graphics card from ATI or Nividia. The MacPro can't. The MacPro is not a workstation.

 

[question fear]

What latest computer does HP make that people know by name? What about Dell?

Oddly, my GF knows the HP Touchsmart by name. She's not a huge tech fan like me, but she loves the concept of something that's all in one like an iMac but with a touch screen. We saw one in Costco and she spent ten minutes moving things around on the screen.

Which actually proves a certain point: style matters, and ads that show how accessible something is matters. I had friends who had never seen an iPhone before be able to pick mine up and play with it immediately because Apple drilled into everyone's heads from those ads how to use one. HP did the same thing with the Touchsmart. Allowing someone to vicariously experience a product (through demos in ads, etc) makes them very comfortable when they can recreate it on their own.

Not that any of this actually answers the point of this thread, but I figured I'd answer your point anyway.

 

[Cliff3]

Yep. Workstations can also use any professional graphics card from ATI or Nividia. The MacPro can't. The MacPro is not a workstation.

That statement is operating system dependent for the same reason it applies to the Mac Pro. For example, some of the card choices on the HP workstation configurator indicated they weren't available with certain operating systems. If you run Windows, then you can be sure that a driver has been written for the card. Trouble is, then you need to run Windows.

 

[yoak]

I think not having a single virus, worm, horse or whatever these things are called slowing down my computer for the past 12 years is worth a premium.
(I understand that people say this is due to the fact that OSX has such a small market penetration, and the same people have told me for the last 5 years that it will happen to Macs as well "any day now")

 

[Consultant]

Do you know what the margin on a Ferrari is? Guess what, some people might argue the corvette has "similar power" or could be modified where as a Ferrari cannot not.

Some people pay for design and an os which is QUIET, virus free, basically maintainence free for most users, and won't slow down to a halt after 6 months.

Other people rather save a few imaginary dollars and get their data wiped out or credit cards / identity stolen by viruses / viruses / spyware on windows.

You are not counting os cost ($400 retail vista premium + around $100 to upgrade to xp), cost of labor to assemble, cost of labor to support when something goes wrong with parts from 10 vendors. And good luck if you need warranty service, as you have to pay for shipping.

 

[davewolfs]

Do you know what the margin on a Ferrari is? Guess what, some people might argue the corvette has "similar power" or could be modified where as a Ferrari cannot not.

Some people pay for design and an os which is QUIET, virus free, basically maintainence free for most users, and won't slow down to a halt after 6 months.

Other people rather save a few imaginary dollars and get their data wiped out or credit cards / identity stolen by viruses / viruses / spyware on windows.

You are not counting os cost ($400 retail vista premium + around $100 to upgrade to xp), cost of labor to assemble, cost of labor to support when something goes wrong with parts from 10 vendors. And good luck if you need warranty service, as you have to pay for shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116378
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116493

Not quite $400, I'm fine with XP until Windows 7 is released.

As for labor costs, this is something I would enjoy doing and I'm not too worried about parts failing considering I'm saving almost 2k.

And you can't really compare to a Ferrari, were talking electronics that run the same applications. Nothing fancy about that.

I'll take my 2k savings and buy a 24" Printer.

 

[cmaier]

Yes, starting a thread and calling us all suckers makes the OP a troll.

I was a microprocessor designer at AMD for 10 years. One year they gave me a free opteron dual core processor. So I bought a thermaltake case, a massive power supply, an asus motherboard, hard drives, video card, a copy of OEM windows, a bottle of arctic silver, a heatsink, RAM, etc., and put together a system for myself.

The time it took me to pick out the parts, order them from newegg, unbox them, assemble them, test everything, update the motherboard firmware a few times, install the OS, deal with little incompatibilities between firmware and graphics card, etc., easily took a few days of my time (and, again, I'm a guy who knows what I'm doing). Figure 24 man-hours. My time is worth a lot (now that I'm an attorney, it's worth much more), but one doesn't have to come up with a big hourly rate before the "bargain" of building one's own system doesn't look so special.

Add in the fact that finished system sure ain't as pretty as the MP, and the fact that it runs Windows (huge fact right there), and to me the MP is a hell of a bargain, even at the current price/performance ratio. (And don't give me the hackintosh argument - the reason I switched to Apple is I'm done with the constant annoyance of having to hold everything together with duct tape and baling wire.)

 

[SnakeOiler]

If you whine its too expensive on this forum, you are are troll. You know what the response here is, yet you post anyway - TROLL.

One of the dumbest arguments is comparing a real mac to you build it pc and saying its equivalent. It is the same as comparing a timex and a rolex. Its pointless.

Only two fair compairisons i have found:

Asus Dual xeon nehalem board (looks like a sweet board):
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12405&Itemid=1

Dell:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/24/dell-unveils-nehalem-based-precision-t3500-t5500-and-t7500-wor/

According to my dell rep, to config the dell machine as an equivalent MacPro to do virtualization, will cost me about 4500 bucks. My MacPro cost a c-hair under 4000 bucks.

I will build an asus. It will be a nice xen host.

 

[blackhand1001]

If you need virtualization...

If you need virtualization your better off with a dual socket opteron setup. The opteron is pretty much the king in the virtualization world and will run you cheaper than nehelelam board, memory and cpu. Also for this price you can get a better graphics card, better hard drive, more memory, and two cpus, than the base level mac pro and you still avoid the front side bus of the previous generation xeons.

 

[belvdr]

Other people rather save a few imaginary dollars and get their data wiped out or credit cards / identity stolen by viruses / viruses / spyware on windows.

Problem with this thought is that most of the identity thefts are from either trash bins or data theft at other companies, which has nothing to do with what OS you use.

 

[belvdr]

Yes, starting a thread and calling us all suckers makes the OP a troll.

I think you're being overly sensitive. The title is "Why would I be a sucker?", not "Why are Mac users suckers?"

I read that as he would be a sucker to choose the more expensive model with the data he has. Nothing more, nothing less. Other people have different views, finances, and experience that changes the entire picture.

If you whine its too expensive on this forum, you are are troll. You know what the response here is, yet you post anyway - TROLL.

He wants more data on why the Mac is expensive for hist taste. You expect him to go to a PC forum to get the facts?

One of the dumbest arguments is comparing a real mac to you build it pc and saying its equivalent. It is the same as comparing a timex and a rolex. Its pointless.

Only two fair compairisons i have found:

So it's dumb and pointless or it's fair. Which is it? I think it is totally fair for one to compare the two with the understanding the OP has (supporting it himself, building it, etc).

 

[Infrared]

But don't think Apple just sits there on their hands and make a huge margin. Their latest quarter net margin is more than 10% percent lower than Microsoft.

Microsoft are largely a software company. They can make that high
margin because the marginal cost of software production is very low.
Apple are largely a hardware company.

Try comparing Apple's margins with Dell's.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AAPL&annual
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=DELL&annual

 

[SnakeOiler]

If you need virtualization your better off with a dual socket opteron setup. The opteron is pretty much the king in the virtualization world and will run you cheaper than nehelelam board, memory and cpu. Also for this price you can get a better graphics card, better hard drive, more memory, and two cpus, than the base level mac pro and you still avoid the front side bus of the previous generation xeons.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1662/servercomponents.jpg

Yeah, right opteron. Thats complete duke. For virtualization, the reason for nehalem's existance, nothing yet compares to the new mac pro. You couldn't shown you have no idea any more than you have.

You are welcome to prove your theory with crappy opteron's. I've been down that road, long ago.

 

[belvdr]

Yeah, right opteron. Thats complete duke. For virtualization, the reason for nehalem's existance, nothing yet compares to the new mac pro. You couldn't shown you have no idea any more than you have.

You are welcome to prove your theory with crappy opteron's. I've been down that road, long ago.

Between that and power, Opterons have fallen way back.

 

[SnakeOiler]

So it's dumb and pointless or it's fair. Which is it? I think it is totally fair for one to compare the two with the understanding the OP has (supporting it himself, building it, etc).

Those are the systems I found that I could actually compare the Mac Pro with. Not some bs i7 system or an old mac pro that sucks at virtualization.
They are valid Mac Pro comparisons, whether or not you would like to argue about nothing.

 

[63dot]

I was a microprocessor designer at AMD for 10 years. One year they gave me a free opteron dual core processor. So I bought a thermaltake case, a massive power supply, an asus motherboard, hard drives, video card, a copy of OEM windows, a bottle of arctic silver, a heatsink, RAM, etc., and put together a system for myself.

The time it took me to pick out the parts, order them from newegg, unbox them, assemble them, test everything, update the motherboard firmware a few times, install the OS, deal with little incompatibilities between firmware and graphics card, etc., easily took a few days of my time (and, again, I'm a guy who knows what I'm doing). Figure 24 man-hours. My time is worth a lot (now that I'm an attorney, it's worth much more), but one doesn't have to come up with a big hourly rate before the "bargain" of building one's own system doesn't look so special.

Add in the fact that finished system sure ain't as pretty as the MP, and the fact that it runs Windows (huge fact right there), and to me the MP is a hell of a bargain, even at the current price/performance ratio. (And don't give me the hackintosh argument - the reason I switched to Apple is I'm done with the constant annoyance of having to hold everything together with duct tape and baling wire.)

I think both the Mac Pro and the OP's possible setup are both great options. You make a good argument. But not everybody is a $300 dollar an hour attorney, accountant, or chip designer where their time is worth hundreds, if not thousands.

The co-founder of Sun would come into a bookstore I worked at as a student and spend a lot of time reading and chatting. His time is worth tens of thousands per hour. Dave Packard liked to tool around at Ace Hardware. Reggie Jackson volunteers his time at a one of kind hat factory in my friend's backyard in Santa Cruz, for fun, and he owns a lot of local businesses and is a very busy person.

You had to have some fun building the thing. You can't just work all the time as a chip designer and lawyer and have no hobbies. My $250 dollar an hour former lawyer, now tax accountant, likes to go out many nights and watch jazz. That takes hours and she's there all the time. She seems to be enjoying herself. I can't believe that someone with your depth of knowledge in engineering didn't have fun making the killer machine you put together.

If you are so worried about billable hours, don't build another machine, buy Mac Pros online every year or so and have somebody deliver it to you, and hire somebody to set it up, and other people to organize and clean your desk so all you have to do is get up, boot up, shut down, and then go to work. Actually there are tons of people like that in Palo Alto, Woodside, Atherton, etc.

 

[soldierblue]

Premium parts? Come on. The case design is the best in the game, true. But, premium parts? I think some don't quite understand what a Xeon is and how it is different to a consumer CPU.

Intel has three levels of Xeon CPUs, the 3000, 5000 and 7000 series. The 3000 series is used by the quad-core MP, the 5000 series by the octo MP. The 7000 series is a 4-socket solution.

The Xeon W3XX0 CPUs are re-brands of the Core i7 9X0s. Its been this way for some time, the 3000 series are a re-brand of the consumer-level CPUs. The difference is in name only, IT managers see the Xeon tag on it and it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

On the other hand, the 5000 series has a higher QPI rate and a lower TDP rating. The 2.66 on up support faster RAM as well. That's *it*. The basis for these CPUs are the same. They are not more reliable than Core i7s. The performance difference in negligible on the 5000 series (unless using multiple 5000s) and non-existent on the 3000 series.

The rest of the parts are all coming from your basic Chinese OEMs. Guaranteed. These aren't better or worse than anything you'll find in a higher end PC.

It's been this way ever since Apple went Intel. From a hardware perspective, Macs and PCs share nearly everything. They're using the same CPUs, they're using the same chipsets. When it boils down to it, unique to the Mac is a seriously well designed case, the Extensible Firmware Interface and Mac OSX. It's up to you to decide if it's worth it.