Re: What was that about Macs being expensive?
- From: Edwin <thorne25@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:29:13 -0700 (PDT)
On Aug 10, 8:03 am, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Many people say Macs are a lot more expensive than similar PCs. I just
did some price comparison, and that doesn't seem so in the case of Mac
Pro.
So now you're out to convince people who are willing to pay $3,000 or
more for a workstation that Apple is the better deal, and you're doing
it by way of the usual bogus Maccie 'comparison' that uses the Mac as
the baseline, along with things that you add to the PC just to inflate
its price.
Here's the base Mac I'm comparing to:
2 quad core 2.8 GHz Xeon processors
2 GB RAM
320 GB 7200 RPM SATA hard disk
GeForce 8800 GT video card
Airport Extreme
This is $2999 from Apple. It's $2849 with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
instead of the GeForce. For comparison, I checked a few places, and
tried to configure the machine to reasonably match.
I note you avoided putting in a URL to the Dell, so lets fix that now:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_t7400?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
There we see the Dell starts at $1589, and includes a 19" LCD monitor,
not a CRT, as you falsely claim below.
Let's start with Dell. I'm configuring a Dell Precision Workstation
T7400. It defaults to dual 2.0 GHz Xeon, so I bump that to 2.8. It
comes with a gig of RAM. I'm not going to add that at Dell, as system
vendors usually charge too much for RAM, so we'll just keep in mind that
the Dell price is going to come out slightly lower than it should.
Let's leave the Dell processor speed where it is, as the Mac isn't the
baseline, and eight processors at 2.0 GHz is more than most people
will ever need.
By choosing dual quad core processors for the Dell, at 2.0 GHz, my
price is now $1,888.00. IOW, about a thousand dollars less than the
base price of the Mac Pro with dual quad processors.
Let's add in some more Dell RAM, using the money we saved not making
an unnecessary bump up in processor speed:
Going up to 4 GB RAM adds $520 to the Dell.
For the graphics card, I'm going to bump both the Mac and the Dell up to
the Quadro FX 5600, as that is the only option I see they have in
common. That adds $2580 to the Dell, and $2700 to the Mac.
IOW, you artificially bumped both up to make the Mac the baseline.
The Dell comes with 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI
Capable card, which is good enough, no need to inflate it because the
Macs limited graphics card options don't allow for that particular
card.
The Dell needs bumping up to a DVD writer.
That's a $45 increase, but why stop there? Let's add in the BlueRay
option the Mac doesn't even have, using the money we didn't waste
bumping up our processor speed and graphics cards unnecessarily.
With just the DVD burner, we're up to $1933.00 for the Dell.
The Dell comes with a 17
inch CRT, so I'm going to add a 20 inch Apple display to the Mac, and
bump the Dell up to a digital LCD.
The Dell already comes with a free 19" LCD display, not a 17" CRT, so
your bumping up is bogus, as usual.
Mac has two separate gigabit
ethernets, so I'll bump the Dell to two--well, actually, I won't. There
isn't that much need for two ethernets, so I'm not going to match on
that--if one machine has something that most people won't care about,
I'm not going to make the other match.
Why do you want to stop now? You started your whole comparison with
machines most people won't buy, and you've been bumping up the Dell
for bogus reasons all along.
Bumping Dell to 320 GB drive
with same specs as the one in the Mac.
Okay.
Adding wireless to the Dell.
Ignoring Mac as baseline, leaving wireless off Dell.
The Mac Pro is now: $6298
The Dell is now: $7245
Dell is now actually $2,583.
Dell seems to be charging WAY too much for the CPUs. They seem to be
charging $1200 per CPU for 2.8 GHz. Apple charges $500. Hell, you can
buy these CPUs *retail* for around $700. This seems to be what accounts
for most of the price difference.
Luckly the Dell is just fine with its eight 2.0 GHz cores.
The Precision Workstation T5400, configured as above, comes to $7100.
Configured sensibly it's $2,583.00 That's a great price for an eight
core workstation with 19" monitor and 4 GB of RAM. Apple has nothing
like it for that price.
Looking around at a couple other vendors with dual processor quad core
Xeon systems, I didn't find any that seemed to actually be cheaper than
Mac, although the others were a little harder to compare, as the others
I found weren't customizable like Dell, so I had to estimate what the
cost would be if they were customizable.
IOW, you ignored anything that couldn't use the Mac as the baseline.
I also compared to a "do it yourself" PC with parts priced at Newegg.
The big unknown there is the case. Apple has a very nice case. I'm not
sure which cases, if any, are comparable from Newegg, in terms of ease
of access, and providing good acoustical and thermal properties.
Assuming around $200 for the case, I think I can put together a DIY
quite comparable to the $3000 Mac Pro configuration for maybe a couple
hundred less (not including the cost of an OS, as I'd run Linux on it,
not Windows).
You can get a better deal here:
http://www.pcusa.com/
All in all, the Mac Pro looks like it is actually a very good deal.
From within the Apple RDF.
You forgot to add "3 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business
Day On-Site Service" to the Mac, but then the Dell wasn't your
baseline, was it? I'll bet the corporate buyers don't overlook that
'little' detail...
How about all the options Dell has that Apple doesn't?
"3 Year CompleteCare Accidental Damage Protection [add $59]
Dell Recommended - helps protect against costs of accidental drops,
spills, and surges"
"3 YEAR, HARD DRIVE DATA RECOVERY SERVICE (SYSTEM WITHOUT RAID) [add
$75]"
"3 YEAR, CERTIFIED DATA DESTRUCTION [add $25]"
"3 YEAR, HARD DRIVE DATA RECOVERY AND CERTIFIED DATA DESTRUCTION
SERVICE [add $100]"
Want to talk about the AMD Opteron and Phenom processors you can't get
in a Mac for any price?
.
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