Macs are better for me. I’m not going to say Macs are better for everyone. However, when I finally decided on a Mac, I priced out all the parts for the PC and the equivalent Mac and I found exactly what the links in this thread have borne out: that PCs and Macs are comparable in price and, when you get to the high-end, Macs can even be cheaper. Plus, they save me money in time.
Macs are not a status symbol for me–they are a prudent business decision.
There - I posted it! Now everyone relax. YES, a $7K mac CAN exist. Oh my GAWD! There were actually people challenging me to prove that such a mac could even be configured!
Now, the comparable PC would be a dual-core processor, four SATA hard drives, a motherboard with built-in Firewire and a wireless card, and 4gb of ram. Easy to do for $2K.
Nobody said a $7K Mac can’t exist. I’ve seen Mac configurations up to $20K.
You do realize that you’ve priced out two dual-cores on that Mac, right? Retail value on the processors alone would be $900-$1000 each, so that brings your PC to $1800-$2000 without any other parts yet.
But that’s the only option on the mac.
4x 750 GB Hard drives alone would cost you at least $1200. Up to $1600, depending on which brand/model you get.
Er, what? Those processors alone cost more than $1800 dollars the pair on newegg, without sales tax or shipping. Conclusion: you are an idiot. If by “I don’t want to get into a nerd-fest” you actually meant “I’m comparing apples and abstract concepts of metaphysics”, you should have just said that.
I’ve made it up to $4k on newegg matching those components as best I can, and I still haven’t added a motherboard, soundcard, peripherals, OS, software, case… the list goes on. But hey, if you really can make a machine that cool for $2k, will you get me one too?
I’m on board too. In fact, I’ll pay you $2500.
I’m only using one dual-core, and it’s an AMD, not an Intel Xeon. That cuts the cost significantly.
Then it’s not a fair comparison, now, is it?
Uh … I don’t know if I’m veering into excessively nerdy territory here or anything, but you do realise that “one” is not equal to “two”, right?
This is truly surreal. Are you really this dumb?
To be fair, the premium charged on some of the upgrade components is ridiculous on the Apple configurator. The drives are fully double the price on Newegg, the memory is more than double and that’s not even taking into account that you should be taking away the cost of the basic 1GB. If ordering one of those myself I would certainly be buying the extras elsewhere. Even if I tried really hard I don’t think I could get the newegg equivalent much over $5k.
But still, if the fact that you’re comparing one desktop spec chip with two server-spec chips strikes you as a “nerdy” detail, you really shouldn’t be trying to put these things together yourself. You might kill someone.
I was configuring a Dell 690 to try and match that Apple config, and wound up with a price of $7,299.
Also, why the heck buy all that crap from Apple anyway? If you’re going to go through the trouble of building your own PC, you might as well compare that with building your own Mac. Just buy the bare bones, eBay the parts you don’t need, add the RAM and hard drives you found on your own, etc. A fair comparison would be to compare two fully built machines, as I’ve seen on preview, that’s just been done.
You’ve been going on about how you can build the equivalent of a $7000 Mac for $2K yourself, and you just figured out how the ‘print screen’ key works?!
Gotta agree with the multitudes: you’re a uniter, not a divider. Mac users, PC power users, Linux geeks, and even a low-end PC user like myself - we can all see you’re full of shit.
Life’s not fair.
Apple does not appear to offer a desktop that isn’t a server or a “for dummies” all-in-one “awww, it lives in its monitor!” e-machine equivalent (the I-Mac); there’s no middle ground between two dual-core processors at $1,000 each and one single-core “awwww, it’s a monitor AND a computer that even Mom can figure out!”
You consider 4 750Gb hard drives and 4Gb of memory a “middle ground” configuration?
For simultaneous multitrack audio recording and video editing - absolutely.
Yep, sucks for you, then.
I’m still trying to figure out the magic you must be pulling to make your specs into a $2000 computer. So far, I’ve got $800 for the processor and $1200 for the 4 drives. That’s two grand. And we haven’t gotten into the motherboard, the graphics card, the case, the OS, the RAM, the keyboard, the mouse, the DVD drive, etc, etc, etc…
Also, why price out two 3.0 GHz Dual Cores? Why not two 2.0 GHz dual cores? Would that not be a fairer comparison with a single 3.0 dual core? (I actually do not know the answer to this question, but somebody with a better understanding of computer architecture could hopefully comment on whether two slower duals are better than one faster dual).