Building a Windows PC Equivalent to the Mac Pro Costs Thousands More [Chart]

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Posted December 25, 2013 at 4:36pm by Shalom Levytam

Building a Windows PC equivalent to the new Mac Pro costs thousands more, according to a new report from AppleInsider.

The site sourced comparable parts from a 'large, nationwide internet retailer well respected by do-it-yourself PC builders' to build a system similar to the $9,599 Mac Pro configuration which offers a 2.7GHz 12-core Intel Xeon E5 with 30MB of L3 cache processor, 64GB (4x16GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 1TB of PCIe-based flash storage, and Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM each.

Lian Li's stalwart PC-7B ATX-compatible case was chosen to house the system. A Corsair's CMPSU-650TX 650-watt CrossFire-ready power supply, an Asus Z9PE-D8 motherboard, two AMD FirePro W9000 GPUs, Intel's Xeon E5-2697 Ivy Bridge chip, an OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 series 960 gigabyte PCIe drive, and Kingston Technology 16-gigabyte, ECC-registered DDR3 1866 RAM modules were put inside.

All components considered, the Windows equivalent cost $14309.89. That's without offering Thunderbolt or an equivalent to AppleCare. Thus it would seem that despite its high cost the Mac Pro is a good value.

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Building a Windows PC Equivalent to the Mac Pro Costs Thousands More [Chart]

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BlackMarket - January 1, 2014 at 7:29pm

Lian LI PC-v354 $130 Rosewill Lightning 800w $150 Asus Rampage 4 Lga 2011 $280 Pny Nvidia Quadro 4gb K5000 SLI $3600 64gb Crucial DDR3 1866 $920 Visiontek 960gb Solid State Drive $1200 Intel Xeon e5-2697 v2 2.7ghz 12core 2750$ Total: $9030 Btw: the nvidia cards have less memory but there faster than w9000.

Sk_It - December 27, 2013 at 6:43am

WOW! Guys who really think that Unix system is worse for gaming just don't know! Do some research, please!

Trashcan Steve - December 27, 2013 at 5:26am

As reported by apple insider...

Guest - December 27, 2013 at 5:17am

The design is quite unique; it has often been compared to a high-end household item.

TechAnalyst - December 27, 2013 at 11:00am

That's not a server... and there is a difference between a workstation and a server. (granted, you can use any computer as a server if you have the software, they just can't handle much of a load). That said, it doesn't make them a real server just because you are using them as such. A Sun Sparc Enterprise M9000 is a server - for example. As for an office intranet server, it could support a small office... but unlike rack systems that can be expanded, you would need to buy more of these. And no server needs a GPU like that. As a workstation option, there are better options for the price, perhaps it would make a good choice at PIXAR! A Mac Pro, for most, is like buying a powerboat to go fishing in a pond.

Treated like a Criminal - December 26, 2013 at 3:14pm

I'm guessing the hard drive is solid state for it to be $ 3k

Mike - December 26, 2013 at 2:37pm

Keep in mind though, that it costs thousands more if you go out and buy the components your self. But manufacturers don't pay what we have to pay for those components. It's a lot cheaper for them. So if a manufacturer like hp or samsung, was to build something similar I bet it'd cost the same if not less for a computer with similar specs, if not better.

89b03bc - December 26, 2013 at 10:07am

Don't forget to mention you won't find a PC housing unit this small and this well designed. It's not just about computing power, Apple has been at the forefront of design when they build computers! You'll never find a better looking desktop than this, ever, unless Apple redesigns it!

Kdeck - December 26, 2013 at 3:54am

I'm not sure two $3.4k gpus are worth thousands more than lower-priced equivalents, also $3k for a 1TB PCI-E SSD is quite a large investment when you could run four 1TB SATA SSDs in a RAID with plenty of money to spare. There seems to be a lot more cost-effective decisions you could make with 14k if you ask me :) Frankly once you get past a few grand the performance gain for the added price is infinitesimally small.

Furqan - December 26, 2013 at 12:21pm

Yup i think they mislead some prices

Jim - December 26, 2013 at 1:11am

Why not compare the cheapest model of 2999? PC comp with same specs will be less than 50% of that.

Watermelon - December 25, 2013 at 6:04pm

Xeon on a "PC"? Sounds like a server for me

Guest - December 25, 2013 at 4:57pm

Is this comparison accurate? I just priced it out myself and it came out significantly cheaper than the Pro. These numbers seem questionable.

dmc - December 25, 2013 at 5:13pm

Wow, I'm interested. List your parts, prices, and source and if its as low as you say is it, then I will buy it today!

dmc - December 25, 2013 at 5:16pm

I just noticed that this was the $9k version mac… for some reason I was think this was the base model.

jvj24601 - December 25, 2013 at 4:55pm

this is not stupid, some ppl like to build their own computers cause its cheaper... this is just saying that you aren't going to get a better deal if you're trying to build something comparable to the pro.......

Yoron - December 25, 2013 at 6:04pm

The pre coffee-maker Mac Pro models hadn't been updated in (IIRC) forever, but were still ridiculously priced. People were building their own updated Hackintosh systems that were more powerful and cheaper. That is why this is important.