Mac Pro challenges even home-built PCs on price
updated 02:15 pm EDT, Wed August 16, 2006
Mac Pro vs Home-Built PCs
During the interval preceding the Mac Pro announcement, the question was immediately raised as to whether or not Apple would compete aggressively on price. The company is known for characteristically high professional system pricing and was about to enter a market where prices were already higher than those of the Power Mac line. Recent comparisons (including those from Apple) have demonstrated that Mac Pro pricing undercuts workstations from large manufacturers such as Dell. What is more surprising is the new revelation that Mac Pro pricing also fares well against home-built PCs with identical hardware, says AnandTech. In addition to a detailed comparison of the new system against its G5-based predecessor, Anand finds that even a custom-assembled system (which avoids factory assembly and software costs) using equivalent parts is more expensive than Apple pricing. Apple's main challenge now, according to the author, is to offer a system beneath the Mac Pro that offers its advantages without the added cost of quad Xeons or expensive memory.
