There's a popular notion that one has to pay a premium to own Apple products. However, the latest product by Apple that has been "built for creativity on an epic scale" - the Mac Pro - is out to challenge that notion.
Apple Mac Pro is the most powerful computer Apple has ever built. And since quality doesn't come cheap, the basic model of Mac Pro costs $2,999 while top-of-the-line, customized Mac Pro can set the buyer back by around $10,000.
In an attempt to find how justified Mac Pro's pricing was, Futurelooks editor Stephen Fung set out to build a Windows version of the Mac Pro with similar specifiations.
Fung started by configuring the most powerful Mac Pro that included 64 GB of RAM, a 1 TB SSD, two AMD D700 graphics card and a 2.7GHz 12-core Intel Xeon processor. The cost of this beast was $9,599, which is a lot.
Then Fung began calculating the costs he would incur for making a Windows-based version of Mac Pro with similar specifiations, and to his surprise, he found that the Windows version of the Mac Pro costs around 20 percent more.
"After tabulating all the major component costs (plus another $99.99 US for Windows 8 Pro), we are at a total of around $11,530.54 US using today's prices at retailers that actually stock the hardware," Fung wrote. "I'm not afraid to admit that compared to the asking price of $9,599 US, the new Mac Pro seems like one heckuva deal for these components."
Even when the basic model of Apple's $2,999 Mac Pro was considered, it turned out to be 33 percent cheaper than its Windows cousin. However, Fung also noted that the DIY Windows machine had slightly better specs than the Mac Pro and was upgradable, unlike the Mac Pro that tends to rely more on proprietary components.
In a similar assessment, Apple Insider's Shane Cole found Mac Pro was better value for money. "Without considering shipping costs, assembly time, or additional complications that may arise from cooling the machine, it would cost just over $14,300 to replicate Apple's new Mac Pro spec-for-spec," he wrote.
