Well ~$5235, but the CPU starting at $1135 isn't even the problem. Its the $4100 motherboard that should really be closer to $500. But it all seems sorta silly

Well ~$5235, but the CPU starting at $1135 isn't even the problem. Its the $4100 motherboard that should really be closer to $500. But it all seems sorta silly since the tyan openpower machine was selling for ~$2750 or so a couple years ago. I guess IBM got tired of throwing cash at it? But really, these guys (and ARM too) need economies of scale, and they aren't going to get it by selling a machine for 4x+ more than the equivalent Intel. Both of them need to look at some of the low cost integrated intel motherboard/cpu combos, match one with slots, graphics, networking, usb, sata, etc on spec's and cost, and start from there. But they don't want to do it, because those machines don't have the fat margins that intel makes on the E5/E7 lines, and they aren't willing to spend a few hundred million buying every hacker/linux developer a desktop machine using their cores. So they will need a ton of runway, and a long term plan to beat intel. Something I see that ARM may have due to their huge advantage selling a few billion devices a quarter. IBM OTHOH, spent the last decade trying to sell overpriced POWER/linux machines and failing, so they don't have another decade left. Plus, they can't even get their strategies straight enough to push one single linux platform (because they are also pushing s390, and their software guys are all busy selling x86/linux software).