10 years ago, serious academic computational groups were buying Mac Pros because the specs were top notch in terms of the max RAM and CPU speeds compared with t

10 years ago, serious academic computational groups were buying Mac Pros because the specs were top notch in terms of the max RAM and CPU speeds compared with the equivalent PC mainboards. They got dated and were also surpassed in a few years. But at the time, they were absolutely purchased for performance. You got a high performance and expandable Unix workstation in a nice Al case which didn't cost that much more than building your own and putting Linux or BSD on it. The cost/benefit was there for people who needed it.