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With my cheesegrater Mac, Apple wanted $3,000 for 160GB of memory (to go from 32 to 192). OWC sells the same memory (same spec, same manufacturer) now for $620,

With my cheesegrater Mac, Apple wanted $3,000 for 160GB of memory (to go from 32 to 192). OWC sells the same memory (same spec, same manufacturer) now for $620, though I believe I paid about $1,000. They also wanted another $3,000 for an 8TB SSD. Similarly, I was able to buy a 4xM.2 PCI card, and populate it with 4 x 2TB SSDs for under $1,500. Furthermore my PCI setup is faster than the Apple system drive (7GBps versus 5.5).

wfleming 3y ago
Overcharging on those kinds of bumps is standard industry practice, though. I just checked Lenovo, and they want $224 to bump an X1 from 16GB to 32. And that’s a sale price, the normal price is $340 (which seems largely theoretical since thinkpads are eternally on some kind of sale, but that’s neither here nor there). Apple-to-apple (heh) comparison is tricky in this case since I don’t see LPDDR5 laptop chips for sale on their own, and this is a soldered-on-laptop chip so DIY after buying isn’t feasible, but an entire 32GB DDR5 desktop set can be had for about $100, so even if the low-power laptop form-factor commanded a premium, that’s still pretty egregious. Dell is similar: for a desktop they want $200 to bump from 16GB to 32GB DDR5. Apple might be a bit more daring with those prices than some PC manufacturers, but it’s hardly a behavior unique to them.
- godelski 3y ago
  The difference is that you can buy the upgraded parts from a third party. This has always been difficult with Apple. RAM was constantly soldered in, but at least it was possible for an advanced user to upgrade it. Nvme drives had needless proprietary connections. I upgraded my old Intel Air and a $20 adapter and a n Evo Nvme drive was larger and faster than anything Apple would offer, at a cheaper price. The pricing may be standard (a bit higher if we're honest) but the bigger issue is how far Apple goes to make you pay that premium. It borders malicious. It's also not great for waste, considering upgrading is near impossible.
  - wfleming 3y ago
    Laptops, at least, are increasingly all-soldered RAM from many brands. SSDs are mostly still m.2, I think, so at least those are upgradable. Mac Pros were upgradeable until this most recent iteration switching to their ARM chips. The other companies also use lower-spec components than you could buy for less yourself, same as Apple. If anything, the rest of the industry has been moving in Apple’s direction with these kinds of limitations. They’re not more evil than their competition, they’re just ahead of the curve. I agree Apple takes it further with the gouging than others. We should absolutely complain about it and criticize them for gouging! My criticism of the “Apple Tax” complaint is that 1. Nobody ever complains nearly as vociferously about other manufacturers doing similar stuff, and 2. The particular way people complain about Apple’s behavior is always phrased to kind of imply it’s unique and not just a more egregious form of a common behavior.
    - toyg 3y ago
      > They’re not more evil than their competition, they’re just ahead of the curve. "They don't want us to live in Hell, they just pave shiny roads that can only lead us there".
    - godelski 3y ago
      > the rest of the industry has been moving in Apple’s direction with these kinds of limitations That's the "evil". Your next sentence doesn't justify the former. Apple is the one pushing the bounds. Others see Apple can get away with it, so they follow. There's good reason to believe that if Apple didn't push this then we wouldn't be in this state (right to repair is another piece of evidence related to Apple too).
      - wfleming 3y ago
        My critique is not “this behavior is acceptable”, and I certainly didn’t describe it as justified. My critique is “the industry is full of bad actors but everyone mostly yells about one particular bad actor”, which I think is unproductive.
industriousthou 3y ago
Does the unified memory model affect how you see this at all? Those 160GB of ram would be available to your GPU, which would not be true on a PC. For some people, that might make a big difference.
- dietr1ch 3y ago
  It means that, but tbh that's more and better than 128GB of ram and 64G of vram (good luck going past 24G w/o breaking the bank). Today AM5 boards max out at 128GB, so to beat that it seems that you must go and shop at places where you must request a quote to help them know how much you can be charged.

wfleming 3y ago

Overcharging on those kinds of bumps is standard industry practice, though. I just checked Lenovo, and they want $224 to bump an X1 from 16GB to 32. And that’s a sale price, the normal price is $340 (which seems largely theoretical since thinkpads are eternally on some kind of sale, but that’s neither here nor there). Apple-to-apple (heh) comparison is tricky in this case since I don’t see LPDDR5 laptop chips for sale on their own, and this is a soldered-on-laptop chip so DIY after buying isn’t feasible, but an entire 32GB DDR5 desktop set can be had for about $100, so even if the low-power laptop form-factor commanded a premium, that’s still pretty egregious. Dell is similar: for a desktop they want $200 to bump from 16GB to 32GB DDR5. Apple might be a bit more daring with those prices than some PC manufacturers, but it’s hardly a behavior unique to them.

godelski 3y ago
The difference is that you can buy the upgraded parts from a third party. This has always been difficult with Apple. RAM was constantly soldered in, but at least it was possible for an advanced user to upgrade it. Nvme drives had needless proprietary connections. I upgraded my old Intel Air and a $20 adapter and a n Evo Nvme drive was larger and faster than anything Apple would offer, at a cheaper price. The pricing may be standard (a bit higher if we're honest) but the bigger issue is how far Apple goes to make you pay that premium. It borders malicious. It's also not great for waste, considering upgrading is near impossible.
- wfleming 3y ago
  Laptops, at least, are increasingly all-soldered RAM from many brands. SSDs are mostly still m.2, I think, so at least those are upgradable. Mac Pros were upgradeable until this most recent iteration switching to their ARM chips. The other companies also use lower-spec components than you could buy for less yourself, same as Apple. If anything, the rest of the industry has been moving in Apple’s direction with these kinds of limitations. They’re not more evil than their competition, they’re just ahead of the curve. I agree Apple takes it further with the gouging than others. We should absolutely complain about it and criticize them for gouging! My criticism of the “Apple Tax” complaint is that 1. Nobody ever complains nearly as vociferously about other manufacturers doing similar stuff, and 2. The particular way people complain about Apple’s behavior is always phrased to kind of imply it’s unique and not just a more egregious form of a common behavior.
  - toyg 3y ago
    > They’re not more evil than their competition, they’re just ahead of the curve. "They don't want us to live in Hell, they just pave shiny roads that can only lead us there".
  - godelski 3y ago
    > the rest of the industry has been moving in Apple’s direction with these kinds of limitations That's the "evil". Your next sentence doesn't justify the former. Apple is the one pushing the bounds. Others see Apple can get away with it, so they follow. There's good reason to believe that if Apple didn't push this then we wouldn't be in this state (right to repair is another piece of evidence related to Apple too).
    - wfleming 3y ago
      My critique is not “this behavior is acceptable”, and I certainly didn’t describe it as justified. My critique is “the industry is full of bad actors but everyone mostly yells about one particular bad actor”, which I think is unproductive.

industriousthou 3y ago

Does the unified memory model affect how you see this at all? Those 160GB of ram would be available to your GPU, which would not be true on a PC. For some people, that might make a big difference.

dietr1ch 3y ago
It means that, but tbh that's more and better than 128GB of ram and 64G of vram (good luck going past 24G w/o breaking the bank). Today AM5 boards max out at 128GB, so to beat that it seems that you must go and shop at places where you must request a quote to help them know how much you can be charged.