The amount of customers who really need PCIe slots are so low that the number of sales to amortize the R&D on is way lower, hence the premium. The people buyin

The amount of customers who really need PCIe slots are so low that the number of sales to amortize the R&D on is way lower, hence the premium. The people buying the Mac Pro are probably all going to be high-end video and audio professionals for whom the price difference isn't as noticable edit: one of the PCIe cards they showed was the Avid Pro Tools HDX card which costs $5000 alone. People who need that card are the target market for a $3000 PCIe chassis.