7 ms·

This xeon is $343 at retail for 3.5GHz quad core. http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-19-116-904 http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Pr

by jere 13y ago

This xeon is $343 at retail for 3.5GHz quad core. http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-19-116-904 http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-1... I know it's not linear, but you really expect Apple to be paying $1000 to $1500 for a 3.7GHz quad core? I'm sure I'm one of those people you're thinking of. I built a PC last year for $1k and it appeared either identical or better than the maxed out iMac which was ~$3k.

mikeash 13y ago
I don't expect Apple to, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were putting in a CPU that we would pay that much for. The CPU you cite is an E3 versus an E5 (not that I have any clue what that means), runs slower, and has less L3 cache. I don't know how much those add but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a lot. Just once, it would be nice if someone making a Mac versus PC price comparison could compare against a part that was better than the one in the Mac....
- jere 13y ago
  >Just once, it would be nice if someone making a Mac versus PC price comparison could compare against a part that was better than the one in the Mac.... I'm very sorry. I couldn't find a faster xeon for sale and I thought it would suffice to demonstrate how a 200MHz increase most likely isn't worth $1000. I imagine you think it logically impossible that Apple could be marking up the cpu, since I can't currently buy the cpu myself (and thus the cost for me is infinite)... When I'm the most valuable company in the world and not just some guy searching newegg, I'll get back to you.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    As I mentioned, clock speed is only one difference. The cache is not the same, and from a bit of research, it looks like the E5 has double the memory bandwidth over the E3, so it's not at all a trivial difference. > I imagine you think it logically impossible that Apple could be marking up the cpu What would make you think that? I just want to see an actual comparison, not comparisons with parts people think are "close enough". Maybe that's impossible right now, in which case I want people to stop trying instead of coming up with "close enough". The question is, how much does it cost to build a PC "with the same parts"?
  - mturmon 13y ago
    You may not be aware of this, but there has been a years-long practice of people making claims about outrageous markup of Apple hardware versus BYO systems, and not actually using the same hardware. It's irritating. (There certainly are cases of outrageous markup, but in this case, we don't really know yet, and the prices for Xeons are high.)
    - Jtsummers 13y ago
      This reminds me of complaints about Apple laptops. I'm sold now, but when I first purchased one I was still a Linux/Windows dual-booter. So I specced out the Macbook Pro that I wanted, specced out (roughly) equivalent systems with every major brand at the time (circa 2006, this was the Core 2 Duo CPU version). I got a lot of systems that were close enough (+/- 50GB depending on their HDD sizes, = RAM or slightly more because I had some minimum I wanted at the time, close enough clock speeds with the same CPU (+/- .2GHz)). Every one of them ran to +/-$300 of the cost of the Macbook Pro, and not all of them had educational discounts (still in school at the time so I could take advantage of that). I haven't done this comparison in years, but ~2009 I did it again because I was tired of the noise from my coworkers and it came out similarly, similar specs meant priced within 200-300 of the Mac. Spec it out, don't just guestimate, and equivalent systems aren't significantly cheaper, if cheaper at all (either BYO or from someone like Dell or HP).
      - makomk 13y ago
        Yeah, Apple hardware is often decent value for money at launch, if your needs are exactly met by one of Apple's handful of models, with nothing that's overkill or unused and nothing missing. How many people is that true for though? For example, if - for instance - you want a decent dedicated GPU you have to get a Mac Pro with an expensive Xeon E5 CPU and a workstation-glass GPU, even if you only need a much cheaper i7 or i5. Similarly, if you need lots of CPU power you have to pay for an expensive GPU even if you don't need it. These are hardly unusual requirements! (Also, Apple famously skimps on RAM compared to the rest of the system and then overcharges for extra RAM.) Maybe sometime you should try the reverse exercise. Pick out a handful of popular PCs and see how much it would cost to buy an equally-powerful Mac.
  - ericd 13y ago
    There's a reason people pay much, much more for E5s than E3s, and it's not for clock speed. You can't get more than 32 GB of RAM in an E3 server, for example, while E5 servers can handle 256 per processor. E5s can coordinate between processors for multi processor machines, too.
- wtallis 13y ago
  Xeon E3s have half the memory bandwidth, only 40% of the peripheral bandwidth, and at best 80% of the cache of the low-end E5s. A Xeon E3 is just a consumer CPU with ECC support. A Xeon E5 is a pro part.
dubyah 13y ago
While that is not the correct CPU, the overall sentiment is correct; there's no way that the CPU would constitute such a significant portion of the purchase price. Intel's own product page pegs the recommended price as $294 (oem packaging, tray): http://ark.intel.com/products/75779/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1620-v2-10M-Cache-3_70-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/75779/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-... And indeed one may be able to obtain a ready to ship and in stock OEM packaged version of the CPU in the upcoming Mac Pro for $303.99 (+2.99 UPS ground + CA tax as applicable): http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?p=E5-1620V2 http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?p=E5-1620V2
- jere 13y ago
  Thanks. I wasn't sure how to find that, even though I did do some searches on superbiiz. I'm not sure I understand the discrepancy. Why would the CPU be so cheap ($303.99) compared to the one I posted, which several commenters are claiming is severely under powered in comparison?
  - lhl 13y ago
    These new lower end E5 16xxs are essentially Core i7s and priced about equivalently[1]. The 26xx's are much beefier (I think people were expecting 26xx's across the line but matching specs[2], this is obviously not the case). I'd be pleasantly surprised if the 12C Mac Pro sold for less than $6K but as you can see the big ($1500!) bump is between the 6C/8C and they didn't talk pricing beyond the 6C so if they don't eat the cost you're looking at a $6K 8C and a $7K/$8K 12C. 4C exact match: $294 Xeon E5-1620 v2 4C 3.7GHz/3.9GHz 10MB L3 130W TDP 6C exact match: $583 Xeon E5-1650 v2 6C 3.5GHz/3.9GHz 12MB L3 130W TDP 8C closest match (underclocked?): $2057 Xeon E5-2667 v2 8C 3.3GHz/4GHz 25MB L3 130W TDP 12C exact match: $2614 Xeon E5-2697 v2 12C 2.7GHz/3.5 GHz 30MB L3 130W TDP Tom's Hardware did some superficial (mostly desktop workload) testing on the E5-2697 v2 a couple months ago: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-ep-xeon-e5-2697-v2-benchmarks,3585.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-ep-xeon-e5-26... [1] http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013091401_Intel_Xeon_E5-1600_v2_and_E5-2600_v2_CPUs_launched.html http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013091401_Intel_Xeon_E5-... [2] https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ and the description text: "Intel Xeon E5 with 10MB L3 cache and Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz. Configurable to 3.5GHz 6-core processor with 12MB L3 cache, 3.0GHz 8-core processor with 25MB L3 cache, or 2.7GHz 12-core processor with 30MB L3 cache"
deleted 13y ago
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by jere 13y ago

mikeash 13y ago

I don't expect Apple to, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were putting in a CPU that we would pay that much for. The CPU you cite is an E3 versus an E5 (not that I have any clue what that means), runs slower, and has less L3 cache. I don't know how much those add but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a lot. Just once, it would be nice if someone making a Mac versus PC price comparison could compare against a part that was better than the one in the Mac....

jere 13y ago
>Just once, it would be nice if someone making a Mac versus PC price comparison could compare against a part that was better than the one in the Mac.... I'm very sorry. I couldn't find a faster xeon for sale and I thought it would suffice to demonstrate how a 200MHz increase most likely isn't worth $1000. I imagine you think it logically impossible that Apple could be marking up the cpu, since I can't currently buy the cpu myself (and thus the cost for me is infinite)... When I'm the most valuable company in the world and not just some guy searching newegg, I'll get back to you.
- mikeash 13y ago
  As I mentioned, clock speed is only one difference. The cache is not the same, and from a bit of research, it looks like the E5 has double the memory bandwidth over the E3, so it's not at all a trivial difference. > I imagine you think it logically impossible that Apple could be marking up the cpu What would make you think that? I just want to see an actual comparison, not comparisons with parts people think are "close enough". Maybe that's impossible right now, in which case I want people to stop trying instead of coming up with "close enough". The question is, how much does it cost to build a PC "with the same parts"?
- mturmon 13y ago
  You may not be aware of this, but there has been a years-long practice of people making claims about outrageous markup of Apple hardware versus BYO systems, and not actually using the same hardware. It's irritating. (There certainly are cases of outrageous markup, but in this case, we don't really know yet, and the prices for Xeons are high.)
  - Jtsummers 13y ago
    This reminds me of complaints about Apple laptops. I'm sold now, but when I first purchased one I was still a Linux/Windows dual-booter. So I specced out the Macbook Pro that I wanted, specced out (roughly) equivalent systems with every major brand at the time (circa 2006, this was the Core 2 Duo CPU version). I got a lot of systems that were close enough (+/- 50GB depending on their HDD sizes, = RAM or slightly more because I had some minimum I wanted at the time, close enough clock speeds with the same CPU (+/- .2GHz)). Every one of them ran to +/-$300 of the cost of the Macbook Pro, and not all of them had educational discounts (still in school at the time so I could take advantage of that). I haven't done this comparison in years, but ~2009 I did it again because I was tired of the noise from my coworkers and it came out similarly, similar specs meant priced within 200-300 of the Mac. Spec it out, don't just guestimate, and equivalent systems aren't significantly cheaper, if cheaper at all (either BYO or from someone like Dell or HP).
    - makomk 13y ago
      Yeah, Apple hardware is often decent value for money at launch, if your needs are exactly met by one of Apple's handful of models, with nothing that's overkill or unused and nothing missing. How many people is that true for though? For example, if - for instance - you want a decent dedicated GPU you have to get a Mac Pro with an expensive Xeon E5 CPU and a workstation-glass GPU, even if you only need a much cheaper i7 or i5. Similarly, if you need lots of CPU power you have to pay for an expensive GPU even if you don't need it. These are hardly unusual requirements! (Also, Apple famously skimps on RAM compared to the rest of the system and then overcharges for extra RAM.) Maybe sometime you should try the reverse exercise. Pick out a handful of popular PCs and see how much it would cost to buy an equally-powerful Mac.
- ericd 13y ago
  There's a reason people pay much, much more for E5s than E3s, and it's not for clock speed. You can't get more than 32 GB of RAM in an E3 server, for example, while E5 servers can handle 256 per processor. E5s can coordinate between processors for multi processor machines, too.
wtallis 13y ago
Xeon E3s have half the memory bandwidth, only 40% of the peripheral bandwidth, and at best 80% of the cache of the low-end E5s. A Xeon E3 is just a consumer CPU with ECC support. A Xeon E5 is a pro part.

dubyah 13y ago

While that is not the correct CPU, the overall sentiment is correct; there's no way that the CPU would constitute such a significant portion of the purchase price. Intel's own product page pegs the recommended price as $294 (oem packaging, tray): http://ark.intel.com/products/75779/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1620-v2-10M-Cache-3_70-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/75779/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-... And indeed one may be able to obtain a ready to ship and in stock OEM packaged version of the CPU in the upcoming Mac Pro for $303.99 (+2.99 UPS ground + CA tax as applicable): http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?p=E5-1620V2 http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?p=E5-1620V2

jere 13y ago
Thanks. I wasn't sure how to find that, even though I did do some searches on superbiiz. I'm not sure I understand the discrepancy. Why would the CPU be so cheap ($303.99) compared to the one I posted, which several commenters are claiming is severely under powered in comparison?
- lhl 13y ago
  These new lower end E5 16xxs are essentially Core i7s and priced about equivalently[1]. The 26xx's are much beefier (I think people were expecting 26xx's across the line but matching specs[2], this is obviously not the case). I'd be pleasantly surprised if the 12C Mac Pro sold for less than $6K but as you can see the big ($1500!) bump is between the 6C/8C and they didn't talk pricing beyond the 6C so if they don't eat the cost you're looking at a $6K 8C and a $7K/$8K 12C. 4C exact match: $294 Xeon E5-1620 v2 4C 3.7GHz/3.9GHz 10MB L3 130W TDP 6C exact match: $583 Xeon E5-1650 v2 6C 3.5GHz/3.9GHz 12MB L3 130W TDP 8C closest match (underclocked?): $2057 Xeon E5-2667 v2 8C 3.3GHz/4GHz 25MB L3 130W TDP 12C exact match: $2614 Xeon E5-2697 v2 12C 2.7GHz/3.5 GHz 30MB L3 130W TDP Tom's Hardware did some superficial (mostly desktop workload) testing on the E5-2697 v2 a couple months ago: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-ep-xeon-e5-2697-v2-benchmarks,3585.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-ep-xeon-e5-26... [1] http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013091401_Intel_Xeon_E5-1600_v2_and_E5-2600_v2_CPUs_launched.html http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013091401_Intel_Xeon_E5-... [2] https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ and the description text: "Intel Xeon E5 with 10MB L3 cache and Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz. Configurable to 3.5GHz 6-core processor with 12MB L3 cache, 3.0GHz 8-core processor with 25MB L3 cache, or 2.7GHz 12-core processor with 30MB L3 cache"

deleted 13y ago

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