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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

by 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.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I completely agree. Apple doesn't offer the ability to pick and choose, so you can end up with hardware much in excess of your needs, both in capabilities and in price. My point is simply that this is a rather different situation. People phrase it as "Apple charges a premium" when it's more like "Apple sells high-end products". It doesn't make much difference to you if you want a medium-range product instead, but it does mean that Apple isn't just ripping everybody off.

by mturmon 13y ago

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.
- mikeash 13y ago
  I completely agree. Apple doesn't offer the ability to pick and choose, so you can end up with hardware much in excess of your needs, both in capabilities and in price. My point is simply that this is a rather different situation. People phrase it as "Apple charges a premium" when it's more like "Apple sells high-end products". It doesn't make much difference to you if you want a medium-range product instead, but it does mean that Apple isn't just ripping everybody off.