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This speaks to something I predicted a few years ago: professional workstation machines will go up in price substantially as the economies of scale start to dis

This speaks to something I predicted a few years ago: professional workstation machines will go up in price substantially as the economies of scale start to disappear for the major manufacturers producing them. The only way for them to build them sustainably will be to increase margins by raising prices. By 2016, we may be paying close to $4K for such machines.

omarforgotpwd 12y ago
Maybe, maybe not. Economies of scale for many of the parts will increase dramatically, not to mention all the other economic factors (i.e. change in cost of transporation, manufacturing, etc) that you're not considering.
dba7dba 12y ago
i respectfully disagree. The professional 'workstation' in this case is just packaged in a way that forces up the cost arbitrarily.
ElectronCharge 12y ago
A couple of points: First, the 5K iMac isn't a "professional workstation" by most measures. In particular, it doesn't include ECC RAM or a "pro level" GPU. I wish ECC would become ubiquitous across all PCs, but it looks like the industry is stubbornly leaving that as one of the few real "pro" differences. That's not to say you can't do serious work with a regular PC, just that it's not considered sufficient for high-end engineering and science tasks, where a flipped bit could mean disaster. The specs of the Mac Pro fit the bill for that, along with workstations from other manufacturers like Dell and HP. Since all but the "pro" GPU are also server components, prices shouldn't go up appreciably, and in fact will probably continue to slide as manufacturing techniques improve. High-end PCs will remain affordable, the components used for them have many uses and will be mass-produced in large quantity for the foreseeable future. One interesting area is displays, where it's hard to see smallish (48" or less) 4K TVs not encroaching on the computer display market heavily.

omarforgotpwd 12y ago

Maybe, maybe not. Economies of scale for many of the parts will increase dramatically, not to mention all the other economic factors (i.e. change in cost of transporation, manufacturing, etc) that you're not considering.

dba7dba 12y ago

i respectfully disagree. The professional 'workstation' in this case is just packaged in a way that forces up the cost arbitrarily.

ElectronCharge 12y ago

A couple of points: First, the 5K iMac isn't a "professional workstation" by most measures. In particular, it doesn't include ECC RAM or a "pro level" GPU. I wish ECC would become ubiquitous across all PCs, but it looks like the industry is stubbornly leaving that as one of the few real "pro" differences. That's not to say you can't do serious work with a regular PC, just that it's not considered sufficient for high-end engineering and science tasks, where a flipped bit could mean disaster. The specs of the Mac Pro fit the bill for that, along with workstations from other manufacturers like Dell and HP. Since all but the "pro" GPU are also server components, prices shouldn't go up appreciably, and in fact will probably continue to slide as manufacturing techniques improve. High-end PCs will remain affordable, the components used for them have many uses and will be mass-produced in large quantity for the foreseeable future. One interesting area is displays, where it's hard to see smallish (48" or less) 4K TVs not encroaching on the computer display market heavily.