What’s the Damage for our PC DIY Mac Pro Equivalent?
After tabulating all the major component costs (plus another $99.99 US for Windows 8 Pro), we are at a total of around $11,530.54 US using today’s prices at retailers that actually stock the hardware. I’m not afraid to admit that compared to the asking price of $9,599 US, the new Mac Pro seems like one heckuva deal for these components. Everything is tested to work properly together (versus some of our unknown incompatibilities with this potential build), and a highly proprietary design that is small enough to fit into a carry on bag, with twice the amount of registered memory (32GB vs 64GB ECC). You simply can’t build a smaller form factor PC that matches the Mac Pro today.
Apple has created an extremely specialized machine that appeals to high end workstation enthusiasts, with current top spec components, for less than the price of its PC DIY counterparts. Because it’s so small, it’s almost like the “anti-workstation” because you typically expect that class of system to be larger. But on the downside, the internal design begs you to attach things to it, instead of locking everything inside. So security of your peripherals starts to become an issue in office/public environments. But a non-issue in your own private studio/workspace.
The other downside is longevity and upgradeability. Unlike the previous generation Mac Pro, the new Mac Pro will not have the ability to upgrade with off the shelf components. The GPUs are for sure proprietary, and based on what we’ve seen on the CPU side from the previous generation, it not only may be soldered on, but it might have the thermal cap removed, preventing a retail upgrade, even if it isn’t soldered (UPDATE: Looks like it IS upgradeable…sort of). Folks that have been keeping their Mac Pros alive with readily available, industry standard, upgrades may not be able to keep this new Mac Pro around as long. Especially in situations where time is money and you really do need the latest GPUs and CPUs, which seem to get faster/better even more quickly these days. Buying an entirely new machine every couple years seems like the option with the new Mac Pro.
So is there a scenario where a PC DIY system could be constructed as a better value than the New Mac Pro? Definitely. With the choice of components and hardware, we don’t need to buy $3400 AMD FirePro graphics cards. In fact, as we mentioned, NVIDIA’s Quadro options may be a better fit for Windows applications (at nearly half the price). And if you’re using applications that can be accelerated using consumer GPUs (like Adobe Creative Suite), then you save even more with high end cards costing less than a $1000 each (the GTX 780Ti comes to mind). You also don’t need to have more expensive ECC memory or Xeon CPUs. A six core Core i7 with an overclock might very well be faster and easy to achieve with great software that comes with motherboards these days. We can even have Thunderbolt 2 on the latest boards.
With so many substitute components on the PC DIY side, you can do the work at the same level as someone with the professional stuff, for far less, and have a truly custom system that’s like no one elses. And at the end of the day, no one’s going to know if you created your project on a PC or a Mac, unless you tell them. But you will be pocketing more of your money each month without the higher lease of the top end Mac Pro.
But credit where credit is due. Apple has done a great job with this machine. And if your needs are specialized enough that the combinations of hardware provided by Apple fit, and you’re already using OS X, then it’s hard to say no to what they are offering. It is a very compelling offer for professionals using Macs who do require the precision and power of full blown workstation components.
What are your thoughts on the new Apple Mac Pro? Do you think we’ll ever be able to DIY build a PC workstation this small and powerful?
If you want to know how this plays out at the entry level price point of the Apple Mac Pro you can check out this article.
To see what is likely upgradeable (or not) in the New Mac Pro check out this article right here.
UPDATE: At CES 2014, we caught up with Other World Computing (OWC), who is the leader in DIY upgrades for the Mac ecosystem. We spoke directly to their CEO, Larry O’Connor, and in our exclusive interview, we cover exactly what is (and isn’t) upgradeable on Apple’s New Mac Pro 2013. You can check it out here.