I won’t argue (at least not against Deane!) that Apple’s hardware is a tad more expensive than your run-o-the-mill WinTel gear… Not that there aren’t exceptions, but for the most part it’s true. And a good example is the newly released 8-core Mac Pro, which starts out with a base price of $2,799.
But…
If you pimp one out by clicking all the boxes, the price gets up there pretty quickly. I hit $25,246 high.
I have to confess that I broke one of Deane’s original rules by adding a pair of 30-inch Cinema HD displays. I figured, dang; as long as I’m spending like a drunken sailor, what’s another $3,600 gonna hurt?
I probably could have deselected the quad fibre channel card too, but I’d have to buy one anyway to hook up that dandy $12,399 7TB XServe RAID box; that pushes the price up to $37,645.
Yeah, that’d be great. But you know… for that kind of money I could get a decently equipped Ariel Atom instead. Aaah, what the heck! The boss won’t notice!