The best box that Apple makes is the Mac Pro.
The best box that Dell makes is the Precision Workstation, commonly abbreviated as PW. Both are business machines first and foremost.
It is very easy to configure either to run you $20,000 for final cost.
How to do it? Simple. Check off every single possible option you can throw in when configuring it.
First, the Mac Pro.
This is an 8-core system (two 2.93GHz Quad Core Intel Xeons) stuffed with 32GB of RAM, 3 1TB hard drives, two optical drives, two 30-inch flat-panel displays, wireless everything, fibre channel, a bunch of preinstalled software and of course the AppleCare Protection plan.
And now, the Big Dell, the Precision Workstation T7500.
The screen shot of this would have been too long, so here are the specs:
- Windows Vista 64-bit Business Edition
- Dual Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processors W5580 3.20GHz, 8M L3, 6.4GT/s,turbo
- 48GB, DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1333MHz, ECC (12 DIMMS). You read correctly. 48 gigs of RAM. This is an $8,000+ option.
- 4 Year ProSupport for End Users and 4 Year 4HR 7×24 Onsite Service
- 4.0GB NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 5800, DUAL MON, 1DP & 2DVI
- Microsoft™ Office® Professional 2007
- McAfee® Total Protection for Small Business,15 Month Subscription,Eng
- Drive 1 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
- Drive 2 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
- Drive 3 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
- Drive 4 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
- Drive 5 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™ Yes, this is 5 1.5TB drives for a total of 7.5 TB space.
- 16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD™ and Roxio Creator™
- Monitor 1 – Dell 24 inch UltraSharp™2408WFP Widescreen, Adjustable Stand, VGA/DVI
- Monitor 2 – Dell 24 inch UltraSharp™2408WFP Widescreen, Adjustable Stand, VGA/DVI
- Monitor 3 – Dell 24 inch UltraSharp™2408WFP Widescreen, Adjustable Stand, VGA/DVI
- Monitor 4 – Dell 24 inch UltraSharp™2408WFP Widescreen, Adjustable Stand, VGA/DVI
- Chassis Intrusion Switch
There are many, many different ways I could have priced out the Dell.
Instead of the four 24-inch monitors, I could have gone with three Dell 30-inchers (which I probably would). That would be a separate purchase albeit from the same company.
In addition, the Dell costs more mainly due to the extra 16GB of RAM, the four monitors and the extra two hard drives. Mac Pros at present cannot be configured from the OEM to go beyond 3 internal hard drives or 32GB RAM, and that’s by design.
What’s the Super Dell best suited for?
AutoCAD or high resolution medical imaging. With CAD in particular, this is still PC-only world.
And not gaming, you dope.
What’s the Super Mac best suited for?
HD/Film/Video editing suite. In a separate purchase I’d tack on either Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere or Media 100. Whatever had the most local (important) support. And when I say local I mean other shops in the area you live that support what you have. Some places favor Final Cut while others Media 100, etc.
Does anybody actually buy these things?
Yes, and routinely. Neither OEM would build them if there weren’t a market to buy them.
In medical, industrial design and research facilities you will see these Dells.
In pro video houses/animation studios, you will see these Macs.
Of course, neither looks any different from their lower-cost same-model boxes, but it’s what’s on the inside that counts obviously.
Could you build a PC with the above Dell specs for cheaper?
Yes. And in fact you can go higher than 64GB RAM.
How about 256GB RAM? Sound impossible? It isn’t. You have to use a server motherboard instead of desktop, like this one.
Ridiculous for a home PC? Very. And totally unnecessary. Sure, you’ll be the coolest nerd in town, but you’ll be paying a loan off for all that RAM for the next 10 years.
On the desktop side, the most RAM supported if you bought the motherboard thru NewEgg is 24GB. This is a bit crappy because there should be 32GB RAM support options for PC builders. Alas, there isn’t. Yet. Maybe there will be come 2010?
At present you’re best off using a board that supports 8 or 16GB. And you’ll obviously have to use 64-bit Windows (or Linux) to access all of that.
Is there any way to get the cost of the Mac Pro down?
Several ways, actually.
The first rule to buying Mac is to purchase as little as possible from the Apple Store concerning the box itself.
Instead of ordering your Mac with 32GB, order with 1GB. Fill it up with RAM from another vendor. Just remember to specifically order Mac Memory.
Instead of Apple 30-inch Cinema Displays, use 30-inch Dell UltraSharps. Even Mac people know that those are awesome monitors.
Instead of ordering 3 hard drives, take 1. Like with the RAM, buy the others from another vendor and install it yourself.
This is essentially no different than configuring the Dell. You put the money into the processors more than anything else. For the rest, you go with other vendors.
The only drawback to this is that the other-vendor stuff isn’t supported under OEM warranty. This can be said for either OEM.
Well with me, storage is a priority. I have 6 500GB HDD in my server pc and I need to find a better way to configure them.
Ahh yes, AutoCAD. I haven’t heard anyone mention it in a while. I use it everyday, but only for 2D, so the above machine is WAY too big. Actually, it’s probably too big for any AutoDesk product for PC (they have a few imaging programs for Linux). But I’m learning AutoDesk REVIT now, and a 32-bit os just isn’t gonna cut it anymore. I need access to 8GB RAM or more. I would love to have the above machine in front of me daily, but there lies another problem. 8 cores? Revit was not designed to utilize multi-core processors, except for Rendering. So if you’re just using the design portion of the job (architecture, structure, or MEP), you won’t really use them. It’s the Architect that wants a Rendering that gets to really use the multiple cores. Actually, the fact that this software is for Windows is why I can’t consider switching to Mac, no matter what Dave praises it for. When AutoDesk jumps on board, I’ll be right behind. (not holding my breath) I think another program I’m less familiar with would really use this machine: ProEngineer w/ Wildfire.
I had to LOL too. I’m an architect and CAD consultant, and I am [reluctantly] learning Revit too. I know ArchiCAD very well, which I think is a better program, and have been using it for a decade, since I was at university. But now when AutoDesk do their food and wine presentations at large firms, they do not even mention AutoCAD anymore. Revit has replaced it for architecture, and Inventor for mechanical engineering. You get the latest version of AutoCAD Architecture/Mechanical free with these programs, to help firms make the transition to modern parametric object-based modelling. AutoCAD never did 3D very well, being a kludge made from an ancient DOS based 2D *Draughting* program. ArchiCAD started off on the Mac, in the ’80s, but now it looks that Revit is becoming the new architecture standard, with Autodesk’s user-base and marketing money. I think this is a shame, as ArchiCAD is better.
These types of program are used by hundreds of thousands of architects and engineers all over the world, in ordinary projects, and all you’d need is a few gigabytes of RAM and a decent FireGL/Quadro OpenGL graphics card for the most complex projects.
But the machine mentioned in this article would only be used by a very small group of people, in comparison, working in highly complex engineering projects. I could imagine that sort of machine used by Boeing, for example, for complete aircraft models, using CAD programs like CATIA. Even then, the engineers working on the individual parts would be using machines far less powerful.
Heh, on second thoughts, I had another look at the spec, and the machine is nothing that amazing. I only noticed the high amount of RAM and price before. RAM options like that tend to be expensive – it’s basic supply/demand economics. The rest of the spec would be used widely in industry, even though the 80/20 rule still applies – you can get 80% of that performance for 20% of the price. It is actually rather bad in the hard drive department – SATA? Even I use SAS drives in RAID.