Mac vs. PC "Apples" to Apples price comparison
You may think that just after getting a new computer from work, I might hold off on buying another one for a while. Not so. When I got my Macbook Pro from Google, I also lost my only remaining Windows computer, my trusty old Thinkpad T60p. Since gaming is still very much a Windows dominated area, I decided to go shopping for a new computer.
The process of buying that computer got me to thinking about the differences between Macs and PCs. I often hear that Macs are more expensive, but I wanted to know by how much and what that means to normal people. So I went window shopping.
In the following comparisons, all Mac prices are pulled from the Apple Store's website, and PC prices are pulled from CyberPowerPC.com (from whom I also bought my new computer). If you are in the market for a new PC and want to configure but not build it yourself, I've found CyberPower's markups to be very small over the prices you might find on a site like Newegg.com.
Also in the following analysis I will completely ignore the "niceness" factor. There's no question that the Apple devices compared here are better designed than the PC devices, and reasonable people could argue that OS X is also much better. The question is: how much better is it in dollars? That's what you have to ask yourself as you read these comparisons.
First up is the Mac Mini. This is the computer for a price sensitive individual who doesn't care too much about performance and mostly wants to edit documents, photos, and browse the web. Needless to say, a computer of these specifications is not even going to be able to load modern games on any but the most basic settings. It's also got only a smidgen of storage, but that can be remedied with an inexpensive external drive.
The Mac doesn't fare too badly here. It's only $300 more than a roughly equivalent PC. Its form factor is an unquestionable win (the PC comes in a midsize tower case). The PC has a faster processor, but slightly slower RAM. It's probably advantage PC on speed, but let's be generous and call it a wash. The Mac Mini comes with support for 802.11n wireless, but on the downside it can't power a 30" monitor without a separate DisplayPort to Dual DVI converter, which costs $100.
Ah the iconic iMac. The idea of a display that has the computer built in is not new to Apple, but it is one of the few computing machines available these days that follows that philosophy.
For this PC I wanted to get RAM equivalence, so you can see that we've upgraded the PC to DDR3 RAM. Unfortunately, as far as I could tell it only comes in increments of 3 GB on the CyberPowerPC configuration pages. Also, CyberPowerPC doesn't sell any Core 2 PCs with DDR3 RAM, so we had to step up to a Core i7.
In this matchup, the PC is substantially more powerful. The Core i7-920 is an enthusiast processor and absolutely blows the 2.93 GHz Core 2 Duo out of the water. The PC also has two additional GB of RAM, and all of the RAM is faster than the Mac's RAM. On Apple's website, an additional 4GB of RAM would cost $1000, so you might say that we should increase the price of the Mac by $500 to get parity. Again, let's not kick Apple while they are down. The PC also has a slightly larger hard drive.
For graphics, the GT 120 is just a rebranding of the 9600 GT, so the PC and Mac have equivalence. Likewise, the displays have the same specs, although I think most people will agree that Apple's Cinema displays are more attractive than a standard PC display.
Overall, we're looking at a much more powerful PC for about $500 less than what you would pay for the equivalent Apple computer.
Now we're getting into the realm of the enthusiast/professional. This is a no holds barred battle, and the trend of price difference is beginning to make itself plain. The more powerful the computer, the greater the price differential between a Mac and the equivalent PC will be.
Once again, because of differences in selection options, we've been forced to make some concessions for the PC. CyberPowerPC doesn't have a Xeon option as far as I can tell. The Core i7-975 is once again a much more powerful processor than the Xeon Quad, and it shows in the price tag (the Core i7 is 50% of the PC's total price). Once again the PC has slightly faster RAM, but this time at least we've got the same amount. The graphics are also equivalent. Additionally, we've RAIDed the hard drives on these two computers. Once again, the Mac comes in slightly smaller on disk capacity.
This CPU is complete overkill for any application (on both the Mac and the PC side, but more so on the PC side). No one should be buying any Intel processor with Extreme Edition. And Intel should rename the processor series the "here's my credit card do whatever you want with it" edition. If we were willing to accept slightly worse CPU performance than the Mac, then the price of the PC would come down $500. Once again, though, I don't want to kick Apple in the face while they are bleeding on the sidewalk, so I'll refrain.
Even this computer is not very good for playing games. Unfortunately, no Apple computer comes equipped with the right kind of graphics to play modern games on any display larger than 22". This was one of the biggest disappointments while browsing the Apple Store.
To conclude, I really like the Mac I have. I am glad I traded in my Windows laptop for it. I would probably not buy a Mac for my own computer, but Google is apparently not as price-sensitive as I am. They are indeed nicer, but the differences in specifications at a given cost are far too high. Unreasonably, insanely high. For anyone who would like to experience OS X but not pay Apple prices, I suggest you look up the term "Hackintosh."
