Last Year I wrote an article about blowing up the low level mac pro to show how overpriced their computers are. For $2500 I gathered parts together for a monster of a computer that could easily compete with the mac pro, not to mention win. This year, I decided to go a step further and defeat the mac pro once and for all! At first I started assembling my parts list for the top level mac pro, which is $5000..... Too easy. SO what I did was custom configure my mac to have the best possible mac pro that money can buy. It looked a little something like this.
- Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon "Westmere” (12 cores)
- 64GB (8x8GB)
- Mac Pro RAID Card
- 512GB solid-state drive
- 512GB solid-state drive
- 512GB solid-state drive
- 512GB solid-state drive
- Two ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
- Two 18x SuperDrives
- Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
- Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
- Apple Magic Mouse + Magic Trackpad
- Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
- Epson WorkForce 545 All-in-One Printer
Total price? $18,465.95
Just by looking you can see that this is a completely ridiculous amount to pay for a mac. I got straight to work designing my ultimate computer. I started with the motherboard, which I chose an ASUS Rampage Extreme IV. I chose it because it has plenty of PCI Slots and 8 RAM slots. It's also the new LGA2011 Socket, so it could handle the Intel i7 3960X EASILY. To keep that processor cool, I chose Intel's I69 "Liquid" Liquid cooler. That'll do it. To Match that 64GB of RAM, I chose 8 sticks of 8 GB of Corsair Veangence RAM. Done and DONE. To match the RAID card in the Mac Pro, I got one of my own. Nicely done, Me. Now to match the 4 512Gb SSD drives, I got two 500Gb SSDs myself. Now to fill the RAID, I'm getting 4 2TB SATA HDDs. I'm not stopping there with storage though. I also picked up 3 6TB external Hard Drives. Just for fun ;). To compete against the two 5770 Graphics cards, I got a wonderful XFX 7950. I got a second one too, just to take up space on that Corsair Oblivion 800D Full Tower Case. Oh the mac pro has two "Super drives"? Well I'm getting two Blu Ray DVD burners and a Lightscribe DVD drive. Boom. To power all of it I have a 1200W power supply. The mac has a keyboard, mouse, and magic trackpad. To not be TOO insulting I got the Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard, and the Razer Gaming Mouse. To handle the trackpad I threw in a Wacom cintiq Interactive Pen Display. Mac comes with a printer too? FANCY. I got an HP LaserJet Duplex Office printer ;). I also grabbed some 5.1 surround sound speakers. Since the Mac comes with OS X installed, I added Windows 7 Ultimate to my cart. I also got an external TV tuner so I can record my most loved shows on TV. So the Mac has two 27" Monitors right? Pretty Nice, But I got myself 4 27" Monitors. That wasn't enough for me, I still had money left over. So to top it all off I got a 55 inch monitor to show off my beast of a PC. Still had a couple bucks left, So I got a 42" TOUCH SCREEN monitor, just to show off to my friends. The result came out
So here's the table. 2.93Ghz 12 Core Processor
| +$1200
| Intel
Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition Processor - Six Core 3.30 GHz (3.90 GHz Max Turbo) |
$1,049.99
 |
|
| LIQUID Intel High Performance Liquid Cooler | $99.99 | 64Gb(8x8Gb) Memory
| +$3,550
| 2x Corsair Vengeance Desktop Memory Kit - 32GB (4x 8GB) | $1,199.98 | Mac Pro Raid Card
| +$700
| StarTech 4-Port Serial ATA RAID 0,1 PCI Card | $39.99
| 4x 512Gb Solid State Drive
| +$5000
|
3x Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive - 500GB | $419.97 |
|
|
4x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB Hard Drive
| $599.88 |
|
|
2x Fantom Drives Gforce3 MegaDisk External Dual Drive - 6TB |
$1,649.97
| 2x Radeon HD 5770 1Gb Video Card
| +$250
|
2x XFX
HD 7950 Black Edition Video Card
|
$999.98
| 2x 27" LCD Flat Panel
| +$2998
| 4x Asus 27" Widescreen HD LCD Monitor - 1080p, 1920x1080 | $1,039.96
|
|
| Planar 55" Class Widescreen LED Backlit Monitor | $2,499.99
|
|
|
HP 42" Class Touchscreen LCD Display
| $1,899.99
| Magic Mouse
| +$69
| Razer Naga Epic Elite Gaming Mouse | $119.99
|
Apple Keyboard
|
+$20
| Logitech
G19 Gaming Keyboard | $179.99
| Magic Trackpad
| +$69
| Wacom Cintiq 12WX Interactive Pen Display
| $1,199.99 |
Epson All In One Printer
|
+$129.95
|
HP
LaserJet CP5225dn Color Laser Printer |
$1,699.99
|
Base Computer
|
+$4999
| Corsair Obsidian 800D Full Tower Case
| $259.99
|
|
| ASUS
Rampage IV Extreme Motherbaord |
$469.99
|
|
|
Thermaltake ToughPower Power Supply - 1200W |
$299.99
|
|
|
Hercules
XPS 5.1 70 Slim Computer Speaker System - 5.1 Channel
|
$152.99
|
|
| AverMedia AVerTV USB HD DVR | $174.99
|
|
|
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Operating System Software - English |
$299.99
|
|
|
|
|
TOTAL
|
$18,465.95 | Total
| $16,687.55
|
Now for those who like to save money, let's see if we can take out all of those little extras and make an affordable computer with the same potential at the Mac Pro. Here we go! Now to do that, the first thing to do would be to get rid of the excess. So let's lose the 6TB HDDs, and 3 of our 4 2TB HDDs. Now we get rid of our 55" and 42" monitor along with 2 of our 27" monitors. Now we can replace our super powered gaming mouse and keyboard for a gyro technology air mouse and wireless keyboard. Let's lose the expensive cintiq tablet for a wacam large touch tablet. Dump the speakers and DVR. Replace our HP duplex printer with a Brother Office All in One. The reason I am not downgrading my video cards is to make up for the lack in processing power that the six more cores gives the mac pro. With the better video cards, the video load of the computer is taken off, allowing the processors to do more work on their own.
There you have it. A completely powerful and useful machine for people who want a cheaper computer than those mac rip-offs. For less than half the price you can get a completely satisfying machine that can beat the mac. Thanks for reading!
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