Text 12523, 81 rader
Skriven 2006-08-12 10:47:42 av /m (1:379/45)
Ärende: Apple thrashes Dell on Mac Pro pricing
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From: /m <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33576

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THE MAC PRO was unveiled at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WDCC) a
couple of days ago. It's a formidable system, based around a two Intel Xeon
'Woodcrest' processor dual core system, similar to what Dell is offering within
the Dell Precision 490 range for small businesses.

We thought it would be interesting to compare pricing between similarly specced
systems from Dell and Apple, and were gobsmacked at the results
- this should be very good reading for Apple advocates after our
previous commentary, which discussed the poor showing from Apple at this year's
WDCC.

Let's get the base specifications out of the way first, so it's clear the
systems are very similarly specified. Considering the recent Apple move towards
Intel architecture, the specs are almost indistinguishable:

Dell base specs
-Dell Precision 490
--Graphics Card - 128MB PCIe nVidia Quadro NVS 285
--Memory - 1GB, DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz, ECC (2x512MB DIMMS)
--HDD - 160GB 7200RPM S-ATA
--Optical - 16X DVD+/-RW drive
--KB/Mouse - USB Entry Quietkey, Dell standard USB
    2-Button Optical Mouse
--Sound and Firewire- Onboard AC97 sound and 1394a Controller Card
--No monitor
--Three year onsite economy service & support

Apple base specs
-Mac Pro
--NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB
--Memory - 1GB, DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz, ECC (2x512MB DIMMS)
--HDD - 160GB 7200RPM S-ATA
--Optical - Superdrive dual-layer DVD+/-RW drive
--KB/Mouse - Apple Keyboard and Apple Mighty Mouse
--Sound and Firewire - FireWire 800/400 and sound with
    various I/O inc. optical
--No monitor
--One year standard AppleCare

Now let's take a look at different processor configurations and the resulting
pricing from the US stores.

Dual Core Intel Xeon 2GHz x 2 (4MB shared L2 cache) Dell: $2,086.00 (with a
$200 discount for small business) Apple: $2,124.00

Dual Core Intel Xeon 2.66GHz x 2 (4MB shared L2 cache) Dell: $2,866.00 (with a
$200 discount for small business) Apple: $2,424.00

Dual Core Intel Xeon 3GHz x 2 (4MB shared L2 cache) Dell: $3,686.00 (with a
$200 discount for small business) Apple: $3,224.00

You can see Dell pips Apple by a tiny $38 for the 2GHz option, but then is
whipped into shape by Apple with a $442 saving on the 2.66GHz option and a
similarly large margin with the 3ghz processors - $462 per system. It must be
noted that the machine from Dell does have a three year on-site warranty
whereas the Apple has only the one year, but this is less important to small
businesses who have their own IT support, and consumers who wish to get the
cheapest deal - something Dell usually wins hands down.

This is quite incredible. Any major OEM has trouble matching pricing with Dell,
considering the massive volume discount Dell gets from Intel. But Apple aren't
only matching them on the lower specs, they're thrashing them on the higher
specced systems - relatively huge margins of pricing difference.

You have to wonder what sort of discounts Apple are getting from Intel, and if
this is why Dell is now holding hands with AMD. æ
===


gobsmacked???

  /m

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