Monday, April 16, 2012

Everything else is better, cheaper.

Apple Mac Pro:
One 3.33GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere”
16GB (4x4GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB
One 18x SuperDrive
Apple total cost: $5,060.69


Alienware Aurora:
Intel® Core™ i7-3930K (Six Core, 12MB Cache,Overclocked up to 3.9Ghz)
16GB Quad Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 7870
1TB SATA 6Gb/s (7,200RPM) 32MB Cache
Single Drive: 24X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

Alienware total cost:  $2,299.00

So, Alienware is supplying the same chip (Intel 3930k), RAM, disk, double the graphics memory for half of the $$. I've always considered Alienware pretty damn expensive, and now they're owned by a company which I'd avoid, but this is commodity hardware, not a laptop with durability problems.