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Comment by niea_11 | Hacker News Reader

I don't use apple products but I think the high price of a workstation is not something specific to Apple.

From a discussion I had with a friend recently, I found that Precision workstations from Dell or Z workstations from HP have similar prices for similar performances (sometime prices can reach 40k or 70k dollars).

When comparing Mac Pro to an enthusiast pc build, yes the mac pro is "overpriced", but the mac pro is using a Xeon which is pricier than a ryzen (even if performance wise it's inferior) and a pro gpu which also cost more than consumer gpu (again, even if performance is inferior). The price of a nvidia quadro is always higher than a Geforce gpu with the same specs.

You can see a spec/price comparison I did when having the discussion with my friend here : https://mega.nz/file/Nj4UnSJR#fBdZfn3zoZ8boxap35-GWEgDlicH3R...

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It's not just "enthusiast PC builds". You can buy plenty of PCs in that middle category of high-but-not-extreme performance without the certifications, Quadros and vendor markup that a full-on "workstation" model has. And they're perfectly fine choices for many professional use cases.

For that market, the Mac Pro is overpriced (the high-end Dell/HP workstations are too), and Apple doesn't make anything more suited for it. That's the criticism. That the Mac Pro is acceptably priced compared to the Dell/HP workstations doesn't matter if that's not what you need.

My bad, I misunderstood the context of the comment. Thanks for the clarification.

For me personally, outside of laptops and phones, I don't see the appeal of using Apple hardware (unless you want to use MacOS X).

> I think the high price of a workstation is not something specific to Apple.

A professional workstation, with support, services, guaranteed replacement components, guaranteed service-life, maintenance contracts and so on is very different from an enthusiast-built machine.

It's like comparing a BMW M3 to a tricked out VW Golf. You can fit a bigger, badder engine under the VW's hood, stiffen the suspension, replace the gearbox and so on but, in the end, you can get one straight from the dealer and not everyone is inclined to assemble a car from parts.

Did that once. It's fun, educational and not very practical.

Well, VW does sells tricked out VW Golf, straight from the factory (GTI, R) :) Though it is more competition to M135i than M3.

Exactly. You can make a VM Golf that performs like an M3, but, in the end, it'll be a lot of work for an unreliable car.

And the M3 is reliable? BMWs are famous for being leased since repair costs will kill you once your warranty is up.

Depends on the model. The E-series 3-ers were very reliable; for the F-series and newer it is exactly as you wrote.

The leasing thing is for slightly different reason: it is being used by such a market segment, that always wants something new. They would not drive older car, even if it was reliable, it would be not cool enough. Unfortunately, since cca 2010 BMW also found it out, and since then their cars stopped being good -- they don't have to last -- and are just expensive.

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