See the comment below:
>A coworker and I were discussing this earlier so I priced out a Dell workstation with fairly similar specs: same number of cores but across 2x CPUs, same RAM, same video card RAM, no 1TB of flash storage. The Dell ended up costing negligibly more, something like $50 or $60 above the Apple.
I've done the same thing many times with the same results.
Perhaps with non-brand name components you can do slightly better. Not much better in any case -- and you'd be wishing you had spent that extra $500 anyway.
People make an even worse mistake comparing a MBP and other laptops.
Sure, if all you want is the same CPU and GPU (or perhaps slightly better) you can get a similar PC laptop for half the price or less.
But you didn't factor in stuff like: weight (isn't it kinda big deal on a laptop?), vastly better battery life (isn't it kinda big deal on a laptop?), size (isn't it kinda big deal on a laptop?), top notch retina display with top scores for color accuracy and brightness in reviews (isn't it kind of big deal in general?). And the little things, like: multitouch trackpad, unibody construction (you might not even want it, but you have to admit it DOES cost more than plastic) illuminated keyboard, thunderbolt ports, great sleep implementation, mag safe adapter, etc etc.
So, yes, you do get something with same/better CPU/GPU for less money -- but you don't get the SAME stuff overall. Those comparisons are like basing your car purchase on horsepower or cc alone -- and forgeting everything else about the car.