For the purposes of this exercise, we used current prices at a large, nationwide internet retailer well respected by do-it-yourself PC builders. We targeted the new Mac Pro's most tricked-out arrangement, a $9,599 configuration:
- 2.7GHz 12-core Intel Xeon E5 with 30MB of L3 cache
- 64GB (4x16GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
- 1TB PCIe-based flash storage
- Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM each
To house the machine, we chose one of the highest-rated ATX-compatible cases available, Lian Li's stalwart PC-7B for $89.99. Lian Li's minimalist brushed aluminum towers have been staples of the build-it-yourself community for years and are about as close as the PC aftermarket gets to Apple's design aesthetic.
The PC-7B is a barebones chassis and does not come bundled with a power supply, so we added Corsair's CMPSU-650TX 650-watt CrossFire-ready unit for another $89.99. The 650TX provides enough juice to run both of the power-hungry GPUs as well as Intel's latest and greatest.
Driving the displays in our hypothetical rig are two AMD FirePro W9000 GPUs at $3,399.99 each. They match the Mac Pro's cards on spec with 6GB of GDDR5 memory and 264Gbps memory bandwidth, though it is difficult to say exactly how well they mimic Apple's heavily customized units.
The PC-7B is a barebones chassis and does not come bundled with a power supply, so we added Corsair's CMPSU-650TX 650-watt CrossFire-ready unit for another $89.99. The 650TX provides enough juice to run both of the power-hungry GPUs as well as Intel's latest and greatest.
Driving the displays in our hypothetical rig are two AMD FirePro W9000 GPUs at $3,399.99 each. They match the Mac Pro's cards on spec with 6GB of GDDR5 memory and 264Gbps memory bandwidth, though it is difficult to say exactly how well they mimic Apple's heavily customized units.
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