Kill your mac pro - Late 2014

[SSOB]

So I wanted to see if apple has fixed it's main problem with their PC's. The fact that they become obsolete and the price/performance goes downhill very quickly after they have been released. this is always the case with macs I feel, when they are just released the value for money is good but only 6 months -1 year down the road the value sucks again.

 

I've made two builds to demonstrate this :

 

Entry level mac pro killer.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($319.88 @ OutletPC) 

CPU Cooler: Corsair H90 94.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($79.99 @ Amazon) 

Motherboard: ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($116.98 @ Newegg) 

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($129.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Transcend MTS400 256GB M.2-2242 Solid State Drive  ($117.97 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($77.75 @ OutletPC) 

Video Card: PNY Quadro 6000 6GB Video Card  ($1084.99 @ Amazon) 

Case: Silverstone FT03B-MINI (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case  ($138.13 @ TigerDirect) 

Power Supply: Silverstone 600W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply  ($129.99 @ Amazon) 

Optical Drive: EVGA 100-OD-S101-BR DVD/CD Writer  ($42.55 @ Amazon) 

Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 industrialPPC-2000 PWM 107.4 CFM 140mm  Fan  ($26.75 @ Amazon) 

Total: $2264.97

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-29 10:03 EST-0500

 

Alternate GPU for the first build, It's cheaper and slightly faster but has less Vram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G28N5480&cm_re=Quadro-_-14-133-558-_-Product

 

Price on the mac store for a similarly specced build:

I will say this: Yes the parts aren't as ''workstation'' and failure proof as the mac pro. But 95% of the users will not notice this at all. 

 

Top of the line killer:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2697 V2 2.7GHz 12-Core Processor  ($2479.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Nepton 120XL 76.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($89.99 @ Newegg) 

Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Gene Micro ATX LGA2011 Motherboard  ($241.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($287.98 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Mushkin Scorpiun PCIe 960GB PCI-E Solid State Drive  ($799.95 @ Amazon) 

Video Card: AMD FirePro W9100 16GB Video Card  ($3103.98 @ Newegg) 

Case: Silverstone FT03B MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($161.99 @ Directron) 

Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ Micro Center) 

Optical Drive: EVGA 100-OD-S101-BR DVD/CD Writer  ($42.55 @ Amazon) 

Case Fan: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 55.0 CFM 120mm  Fan  ($21.99 @ Newegg) 

Total: $7330.40

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-29 10:30 EST-0500

 

 

Again these builds aren't the same ( First one is a just little less powerfull and the second one is ALOT more powerfull, especially the GPU)

 

Yes , in fact the second build will destroy the highest specced mac pro you can buy. Yes the parts aren't workstation grade, but 95% of the users are not going to notice the difference.

yes, it doesn't, can you hackingtosh it: yes, so is this a big deal: NO. And for people who want it straight out of the box, you're paying 2k for an os which is alot!

yes you are right, the Quadro 6000 still beats the apple option tho. but if you can get the K4200

Lol no... 

 

 

We also tested OpenCL performance using Luxmark. The score of 1366 is approximately 33 per cent faster than each FirePro D700 (aka W9000) card managed in the Mac Pro, which is in line with what we were expecting, given the increased core count.

Full review: http://www.3dartistonline.com/news/2014/04/amd-w9100-the-worlds-first-review/

[Castdeath97]

Are they any ways you can get ECC RAM on this?

[ZetZet]

Ye, but they don't look nearly as nice and don't run macos. People who are willing to save always bought pc's, orther people buy stuff that has better marketing.

[SSOB]

Are they any ways you can get ECC RAM on this?

As I said in the post, these builds aren't exactally the same. And yes that ECC ram was actually the only thing I could think of that was less ''workstationy'' than the PCPartpicker builds, the thing is, 95% of people don't need ECC ram.

[witting]

The reason the price is lower is because the mac pro has those workstation grade components, your build does not.

[Mao_Zedong]

The advantage of the mac pro is size, some people think that size matter (totally not an innuendo) and will pay more for a smaller pc.

[Mao_Zedong]

The reason the price is lower is because the mac pro has those workstation grade components, your build does not.

Actually, his mostly partly do.

[Castdeath97]

The reason the price is lower is because the mac pro has those workstation grade components, your build does not.

It does have a workstation graphic card and processor. 

[Thecrazyswede]

Ye, but they don't look nearly as nice and don't run macos. People who are willing to save always bought pc's, orther people buy stuff that has better marketing.

 

What if you use a macro keypad or a keyboard with marco options ?.

[Castdeath97]

The only other thing I can think of to improve these build is to go for more silence optimised components, maybe even a bigger but more silent case.

[Paralectic]

Just no..

[Toddwjp]

It does have a workstation graphic card and processor. 

 

 

workstation graphics cards only matter in a few applications. and a worksation cpu cost the same as consumer pretty much (until you go up to the higher core count xeons

[Briggsy]

Ye, but they don't look nearly as nice and don't run macos. People who are willing to save always bought pc's, orther people buy stuff that has better marketing.

 

pretty much this... brand recognition and association are powerful marketing tools.

[witting]

It does have a workstation graphic card and processor. 

But not ECC memory, I also think the MoBo they use is not really consumer oriented.

[SSOB]

Ye, but they don't look nearly as nice and don't run macos. People who are willing to save always bought pc's, orther people buy stuff that has better marketing.

Oh no?

Case on the left is the case used in builds.

 

 

And yes you are right, they don't run MacOS. You can hackingtosh them easily tho, if anybody decides to build these I will happily assist them  it's possible with the hardware I'm 95% sure that it's possible with the hardware I chose

[Sauron]

Maybe for the first build you could have gone with a 5820k, just to stomp the mac even more ^^ the price wouldn't have been that much higher and it would kill the "it doesn't have 10mb of cache" argument.

[Castdeath97]

Why is this in off topic, can any mod move it to build logs perhaps?

[SSOB]

Just no..

Just yes, Nice argument tho , I love the three dots argument@

[Archangel1994]

Are they any ways you can get ECC RAM on this?

You can get ECC memory for the xeon and you can replace the 4790k with an about equal xeon and you can get ECC for both while remaining below the Mac Pro price

[SSOB]

Maybe for the first build you could have gone with a 5820k, just to stomp the mac even more ^^ the price wouldn't have been that much higher and it would kill the "it doesn't have 10mb of cache" argument.

Again As I said, 95% of people are not going to notice a differene.

[Castdeath97]

 

 

The impressive coincidence is that both look like trash cans.

[Sauron]

Oh no?

 

 

I have to say, I can't decide which looks more like a trash can don't get me wrong both look pretty good but theyreally remind me of trash cans...

[SSOB]

The advantage of the mac pro is size, some people think that size matter (totally not an innuendo) and will pay more for a smaller pc.

First build is pretty much the same size:

Second done is a tad bigger:

[othertomperson]

Again As I said, 95% of people are not going to notice a differene.

 

Then what you are saying is that the Mac Pro you are comparing against has a different target market than your build so the price difference is completely irrelevant. You also apparently missed the part where the Mac Pros have dual FirePro GPUs. Adding another one to match the spec of the Mac Pros would put you way over budget.

[SSOB]

Then what you are saying is that the Mac Pro you are comparing against has a different target market than your build so the price difference is completely irrelevant. You also apparently missed the part where the Mac Pros have dual FirePro GPUs. Adding another one to match the spec of the Mac Pros would put you way over budget.

Funny you're mentioning this. Both Gpu's are more powerfull than the dual D700. Don't believe me , look it up or ask linus on twitter or something.