* Two 2GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
* 1GB (2 x 512MB)
* NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI)
* 160GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 1 x SuperDrive
* Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse
* Mac OS X
* Five USB ports
* Two FireWire 400 ports
* Two FireWire 800 ports
£1200 (uni discount) i may buy one at that price.
Bar the OS, its nothing but a PC and could be bought for a whole lot less than £1200.
Hmm
Lets examine...
Assuming its the 2GHz option then.
2 Xeon 5130s, £244 each at
InsightSupermicro X7DAE - £366 at
this place that Ive never heard of2x512MB Kingston FB-DIMMs - £148 at
Another place Ive never heard of256MB 7300GT - Worth about £60 anywhere
That is £1062 before we factor in a power supply, case, hard drive, operating system and optical drives.
That is an E-ATX board so well need a fairly large case. Something like an Antec P180 should do. £90 at Dabs.
PSU: It needs to be an EPS one so how about a Coolermaster model
here £72
160GB Seagate - £40
Superdrive - £30
Decent keyboard and mouse - £40
Windows XP Pro x64 (has to be pro for the dual processors): OEM Version can be got for about £90
That works out at £1424 which is pretty similar to what Apple sell the Mac Pro for inc VAT.
I may not have chosen the cheapest motherboard available but frankly I couldnt find any with 4 PCIe x16 slots. That is the closest I could find to the Apple one.
Im not a great apple fan, Ive never got on very well with OSX but I have to hand it to them, theyve got a nice good value for the spec system here.