You are talking about workstations now. that is a very inefficient rig for home use. To begin with not many programs will make use of the 8 CPUs and to contimue NOBODY buying a workstation would get 4 HD2600 XT cards period. The precisions come with much more advanced options and can get up to 64 Gigs of RAM and have a Blu Ray burner(you can't get blu-ray burners for Mac Pro yet inside the case). Also for a workstation you don't want Wifi and you may not want bluetooth but you can still get those if you want them. At this stage in the game it is about selective features and speciality cards. If you want 4 graphics cards for multiple outputs you don't deserve to be spending 7700 on a computer period. You will be wanting to use Thomson Grass Valley turbo iDDR and Barco Switchers. For non GPU intensive workstations you want to use only one maybe two HD2600XTs as a monitor output only other wise you are going to be using Quadros and FireGLs. the low end Mac Pros are comparitely priced as in that same rigg minus the HD2600 XT but plus a more viable graphics card comes in around 8 grand at dell but when you start maxing out the specs on the Mac it falls behind both HP and Dell in terms of pricing and specs.

A real workstation woudl be using SAS with RAID 10 at the least and be connected to a SAN for back up and data retrieval. You would be running an OS like Red Hat or Solarias or even Windows Server depending on what you are doing with it and the need for CALs. as for the best made workstations they are done by CAD2 IMO.

http://www.cad2.com/

Don't look for a price because it isn't about that. For people here the ability to build and OC a Intel Core2Quad(though Dual Core is actually better for most uses here) with 4 gigs of RAM and 2 terabytes of HD running RAID 0 for about 3 grand with dual GeForce 9800s is more practical and yield better day to day performance than that would(even though that would perform better on Benchmarks)

In two years I'm going to be calling you to have you build me a computer. Course I'll add some extra in for labor. But it'd still be cheaper than buying anywhere else.

@BeenKenobi88

I would never put that computer together for gaming, and Apple would never expect you to buy it for that reason. I quoted where you said faster and cheaper, and not just for gaming. For none gaming high performance personal computing, the price can't be beat.

For a workstation doing something like blast analysis, or any kind of scientific research, you can not beat that price. This is Apples target audience (why they have the word "pro" in the system name). As someone who has used $250,000 SGI's in the past, and multi-million dollar IBM super computers, 8k for a rig is nothing. These applications are what Apple is targeting, and they are very cheap for what you get.

If I wanted a gaming rig, I would just go to Newegg and throw something together for a grand or two.

 Honestly, no regular consumer would need a rig like that though...

I didn't realize we were arguing in the $7000 realm...I thought we were arguing about computers that people can AFFORD and need, be it Mac or PC. 

Of course $8k is nothing for high performance research and when you compare it to super computers...but bloody hell, man, I'd call that pulling at straws. 

Let's talk an average consumer, who wouldn't use their computer for intense computing, just needing what makes sense.  Nobody really needs 32 GB of ram...anything past 4 isn't really useful with today's programs, you wouldn't need 4 graphics cards, for videogames it's the newer shaders that matter, and combining 4 so-so cards is still not as good as two very good cards, or even one perhaps.

We're just not talking about your kind of computer, the average Mac or PC user doesn't want that.

And to Stever89, I'll help you build a PC rig when you want, though I might not be perfectly up-to-date with everything...I haven't been keeping up with mobos and processors lately.  But I'd check newegg and slickdeals and grab good deals when you see them.

I like PC's. I'll probably get a Mac in the near future though.

I agree with you, but the business workstation class PC is the market Apple is after with the Mac Pro. They are not made for gamers, yet gamers tend to think the Mac Pro is overpriced. They are not overpriced, they are just not made for the average consumer.

It's like saying the Corvette ZR1 is overpriced because 95% of the market wound find it costing way to much money for there needs. If you are in the market for a Super Car, it's by far the best deal on the market.

I just don't like the argument that the Mac Pro is overpriced because it does not fit a market it was never designed for. 

For awhile there I was beginning to like Apple, but they are turning into jerks, releasing crappy software updates, and charging $20 for a iPod update WTF IS THAT ABOUT!? Time limited movie rentals, limited formats in iTunes, Quicktime sucks, atleast the PC version does, iPod prices keep climbing, they put Blue-tooth in the Touch I believe but won't activate it, just how they are beginning to limit features and charge for extras.

I wouldn't be surprised if soon we saw a OSX Basic, OSX Professional, OSX Premium, and OSX Ultimate.

Excuse me if i'm wrong, but ain't Macs just PC's sealed in a nice shiny enclosure and running an idiot-proof OS with shiny icons + almost double the price? Besides, what was all that fuss with being able to run devil-OS on Macs? OSX not good enough?

*Gets ready for flames*


P.S. I work on both + i'm a graphics designer

 Ok, well, I still think it's overpriced and unnecessary.  Even if you're not using it for games, a similar, much cheaper computer could be built that does the job just as well.

^ Exactly Macs just look good but you do have to pay half your life for them...Although, Macs do look good...