A couple notes pointed out by Organism later in the thread:
1. One thing you'd be missing is the form factor. The iMac is an all-in-one PC, whereas if you build your own it'll be a fair bit larger
2. Remember, this build I'm presenting to you here is not a recommended build! It is just a quick comparison between the two products for price.
Glad you asked.
In this thread I'm going to walk you through the customization process of the iMac in order to show you how ridiculous they are.
The iMac 27-inch
This iMac starts at $1200. Not a bad price right? (heh) Let's check out the customizations.
The first thing you're able to customize is the processor.
As you can see the default is the Core i5 760. A wonderful processor, priced at around $210 USD. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-067-_-Product)
You can upgrade to the i7 870 for $200 USD more. The retail price of that processor is around $280 USD (As seen here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-213-_-Product)
210 - 280 = 70
Apple is charging you roughly three times extra money for the higher up processor.
The RAM is even more ridiculous.
Starting at two modules of 2GB, you can upgrade to four 2GB, two 4GB, or four 4GB.
This RAM here is 4x2GB , for $134, which is roughly $65 less than the upgrade to the same thing on the iMac. Except this RAM is faster, running at 1600mhz rather than 1333mhz.
This RAM, 2x4GB, does run at 1333mhz and only costs $100 compared to the $400 that it costs with the iMac.
An upgrade to 16GB of RAM (4x4GB) Apple wants you to pay 1000 fucking dollars. Using the RAM from the last example, $100 for 8GB, we could get 16GB for 200 dollars. The iMac RAM would cost five times that.
For the price of 16GB of RAM in the iMac, you can build your own desktop that will probably perform better than the iMac anyways.
Other than the HDD/SSD, you can't customize anything else. No video card options, no motherboard options, no sound card options, etc. The only thing you can do is add software and other useless peripherals.
With all of the customizations at their highest, the iMac costs $4100. i7 870, 16GB RAM (They don't tell you the manufacturer), a 2TB HDD + 256GB SSD. Let's compare that to a custom built desktop of the same specifications.
This computer has the same specifications for around $2600 less than the iMac.
The iMac is also 100% not futureproof. You are EXTREMELY limited when it comes to upgrading a mac product, so you'll be stuck with your outdated technology incredibly fast. The Mac is also very compact, leaving your PC prone to heating problems. I BELIEVE that all of the heatsinks in the iMac are discrete, but I could be wrong there.
Hope this thread helped some people who may have been about to buy a Mac. The other PCs that apple has on their website are just as bad, but there's no point doing the same thing for all of them.
I was inspired to make this thread by some girl who was arguing with me (With incredibly bad grammar) about how Macs were 100% undeniably better than any windows machine. She told me alllllllll about how the Mac OS uses its hardware more "efficantly" than Windows ever could. Please don't turn into her.
1. One thing you'd be missing is the form factor. The iMac is an all-in-one PC, whereas if you build your own it'll be a fair bit larger
2. Remember, this build I'm presenting to you here is not a recommended build! It is just a quick comparison between the two products for price.
Glad you asked.
In this thread I'm going to walk you through the customization process of the iMac in order to show you how ridiculous they are.
The iMac 27-inch
This iMac starts at $1200. Not a bad price right? (heh) Let's check out the customizations.
The first thing you're able to customize is the processor.
As you can see the default is the Core i5 760. A wonderful processor, priced at around $210 USD. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-067-_-Product)
You can upgrade to the i7 870 for $200 USD more. The retail price of that processor is around $280 USD (As seen here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-213-_-Product)
210 - 280 = 70
Apple is charging you roughly three times extra money for the higher up processor.
The RAM is even more ridiculous.
Starting at two modules of 2GB, you can upgrade to four 2GB, two 4GB, or four 4GB.
This RAM here is 4x2GB , for $134, which is roughly $65 less than the upgrade to the same thing on the iMac. Except this RAM is faster, running at 1600mhz rather than 1333mhz.
This RAM, 2x4GB, does run at 1333mhz and only costs $100 compared to the $400 that it costs with the iMac.
An upgrade to 16GB of RAM (4x4GB) Apple wants you to pay 1000 fucking dollars. Using the RAM from the last example, $100 for 8GB, we could get 16GB for 200 dollars. The iMac RAM would cost five times that.
For the price of 16GB of RAM in the iMac, you can build your own desktop that will probably perform better than the iMac anyways.
Other than the HDD/SSD, you can't customize anything else. No video card options, no motherboard options, no sound card options, etc. The only thing you can do is add software and other useless peripherals.
With all of the customizations at their highest, the iMac costs $4100. i7 870, 16GB RAM (They don't tell you the manufacturer), a 2TB HDD + 256GB SSD. Let's compare that to a custom built desktop of the same specifications.
This computer has the same specifications for around $2600 less than the iMac.
The iMac is also 100% not futureproof. You are EXTREMELY limited when it comes to upgrading a mac product, so you'll be stuck with your outdated technology incredibly fast. The Mac is also very compact, leaving your PC prone to heating problems. I BELIEVE that all of the heatsinks in the iMac are discrete, but I could be wrong there.
Hope this thread helped some people who may have been about to buy a Mac. The other PCs that apple has on their website are just as bad, but there's no point doing the same thing for all of them.
I was inspired to make this thread by some girl who was arguing with me (With incredibly bad grammar) about how Macs were 100% undeniably better than any windows machine. She told me alllllllll about how the Mac OS uses its hardware more "efficantly" than Windows ever could. Please don't turn into her.
You can install specific kinds of RAM and CPUs.
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