Apple’s Newest Mac Pro Costs Less than DIY PC Build… Thanks to AMD

Word’s out that Apple’s latest Mac Pro costs less than an equal-configured do-it-yourself PC, but as we’ve discovered, this is one of those cases where there’s more than meets the eye. Has Apple finally loosened up on its famed “Apple Tax”? Not so. Instead, the attractive pricing of the latest Mac Pro owes its thanks to none other than AMD.

The “Can I build a PC for less than the price of a Mac?” question is about as old as Apple itself, and it pops-up every single time the Cupertino firm releases a new desktop model. Not to break tradition, the question again came to the surface after last week’s launch of the updated Mac Pro; this time, the answer to that aged question was a bit different.

Futurelooks‘ Stephen Fung, who happens to be a wizard PC builder (he beat me twice over at Tiger Direct’s annual charity event at CES), took to Apple’s website and others to see if a do-it-yourself PC build would be possible for less money than an equal-spec’d Mac Pro. What he found was interesting: Not only was there no visible “Apple Tax”, the Mac Pro turned out to be cheaper.

About $2,000 cheaper, in fact. I didn’t catch the article right as it was published, but was instead tipped-off by our Mac-lovin’ Senior Editor Brett Thomas. Brett and I have had some fun Mac vs. PC debates in the past, so this was one of those times I had to investigate further.

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