Apple pricing is reciculous, me and my buddy made a comp that had:
an FX-62
4gb of ram, 800mhz ddrII
3TB of hard drive space at 7200RPM (4 750GB seagate drives)
300GB of HD space at 10k RPM (2 Raptor-X drives)
4x Sony DVD+-RW DL
1x sound blaster audigy x-fi platinum (with the drive bay thing)
2x XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 Dual GPU 520M Xtreme / 1GB GDDR3 / SLI / PCI Express / Dual DVI / HDTV / Video Card
a $300 UPS
a $100 case
a $240 Power Supply, 660watt
a like $220 mobo
and it came in like $200-400 less than the apple with the Quadro FX 4500, 512mb, 4 gb of ram (667mhz ddrII), 2TB of hd space, standard proc setup, 2x super drives or what ever.
Wich comp would you guys rather have, ohh yah... The PC had a fire wire card and gigabit lan came on the mobo...
You have to realize man, Intel and such hardware that have normally been found on Windows/Linux systems have just recently been added to the supported hardware list on Apple's/Mac's.
So, of course they are going to be expensive, it's brand spanking new to Apple computers.
Also you have some expensive hardware on there buddy. The FX-62, 4GBs of RAM, 3TB of HD space (those Raptor's cost money), x-fi sound card, dual 7950s. Hell just the pair of 7950s would run you at least $650. Then you go compare it with a system that is not even equalivent in specs to your Apple system. OMG dude, the dual 7950s costs more than that Quadro FX 4500! Not to mention, you have 1TB of space less. But overall both systems I don't recommend to anyone but those who want or have the money to waste a on top-of-the-line system. In a few short months, you won't even have bragging rights.
And in regards to MS OSs since DOS....
I've gone through each and every one of them (except for Vista since it is not full version), and I have to say, some were a pain in the butt sometimes, but usually they had their upsides. Now most people don't take this into consideration, but SUPPORT is one of the big upsides with going with the current OS from MS. And of course COMPATIBILITY is also a major concern especially in regards to software apps. So as much as those are for Apple's keep arguing that PCs are going down the drain, look at what Apple has done, it has gone to lengths by adopting Intel processors (and other hardware) to try to attract Windows/PC's consumers over to use Apple systems. And certainly, one known downside is that Apple based software ran slower on Intel CPUs. Of course the fix for that is to rewrite the code so it is compatible for Intel CPUs.
Overall, what I'm trying to say is that, both sides have their pros and cons, but it's nothing to start an argument over.
In fact, I started computing on both DOS PC and a Mac LCIII. And I've used Apple's and PCs side by side up shortly after Apple's release of their G4 line. Both are unique, and there are some major upsides at this point in time with regards to Apple systems.
