System Shootouts: Mac Pro vs Dell Precision 690

System Shootouts has pit a Mac Pro against a Dell Precision 690 workstation in an in-depth feature-for-feature comparison to see who gets to go home with the prom queen. This match is of particular interest in part because of how detailed the feature criteria is (it included extra drive/bays like a floppy or memory card readers, as well as any included backup solutions and even web authoring software), but also because of how ultimately mismatched these two machines are. One machine is so overpriced that System Shootouts opted to break traditional policy and include a display and/or extended warranty program in the name of mercy for the losing contender.

In case you can't tell, I'm trying not to spoil this particular match because I think it's such an interesting upset, especially in light of how Apple did their own hardware match-up on stage at WWDC 2006. Check out the shootout for yourself to see whether the Mac Pro or the Dell wound up spending prom night home alone.

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Source: http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/desktop/2006/0809_d…

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Hardware Mac Pro

System Shootouts has pit a Mac Pro against a Dell Precision 690 workstation in an in-depth feature-for-feature comparison to see who gets...

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Nate

@Tony

woops, my bad

what can I say, Dells website isnt as straight forward as Apples...

or I'm just retarded...

August 15 2006 at 3:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Liquidmark

good point.

August 14 2006 at 4:47 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jomy

Why this is so significant is that Apple isn't going to just be taking customers away from DELL...It will be taking the most profitable customers away.

When DELL sells a $400-500 PC it doesn't make much profit.
Most of their profits probably come from selling these high end machines.

August 14 2006 at 3:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Liquidmark

"Can Dell lose some points for having a completly confusing, price-varying, website?"

Meh, Dell specializes in faking out Joe Consumer. That's why they are number one in sales for the PC clone market. They sell Joe Consumer a $300 desktop machine with a crappy Celeron inside and tell him that he has something. Why not just buy a used Pentium 4 machine or something?

August 14 2006 at 2:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tony

I would see celeron gateway machines on one page with "20 iMacs on the very next page. Celeron anything is NOT comparable to a "20 iMac.

Exactly. My boss sent me a link to a $399 laptop (after rebate) and asked if it would work for us, to replace some of our older laptops. He asked why HP (our current laptops) or Dell or Apple couldn't have $400 laptops. I asked him if he'd really be happy using a computer with a processor slower than our oldest laptops, only 256MB RAM and a hard drive smaller than my iPod (the $399 laptop had a 30GB hard drive.) He shut up about it after that...

August 14 2006 at 2:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Padriac

Can Dell lose some points for having a completly confusing, price-varying, website?

August 14 2006 at 2:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Liquidmark

I noticed this myself.

I would see celeron gateway machines on one page with "20 iMacs on the very next page. Celeron anything is NOT comparable to a "20 iMac.

I swear, I think there is some kind of a conspiracy sometimes.

August 14 2006 at 1:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mike

I work in retail and we are constantly dealing with this kind of stuff. Dell sometimes has lower price points that stuff we have on the shelf but it is very rarely comparable. When you match it head to head dell is usually the same price to more expensive. They just have VERY good marketing.

August 14 2006 at 12:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Liquidmark

Nate MC,

That's the beauty of this. Whatever Dell does to cut their prices, Apple can now match!

They ARE buying from the same source, after all.

I too would love to see the Mac Pro grind the competition into the ground. But patience. It'll come soon enough. ^_^

August 14 2006 at 9:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Fritz Laurel

Charles, thanks, that definitely sheds some light on it!

Cheers,
FL

August 14 2006 at 6:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply