Take Apple as it is or shop elsewhere for your parts/systems. Apple ain't changing.
There isn't room for Apple to cut deals like you suggest on the CPUs. Apple want to make more money on less common choices. They aren't trying to entice anyone to buy them.
100% Correct. With the Nehalems, Apple charged, not the difference in the total retail price for the parts that went into the higher configuration vs. the retail price of the parts that went into the lower configuration, but charged more than that difference and Apples continues to do so, as fully shown,
below. I'd heard some refer to it as, "the Apple tax." That tax is what keeps Apple's share prices in the news and makes those shares favored investments and I'm not faulting them for doing so because they have costs associated with configuring special options for configurations that will surely generate fewer sales, and Apple's a for-profit entity that had better not squander shareholder investments. But Apple has charged (and is charging) higher than the difference between the retail prices of the parts that went (go) into the lower priced configurations and the additional cost at the retail price level of items going into the special ordered item.
Apple's Current Price Differences vs. Current Retail Price Differences
Quad-Core and Dual GPU Mac Pro 2013 [
http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-pro ] vs. Six-Core and Dual GPU Mac Pro 2013 [
http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-pro ]
The CPUs
3.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5 processor
12GB 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory
Dual AMD FirePro D300 with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM each
256GB PCIe-based flash storage1
$2,999.00
CPU World [
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon E5-1620 v2.html ]
Model number - E5-1620 v2
Frequency -*3700 MHz
Turbo frequency - 3900 MHz
Clock multiplier - 37
Memory channels: 4 { (12 / 4 = 3 ) Who's every heard of a 3 gig ECC ram chip - the pics of the system [
http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ ] show 4 memory slots which is perfect in number for a 4 channel system, but only 3 chips isn't an optimal configuration for a 4 channel system}
Price at introduction - $294
3.5GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 processor
16GB 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory
Dual AMD FirePro D500 with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM each
256GB PCIe-based flash storage1
$3,999.00
CPU World [
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon E5-1650 v2.html ]
Model number -*E5-1650 v2
Frequency -*3500 MHz
Turbo frequency - 3900 MHz
Clock multiplier 35
Memory channels: 4
Price at introduction - $583
The only things stated in Apple's web store ad that differ are the CPU (1), amount of ram (2) and the GPUs (3). Here's are retail price comparisons:
(1) $583 [Xeon E5-1650 V2] minus $294 [ Xeon E5-1620 V2 ] = $289;
(2) Currently, I could locate only 4 sellers [
https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...=X&ei=dbVuUq-7A8urkAfwh4HYAQ&ved=0COQDEIIIMAA ] of the ram in question and each of them gives you the best price if you buy a pack of three ram sticks, for the following prices w/o taxes and shipping: Crucial - $230.99, B&H Photo-Video - 177.95, CDW - $238.55 and AntaresPro - $171.94. Average = $207.36 for three 4 gig chips w/an average cost per chip of $69.12.
(3) At least one forum member (see post # 357 here: [
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1657345/ ]) thinks that this is Apple's match to AMD's sourcing:
A) W7000 -> D300 [ stripped of 2GB of VRAM ]
B) W8000 (approximately ) -> D500 [ down 1 GB of VRAM and some stream processors ]
C) W9000 -> D700.
From Newegg,
(i) you can buy a retail FirePro W7000 that hasn't been stripped down, for $1,098.99;
(ii) you can buy a retail FirePro W8000 that hasn't been stripped down, for $1,399.99; and
(iii) you can buy a retail FirePro W9000 that hasn't been stripped down, for $3,399.99.
The difference in price between the non-stripped down versions of the original W7000 and the W8000 is $301.
The sum of all three differences is $301 + $69.12 + $289 = $659.12. That sum is less than the difference of $3,999.00 - $2,999.00 (which is exactly $1,000.00). But those additional (in the case of the ram) or different (in the case of the CPUs and GPUs) parts just don't magically place themselves in a system and Apple has various costs and needs to make profits for its shareholders to continue in business. So please keep that in mind when you speculate on nMP pricing. Otherwise, you're likely to have guessed much too low. SO if you're one of those who think different(ly) than me that Apple will find a way to put a E5-2697 v2 [
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon E5-2697 v2.html ] in the cylinder (I think it'll be a throttling, underperforming, hot, loud mess - TDP too high for a single fan system and Apple's mark is making the machine quiet so that it sets on the user's desk) then if you're guessing how much just that one addition will add to the base price looking at the nMP quad-core configuration for everything else, you be wise to consider that Apple likes to get a margin of
> 40%. So rather than just subtracting $294 from $2616 to get $2322; then adding $2,322 to $2,999 and getting $5,321, you might be wiser to just consider the $294 to be the cost to Apple of getting that configuration done properly and then add that 40% tax. My guess is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3k + (2616 x1.4 = $3662.4) = $6,662.4 w/o governmental taxes and shipping. Then, if you change your mind and want more ram, internal storage, and higher end graphics, add to that the cost of those other items along with the profit mark up.
BTW - If Apple sold the nMP in pieces, w/o having to charge for machine and/or human assembly and had less facility costs, and was simply satisfied by whatever margin they could get, I'd buy certain pieces of the nMP in a heart beat; however, not many would buy any Apple stock.
