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Remember when you used to be able to buy a powerful desktop Mac starting at $1999?

I think in 1998 I bought White and Blue G3 350 desktop (El Capitan) for that money. With small hardware additions (GPU, IDE card, etc) it worked until 2006.
yosemite.png
Great investment it was and it also worked OS X and OS 9 as well. I very much like the idea of Studio, with my current Mac Mini M1 I don't need it now, but its great to have a flagship desktop now (even if it is not Mac Pro).
 
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StoneJack said:
I think in 1998 I bought White and Blue G3 350 desktop (El Capitan) for that money. With small hardware additions (GPU, IDE card, etc) it worked until 2006. View attachment 1973071Great investment it was and it also worked OS X and OS 9 as well. I very much like the idea of Studio, with my current Mac Mini M1 I don't need it now, but its great to have a flagship desktop now (even if it is not Mac Pro).
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The Power Mac G3 had a base price of $2499, according to everymac .com, which equals $4248 with inflation.
 
StoneJack said:
I think in 1998 I bought White and Blue G3 350 desktop (El Capitan) for that money. With small hardware additions (GPU, IDE card, etc) it worked until 2006. View attachment 1973071Great investment it was and it also worked OS X and OS 9 as well. I very much like the idea of Studio, with my current Mac Mini M1 I don't need it now, but its great to have a flagship desktop now (even if it is not Mac Pro).
Click to expand...
You can go to web.archive.org and visit the old Apple site to find some nostalgic prices. In 2001 I bought a PM G4 733 Quicksilver. It was $300 cheaper ($1699) and included keyboard and mouse. :)
 
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Irishman said:
Check this out!

www.apple.com

Buy Mac Studio

Get a new Mac Studio desktop with M4 Max or M3 Ultra from only $166.58 per month. Select a model or customize your own. Buy now at apple.com.
www.apple.com

What Apple tax??
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The “Apple tax” is a myth. I buy their products because of the value they bring from their quality hardware and software. If they charged more, I would pay more. I really don’t care what the price is. There are plenty of things to waste my time thinking about. I made the decision many years ago, and I’m all-in Apple.
 
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Homy said:
You can go to web.archive.org and visit the old Apple site to find some nostalgic prices. In 2001 I bought a PM G4 733 Quicksilver. It was $300 cheaper ($1699) and included keyboard and mouse. :)
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I know I am just being annoying at this point but according to inflation data $1699 in 2001 was $2730 in 2021 ?
 
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I bought a Mac Pro 3.1 in 2008. Paid 19900 NOK for it, that's the same price the base Mac Studio is selling for here today. The dollar as weaker back the though
 
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bogdanw said:
I’m not up to date with the prices, but there used to be an equivalency: the price announced in US in Dollars was the same in Europe, but in Euro 1999$->1999€.
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US prices do not include sales tax, but European prices typically include VAT.

About 22 years ago I paid ~SEK 80000 (~USD 8300) for a G4 Cube and 22" Cinema Display.

That's almost $14000 in today money.

I'm pretty happy with the prices I've paid for recently placed orders, especially the 27" Studio Display.
 
leman said:
I know I am just being annoying at this point but according to inflation data $1699 in 2001 was $2730 in 2021 ?
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I thought of that and that dollar would be cheaper 20 years ago but the exchange rate was surprisingly the same then and now, i.e. 1 dollar = about 10 Swedish crowns so I don't think inflation had a difference in the case of Macs. I paid over $2000 for the G4 here in Sweden. :)
 
When I got my G4 PowerBook in NYC, the exchange rate was $2>£1 which was an amazing saving for me.....:D
 
now i see it said:
When it comes to performance per $, an Apple computer will always be more expensive. They always have been since the very first one.
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Well, M1 base models beg to differ. The Air is a very competent offering at its price. And M1 Pro is also not bad at all when you are interested in CPU performance. But desktop-wise… M1 Series simply does not have the clock speed to compete with mainstream stuff. Its power efficiency is out of this world, but realistically speaking, there is no reason to limit a single desktop core to just 5W. 10W or even 15W will also be fine. I hope that future M-series will have a slightly wider dynamic clock range so that they can better adjust to different application types.
 
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leman said:
M1 Max is still a mobile-first chip. Unfortunately, the performance is not on par with other enthusiast-class desktop offerings in the similar price class.
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When you write that, what point do you think you’ve made? What technical connotations and/or limitations do “mobile-first chip” carry? It’s not obvious to me.
 
Irishman said:
When you write that, what point do you think you’ve made? What technical connotations and/or limitations do “mobile-first chip” carry? It’s not obvious to me.
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Simple. The basic design of M1 is prioritizing low-power operation to the point that the basic chip clusters are not capable of scaling to less restricted environments. That’s what I mean by “mobile-first”: M1 has been designed for mobile operation. Scaling in M1 is achieved horizontally: by adding more clusters. The clusters on their own cannot scale. Compare this to x86 cores which can scale to a wide range of environments: the same core can be used in a power-restricted mobile design, and an unrestricted desktop design where it can get some more performance by sacrificing power efficiency. Of course, x86 power efficiency is pretty bad in general, but I hope my point is clear.

I think it would be nice if M2 etc. would support a wider range of environments and efficiency targets. A desktop can afford to take, say, a 50% efficiency hit to offer 20% higher performance. This would still be more efficient than anyone else but could give Mac desktops a decisive edge. The way things are now, Mac laptops are amazing, you simply can’t get a comparable package if performance and portability elsewhere. Mac desktops, well, their selling point is compact size.
 
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