NO, I did not. I priced out what was available according to Intel's price listing, unlike you or The KG9 Kid. Neither one of you looked at what Apple specs were saying about the Xeon processor that they are putting in the iMac Pro at either the low end or high end. I did. Since neither one of you looked at the hints Apple revealed both in their spec listing— 2666 MHz ECC RAN, 4.5 GHz Turbo Burst — or what was stated in the WWDC Keynote discussion of the iMac Pro's features— "latest, as yet unreleased most powerful Xeon processor— you did not determine what Xeon processor Apple was equipping each version with. I did.
I listed those hints and went to Intel's page on their Xeon processors and found which announced, but unreleased Xeon processors in 8, 12, and 18 core configurations matched those hints. They have yet to put a price on these Xeon. . . But I made the assumption, one that follows their past practices, that the prices would be close to the prices of the previous versions these are upgrades for plus a slight bump upwards. The highest grade E7 18 core the new one is replacing from last year, one which could NOT reach a turbo boost of 4.5 GHz and could NOT support 2666 MHz ECC RAM, has a current suggested retail price of just under $7700. Ergo, the new one will have a suggested retail price somewhere in that same price range! QED.
I don't give a damn that you found a $600 2.0 GHz 8 core, version 2, E7 Xeon processor from circa April 3, 2011 on NewEgg. It's a SIX YEAR OLD ANTIQUE, fer crying out loud! What it does demonstrate is that you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
What? There is no difference - most workstations ARE desktop computers, unless you're in an environment with remote workstations run off a central server(s). But that's not what we're talking about here. Workstations generally do need higher computing requirements depending on the business, but all that is is just a desktop with better stuff in it, whether it's a tower or an all-in-one.
No difference? Of course there is a difference. Desktop grade consumer or even office grade computers have ZERO need for expensive error correcting RAM but it's routinely installed in workstation class computers. Why? Because the work being done on such computers is critical and any mistake can cost millions of dollars, but more important, lives. An error that's acceptable on an office or consumer grade computer is not on an engineering or scientific workstation computer, running computations to multiple decimal places.
The Solid State Drives that Apple installs in these computers are not your run-of-the-mill SSDs, just as the Flash memory drives Apple puts in their iPhones and iPads are not the same as what other phone makers put in theirs. Apple's are faster by a high percentage. . . and therefore more expensive. You selected an off-the-shelf, inexpensive SSD. That's a wrong choice for a workstation class machine.
And who, exactly, is working in 5k resolutions? I work in AV, and we run big screens (as in 26'x15' most recently) in 1080. Sometimes even 720. And, if you're interfacing with systems like the Myerson Symphony, you send them a 480i composite signal because that's all they can take. 5k is only in the realm of Hollywood (theatres still think it's a selling point to have 4k), or very few small-time video companies. And many of them aren't going to be able to drop this much $$ on their Photoshop machine. I would guess more amateurs with GoPros are using -just- 4k than professional companies
Say what? What are you? A projectionist? No one "works" with a 26' x 15' screen to do editing, ray tracing, 3-D rendering, color correction, etc., especially in today's 4K video. They work with workstation grade computers with multiple high-resolution video monitors with more than a billion color gamut such as Apple's professional grade 5K screens which provide a 4K screen area and room for editing tools in the area below the video image, so they can see in real time what their changes are doing to the image, clip, or entire video. 1080 is passé.
Workstation class computers are not gaming computers. The two are not even in the same stadium.
Again, you display you lack of tech orientation and ignorance in a single paragraph. You did it again with this comment: "many of them aren't going to be able to drop this much $$ on their Photoshop machine. I would guess more amateurs with GoPros are using -just- 4k than professional companies" because professional are using as high a resolution as they can to do their work, otherwise their product will rapidly be unsaleable as the playback devices outpace their content. Even 4K video is being talked about being replaced soon by 8K Ultra High Realism at super high frame rates.
Again, I was merely correcting the price comparison. And yes, the parts I quoted were not shopped around, or waited for sales. It was a quick search on Newegg only for a quick price point.
YOUR POINT WAS MISTAKEN. The Kid was attempting to show what the high end would price out at. . . And you assumed he was pricing the LOW END. He was not. It's obvious from your listing. Yet you low end list, using outdated and consumer parts inappropriate for a workstation class computer, by the rime you included everything a low end iMac Pro comes with, STILL priced out HIGHER than the $4995 it would cost you to buy the IMac Pro. It would be much worse if you had used the actual 32GBs of 2666 GHz ECC RAM, and the newest 3.2 GHz up-to-date 4.5 Turbo Boost 8 core Gold Xeon processor the low end iMac Pro comes equipped with. You get a break on Xeon pricing here, maybe, as the previous 3.2 GHz 8 core Xeon E5 (that the low end Mac Pro is probably equipped with) and is being replaced by an 8 core Gold Xeon 3.2, was selling for only $2067 per unit. So the new 8 core Gold Xeon may be in that price range, or, it may actually be in the price range of the other top end 2.5 GHz Xeon E5 8 core, which sold for $4667. I kinda lean toward the 3.2 myself. Makes more sense, since the Turbo boost has to be in the 4.5 GHz range.
Pricing was from discount prices from Amazon, NewEgg, Crucial, and estimated on the graphic GPU based on best industry guesses and comparables. The total of all components, not counting labor, overhead, shipping, sales tax, profit margin, advertising and marketing, allowance for warranty, plus other software licensing, is $18,134.00.
To find the price of duplicating the Apple low end, only the processor, amount of RAM, the GPU, and size of storage changes.
Those items total to $3,988.00
Add that figure to the other fixed component costs that remain the same of $3,134.00
That gives us a cost to duplicate the low-end iMac Pro in a Windows PC workstation version of about $7,092.00.
That's $2,097 more than what you'd pay for the basic minimal configured Xeon powered iMac Pro with more features and including more software.