Review: Mac Pro Beats Dell on Price

A Mac Pro workstation with one of four interchangeable 500 gigabyte hard drives, top, is shown Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006 in New York. The bottom slot has an interchangeable memory card that can take up to 16 GB of ram. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) (Mark Lennihan - AP)

But the biggest change is the use of Xeon processors, each with two computing engines per chip. Plus, Mac Pros come with two Xeons each, giving the equivalent of four computing engines in each system.

On the back of the computer, Apple provides two digital video ports. The base system can support a single 30-inch display or two 23-inch displays. (Systems with higher-end graphics cards can support two 30-inch displays.)

In the rear, it's got ports galore, supporting USB 2, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 as well as optical digital audio input and output. It also has two ports for Ethernet connections. (And the front was not forgotten: There, it sports two USB 2 ports, one Firewire 800 port, one Firewire 400 port and a mini headphone jack.)

Like most of the other offerings from Apple, the systems are elegant and offer features that make you wonder why other PC companies have not adopted them.

Replacing or upgrading the memory, for instance, is easier than any computer I've ever used. Just slide one of two riser cards from the system, plug your RAM into the card and put it back in the case.

Adding or upgrading hard drives is equally simple: Just pull one of four trays from the computer, change or add the drive to the tray and slide it back inside. There are no cables to plug in.

Once again, Apple has produced a computer that really shines. With its ability to run Windows software too, it's an attractive system for any Mac or Windows-based business or high end consumer who needs a powerful machine at a competitive price.

The difference in price _ and that it was in Apple's favor _ was so surprising that I contacted Dell to confirm that I had not made a mistake in configuring its workstation.

Dell spokesman Marco Pena suggested that the numbers might be closer after configuring the Mac to include a three-year warranty similar to the Dell offering. "But I think we're still going to end up a little higher than the Mac," he said.

"The results were a bit surprising to me too," he said. "But it is what it is."