[makomk]

I can see why. They've been quite selective in what they compare the Mac Pro to in this review, for instance, because otherwise it wouldn't have come out so well. When they're arguing that it doesn't need expandability, they compare it to laptops and desktops that aren't expandable. Yet when it comes time to justify the pricing, they exclusively compare it to workstations that are aimed at a completely different market to desktops or laptops and have far more expansion options because that market expects them. If they compared the pricing to desktops and laptops or the expansion options to workstations, the Mac Pro would look a lot worse.

[MBCook]

I didn't see a big problem with it.

They compared it's price to a few workstations to show that the price isn't unreasonable for similar hardware (i.e. Apple isn't adding a $1200 workstation tax).

For the rest of the review they compared it to other Macs, because chances are that's what buyers are going to compare it with. If you want a Mac, those are your choices. I really doubt too many people who are in the market for an HP or Dell workstation are going to consider a Mac Pro.

Plus there is the problem of benchmarks. The OS can make a big difference, so you'd either have to run every benchmark twice on each system (once on OS X, once on Windows or Linux), and then the non-Macs can't run OS X. It would be a ton of extra work, but I'm not sure how much gain it would give.

Again, I think the number of workstation shoppers who will consider this machine is small. I expect the vast majority of it's sales will be to Mac users who want something more powerful than an iMac or a MacBook Pro.

[morganherlocker]

> I really doubt too many people who are in the market for an HP or Dell workstation are going to consider a Mac Pro

Especially with the gap in Mac Pro releases over the past few years, I have seen many people deciding between Mac Pro and a custom built hackintosh. For the stuff that really justifies a Mac Pro, these were the only two options for some time (short of moving off of an OSX stack). Sure, someone custom building a multi thousand dollar work station is not your typical consumer, but neither is your typical buyer of a spec'd out Mac Pro.

[dsuth]

If you're using an unsupported hackintosh in a workstation role (presumably at work) I really don't know what to say.

[glasshead969]

I feel like he addresses the new design as a risk which he thinks something that should be taken. If that's something target market doesn't appreciate,then ultimately this will be a failed product. But Mac Pro is targeted towards a different audience than a HP workstation. Its targeted towards Hollywood and Animation community where there is a lot of Thunderbolt penetration.