But yeah, the Xeon they chose is quite a bit slower than the 8-core Xeon-W; the Broadwell equivalent was really the $1100 E5-1660 v4.
So -$200 for motherboard, +$700 for CPU, and -$100 for PSU if you're feeling generous. That's still $5k.
* Power Supply: SeaSonic - PRIME Titanium 1000W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($242.89)whereas they could have gotten a fine psu for $99
* Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 7 Professional ($134.99) How about not and say we did.
* Monitor: LG - UltraFine 5K Display 60Hz Monitor ($1299.95) whereas one can probably get a really nice 4K monitor for 400-500. Some can spend the extra funds on another 4K monitor, others you know already have monitors.
* CPU Cooler: NZXT - Kraken X62 Liquid CPU Cooler ($158.99) Did I miss the part where the mac is liquid cooled why is this here?
* CPU: Intel - Xeon E5-2620 V4 2.1GHz 8-Core Processor ($408.99) This is an amazingly poor choice while relatively expensive its performance is decidedly mediocre being an older generation.
Motherboard: Asus - X99-E-10G WS SSI CEB LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($649.00) Expensive not primarily because its awesome but because its xeon.
The $1059 could have been better spent on this motherboard http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/X399%20Taichi/index.asp#Specifi... note supports dual gb lan and ecc, $340
this cpu
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681911... $535 and about $100 for a single port 10G lan
Total $975 between motherboard and cpu
All in all a machine could be built that is nearly equivalent for about 3544. Given the extra $1500 one could buy a second 27" 4k monitor upgrade to 16 cores and buy a second gpu.
Pretending mac is comparable in price to pc remains silly.
$650 is steep for a motherboard, but it has dual 10 gig-e ports and supports registered ECC. A SuperMicro motherboard with the Xeon W support will run about $350 (they’re not out yet) and an X550AT2 NIC is about $200 on eBay.