sumergo

larryjw said:

sumergo said:

Gmgravytrain & Larryjw perhaps have a valid point of view from those coming late to AAPL and who look at a stock as a dividend finance source.
I'm a senior citizen (like Gmgravytrain) but I bought into AAPL @ $20 many years ago and held because they are a company that did, does, and will make superior products - and offer a great return on investment.  From my perspective, dividends cannot compete. YMMV.

I bought into Apple at less than $10. It's not that I'm not happy with its current valuation, but as an investor who rolls over dividends and interest from investments into more investments (no spending on ATVs, second homes, a fifth TV), Apple buying less of its own stock and redirecting a little more to dividends would benefit me a little more at this point. 

madan said:

Again, waste of time is your opinion.  

That said, I'm quite aware of how Apple computers are not just a sum of their components. You were there at Ars while I argued that point 1000 times.  The issue we have here is not that there may be other factors.  Of course there are other valid factors to just a cpu/gpu/ram and hd. 

The issue is just how egregiously they're overcharging.  It's one thing to pay an Apple tax (or other brand tax for that matter) when you're getting more bandwidth, connectivity, formfactor, tdp, environmentalism, dual booting/flexibility, et all.  I think most reasonable people will pay a premium to have nice things.  I've always argued that once you factor in the price of that really sweet LG 5k monitor, iMacs are actually not a bad deal.  I've always argued that dual boot was an ace in the sleeve at Apple when comparing Windows systems to Macs.

However, what we have here isn't an extra few hundred bucks.  A 10, 20, 30, 50 or even 100% markup.

What we have here is a 400% markup on the hardware for some features that many people won't really use to their extant potential.  I don't know of anyone that can use 24 TB3 lanes AND 10 TB of internal storage AND 2 giga ether lanes.  No 'professional' as you seem to judge definitively has use for that much throughput.  I know plenty of server managers that might be able to use that for compute or storage but not as a workstation.  To be clear, the base system doesn't have anywhere near those features but even double giga ether is more than 99% of what most people here, on Ars, on Slash, Toms, Tech, anywhere could use, much less need.

So yeah, the computer has some compelling advantages but a lot of those advantages are techno-unavailable for all intents and purposes.  What isn't unavailable? Cpu processing grunt.  Gpu compute performance.  Ram.  Storage.  Things you could use *now*.  Things the base Mac Pro simply doesn't have. Period.  

That said, I made my point.  And I backed it with facts. A 580x *is* slower than a Vega 56. Or a Vega 48.  Or hell, just about any other premium gpu Apple sells.  That's not "opinion". That's fact.  The Mac Pro carries a paltry 256 GB of M.2 in its base configuration.  That's not an opinion, that's fact.  People want to paint these things as "opinion" but they're not.  They're fact.  The base Mac Pro is a downright weak machine, even by today's prosumer standards.  For 7k, it's positively, insultingly anemic.  I've made my point and now spend your cash however you like.  My posts were to shed some technical light on why the base system wasn't the type of system one simply got for kicks, barring other distinct, superior options.

If it's so pretty you can't help yourself, go for it.  The motherboard is amazing, to be sure.


That said, I'm dropping this because I'm done with the nastiness in this thread.  Whiner. Ignorant.  Not professional/amateur and the like have been bandied about and rather than get any further sucked in, I'll let this go and let people instead do whatever the hell they want.  People have to learn somehow.