| Dell XPS 710 Red | Mac Pro | Dell Dimesion E520 | iMac 24in | Dell Dimesion E520 | Mac Mini | |||
| Operating System | XP MCE 2005 (upgrade to Vista Home Premium) | OS X | FREE Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/1GB memory | OS X | FREE Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/1GB memory | OS X | ||
| Processor | Intel® Core™2 Extreme QX6700 (8MB L2 Cache,2.66GHz,1066 FSB) | Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon (Woodcrest) | Intel ® Core™2 Duo Processor E6400 (2.13GHz, 1066 FSB) | 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6300 (1.86GHz, 1066 FSB) | 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo | ||
| Memory | 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (4x1GB) | 4GB (4x1GB) 667MHz DDR2 | 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs | 2GB 667MHz DDR2-SDRAM (PC2-5300) (2x1GB) | 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs | 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512 | ||
| Harddrive | 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache | 250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s | 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache | 250GB Serial ATA Drive | 80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache | 80GB Serial ATA drive | ||
| Optical Drive | Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/dl write capability | One 16x SuperDrive | 16x DVD+/-RW Drive | SuperDrive 8X (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) | 16x DVD+/-RW Drive | SuperDrive 8x (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) | ||
| Video Card | 256MB nVidia GeForce 7900 GS | NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI) | 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro | NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB SDRAM | Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3000 | Intel GMA 950 graphics | ||
| Sound Card | Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D) Sound Card | Does not say (My guess is built-in) | Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio | Does not say (My guess is built-in) | Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio | Does Not Say | ||
| Monitor | None | None | 24 inch UltraSharp™ 2407WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel | 24-inch widescreen LCD | None | None | ||
| Speakers | None | Does not say (My guess is built-in) | None | Does not say (My guess is built-in) | None | None | ||
| TV Tuners | ATI Theater 650 PRO Combo Analog/Digital TV Tuner with Remote Control | None | ATI Theater 650 PRO Combo Analog/Digital TV Tuner with Remote Control | None | None | None | ||
| Keyboard/Mouse | Standard | Standard | Standard | Standard | Standard | Standard | ||
| Extra | 56K PCI Data Fax Modem | AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR | 56K PCI Data Fax Modem | |||||
| Customer Care | 1 Year Limited Warranty and At-Home Service | None | 1 Year Limited Warranty and At-Home Service | None | 1 Year Limited Warranty and At-Home Service | None | ||
| Price | $3,289 | $4,397 | $1,909 | $2,299 | $759 | $874 | ||
| Key: | $1,789 (sale) | $639 (sale) | ||||||
| For this experiment, I went with most things that came standard, except some hardware. In some cases, if it was possible to get rid of an option such as customer care I would do so just to get an idea of how both companies price their systems. I never let the customization process get to the shipping, sales tax, etc. window. | ||||||||
| Yellow Highlight - Upgrade from base option | Gray Highlight - Degrade from base option | |||||||