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The price issue is what burns people a lot about Apple Computer. Despite all the "industrial design" which piques many people's interests, the power of the buck rules in most purchasing cases. Assuming that Apple's performance benchmarks come up to their claim, which puts their capabilities at least on par or better than the competitors listed here, how much do the systems cost?

As stated in the beginning of the review, the three recommended configurations were used directly from Apple's web site. In essence there is the entry level model, which only has one processor, one hard disk drive, and 256MB of RAM. Then there is the mid-range version, which doubles the number of processors and RAM. Lastly, there is the fully decked out Xserve, with 2GB of RAM and four of the biggest ATA drives available. The competitor systems were reviewed with similar configurations.

Of course there are issues with such a direct comparison. The first point of contention occurs with the size of the hard disks. The cost per gigabyte of SCSI drives is many times that of Ultra ATA drives. This extra cost is one of the reasons why Apple chose not to use them. However, the performance of that more expensive drive can be, as stated early, twice that of an ATA drive. The actual drives used are not compared against the tabulated data or anything like that in this article however, since the hardware isn't available for direct testing. Therefore to keep things fair, multiple configurations are presented for each competitor machine that uses SCSI drives. The first price is for the standard size drive, generally 18GB, the other price is for a comparable storage capacity.

Another possible problem comes in with software and services bundling. Especially in the case of IBM, the number of potential service contract combinations is enormous. However, in some cases, service contracts are built into the standard price. Therefore, service contracts are not built into the price of the systems. The software services available were not directly tabulated for all systems, but most claim server management and basic server software for e-mail, web hosting, et cetera. How Apple's bundle compare is not directly comparable from a quick review of the descriptions.

As stated in the software section, the cost of operating systems can double our triple the cost of the server. Therefore, no operating system option was chosen for systems that did not bundle the operating system for free. This applies to almost all the Intel-based machines. In this case, it should be expected that a Windows based implementation will require at least an additional $700. This is the cheapest the Windows2000 operating system options come. Those who would rather use Linux should know that not all Linux operating system bundles are free either. Some may feel this gives a distinct disadvantage to Apple, since all the operating systems are included, however I didn't want potential operating system costs skewing the numbers. This is especially true since the user could spend the time and put it on for free later.

Entry Level Configuration
Name	Company	Processor	RAM	HD(GB)	Ethernet (100/1000)	OS	Price US$
Xserve	Apple	1-1GHz PPC	256	60(ATA)	0/2	MacOSX Server	2999
xSeries 300	IBM	1-1GHz PIII	256	18GB(SCSI)	2/1	None	1813
xSeries 300	IBM	1-1GHz PIII	256	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/1	None	2562
xSeries 330	IBM	1-1.26GHz PIII	256	18GB(SCSI)	2/2	None	2374
xSeries 330	IBM	1-1.26GHz PIII	256	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/2	None	3197
xSeries WebAppliance	IBM	1-950MHz Celeron	256 100Mhz	80GB(ATA)	2/0	Linux	2728
ProLiant DL 360	Compaq	1-1.26GHz PIII	256	18GB(SCSI)	2/1	None	3106
ProLiant DL 360	Compaq	1-1.26GHz PIII	256	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/1	None	3881
ProLiant DL 360 G2	Compaq	1-1.4GHz PIII	256	18GB(SCSI)	0/2	None	2728
ProLiant DL 360 G2	Compaq	1-1.4GHz PIII	256	72.4GB(SCSI)	0/2	None	3503
ProLiant DL 320	Compaq	1-1.13GHz PIII	256	80GB(ATA)	2/1	None	2553
Fire V100	Sun	1-500MHz UltraSPARC-IIe	256	80GB(ATA)	2/0	Solaris 8	1648
Netra X1	Sun	1-500MHz UltraSPARC-IIe	128	80GB(ATA)	2/0	Solaris 8	1223
PowerEdge 1650	Dell	1-1.4GHz PIII	256	18GB(SCSI)	0/2	None	2474
PowerEdge 1650	Dell	1-1.4GHz PIII	256	72.4GB(SCSI)	0/2	None	3123

The entry level Xserve configuration is as bare bones as Apple lets the customer get. This system comes in costing nearly $3000. Dell's offering only beat the price of the Apple system by offering less disk space. The one Compaq system that manages to beat the price only does so with one third the disk space. The IBM systems all mostly beat the price as well, however none of the lower priced options are have an equivalent processor capability, nor network capability. Furthermore, the total hard disk capacity is not always up to the same level as the Apple version. In the end the none of the Intel systems came configured with software, which in the case of the minimum Windows configuration, makes each of them more expensive than the Apple system.

The surprise showing in this case comes in with the Sun servers. Both of these servers are priced far below any of the Intel or Apple systems. It should be noted that the Sun systems use an ATA interface, as does the Xserve, however they don't offer any option for gigabit ethernet. This will put their network throughput far below any of the other systems in the entry level specification for network bandwidth intensive operations. Considering they cost half as much as the next less expensive system, they may still be decent deals.

In this case the SCSI versus ATA argument, assuming that the manufacturers used the high end SCSI drives, will work against Apple and Sun. The real advantage to fully independent ATA buses for each drive will only be apparent once more than one drive is used. Once again however, as the drive benchmarks show, many times, the ATA drives can hold their own against the SCSI drives, even if they never finish up on top.

The final conclusion, without any benchmarks, is that the Apple systems will only cost less than their Intel counterparts with similar capabilities only if Windows is used as the operating system. In the case of Linux, it may be possible to keep the cost of the final configuration as low as stated here, which can offer a savings of up to $500 against the similarly equiped Xserve. However, when factoring in $500 of savings, factor in the cost per hour to get the system up and running in the end. That could be on the same scale. In the end, without benchmarks, I'd say it is a draw with the price advantage leaning towards Apple for those people who are looking for totally pre-configured system. For more do-it-yourself IT people, they can easily find a better priced Intel-based system.

Mid-Range Configuration
Name	Company	Processor	RAM	HD(GB)	Ethernet (100/1000)	OS	Price $US
Xserve	Apple	2-1GHz PPC	512	60GB (ATA)	0/2	MacOSX Server	3999
xSeries 330	IBM	2-1.4GHz PIII	512	18GB(SCSI)	2/2	None	4293
xSeries 330	IBM	2-1.4GHz PIII	512	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/2	None	5116
ProLiant DL 360	Compaq	2-1.26GHz PIII	512	18GB(SCSI)	2/1	None	12764
ProLiant DL 360	Compaq	2-1.26GHz PIII	512	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/1	None	13433
ProLiant DL 360 G2	Compaq	2-1.4GHz PIII	512	18GB(SCSI)	2/0	None	12231
ProLiant DL 360 G2	Compaq	2-1.4GHz PIII	512	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/0	None	14556
PowerEdge 1650	Dell	2-1.4GHz PIII	512	18GB(SCSI)	2/0	None	3018
PowerEdge 1650	Dell	2-1.4GHz PIII	512	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/0	None	3667

Apple's mid-range server takes the basic server configuration and adds an additional processor, and doubles the memory to 512MB. To be a competitor in this category, the manufacturer had to at least be able to provide a dual processor version of their systems. This caused IBM's 300 series and web appliance servers to drop out, since none of those systems could support additional processors. Sun is also noticeably absent from this, and future lists as well. Unfortunately their 1U blades apparently can only be configured with single processors. The next step up for them is a multi-unit sized device which can support many more than two processors. There is nothing between Sun's low end and high end systems. For the remaining systems, the same rules applied in terms of hard disk and memory matching as was stated above.

The first thing to note is the outrageous pricing of the Compaq servers in this and future categories, which is literally more than twice as much as the next most expensive machines. I can not see any reason for their machines to start at over $12000--without any software installed no less! Back in the realm of reasonable pricing lie the Apple, IBM and Dell machines. Xserve easily beat the IBM machine pricing for both hard disk configurations. Once again, this IBM system has no operating system installed, and the gigabit ethernet had to be added by filling up the PCI bus.

The PowerEdge machines by Dell show very strong pricing compared against the Apple machine. Without the operating system price, both hard disk configurations come in less than the Xserve. Since the machine that matches the capacity is using two SCSI hard disks, it's hard to imagine that the disk I/O of the Xserve would pose a challenge to the PowerEdge server. Even if the cost of the operating systems is included, the lower capacity hard drive configuration of the PowerEdge server is cheaper than Xserve. This puts the PowerEdge server as the price/performance champion of these machines in the mid-range category, with Apple's Xserve coming in a close second.

High-End Configuration
Name	Company	Processor	RAM	HD(GB)	Ethernet (100/1000)	OS	Price US$
Xserve	Apple	2-1GHz PPC	2024	480(ATA)	0/2	MacOSXM Server	6849
xSeries 330	IBM	2-1.4GHz PIII	1536	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/2	None	6114
xSeries 330	IBM	2-1.4GHz PIII	2560	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/2	None	7094
xSeries 330	IBM	2-1.4GHz PIII	1536	146.8GB(SCSI)	2/2	None	7214
xSeries 330	IBM	2-1.4GHz PIII	2560	146.8GB(SCSI)	2/2	None	8194
ProLiant DL 360	Compaq	2-1.26GHz PIII	2048	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/1	None	19259
ProLiant DL 360	Compaq	2-1.26GHz PIII	2048	146.8GB(SCSI)	2/1	None	21470
ProLiant DL 360 G2	Compaq	2-1.4GHz PIII	2048	72.4GB(SCSI)	2/0	None	22389
ProLiant DL 360 G2	Compaq	2-1.4GHz PIII	2048	146.8GB(SCSI)	2/0	None	24600
PowerEdge 1650	Dell	2-1.4GHz PIII	2048	146.8GB(SCSI)	2/0	None	5915
PowerEdge 1650	Dell	2-1.4GHz PIII	2048	217.2GB(SCSI)	2/0	None	6716

Apple's high end Xserve configuration has everything maxed out. Like the mid-range configuration, this system has two 1GHz PowerPC G4 processors. The system has the full amount of RAM it can currently support, 2GB, and every drive bay full of 120GB Ultra ATA drives. This puts the total storage size of this unit at 480GB, or almost half a terabyte. Because there are four drives for the RAID software to stripe across, the tremendous bandwidth Apple is claiming may be possible in this configuration. The same competitor machines that were in the mid-range line are used, but the memory and hard disk storage is now update to reflect the new storage capacity of the Xserve.

Once again Compaq's offering are priced outrageously compared to any of the other machines listed here. Their prices start at almost $17000, and end at almost $25000. No other manufacturer price is close to this, and from the spec, there is nothing special about the Compaq boxes this time either. The Dell and IBM machines once again are coming in less than the corresponding Xserve in many cases. One problem that exists in this case is the fact that none of these machines allow for a configuration that stores 480GB. The most that can be squeezed into the Intel boxes is 147GB-219GB. This is due to the fact that SCSI hard disks don't come in a 120GB capacity, and none of these systems can take four drives. The closest one to this is the PowerEdge server, that can take three 73GB drives.

A second problem occurs with the IBM xServe machines, because memory has to be added in banks of two. Therefore, the memory can only be 1.5GB or 2.5GB, since there is already half a gigabyte of memory installed, and that is not changeable. I therefore, have machines with both configurations. Because the Xserve has half a terabyte of disk space, I started the price comparison with the 73GB versions, and went from there. The IBM machine, with comparable memory and a fraction of the hard disk storage space and bandwidth, costs a few hundred dollars less. The similarly equipped Dell is nearly $1000 less. When these unit's hard disk capacities were maxed out, the IBM prices were higher than the Xserve, in some cases significantly. The Dell PowerEdge machine, with more hard disk space than the IBM, but less than half the storage space of the Xserve, is practically the same price as the Xserve. Again however, there is no software cost in the any of the IBM or Dell prices.

If the Apple RAID system meets up to their hype, the clear winner in this case is the Xserve, for both total price and performance. In this category, the Xserve, even without the external RAID system, could be a serious contender to the Intel-based 1U servers

1. "Intro, CPU, Memory"
2. "Disk I/O, Network Bandwidth, Software"
3. "Price"
4. "Conclusion"