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Build a Windows PC with the same specs as the Mac Pro

posted on Dec 24th 2013 by Joe Fedewa

mac pro windows

So, you want a sweet machine with the horsepower of Apple’s Mac Pro, but want to run Windows? That’s no problem. Thanks to Microsoft letting people actually buy their software separately you can build whatever you want and put Windows on it. The PC might not look as cool as the Mac Pro, but it will be as powerful.

The Microsoft Nerd compiled a part list for building a Windows PC with equal processing power as the new Mac Pro. The price is actually slightly better than Apple’s too, but surprisingly not as much as you’d think. The only real differences are the lack Thunderbolt ports and Bluetooth. Other than that this is a very similar build, minus the trash can-shaped case.

Check out the full part list here. Do you plan on building a PC to match the power of the Mac Pro?



About The Author
Joe Fedewa is a Contributing Editor for Winsource.com and has posted 2800 articles. .
  • WinMac-BiPlatform

    What an amazingly misguided comparison

  • Comlink

    I agree. All poorly matched parts. Anyone following that guide will be in for disappointment .

  • CDJay

    If you want to build something comparable to the Mac Pro you should probably be looking at a dual socket setup such as the Asus Z9PE-D8 with a pair of Intel Xeon E5-1660v2′s. They’ll rock 12 cores at a minimum of 3.7Ghz (vs the 12 core Xeon’s 2.7Ghz) with turbo up to 4Ghz. You can skip the ECC memory, and chuck in 64gb of 2400Mhz C10 memory relatively cheaply. This will, obviously, be a lot faster than the top flight Mac Pro setup yet cost significantly less. Best of all, as you have 80 PCI-E 3.0 lanes, you can happily opt for a pair of Crucial M500 960GB’s now, in RAID-0 and wait for better PCI-E flash solutions in 2014. Chuck in a pair of flagship graphics cards (780ti or R290X) with custom cooling. Very few people are using 10bit workflows anyway so why pay the premium for Quadro or FirePro? For really nice low latency audio monitoring, chuck in a RME PCI-E solution. Remember those PCI-E slots we have and can *gasps* put stuff in? Why not chuck in a 10gigabit Ethernet solution. Perhaps a Red Rocket-X card? Hell, you can do all of that, and it’s STILL going to cost around the same as the Mac Pro.

  • Yat Man

    If the price is so negligible, why not just get the MacPro and Bootcamp it? Then you get the cool form factor, same specs, and you can always swap between the 2 OS’ if you ever want to?

  • Sean Conrad

    $900 is negligible?

    NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS?

  • Sean Conrad

    You’re right, comparing a Honda Civic to a Toyota Corolla is really silly. Just because they’re in the same segment doesn’t mean they should be compared!

    Apple is God and should never ever be spoken poorly of, it should even be illegal.

  • the_editor

    Skip the ECC Memory? Raid-0? Gaming GPUs? You want to build a fast toy, but we’re talking about a professional workstation that people are making their living with.

  • KingMe

    Jesus Christ. You have to be kidding, right? I mean, no one could actually be this stupid.

  • Sean Conrad

    Thank you, that’s very nice of you.

    Praise unto Apple, KingMe will not allow any negativity to be spoken of the company born from the almighty Steve Jobs.

  • LawrenceMcatee

    the mac pro doesn’t come with an r2d2 option…. who the hell is running apple these days?

  • Son Of Belushi

    As a PC builder, I can say, for a fact, Apple charge you a premium for tech that is not bleeding edge when you get it. It’s good, but it’s not bleeding edge. I built my audio/video rig (which also happens to play games incredibly well too) for £2400 all but a few pence. It destroys the £3299 Mac Pro in every meaningful real-world benchmark I could chuck at it (running Windows 7 SP1 64bit on both machines). Mac Pros are good machines for the money, but you pay a heavy premium for its looks.

  • Yat Man

    Sounds like a lot but in the grand scheme I don’t think it really is if the form factor is an issue. I’d rather have a slick looking piece of HW and pay a bit more for it than a clunky brick of a computer that looks an old school TiVo. If the form factor isn’t an issue then hell yeah - save the $900 and buy the PC and an XBOX to boot.
    ;D