Here, I hooked up 6 monitors onto 1 Mac Pro with OS X Mavericks. Multiple display support is decided by hardware capability and device drivers, not the OS. OS X has device drivers for several discrete graphics cards that support multiple displays.
Nobody claimed that you cannot extend the hardware side of Macs. I claimed that the extension capabilities are severely limited for Macs vs PCs. Just curious, you drive those 3 screens with 3 video cards? Did you have to upgrade your PSU? How much power are you now consuming? I assume you do not use this setup primarily for gaming (otherwise you would have gotten a PC), why would you then not have gotten USB->Video adapters which consume hardly any power and are nowadays very kind to your CPU resources?
I don't use this for gaming but I have run Starcraft II on this Mac with moderate settings. You have several ways of doing this, really. 1. Mac Pro (2013) can support 6 regular monitors out-of-the-box using Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapters. I've done this. 2. If you have an older model, you probably have 4 PCIe x16 lanes, so you can easily get 6 screens working so long as you use 3 supported, basic passive graphics cards. Never tried 8, but this is the route I took. 3. Mac is compatible with several AMD cards that have 3 display support each, so you just need 2 cards to get it working. I use a few Adobe products on this machine, so it benefits from graphics acceleration. I don't disagree with you that the hardware configurations for an OS X machine are more restrictive. There's also a couple of things I don't like about the UI (e.g. I prefer Windows Explorer over Finder, it makes no sense why the clock is not integrated with the calendar), how OS X deals with inactive applications, and how OS X comes with stupid bloatware (e.g. Quicktime, iTunes), or how there's practically no overclocking tools for OS X (and I actually like BSOD codes). I find all other statements about Windows vs OS X stability to be unfounded. That said, UNIX utilities are extremely important and worth sacrificing most of the advantages stated above for. Answering the TS's question: Not everyone needs UNIX utilities though, so Windows has a dominant market share. Since it takes a lot of time and effort and proper pre-project planning to make your software cross-platform compatible, it's most cost-effective to sell software only for 1 OS and you can certainly be successful doing that. Bloomberg Terminal and most games are a good examples. The same applies for decisions to develop for iOS instead of Android. Programs written in Java are exceptions to this rule obviously because the JVM takes care of cross-platform issues, but JVM can be full of crap (e.g. a few popular offerings from Reuters have a tendency to crash because of JVM issues).
Thanks for sharing. I do not understand why you went with a Mac instead of 1/2 the price (most likely less than 1/2 given you stated that you used dedicated video cards to hook up the monitors and purchased newer cards). A USB 3.0 -> HDMI adapter costs 60 USD and you can drive up to 6 screens with 6 such adapters on any PC, and that is on top of any monitors connected to integrated graphics or additional cards. The main unit PC should be about 1/3 - 1/2 cheaper than a Mac Pro. And every PC can run Linux. You must have your reason, I just do not see it and would never bother with a Mac.
Mac is very lenient on old generation AMDs. The cards I'm using were <$40 each actually, probably cheaper nowadays if you can find them, and nevertheless significantly better performance than your latest USB 3.0 external video card. This is a function of both bus limitation, and the speed and presence of shader cores. Apple has significant economies of scale, so you will find that the prices on its mainstream laptops are lower than those of comparable Samsung laptops. That's why you'll find them lining every office in front of desktop PCs, at every office of the leading tech firms like this (example from Facebook Boston): So the cost complaint really applies only to the Mac Pro/iMac model, to which I'd agree that, for someone who knows how to assemble a PC, the cost premium is generally $300-$500, minus $100 for the cost of a copy of Windows, plus the theoretical cost of forgoing the real option of choosing your own minimum hardware configuration (e.g. not everyone wants AMD FirePro D300 GPUs and ECC memory). The latter shouldn't exceed the real cost of the cheapest alternative you're forgoing, so maybe that's another $200? Then, the challenge reduces to: Would I spend $400-$600 more on a Mac? (To say a comparable PC is 1/2 the cost is rather exaggerated.) That depends on your marginal utility curve for $400-$600 - I don 't think this question can be answered by someone besides the individual himself/herself. For the Chicago guys, it's the cost of a dinner at Alinea: I'd gladly forgo the occasional dinner at Alinea for my UNIX utilities.
With all due respect but I think you are comparing apples and oranges right now (and not Apples and Pcs) ;-) Here are your prices: Apple Mac Pro MD878LL/A Desktop: USD 4000 http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Mac-Pro...ie=UTF8&qid=1399910647&sr=8-1&keywords=macpro -> only 6 cores, I can buy the fully assembled comparable spec PC for less than 2000 USD and assemble one even cheaper. Next, Apple Mac Pro MD770LL/A Desktop (OLD VERSION) : USD 1600 (USED!!!) -> Same here, comparable PC for at MOST 1/2 the price Next, Apple MacBook Pro ME293LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display, USD 1900 -> Samsung sells similar spec laptops for 1000-1200 USD (albeit not with Retina display at such cost, but so what, who can read resolutions of 2800x... on a 15 inch screen anyway. So, not sure where you got your numbers from but there is only ONE single reason why Apple sits on a huge pile of cash and that is their huge profit margins due to excessive pricing. Apple is cool, Apple is hip, all great, but when we compare hard cold numbers Apple does not have much to show for, simple as that. And please do not compare entry level Apple laptops, they are total garbage, all plastic, shitty keyboard, shitty touchpad, shitty screen. I have a Samsung 700Z with 17 inch display, aluminum frame, top specs when I bought it 2-3 years ago, and that laptop was priced at sub $1300 when I got it. It has similar specs than the laptop listed right above (except for the display, 17 inch but lower resolution). So, sure if you buy one laptop in 3-5 years and get a hard-on for Apple then go for it, if you are the purchasing manager for a whole IT department it makes ZERO sense to pay a premium of over 40%. And its not that Apple provides a corporate care plan better than the one of any other major laptop maker.
I think you're not very familiar with the specs: Xeon E5-1620v2, $580 2x8 GB PC3-14900 ECC memory, $178 Plextor M6e 256 GB PCIe SSD, $200 2 x Imaginary GPU priced between AMD FirePro W7000 and AMD FirePro W8000, ($750+1300)/2*2 = $2,050 Gigabyte 6PXSV4 (Socket LGA 2011 motherboard with 3x PCIe x16 slots and RDIMM support) = $369 Subtotal = $3,377 excluding + case + power supply + assembly work. Turns out I'm very accurate to estimate a premium of $300 to $500.
True, if you go piecemeal retail way. If you go to ebay, an HP Znnn or Dell Precision Tnnnn workstations will run you half of that with the full warranty and support. Not every day, but every other day. I would watch for the 48 GB ECC RAM configured ones with 256 GB SSD and I prefer E5-2nnn equipped workstations as their airflow is better. $1,199 to $1700, better be patient, of course. Pulled those noisy AMG framebuffers and sold them back at the same marketplace. Apple used to have unquestionable advantage in early 1990. Now, it is a form vs substance fashion fest. Love for pleasing aesthetics is nothing to be ashamed of, good taste doesn't hurt anybody. And if you can afford a fleet of those, good for you. I remember SGI times, when Mac folks were looked upon as poor relations.. Nowadays it is the same commodity Intel engine..
Desktops are commodities now; one can even build them on his own. No real need to buy them in a fancy but expensive and restrictive package.