Well, you're not going to get 8TB interal RAID0 (spread across 4 drives) in the new mac pro, it's just not physically possible, so that would have to be external, and it would have to be thunderbolt, which since it's not widely in use (yet) means the enclosure would be significantly more expensive... so figure several hundred dollars more for that alone, and it's going to be another thing connected to your no longer sleek tiny machine.
I'd like to say close but no cigar.. but unfortunately that's not even close. Not even half-way there..
Lets put it this way.. The base model quad core mac pro, with a slower (and not overclockable) processor, and about 1/3 the ram my machine has, without the 8TB raid is about $1100 more than my machine cost to build. Granted, it has dual video, but my GeForce card is at least as fast, if not faster than its dual AMD cards, vram the same, each of its cards has 2gb, my single card has 4gb. So we can call that a wash, and the two machines would be basically the same at that point, aside from ram and RAID.
Add another $500 to jump up to the 32GB ram I have in my machine. Yes, the mac pro can handle more, but most people aren't going to need more (not anytime soon anyway), and maxing it out at 64GB would add $1300 to the base price.
External 8TB thunderbolt raid from apple is going to run you another $799.95, or if you go with the 8TB thunderbolt 2 (higher bandwidth) another $1499.
So, using prices from Apple's site, you'd be looking at:
Code:
Base macpro $ 2999.00
Memory upgrade $ 500.00
8TB Thunderbolt RAID $ 799.95
---------------
$ 4298.95
(plus tax and/or shipping)
Note that does not include keyboard, mouse or monitor. But that's not included in my $1800 build either. I got a logitech mac mouse and solar keyboard for another ~$100 or so, and am currently using a 1920x1080 LCD monitor I already had lying around.
Anyway. there you go, by the numbers, the most comparable mac pro to what I built for $1800... almost $2500 more. For that I could build another one, and still have a decent chunk of money left for a nice high resolution monitor.
Take that how you will, but rushing out to buy a mac pro probably isn't a good idea.
Unless you have the money available, and since OSX is free, and runs flawlessly on standard PC components (so long as you plan your build carefully/follow a guide)... I dunno, personally I can't justify the extra expense because it 'looks cool' or whatever..