No you didn't look at the wrong store. Mac's are inherently expensive. Bang for your buck is still going to be the AMD's. Be sure to check out pricewatch.com to get the lowest prices on your hardware. If I remember right anandtech.com ran a story on some low budget dual proc boards that they gave really good reviews on. If you build your machine you should be able to throw together a dual proc Athlon system for under $500(minus monitor of course).