2013 Mac Pro Price (Range?)

[deconstruct60]

I see this "fact" mentioned over and over, but I don't recall seeing the actual numbers.

Was on the front page last week. Not direct (only relative numbers )

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/07/2...main-popular-macbook-pro-is-best-selling-mac/

Ignore the title and go to the Mac section. Obviously this is a US sampling. March , June 2013 for the EU markets would be zero. The article pointing out the Mac Pro is over the Mini is kind of goofy. The mini went to 0% in October ( as new Mini coming became more obvious. ). Likewise the iMac sank like a rock. The Mac Pro percentage .... constant. Similar introduction hiccup likely here in June 2012, but slightly different motivations.

Before and after the June 2012 speed bump the Mac Pro did nothing. 2% -> 2%. Movement by the other Macs is a major contributor to the percentage shifts.

Maybe Apple announces these or they are available from reliable third parties. Anyone care to share?

Apple doesn't do breakdowns but when there are zero Mac Pro product refresh and the desktop growth increases it is probably not driven by the Mac Pro.

Apple isn't a top tier vendor in the workstation market so they don't get tracked by the public reports on the market.

If the Mac Pro was doing something better or outside industry norms someone weave that into their reports.

 

[goMac]

I'm going to say $2000 for the base model. Maybe could be pushed to $2500, but I could see Apple wanting to make a splash with a $1999 price tag.

Two lower end GPUs would not be expensive.

 

[tamvly]

Was on the front page last week. Not direct (only relative numbers )

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/07/2...main-popular-macbook-pro-is-best-selling-mac/

Well, deconstruct60, looking at the graph from Apple you cite, the Mac Pro actually appears to be doing quite well: 27% of Apple desktop sales in June of 2103 vs 10% the previous year is a business I would love to have. And outselling the Mini which is about one third to one quarter the price, or less.

Given that the product has not really been updated in a long time this a rather astounding number. So I'm not buying the notion that the Mac Pro in its current form is not a viable business.

 

[Glen Quagmire]

Here in reality, deconstruct, we never have complete information. You're always guessing about some part of your opinion on any issue.

(snipped)

Give yourself a big pat on the back for that one.

Do yourself a favour - put him on ignore. It makes the forum so much more bearable. I decided I'd had enough of his long-winded I-know-it-all-everyone-else-is-wrong posts a while ago.

 

[deconstruct60]

Well, deconstruct60, looking at the graph from Apple you cite,

It is not from Apple. It is USA only. Gartner and IDC often have Apple in the top 5 vendors when looking at USA but Apple drops into the "others" category when looking at worldwide. These numbers should be looked at as bit high with bigger error bars at the higher priced end. Even more so given the Mac Pro is barred in EU ( but that hasn't been a long term Mac Pro trend. ).

the Mac Pro actually appears to be doing quite well: 27% of Apple desktop sales in June of 2103 vs 10% the previous year is a business I would love to have.

But the Mac sales are dropping.

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/04/1...-overall-pc-market-plunges-14-year-over-year/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1608639/

16K units a month is a higher percentage of 320,000 ( 5%) than it is of 800,000 ( 2%).

If the others were dropping and Mac Pro raising and overall Mac sales going up ( or decreasing slower) then Mac Pro would be more of a growth/volume engine.


A higher percentage of a shrinking pie is not particularly indicative of growth or sufficiently high volume. As I pointed out this 5% spike is as much to do with what the other Macs are doing as opposed to how well the Mac Pro is serving its targeted market.

And outselling the Mini which is about one third to one quarter the price, or less.

We'll see after everything is refreshed. Cherry picking a single quarter is likely to trap transient cyclic shifts.

Long term the Mini being so low is a overall Mac market problem that either Apple needs to fix or gradually let the Mac get snuffed out. The MBA has a similar issue. Either Apple has to find a way to put more utility value into those or give a bit on price points.

Given that the product has not really been updated in a long time this a rather astounding number.

Not really given the overall Mac unit drops and the "you are going to glad you bought a 2012 now rather than wait" rumors that started to trickle out in May and the "sneak peak". Anyone who needs a Mac Pro in its current form factor should have been hitting the "buy" button in June if they have been waiting to decide what to do.

Specific product introduction months aren't generally going to be good predictors of long term trends. For example, I wouldn't put significant long term weight on the iMac & Mini numbers from Oct 2012.

So I'm not buying the notion that the Mac Pro in its current form is not a viable business.

It is not whether it is generally viable. It is whether it is viable under Apple's criteria for viable. With hypergrowth on iPad and iPhone starting to taper off and Macs generally overall sliding backwards a largely stagnant segment isn't going to get much R&D... which in its current form factor didn't.

Apple is aiming at a different market subset with the new Mac Pro.
If the old form factor was a great business to be in why did they drop it?

 

[tamvly]

I have no idea what the real numbers are for MP shipments, which is why I asked for input.

I simply pointed out the rising share (according to the source you pointed me to) of MP's in Apple's desktop market over the course of a year or so. I didn't cherry pick anything. Yup, total shipments of Apple computers apparently declined over the same period.

Well, you're going to have to ask Apple why the company took the approach with the MP that they did since 2008. Were I in charge I would have lobbied for continuing tech advances for the form factor. The fact that they may dominate one market segment doesn't prevent them from doing so in other markets.

I am one of the people who decided that the nMP is too much of an unknown, mostly from a total-cost-of-ownership point of view, to wait for the fall. The 2012 MP hex core suited my needs, I could afford it, so I bought it.

If the nMP offers a better environment for me and the price is right, I'll buy it as well. Simple.

 

[goMac]

Well, deconstruct60, looking at the graph from Apple you cite, the Mac Pro actually appears to be doing quite well: 27% of Apple desktop sales in June of 2103 vs 10% the previous year is a business I would love to have. And outselling the Mini which is about one third to one quarter the price, or less.

Mac Pros have always been a high profit business for Apple. They sell quite a few, and they all have high profit margins.

The idea that Apple wasn't making money on Mac Pros was pretty baseless.

 

[Tesselator]

Completely and 100% wrong. Ever worked with a BOM (Bill Of Materials) on a hardware project? Everything adds up. Let's see, no CD ROM, no daughter board, smaller main board(s), hard drive caddies, no PCI slots, etc. etc. Yes new Mac Pro has a vastly cheaper BOM and is highly likely to be cheaper to make overall, even with the gratuitous case polishing. The freaking only more expensive thing is a second GPU, but it's on a cheaper sub assembly with no fan, heatsink, nacelle, etc. Since Apple is just buying chips from AMD you can bet your firstborn they are getting them at a steep discount.

Those costs all count against each and every unit sold, and with Apples profit margins really drive up cost. Initially setting up a new product line costs millions, especially here since they're doing it brand new in the U.S. But that doesn't bother Apple, they're used to setting up new lines for radically different products and it's a one off cost anyhow.

Yup, 100% correct. You left a few things off the cost savings list like cables, the stretched aluminum case (basically the same super-inexpensive process which makes coke cans), material quantity cuts on every component, and more robotic assemblage.

I'd also add that typically part to resale prices are roughly speaking 10x. So a part which costs a factory $30 to manufacturer usually translates into a sticker price increase of $300 on an OEM/VAR item like Apple sells. So all the corner cuts Apple has made on the MP6,1 really stack up.

Note that it's different for non-OEM/VARs. For example factory wholesale parts sold through retail supply chains (like a parts shop) typically are only marked up a total of 3 to 5 times. So a part which costs the manufacturer $30 to make would typically sell for $90 to $150.

In all with all the corners Apple has cut and the internal assembly they've taken on the potential overall system price reduction is in the thousands. Whether or not they pass these cost savings on to us end customers is of course another question.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I have little hope that it will happen but people (including me) have been looking for a headless (like mini but more powerful) Mac for a while. If Apple could offer the new Mac Pro with maybe just one GPU and (stating the obvious) just 3 TB connections for an entry point around $1500 it would be a perfect desktop Mac for me.

 

[clamnectar]

I have little hope that it will happen but people (including me) have been looking for a headless (like mini but more powerful) Mac for a while. If Apple could offer the new Mac Pro with maybe just one GPU and (stating the obvious) just 3 TB connections for an entry point around $1500 it would be a perfect desktop Mac for me.

$1500 is never gonna happen. It's not a "pro" enough number. Not a penny less than $2000. Probably the usual $2500 though.

 

[sonicrobby]

I wouldnt see it changing from the current models. $2500 would probably be the base

 

[omnious]

Here are my guesstimates:

~$2500 for 6-core (no gfx upgrade, gfx level 1)
~$3100 for 8-core (no gfx upgrade, gfx level 2)
$3600+ for 10-core (cto gfx, level 1-3)
$4000+ for 12-core (cto gfx, level 1-3)

Although I suspect they might dump 6-core and go with 8/10/12 options, but we'll see.

~$2500+ for 8-core, dual AMD FirePro W5000/W7000
~$3200+ for 10-core, cto, dual AMD FirePro W7000/W8000
~$3900+ for 12-core, cto, dual AMD FirePro W8000/W9000

Of course these are for the basic lowest clock rates, higher clocks on cto's means more $.

 

[deconstruct60]

Here are my guesstimates:

~$2500 for 6-core (no gfx upgrade, gfx level 1)
....
Although I suspect they might dump 6-core and go with 8/10/12 options, but we'll see.

Highly doubtful. The pricing on the v2 ( Ivy Bridge) -E ( no Apple won't use these but the Xeon E5 1600 series will extremely likely have the same prices) has leaked.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7193/intel-ivy-bridgee-pricing-leaked

The roughly equivalent to E5 1620 i7 variant , i7 4820K , is $310. If Apple previously used $294 CPUs to hit the $2500 mark it is highly unlikely they are going to use a $555 to hit the same price. Even more so in the context of dual GPUs added to the bill of materials (BOM).

The E5 1620 is likely at least $100 cheaper than any 8 core E5 2600 model they could select. It also would beat the slop out of it on base clock rate ( 3.7 GHz versus something in the mid 2 GHz range. )

The early indications are that E5 v2 prices are going to be very slightly higher than E5 v1 prices (continues long term trend for Intel). 10 and 12 cores are going to be up at least as high as the current 8's

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2012/2012030701_Intel_rolls_out_Xeon_E5-1600_and_E5-2600_CPUs.html

If want a base clock rate anywhere near a E5 1600 then up in the upper half of that old range (i.e., > $1,500 ).

~$2500+ for 8-core, dual AMD FirePro W5000/W7000

The W5000 can't support the number of displays the Mac Pro has to, seven. There is a small chance the mainstream version is artificially crippled, but not really a "good" sign if it is.

~$3200+ for 10-core, cto, dual AMD FirePro W7000/W8000
~$3900+ for 12-core, cto, dual AMD FirePro W8000/W9000

More likely a pair of W7000 equivalents only to hit any of those prices. I'd be somewhat surprised if Apple has a 10 core option. The standard configurations will probably go 4 , 6 , 6. 12 and maybe 10 would be BTO options.

New 10 core versus old 12 core options is probably going to have lots of quirks when compare performance and price. Similarly against 20 core boxes from other vendors similar hang-ups if the customers are primarily focused on x86 cores where more of the BOM budget is spent on x86 cores than GPU ones. If the 12's are crazy high priced perhaps; just to hit a more reasonable "greater than 6 x86 cores" price point.

The 12 cores E5 2600 are probably around $2K a piece ($1,700-2,300). The W9000s would be a similar sized contribution by themselves. That will easily blow past $4K.


An "all" E5 2600 line up doesn't make much sense at all. The dual GPUs are going to drive BOM material prices up. The 2600 series only adds more to that. For a single E5 system the 1600 options are more cost effective. They are designed and priced for those kinds of systems.

Pricing is largely going to make or break this Mac Pro. If the pricing is wrong this will fail.

 

[deconstruct60]

Mac Pros have always been a high profit business for Apple. They sell quite a few, and they all have high profit margins.

All the Apple Macs have a relative (to the industry) profit margin to them.
Goosing it much higher than the other Macs doesn't really help Apple or the overall Mac ecosystem. Apple has money coming out of their eyeballs. It isn't like they need a mechanism to offset loss leaders or weak margin products. Macs with smaller than average PC market share (compared to rivals) don't help much either.

The idea that Apple wasn't making money on Mac Pros was pretty baseless.

Making money and being financially significant to operations is two different things. Even within the Mac "subdivision" the question was really more so whether the Mac Pro was significant return on investment. Not whether it was loosing money.

 

[sbrage2000]

Here are my guesstimates:
~$2500+ for 8-core, dual AMD FirePro W5000/W7000
~$3200+ for 10-core, cto, dual AMD FirePro W7000/W8000
~$3900+ for 12-core, cto, dual AMD FirePro W8000/W9000

I could see a case for the base model priced at $2500 (for 6-core) but I think your estimates for the high end are a bit optimistic. Cost of a $12-core CPU is likely to be well over $2K. Even if Apple prices the W9000 at half current market value (which they are not known to do), that's another 2K-4K. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a high powered version of this thing for under $5K, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[VirtualRain]

I think with Quad cores available in the mini, iMac, and MBP, Apple may choose to differentiate the MP somewhat by equipping the entry level with a 6 Core CPU and W7000 GPUs... With a starting price likely to be around $3000. I expect the top-end 12-core model to be no less than $5K.

 

[deconstruct60]

I think with Quad cores available in the mini, iMac, and MBP,

They aren't the same quad cores. Not in base clock rate (e.g., with iMac probably 3.7GHz E5 1620 v2 vs. 3.6GHz i7 v3). [The v3 probably has small edge in synthetic benchmarks with about equal base clocks. ]. Not in substantiated Turbo max. Not in Memory bandwidth (double for E5 v2) . [useful for when leave the scope of synthetic benchmark drag races. ] If push past the myopic viewpoint that only x86 cores count the Mac Pro has over a 100 more. That's a differentiator. Throw on top 4 more Thunderbolt ports of which as subset can be used for legacy display support and that is even more differentiation to the targeted Mac Pro user market.

Buying a Mac solely based on CPU is more than a bit abnormal. Anyone primarily interested in just buying a wrapper around the CPU probably isn't going to buy a Mac anyway.

Apple may choose to differentiate the MP somewhat by equipping the entry level with a 6 Core CPU and W7000 GPUs...

Certainly, Apple would also have a 6 core option if went with the 4 only with the entry level model. The entry level model though isn't the whole Mac Pro line up though. If the price is close to a iMac the performance can be close without alot of "drama".

With a starting price likely to be around $3000. I expect the top-end 12-core model to be no less than $5K.

Why does it have to be the starting price? In a "good , better , best" line up, $3K could be the "better" price. Anyone who "wants to get away from the 'measly' 4 x86 core" boxes and has $3K just buys the 'better' box.
The issue for the entry level model in the product line up is that specific subset of customers are more price sensitive. You can't seriously move their price point up $500 ( 20% increase ) and expect to keep most of them unless pack in tons more value. Two more slower cores is likely not going to be worth 20% more to most of them. Probably going to have more than a few of them grumbling about how just 1 GPU would have been cheaper. "Fastest" wasn't their primary issue.

If the Mac Pro gaps the iMac by $1000 it will likely die in a iteration or two. That's actually going in the wrong direction for the entry model. Either holding the line and offering higher value or moving incrementally closer to $2K is where it should go. There is nothing like that kind of gap in the other product line ups.

If thinking the BOM ( 2 GPUs) has pushed the starting price close to $3K so "have to have 6 cores to justify it" ... that's whacked. Jumping to 6 moves the BOM price higher still. If have a "high BOM price" problem, then more costly components don't really solve the problem.

 

[clamnectar]

The roughly equivalent to E5 1620 i7 variant , i7 4820K , is $310. If Apple previously used $294 CPUs to hit the $2500 mark it is highly unlikely they are going to use a $555 to hit the same price. Even more so in the context of dual GPUs added to the bill of materials (BOM).

"highly unlikely" is overstating it a lot. With the other corners Apple's cutting on cost, I don't see how going to a more expensive CPU on the base model is illogical or, frankly, even unlikely.

 

[deconstruct60]

"highly unlikely" is overstating it a lot. With the other corners Apple's cutting on cost, I don't see how going to a more expensive CPU on the base model is illogical or, frankly, even unlikely.

Two FirePro GPUs is cutting cost corners???? Swapped costs? Yes. Cut costs, where????? You need to come up with cost savings that pay for the GPUs (and its profit margin) plus another $260 ( $200 gap and the 30% mark-up) in cost savings. How is that anywhere near likely?

Smaller device doesn't necessarily mean the BOM got alot cheaper in price. That's a casual connection being thrown out that doesn't have any grounded rational to it.

 

[flat five]

Smaller device doesn't necessarily mean the BOM got alot cheaper in price. That's a casual connection being thrown out that doesn't have any grounded rational to it.

shipping alone on the smaller mac is going equate to cheaper prices on the user..
i dont know how many times a mac pro is shipped before reaching the end buyer but i'd guess at least three times.. and you're looking at maybe 40 old mac pros per palette vs. 250 new ones..

 

[tuxon86]

shipping alone on the smaller mac is going equate to cheaper prices on the user..
i dont know how many times a mac pro is shipped before reaching the end buyer but i'd guess at least three times.. and you're looking at maybe 40 old mac pros per palette vs. 250 new ones..

Lol yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you cheap...

 

[flat five]

Lol yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you cheap...

dunno. if I go to ship something 10x20x20 vs 7x7x10, the first one is going to be a lot more expensive to send.

why is it so stupid to think the new mac will have cheaper shipping costs than the old one? and that the shipping costs multiply because it ships a few times during manufacturing ?

 

[phrehdd]

I'll probably pass on a 4-core model if Apple actually makes one. A six-core processor sounds more like what Apple will offer for the entry point but it could depend on what kind of price/performance a new 4-core Mac Pro would offer.

It is hard to figure out Apple's marketing strategy for the new Mac Pro. It would be great if (given it is a fairly closed device) the options were something akin to

Prosumer - 6 core
Professional - 12 core
Then BTO for Video and SSD size and of course RAM

Future models would probably include 16 or 24 core or dual CPU etc.

I have had a Mac Pro long ago, worked with iMac and now have a quad Mini with 16 gigs of RAM. Not to offend but I think the Mac Pro is being phased out and in its place will be this new "Mac Mini Pro."

 

[omnious]

I was writing a response and MR just logged me out, bah.

In any case, W* series graphics is NOT going to be costly to Apple. Yes, it costs $1000s for us but Apple is not buying 2 chips, they are buying batches of 200,000+ chips.

They are probably priced at the Radeon price, or double that, because AMD (desperately) needs to get back into the game with Apple (current generation is NVIDIA if you remember).

Also, W* chips are the same as the Radeon, just like Quadro is the same as GeForce. It's just a sham from both AMD and NVIDIA with their "workstation" class products, charging 5-10x more for "support" and double the RAM.

In reality, it's the "Apple tax" of the graphics chip industry. It costs the same amount of money to produce both desktop and workstation chips, but the later cost 10x because it's a scam.

 

[VirtualRain]

They aren't the same quad cores. Not in base clock rate (e.g., with iMac probably 3.7GHz E5 1620 v2 vs. 3.6GHz i7 v3). [The v3 probably has small edge in synthetic benchmarks with about equal base clocks. ]. Not in substantiated Turbo max. Not in Memory bandwidth (double for E5 v2) . [useful for when leave the scope of synthetic benchmark drag races. ] If push past the myopic viewpoint that only x86 cores count the Mac Pro has over a 100 more. That's a differentiator. Throw on top 4 more Thunderbolt ports of which as subset can be used for legacy display support and that is even more differentiation to the targeted Mac Pro user market.

Buying a Mac solely based on CPU is more than a bit abnormal. Anyone primarily interested in just buying a wrapper around the CPU probably isn't going to buy a Mac anyway.




Certainly, Apple would also have a 6 core option if went with the 4 only with the entry level model. The entry level model though isn't the whole Mac Pro line up though. If the price is close to a iMac the performance can be close without alot of "drama".




Why does it have to be the starting price? In a "good , better , best" line up, $3K could be the "better" price. Anyone who "wants to get away from the 'measly' 4 x86 core" boxes and has $3K just buys the 'better' box.
The issue for the entry level model in the product line up is that specific subset of customers are more price sensitive. You can't seriously move their price point up $500 ( 20% increase ) and expect to keep most of them unless pack in tons more value. Two more slower cores is likely not going to be worth 20% more to most of them. Probably going to have more than a few of them grumbling about how just 1 GPU would have been cheaper. "Fastest" wasn't their primary issue.

If the Mac Pro gaps the iMac by $1000 it will likely die in a iteration or two. That's actually going in the wrong direction for the entry model. Either holding the line and offering higher value or moving incrementally closer to $2K is where it should go. There is nothing like that kind of gap in the other product line ups.

If thinking the BOM ( 2 GPUs) has pushed the starting price close to $3K so "have to have 6 cores to justify it" ... that's whacked. Jumping to 6 moves the BOM price higher still. If have a "high BOM price" problem, then more costly components don't really solve the problem.

There's no doubt Apple could offer an entry level 2013 Mac Pro with a Quad Core CPU and some modest GPUs to achieve a $2500 entry level price point. (and I personally hope they do as this would likely be my desired configuration).

The question is will they do that, or will they instead choose to launch a better equipped entry level Mac Pro at a higher price point. I'm speculating that they will opt for the latter for two reasons... (1) as I stated above, it will put some distance between the iMac and the Mac Pro and (2) to maximize margins from early adopters...

Apple seems to have adopted a pattern of launching a new Mac products like the MacBook Air or the Retina MacBook Pro at a premium price point to capitalize on must-have early adopters, only to lower the price a generation or two later.

At any rate, I'll be pleasantly surprised if there's a solid offering at $2500 but I'm bracing for worse.