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2016 nMP
- Thread starter ManuelGomes
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Apple's Mac Pro value proposition is falling on very hard times.
Apple has typically had well equipped systems at a hefty price. At first glance, they seemed expensive compared to others - but often if you optioned out other systems to the level of the Apple they were comparable (and sometimes the Apple would be a bit cheaper).
(This of course ignores the situation of people for whom the base "other" system was fine, and the Apple was expensive overkill.)
These days, the Mac Pro is so out-of-date that comparisons are difficult (the entry Dell workstation has a Xeon v5 CPU, the entry MP6,1 has an old Xeon v2 CPU). I couldn't even find a Xeon v2 in Dell's workstation offerings - they're all v3s and v4s above the entry level E3 systems. In a few weeks, we may see Pascal graphics cards in other workstations - and not even a rumour that the ancient Radeons in the MP6,1 are being updated.
v5? Are you sure? AFAIK, Xeon v5 not even out yet, or are you talking about E3-v5? E5-v4 has just been released, I think. E5-v5 coming in 2017.
Absolutely the base is a v5. And yes it's an E3.
This hits right at the heart of "(This of course ignores the situation of people for whom the base "other" system was fine, and the Apple was expensive overkill.)".
A Dell 3620 with 3.5 GHz quad v5 with HT, 16 GiB ECC, 2 GiB Quadro and 256 GB NVMe SSD is less than $1500. Add up to 4 more internal hard drives and an internal optical.
Quote the price for what you need - not the price for the Apple that comes somewhat close to what you need. (And don't conveniently ignore the price for all of the external drives and cabinets that you need to add.)
So are we going to ignore those people who use network storage or already have external drives coming from an iMac or MacBook Pro? Remember, quote the price on what we need.
Do we really need anymore strawman arguments?
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Not at all. Add a 10GbE card to the Dell for $350. A quick search for T-Bolt->10GbE found one for $1200 (https://www.attotech.com/products/t...hunderlink/thunderbolt-to-10gbe/TLNS-2101-D00) - which is patently absurd. Please find one that doesn't cost more than the base price of the Dell. (I pay about $350 for dual-port server adaptors that support 10GbE, 8Gbps FC, 10 Gbps FCOE and iSCSI with full offloading engines for all four protocols. I can't believe that the "T-Bolt tax" is that high.)
If you're content with last generation GbE technology - the systems are identical for NAS.
(Note - I didn't check to see if the Dell 3620 has a spare slot that supports a 10 GbE card. I don't think that's relevant, however - since I'm saying "quote the price on what you need". If 10GbE is necessary, then make sure that you pick a base models that can support it and add the price of the adaptors.)
Good point - unless you still need those drives on your other Apple.
No, so please don't propose them.
If you plan on repurposing existing equipment to the workstation, then by all measures that's part of "the price for what you need".
If you have a big investment in T-Bolt peripherals that you'll move to the workstation - then for you the $3000 Apple might be more cost effective than the $1500 Dell.
If it's new storage, the four spare hard drive slots in the Dell might be more cost effective than a bunch of new external storage on a Mac Pro.
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I have just built SFF PC with Xeon E3v5, 16 GB of RAM DDR4, 480 GB SSD, water cooling, Fury Nano, Mobo, PSU, and a copy of Win10 license for around 1300$(5.4K PLN).
Comparable Mac Pro is 4400$. Absolute madness.
And this gives me a thought, that If Apple wants to price next MP accordingly, and be competitive on price, they have to put 6 core Xeon as a base model, with 512 GB SSD, and 16 GB of RAM, for 2999$. Everything then would depend on GPU configs. But putting into base model something weaker than D700 would be... questionable, at least.
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This is starting to sounds a lot like "My Apple right or wrong!". You can get network and Thunderbolt cards for PC boxes and they are fairly cheap. On the Dell the TB option is around $115.
I understand your point. But comparing E3v5 to E5v2? If that's a valid comparo, why not compare it to an iMac?
No, you really don't understand my point.
"Quote the price for what you need - not the price for the Apple that comes somewhat close to what you need."
And you have a point about the CPU comparison, it's not fair to the slower v2.
You might want to look a bit harder next time.
Sure, but you built a gaming computer not a workstation. Its not fair to compare a home built PC to a mac pro. If you depend on your computer to get your job done what do you do when it breaks? You can't just take it to Apple or Dell to get it fixed in a timely manner.
I just configured a dell workstation to relatively similar specs to the entry level mac pro and it came out to around $2500, sure its been updated to Xeon v3 but I would wager the performance and experience would be very similar. Not to mention there are many discounts to be found if you want a new mac pro as long as you don't buy it straight from the Apple store.
When Apple eventually releases a new one, I am not sure they have to do anything. Why would Apple charge less than a competing Dell workstation when clearly the Apple ecosystem has a significant value. If it didn't, we all wouldn't be here whining about Apple's design choices or lack of updates, we would have moved on to other, cheaper platforms.
Thanks. $400 and it's an end-device (no pass-through). $1000 seems typical for devices with two T-Bolt ports for pass-through.
It also looks like $180 is the going price for entry 10 GbE PCIe cards. $350 gets a server-grade card with more offloading and multiple protocols (Ethernet, iSCSI, FCoE).
Dell comes to you, for three years.
Fine, if you need specs similar to the Mac Pro. If you don't, you can save even more money.
Wow, Dell 3620 Workstation with
- Xeon E3-1270 v5 (46% faster single core speed than Xeon W3690, only 5% slower than i7 6700K)
- 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
- only 4 GB RAM (cheaper buying it yourself, same as with Apple)
- NVIDIA Quadro K420 2GB (Kepler, as a placeholder for a self bought card)
$1'600 http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...3x20-series-workstation&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
Damn! Very attractive. Only lacks of the Thunderbolt Add in card (the board is Thunderbolt capable), could not find the card separately in the shop. And no OS X of course.
I wish Apple would offer something like this...
May have just seen a spy photo. And of course in rose gold. What else?
Hope a little humor is okay while we wait. Cheers!
Hope a little humor is okay while we wait. Cheers!
As Stacc mentioned and I didn't think about, BYO computers are almost always cheaper to build than OEM brands. BYO you have no overhead like retail manufacturers and you provide your own labor ( and support ) saving a lot of money. Also comparing home PC's & Workstation parts are also in a much different price bracket.
You guys are talking xMac again. Wrong thread
This isn't about the xMac. This is still about E-class processors supporting ECC memory and being able to plug in some beastly graphics cards. This could be the Mac Pro and it was the Mac Pro. But now that Apple is still on E5 v2 and doesn't offer a dual CPU option, it makes a lot of people wonder WTF they are doing when you can get single socket xeon v5s as E3s. Or put more simply, the entry level Mac Pro, or any low end single socket e5 workstation, competes with the E3s. Its less PCIe lanes, but if your in the low end market because you're needs aren't terribly huge anyway....
When looking at this one shudders at what three years later might bring.
If macOS name is coming, Mac line might get new old names too. Why not return the Power Mac.. The Pro -term is just plain stupid. Pro as productivity, maybe. But I find Macbook to be very productive writing tool. And professional too. So, yes, Pro = stupid name. But what makes it different from Macbook Pro, is the computational power. (ok, and a great set of connector ports).
And maybe Power Mac name could oblige Apple to make it (and keep it, with regular updates) powerful.
My dream team
Macbook
- 12" and 14" ultralight laptops
Power Macbook
- 14" and 16", heavier power machines, dGPU for both models
Power Mac
- an excuse to get rid of the Tube?
- or, curent tube could be Power Mac SE.. but it should be a cheaper model
What about the rest of the line? iMac and Mac Mini?
And maybe Power Mac name could oblige Apple to make it (and keep it, with regular updates) powerful.
My dream team
Macbook
- 12" and 14" ultralight laptops
Power Macbook
- 14" and 16", heavier power machines, dGPU for both models
Power Mac
- an excuse to get rid of the Tube?
- or, curent tube could be Power Mac SE.. but it should be a cheaper model
What about the rest of the line? iMac and Mac Mini?
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Akiito sells a tb2->10GbE for bit less than 400$, there are other adapters with dual sfp for about 700$.
This should go down quickly as tb3 ports includes 10GbE mac atl-mode which means you can network two tb3 systems by TB3 or but (when available) a tb3(10GbE mac) media adapter (something like a sfp on usb-c).
Further qnap just launched affordable 10GbE enabled NAS for 1100 you can have a 8 Bay nas (empty) capable to deliver more than 8gbps sustained data.
Synology also has some 10GbE enabled products on pipeline.
http://www.hwbattle.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=news&wr_id=18732
Nvidia ceases deliveries of Maxwell GM204 and GM200 GPUs.
GTX 980 Ti(GM200) is replaced with GP104 GPU.
Nvidia ceases deliveries of Maxwell GM204 and GM200 GPUs.
GTX 980 Ti(GM200) is replaced with GP104 GPU.
AMD released a video BIOS update with improved UEFI support for Fury based cards. Since all macs run on EFI hopefully this is a hint that AMD and Apple are working to get this into a mac. There are already partial drivers in El Capitan for it.
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