2019 'Alien' Mac Pro - can someone please explain why it is so expensive?

[iBrooker]

I'm trying to work out why the new Mac Pro is so expensive given it does not appear the components would cost that much if bought separately.

They say it's comparable to an equivalent PC costing $8K:

How much do those parts cost?

8-core Xeon - ???
AMD WX 7100 - £475 / $600
32GB Mem - ???
256GB - ???

Any other parts worth mentioning?

 

[Howard2k]

Pretty sure that they’re saying that their $8k computer is comparable to other manufacturers $8k computers, I don’t think they’re attempting to compare it to a box of parts.

 

[762999]

ECC ram is expensive ~400$, ssd~200$, custom cooling, custom chassis, custom motherboard, cpu is between 2000-3000$ alone. 1x Custom GPU bay + gpu

You're paying for research & development. These devices doesn't appear out of thin air. There is a development cost, and a profit margin like everything else. But competitors cost a lot also, so why not.

 

[iBrooker]

I would like to know the price of parts, not development or design costs.

 

[JesperA]

I would like to know the price of parts, not development or design costs.

So you dont want an answer to your first sentance in the OP?

 

[iBrooker]

So you dont want an answer to your first sentance in the OP?

It says I am trying to work out why it is so expensive, and by listing the parts and asking for costs its clear I want to determine this by the sum of parts :/

Edit: I expanded the first sentence to make this clearer

 

[fhturner]

I'm trying to work out why the new Mac Pro is so expensive given it does not appear the components would cost that much if bought separately.

They say it's comparable to an equivalent PC costing $8K:

View attachment 840558

How much do those parts cost?

8-core Xeon - ???
AMD WX 7100 - £475 / $600
32GB Mem - ???
256GB - ???

Any other parts worth mentioning?

In trying to match the HP Z8 G4 Workstation, which appears to be what's pictured on screen there, to the approx config of the Mac Pro, the closest two CPUs appear to be the Xeon Gold 6134 (3.2GHz 8-core, 3.7GHz Turbo, 24.75MB cache) and Gold 6144 (3.5GHz 8-core, 4.2GHz Turbo, 24.75MB cache). Both of these appear to be enormously expensive, so it's looking to me like the CPU is what's causing this giant price tag on the new Mac Pro.

If you look at the price of a 2nd one of these in the Z8 (shame Mac Pro only has 1 socket...) to get an idea of its "raw" price— rather than upgrade price from base CPU— you get $4520 and $5920, respectively. I have no idea why a modestly clocked 8-core CPU should cost so much (massive PCIe bandwidth? ECC memory channels? cache?), but I guess I'll start looking into that. Further, I don't understand why we cannot *also* have the great expansion and configurability of this impressive Mac Pro redesign, coupled w/ processors that are less stratospheric in price.

If the Mac Pro's CPUs are indeed in this (costly) ballpark, it certainly makes the rest of the system not seem so expensive. But still then, why are the CPUs SOOO expensive? And why no cheaper alternatives for people wanting something expandable but more in line w/ the cost of past Mac Pro offerings?

 

[Eschers]

Even the display turns out cheap compared to the Eizo ColorEdge CG319X 31.1" which costs also more than 5000$ and has only 4K an HDR, no fancy thunderbolt 3 hookup station

 

[MisterAndrew]

I'm sure you could easily price out the components. Good luck finding a case as high quality as the Mac's though. Intel says the base 8 core processor is $749 and goes up to $7453 for the 28 core. Mac Pros have historically been a good value, so let's compare it to the HP. According to Intel the 8 core CPU in the HP (Xeon Gold 6134) is $2220. So that's a difference of $1471 between that and the Mac Pro's W-3223. If you subtract that from the $8253 price it comes to $6782. So the Mac is still a better deal, even if you take off $375 more that HP is charging for Windows.

 

[teejayhoward]

$1200  Xeon W-3225
$500   Supermicro X11SPA-TF
$275   4x8GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM
$200   Power Supply
$175   Radeon 580
$50    EATX Case
$35    M.2 256GB SSD

About $2500.

 

[mavericks7913]

I'm trying to work out why the new Mac Pro is so expensive given it does not appear the components would cost that much if bought separately.

They say it's comparable to an equivalent PC costing $8K:

View attachment 840558

How much do those parts cost?

8-core Xeon - ???
AMD WX 7100 - £475 / $600
32GB Mem - ???
256GB - ???

Any other parts worth mentioning?

You cant just check each price of parts because HP and Dell charge extra money like Apple.

 

[Razzerman]

I'd say it seems expensive if you're not used to workstation prices. It would have been ideal if there was an option to choose a lower priced processor to pop in this thing, but there isn't. So it's either cough up the cash, make do with an imac or mac mini. None of those options appeal to me, so it's time to look elsewhere. Simples.

 

[Boil]

As has been said...

It is not just the cost of the parts themselves...

A LOT of the Mac Pro is custom, not off the shelf parts...

Motherboard, custom...

PSU, custom...

Chassis, custom...

Cooling system(s), custom...

My opinion is that those three items; motherboard, chassis, & PSU probably account for at least half of the base $6K price...

And you cannot dismiss R&D costs, those are a part of the cost for each & every item brought to any market by any vendor...

 

[dannys1]

$1200  Xeon W-3225
$500   Supermicro X11SPA-TF
$275   4x8GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM
$200   Power Supply
$175   Radeon 580
$50    EATX Case
$35    M.2 256GB SSD

About $2500.

I hope this is a joke - if not you have no idea what you're pricing up.

This forum does not understand the pro market.

This is the big problem - due to phones Apple is the biggest company in the world with a massive basic consumer market. So when they do a niche product for professionals they think it's ridiculous priced because they have no concept of professional tools.

For what you get the Mac Pro is a bargain, but it's aimed at a very small user base.

£7000 is not a lot to pay for a reference monitor with those specs (Obviously the Sony is 43k). Professional recording studios spend £8000+ on reference monitor speakers. This is normal money for actual pros. Not prosumers, no home enthusiasts, not youtubers. The BIG studios across the world - in this case writing film scores and mastering HDR material for Blu-ray.

I'm glad one of the biggest company in the world is still making small selling niche products, they could just sack it all off and only make iOS devices and services and their profits wouldn't change.

 

[beepp]

I hope this is a joke - if not you have no idea what you're pricing up.

This forum does not understand the pro market.

What do you mean? Does paying for overpriced computer makes you pro consumer?

 

[Razzerman]

still making small selling niche products,

I suppose if you're in that niche group, everything has come up roses. However, I can see why people outside that niche might feel a little left behind.

 

[Gen]

I suppose if you're in that niche group, everything has come up roses. However, I can see why people outside that niche might feel a little left behind.

left behind how? get an imac pro instead.

 

[Razzerman]

get an imac pro instead

Yeah...no thanks

 

[iBrooker]

I hope this is a joke - if not you have no idea what you're pricing up.

This forum does not understand the pro market.

This is the big problem - due to phones Apple is the biggest company in the world with a massive basic consumer market. So when they do a niche product for professionals they think it's ridiculous priced because they have no concept of professional tools.

For what you get the Mac Pro is a bargain, but it's aimed at a very small user base.

£7000 is not a lot to pay for a reference monitor with those specs (Obviously the Sony is 43k). Professional recording studios spend £8000+ on reference monitor speakers. This is normal money for actual pros. Not prosumers, no home enthusiasts, not youtubers. The BIG studios across the world - in this case writing film scores and mastering HDR material for Blu-ray.

I'm glad one of the biggest company in the world is still making small selling niche products, they could just sack it all off and only make iOS devices and services and their profits wouldn't change.

That's fine! But Apple should make an expandable computer that home or semi-pro users can afford too; you know something like the old cheese grater Mac Pros which allowed you to add more HDs, add more ram, upgrade GPU, etc without having to compromise by them being USB-C disks/eGPUs etc.

They could have easily introduced a more affordable 'mid-range' Mac Pro and then classed these new ones as 'High end' Mac Pros.

Not too much to ask really!!
[doublepost=1559657790][/doublepost]

In trying to match the HP Z8 G4 Workstation, which appears to be what's pictured on screen there, to the approx config of the Mac Pro, the closest two CPUs appear to be the Xeon Gold 6134 (3.2GHz 8-core, 3.7GHz Turbo, 24.75MB cache) and Gold 6144 (3.5GHz 8-core, 4.2GHz Turbo, 24.75MB cache). Both of these appear to be enormously expensive, so it's looking to me like the CPU is what's causing this giant price tag on the new Mac Pro.

If you look at the price of a 2nd one of these in the Z8 (shame Mac Pro only has 1 socket...) to get an idea of its "raw" price— rather than upgrade price from base CPU— you get $4520 and $5920, respectively. I have no idea why a modestly clocked 8-core CPU should cost so much (massive PCIe bandwidth? ECC memory channels? cache?), but I guess I'll start looking into that. Further, I don't understand why we cannot *also* have the great expansion and configurability of this impressive Mac Pro redesign, coupled w/ processors that are less stratospheric in price.

If the Mac Pro's CPUs are indeed in this (costly) ballpark, it certainly makes the rest of the system not seem so expensive. But still then, why are the CPUs SOOO expensive? And why no cheaper alternatives for people wanting something expandable but more in line w/ the cost of past Mac Pro offerings?

Thanks, I had no idea an 8 core CPU would cost that much! For a few grand for a CPU, I would expect them to be at least 16 core :/

It will be interesting to know which CPU they add - in their keynote they said the 'latest in Xeon CPS' yet, the Xeon Gold 8c CPUS were released in 2017.

 

[dannys1]

They could have easily introduced a more affordable 'mid-range' Mac Pro and then classed these new ones as 'High end' Mac Pros.

Not too much to ask really!!

Well obviously it is. What you want is a cheaper motherboard a cheaper processor and less ability to upgrade so you can put your own cheaper stuff in.

Apple have obviously decided they don’t want to sell to the penny pitching hobbiest, it’s a totally different market, it wouldn’t be worth the support hassle either as these customers are the worst in that regard.

Also they’re using new Xeon processors that Intel just announced yesterday with the Mac Pro.

Honestly if you don’t need the power of the Mac Pro then you have no need not to connect stuff with Thunderbolt 3 either.

 

[teejayhoward]

I hope this is a joke - if not you have no idea what you're pricing up.

Can you explain it for me? I did make a mistake, that another user pointed out in another thread. The CPU should be the W-3223, not the W-3225... So it should be $2000 in components, not $2500. The point is that the Mac Pro is absurdly expensive when broken down. Three times the component cost can't be interpreted any other way.

For the cost of a Mac Pro you can build, using all new components, a machine that has 8x the storage space, 7x the GPU power, twice the RAM, and the same processor. You just have to give up MacOS (or Hackintosh it). Using a car analogy, you've got a new Ferrari (Mac) or a new Corvette (Windows) that's got over 2000HP under the hood. How much is that prancing horse badge worth to you?

 

[iBrooker]

Apple have obviously decided they don’t want to sell to the penny pitching hobbiest, it’s a totally different market, it wouldn’t be worth the support hassle either as these customers are the worst in that regard..

I don't think people spending $2 to $4K are penny pinchers :/

An amazing highly expandable system could have been made for that much - just like the original cheese grater Mac Pro which I paid £1600 for! I would have been quite happy to buy a new Mac Pro for £3,000, but £6K is just insane and a slap in the face for people who wanted an expandable and performant Mac desktop.

 

[filterdecay]

The issue with that slide is it shows a xeon gold cpu for $4000 and the cpu they will use in the macpro base is $750. So they are playing with the numbers a bit too much here.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

What do you mean? Does paying for overpriced computer makes you pro consumer?

You have the option not to buy it.

 

[Allyance]

What do you mean? Does paying for overpriced computer makes you pro consumer?

The average microwave goes for $80 to $200, and commercial grade (professional) will go for $4k to over $10k. Companies buy equipment they need to do the job.