Where the biggest danger to the 7,1 lies is Apple deciding as soon as the AS Mac Pro launches, that no further AMD GPUs get support. Nvidia haven't shown any interest in a display driver for macOS for whatever hoops Apple want them to jump through, I imagine AMD would be similar, given they don't even seem to regard the Mac Pro as a supported platform for their non-MPX Pro GPUs.
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MP 7,1 2019 Mac Pro now end of life
- Thread starter Skywalker5
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Where the biggest danger to the 7,1 lies is Apple deciding as soon as the AS Mac Pro launches, that no further AMD GPUs get support. Nvidia haven't shown any interest in a display driver for macOS for whatever hoops Apple want them to jump through, I imagine AMD would be similar, given they don't even seem to regard the Mac Pro as a supported platform for their non-MPX Pro GPUs.
Well I just spent AUD$15K on a brand new one - I needed it and the Mac Studio didn't fit the needs, even though a top spec Studio would have been cheaper.
My 7,1 runs MacOS 12.4 and Windows 11 Pro for Workstations. It's a very powerful machine still.
It's a really nice looking config from your sig - what was the config you started with from Apple to get the build to 15k? It's coming up at almost 17-18k trying to match your specs in the configurator at the moment.
I've been sortof kicking myself that I failed to grab one that was on eBay recently - AUD $7.9k for a 2020 AUD $17k config (96gb/8gb/w5700x), still under Applecare. It was in Lismore, so getting it to Qld would have been a thing... but still.
I got a special price from Apple and the extra 2TB of storage was from the Sonnet card and 2x Samsung NVME drives from my old computer, they were just simple put them in and they worked great. The machine I used in the interim was the 6,1.It's a really nice looking config from your sig - what was the config you started with from Apple to get the build to 15k? It's coming up at almost 17-18k trying to match your specs in the configurator at the moment.
I've been sortof kicking myself that I failed to grab one that was on eBay recently - AUD $7.9k for a 2020 AUD $17k config (96gb/8gb/w5700x), still under Applecare. It was in Lismore, so getting it to Qld would have been a thing... but still.
Without the special price I would have been nearly $17K. I would have actually paid more if I could have got it sooner because it was nearly 1 month from order to delivery and I really was eager to get it.
There was a guy in QLD trying to sell his for over $11K on eBay but the price was not worth it for the specs that it was, better to buy one brand new.
From Apple the spec sheet was:
Xeon W3245 3.2 16 core
48GB 2933Mhz ECC RAM (6x8GB)
1TB Apple SSD
Magic keyboard and mouse (silver/black)
Radeon W6800X 32GB
No other software added. I didn't want to spec more RAM from Apple directly, they are too expensive. I had the machine up and running in a couple of hours with everything installed on it.
I believe 6800/6900 Radeons (non MPX cards) will work in Mac Pro 7,1 just as long as you check they fit. They work in MacOS. I think it was only the older Macs where they didn't work without firmware revisions. Once that issue was sorted out you can see people are even running them in 5,1s with relevant power mods, the only issue being finding one that isn't too long and also that they take up a lot of room from other PCI-E slots.
If it ticks the boxes and does the job you need and you can budget for it, buy it. It's a solid machine.
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That explains the 3tb part
.Ha, the wait time is a bit of a pain now.
Yeah, assuming I'm thinking of the same one, it looks like a studio at Fortitude Valley in Brisbane has shut down a workstation - they've got a Vega II machine, and a couple of XDRs for sale, but yeah, at that price I think I'd prefer the peace of mind of the brand new one.
I saw a Cash Converters in Melbourne, Geelong from memory had an 8 or 12 core rx580 base model, and couldn't help but wonder who hocks a workstaton, who hasn't stolen it.
Much appreciated.
Well we even have a nifty PCI fan offset bracket available now - I'm tempted to go the Opencore / Pixlas / 6800xt route, to complete the "restomod", but in some respects it's eventually upgrading out of spite and bloodymindedness rather than buy a new machine 😅
I'm actually really curious how the AMD branded 6800 Pro GPU is in these machines, given it has 6 displayport outputs.
Honestly, I'd been a bit soso given the PCI 3 limitation, but perhaps that's not really worth worrying about for display gpu issues.
That's the one - given his price I thought no I'll get a new one. The displays are tempting but I can get by with a Studio Display 5K or a LG Ultrafine 5K which works great for my use cases, save a lot of money too. For your 6800XT you'll need to grab a PC and flash that card with the firmware the genius people here have modified.
If I had some timeframe for when the next Mac Pro was to arrive and some rough idea of what sort of machine it was I might have been able to hold out a bit longer. I guess others must be at the same point. I had to decide now because one machine failed and the others aren't young either.
My Mac pro 7.1 was a base model with October 2023 apple care. purchased via advertisement. after speaking to the owner and arranging to pick up. 250 mile drive each way.
Base spec i purchased was 8 core with 4TB apple drive. 96G ram and 580X in Immaculate condition with Apple care until October 2023 I paid £3.300 for it.
I then purchased a W3245M 16 core CPU for £382.00 which is not a QS or engineering sample and changed CPU.
I then purchased a Gigabyte 6900XT as it fits inside the 7.1 and Belkin power cables from Apple. £950.00
I then fitted my Startech Pcie dual M2 card with 2 TB Samsung 980pro drives. both faster than 4TB Apple drive.
Also fitted Inateck PCie USB 3.2 card with 4 X USB and 2 X USBC ports.
So for roughly £5000 i ended up with. ( have no idea how this converts to US$ or AU$ )
MP 7.1 16 core 6TB storage with 96G ram at 2933mhz X580 still installed, along with 6900XT and Extra USB 3.2 and USBc. with windows installed on 1 of the Samsung 980pro M2 drives.
CPU upgrade was easy, I used thermal grizzly K for CPU install, the rest just plug in PCie.
So far the Mac pro 7.1 has been 100% rock solid and fast as i would ever need. If Apple decided to support the RDNA 3 GPU's and you can find one that fits inside it may well be a future upgrade. but this 7.1 will last me a long time.
I still use my mac pro 5.1 though, in fact i am on it now. still a very good machine with live projects on it. The reason i purchased the 7.1 was the upgrades that are possible like the 5.1 before it. I don't think Apple's new upcoming Mac pro 8.1 will be as upgradable in the future and not so many of the 7.1 machines around like the 5.1's.
Base spec i purchased was 8 core with 4TB apple drive. 96G ram and 580X in Immaculate condition with Apple care until October 2023 I paid £3.300 for it.
I then purchased a W3245M 16 core CPU for £382.00 which is not a QS or engineering sample and changed CPU.
I then purchased a Gigabyte 6900XT as it fits inside the 7.1 and Belkin power cables from Apple. £950.00
I then fitted my Startech Pcie dual M2 card with 2 TB Samsung 980pro drives. both faster than 4TB Apple drive.
Also fitted Inateck PCie USB 3.2 card with 4 X USB and 2 X USBC ports.
So for roughly £5000 i ended up with. ( have no idea how this converts to US$ or AU$ )
MP 7.1 16 core 6TB storage with 96G ram at 2933mhz X580 still installed, along with 6900XT and Extra USB 3.2 and USBc. with windows installed on 1 of the Samsung 980pro M2 drives.
CPU upgrade was easy, I used thermal grizzly K for CPU install, the rest just plug in PCie.
So far the Mac pro 7.1 has been 100% rock solid and fast as i would ever need. If Apple decided to support the RDNA 3 GPU's and you can find one that fits inside it may well be a future upgrade. but this 7.1 will last me a long time.
I still use my mac pro 5.1 though, in fact i am on it now. still a very good machine with live projects on it. The reason i purchased the 7.1 was the upgrades that are possible like the 5.1 before it. I don't think Apple's new upcoming Mac pro 8.1 will be as upgradable in the future and not so many of the 7.1 machines around like the 5.1's.
I suspect if the 8,1 is announced without display gpu upgrades of equivalent price / performance to MPX / Off the shelf, I'll put the order in for a 7,1 straight away.
That was the thing I was also concerned about, if that gets announced as a locked down type of machine and then the 7,1 disappears off the store for sale immediately.
For us in Australia we can't just buy Apple refurbished, our local Apple site doesn't have refurbished 7,1s ever. Canada has them, Germany, UK, etc. I almost thought of getting a refurb one out of Canada via family and shipping it but the costs would have been prohibitive and the machine wouldn't have been as good as what I got.
I will keep my eyes open for a 28 core 2.5ghz processor - I've done CPU upgrades before, heck, I did it on my 6,1 as well and this is much simpler than pulling the entire computer apart as you do for the 6,1.
When the 8,1 is announced, they'll probably keep 7,1 orders open for a bit for customers who still need Intel systems. My hunch is 7,1s are either offered in back channel, kept locally for in-place replacement stock for significant clients if their machines are being serviced, or sent back to America for servicing / refurb.
Well I'll say this. I build plenty of CG sequences in Unreal Engine 5 and in fact use it as a cheat for created extras in film backgrounds as well as building out set extensions...it runs fantastic on the Beast (Mac Pro)...THAT SAID...there are FAR LESS extensions and custom plugins and assets built by the community that are Mac Compatible and that part sucks...Fortunately I have Cinema 4D and Octane X and After Effects for literally anything and everything else so it's more or less a minor quality of life level inconvenience than anything.
My suggestion; if you are doing HEAVY AND DAILY 3D animation and VFX, go with the Beast...you can build your own using Apple's refurbished page for literally less than $20,000 with super powerful GPU's and Cores...find that page here:
https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac
BUT...if you are doing light, VERY LIGHT motion graphics work and don't need much more than that or if you don't mind longer render times and slower viewports "that still blow anything the iMac Pro's were ever able to do right out of the water", then pick up the Studio. The BIGGEST question mark in my opinion however, is what's going to come of gen 2 Mac Studios and the gen 1 A.S. Mac Pros...so if you can stand the wait, wait and see, if you need it now for work, those are my advices. Cheers!
I'll speak frankly...there are THREE main focuses in production...everything falls underneath one of these focuses...PRE production, PRO duction, and POST production...preproduction is 100% writing, storyboarding, previzing, color boarding, planning, location scouting, and more...all of which are best done on systems that can PLUG AND PLAY with everything else around them and without any setup and immediately...as a result, pre-production is DOMINATED by Apple products. Between Mac Pros, iMacs, MacBook Pros, iPads, and even iPhones, ALL of the assets can be accessed, added to, edited, and noted from EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE DEVICES, and when new team members pop in, they are literally plug and play into the ecosystem...I have even received location scouting storyboards on my Apple Watch in traffic and approved them...nobody wants to nor has any kind of desire to leave behind such a rock solid system.
Then there's PRODUCTION. Production is dominated by APPLE AGAIN...because that same plug and play system that worked in pre-production, works on set. THE OUTLIER HERE being virtual sets which are DOMINATED by Puget Systems. Primarily because as I mentioned in a previous post, Unreal Engine 5 runs extremely well on Macs, but is NOT at parity in functionality with what it can do on PC. And considering EPIC and APPLE have been at war for some time, who knows when that will change. So for studios running primarily virtual sets, they will be dominated by PC. Beyond that, every set you walk onto AND IN THE FIELD AND ON LOCATION, it will be 100% Apple. There are always two or more on location editors and colorists on their MacBook Pros doing rough cuts, basic color ideas on dailies, and more on location and all of that is being airdropped, exported, and broadcasted to every monitor on location and throughout the studio.
Then there's POST PRODUCTION. Now this one is split in HALF. Because there are funnily, 3 main pillars of post production as well; The Edit, The Color, and The VFX. The edit rooms and edit bays are dominated by Mac Pros and iMacs, the Coloring Bays are a toss up, because industry standard for color, Black Magic's DaVinci RESOLVE runs equally well on both systems, and usually based on the setup of the color room and the rest of the pipeline will dictate which system is running the Resolve. The Avid is usually industry standard for feature films above $20 million on budgets, below $20 million I tend to see a toss up between Premiere and FCPX, and then for music videos, commercials, trailers, etc...FCPX seems to be the way most indie studios go. But the HUGE OUTLIER is in the VFX Department. If your project relies on basic general VFX, object removals, sign replacements/additions, adding pre-keyed elements, set extensions, screen replacements, etc...it's usually Mac based...if however, its 3D ANIMATION and HEAVY 3D OBJECT, CITY, DESTRUCTION FOCUSED VFX, then it's going to be PC, because the decades long war between Apple and Nvidia, which literally is the flick of a switch to fix...Apple won't sign drivers for Nvidia GPUs...and conversely for anti-compete reasons only allow METAL to be the driver for 3D work...PC DOMINATES this portion of the post production field, and so virtually 99% of all houses doing heavy 3D work will be PC based...this means that around 75% of all work in Hollywood is done on Mac and roughly 25% is done on PC.
As for render farms, you are correct, 90% of them are PC based and everyone exports to them, but you'd be shocked how little that impacts the systems preferred by the artists and weirdly, the pencil pushing side of things...
And to speak to Puget, they just jumped in very quickly with their custom systems for virtual production and I think honestly, they played the game extremely aggressively because they are genuinely dominating these days from what I've seen when I go work on outside productions "I own my production company, but I also am an artist myself and have served as VFX Supervisor on around a dozen feature films, and dozens and dozens of commercials, trailers, behind the scenes projects, special projects for Disney+ extra content, sports packages, etc..." and I'm an actor as well, so I also see what's going on when we are live on set shooting in both the studio sets and out in the field as well on location.
So I see this industry all day everyday from all angles of it both in front of and behind the lens, both above and below the line, and these are just my observations I am sharing. Of course, your observations may be different which is why conversation and discourse is so valuable and helps our community in general to grow and make healthy, and educated purchases
Or within the means of their budgetary confinements and looking for a machine right now for work purposes lol.
LOL you won't, you can pick one up for $5k though...mostly gutted, but still basically new.I still kinda crave one, purely for the industrial design. Although it's still on the big side, I'd probably find a way to cram a Mac Studio or Mini inside just for fun
I dunno what the used prices are, but if I came across one in perfect cosmetic condition for <$1K, I'd be tempted.
This is a really important point that I haven't yet touched upon...but being the last Mac that runs bootcamp is a HUGE deal...glad you mentioned it and shocked I nor anyone else has yet lolol.
I mean, their w8900x is a great GPU, and the w6800x Duo is a MONSTER of a GPU, and as you know by now, my system runs two of those. I don't see any Mac system beating this thing in terms of GPU power for years to come, and if Apple allows the upcoming w7800x Duo to compete with the RTX 4090's, I literally just don't see a reason to even consider whatever happens with the AS Mac Pro's...The form factor of the 7.1 is just awesome, and that combined with my M1 Max MacBook Pro...It's been a loooooong time since I have NOT felt the need to upgrade to the latest and greatest from Apple but these two machines together is just the ultimate powerhouse. everything my clients need runs through this setup and gets chewed up and spat out with zero problem and with the speed of several RTX 3090's...Apple has a problem on their hands and I am HONESTLY AFRAID they will cut off AMD specifically because folks like me have ZERO REASON to upgrade beyond this system if AMD is allowed to continue making these monstrous GPUs.
In my opinion it's a fantastic purchase and I'm sure you did all the research to know that was the right choice for you. People jump on hype trains far too often. Enjoy your machine!
Two years later and that machine is still being sold for those that CAN'T run their likely critical workloads on an M1 Ultra Mac Studio and/or need to run expansion cards the cost of which put the base Mac Pro cost to shame. End of life, my a$$.
They put out that computer for professionals that don't care about having the latest and greatest as much as they care about having the beefiest, fastest, and most importantly, the most stable Mac with the most amount of expansion. And three years after launch, and two years after the Apple Silicon transition was announced, that's still what that Mac is all about.
Having used it for a while now it has met the requirements well. It has the makings of a machine that will last, it is solidly built and has huge scope for expansion. Anyone buying these isn't just doing so without thought because it's the price of a small car.
Agree...As a 2019 MacPro owner, hopefully, with HUGE sum of money spent, will Apple provide some incentive (rebate?) to upgrade to the new Apple silicon?
I think Apple should just update the intel Mac pro, keep the Mac pro intel based and have apple M chips in the studio, mac mini's and Mac book pro's along with Imac's I cant see the Apple silicon Mac pro offering the diversity the Intel Mac pro does.
As for apple offering a rebate, i dont think so, but a trade in they will offer i guess.
As for apple offering a rebate, i dont think so, but a trade in they will offer i guess.
What you'll probably have is swap-able SoCs (which will be where you can upgrade either graphics, RAM, or CPU after the fact) and PCIe slots as before (just none dedicated to discrete GPUs since discrete GPUs seems to go completely against Apple's platform design for Apple Silicon Macs). Not quite as flexible price/upgrade-wise, but that'll probably be how they convince Mac Pro customers that the box is still customizable when it is still a step down in that regard compared to the 2019/2006-12 models.
Well, for me, they're not gonna be able to pry this thing out of my cold dead fingers unless discrete GPUs somehow have a home in the AC Mac Pro. I'm WAY too addicted to having a realtime workflow in Cinema 4D now, and now that it's possible on Apple for the first time in years, there's ZERO chance I'd give that up. The only way they can get me to leave this current machine is if the AC Mac Pro somehow handles my heaviest projects faster than my current Mac Pro, and I don't see that happening with an SOC anytime soon. They'd have to put around 8 m1 Ultra Chips in that machine and the price point considering the Mac Studio Maxed out Price point would end up right around $52,000+