Apple Made Me Buy a Windows HP Workstation

[H2SO4]

And to be honest, I'd probably pay the obscene amount of money, if the new Mac Pro served my needs. But not being able to add PCIe cards, not being able to throw hard drives in it... etc. It's just ridiculous. I see audio and video pros still nursing their old Mac Pros and I can't help but wonder; isn't Apple aware that professionals, at least the majority, have not bought into their idea of a tiny non expandable Mac Pro? Or do they care?

This. I don’t need anywhere near a 6 core Mac Pro but I didn’t mind spending the money as it’s a good machine with lots of options.

 

[Tcbmac]

Give us an update on the PC after a bit, as I share your thoughts and am considering jumping, so sad.

 

[Mark Holmes]

Mark Holmes:

So what flavor of Windows are you running your HP box? Win7? Win10?

Windows 10 seems to be a big improvement on previous incarnations and has been getting pretty good reviews.
How is that working out for you so far?

OS X is the only thing stopping me from switching. I'm not familiar with maintaining a Windows system and therefore am a little hesitant to make the jump.

But if Apple doesn't show something with PCI slots and a second CPU in June I will have no choice but to make the move to stay competitive in my business. I know many others who have switched to HP or Supermicro boxes that will smoke any nMP for less money.

Hey Hank,
The HP server I bought comes with Windows 7 Pro with a Windows 10 license. My intention is to immediately install Windows 10. I've been running it on a separate drive via Bootcamp on the old Mac Pro and I've really enjoyed it. The last couple or three updates to OS X haven't charmed me exactly, and the file management that did away with "save as" has only exacerbated it. I do enjoy the new Photos app, though, and enjoy having the iCloud storage immediately updating to my iPhone and iPad. As far as desktops go though, Windows 10 satisfies me. It seems fast, stable, and I love the UI.

 

[s-hatland]

i'm installing windows 10 this weekend on a home built HTPC i currently have running yosemite as a hackintosh. it makes more sense to try windows as there are more games/options/flexibility for the HTPC utility. my [classic] mac pro, however, is where i make money. that said, nothing software specific, i just enjoy OSX lightyears beyond windows. i've had a mac pro since the 1,1 and now owning an upgraded 4,1 love the crap out of it. it was flexible. it GREW with me. apple's philosophy has changed. nothing is SOLID anymore, not even OSX. nothings built to last. just sell the old and buy the new. i've given Tim 5 years now, since Steve passed. and he hasn't done anything revolutionary. one could argue for the apple watch, but you know that was already in the works, and even if not... still.... meh. the VISION, as much as I tried not to say it for these last 5 years, really has died with Steve. It pains me with every apple fiber in my being, from my first powermac 6100/60 and all the years i endured being laughed at for running a Mac, when windows does so much more and then seeing the tide turn back in apple's favor all the way up until now, it PAINS ME SO MUCH to be installing windows for the first time in my life, be it on a lowly HTPC. if it works out and apple is done innovating, my next machine will be a self-built win.... *cough*...... wind..... *cough cough*........ excuse me.... ........ ...... windows box.

 

[iOrbit]

don't worry, apple's time will come when low numbers really start knocking on their doors.then they will be a betamale company again.

wish i hopped onto the Mac bandwagon much sooner than i did.

 

[Hank Carter]

thanks Mark.

 

[maxsix]

And the thing Apple forgets, is their pro users serve as more than another group of customers. We are, or were their evangelists, the ones who spread the word about how great Apple products are. The member of the family, or the one of the group of friends who people would go to for tech advice. I increasingly have a hard time pointing people to the Apple store...

Very well said.

From a huge advocate in the nineties, I can no longer endorse Apple like I once did with confidence and pleasure.

 

[JamesPDX]

So, yep, that is exactly what happened. I wanted to buy a Mac Pro for my 4k editing needs. I nursed my 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 for 7 years, upgrading the RAM, the video card, constantly changing out hard drives as my needs dictated, loving the configurability and reliability of that machine.
But it was choking on the 4k footage I'm editing now, the bottleneck was memory and processor, and the only solution was to replace it with something faster, that could be upgraded over the years as I did with the classic Mac Pro.
So I shopped the Mac Pro, configured it to what I needed, and ended up with a decent system: the 3.5 GHZ six core, 64GB of RAM, 256 Flash Drive, and the dual D700 GPUs. That came to $5,799.00. Really, Apple? For a machine that hasn't been updated since 2013?!?! Add to that the fact that I don't trust Apple to keep building the Mac Pro - burned by Aperture and FCPX - and the fact that this machine will never be able to be updated over the coming years the way I did with the 2009 Mac Pro.
So I found myself researching HP workstations.
A couple days research later, I had my system. The HP Z640 Workstation. 3.5 GHZ 6 core Xeon, 256GB PCI Flash Drive, adding an AMD 390x graphics card and 64GB of RAM. With the additional memory and graphics card, it came to just over $3,000.00
Apple, I think, IMHO, is moving on from the professional market. It just doesn't make sense otherwise. Killing off the professional software, building "pro" machines that don't meet pro needs, not consistently updating the "pro" machines they do build... you get the idea.
Makes me sad, as I've been relying on Apple for professional needs for many years. But I believe the ethos of the company has changed... time to move on.
[doublepost=1461876080][/doublepost]Oh, i will admit, I'm keeping the old Mac Pro as well. Still perfectly suitable for photo editing and personal use. . Just wish Apple could come to their senses and build a real replacement for the Mac Pro.

Hi, I was just wondering how the HP compared to the Boxx machines. In your work, what are the Post and/or Pro Tools people using as workstations?

 

[Mark Holmes]

Don't know how representative my sample is, but I still see a lot of people trying to extend the life of their Mac Pros. I have never run across a Boxx workstation, although I've researched and shopped them. I do see the HP workstations a fair bit and people seem happy with them. Ask me in 6 months how I feel about it ;-)

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I'm starting to think Hackintosh may be the only option. Because even if Apple updates the Mac Pro. I'm sure it will be great when released, but no way I'm paying 10k for a top of the line cylinder with non-upgradeabel video. It means it's piece of garbage in year 3, and sorry, 10k does not a disposable machine make.

 

[Hank Carter]

Boxx machines are pretty pricey from what I remember. HP seems to have some good deals.
Supermicro makes top of the line machines that are very price competitive and you see a lot of them out there.

Around LA it looks like HP dominates post houses running Windows or Linux

Obviously a lot of people out there are rolling their own. It's more work, but you will certainly get more bang for your buck than buying a preassembled machine.

 

[OS6-OSX]

You all are moving away from the MP too soon! Tim is on the way with help. I think I hear the wagon train approaching!

 

[AidenShaw]

Don't know how representative my sample is, but I still see a lot of people trying to extend the life of their Mac Pros.

Possibly because they don't see a suitable replacement from Apple.

They spent a lot of money on their cMP, and an nMP is fairly expensive and doesn't fit some needs.

If someone has a four or five year old Dell/HP/Boxx..., it can make more sense to buy a new system with new technology rather than investing more money into a system that's a couple of generations old. (Particularly if depreciation or other tax breaks can reduce the "on books" cost.)

Obviously a lot of people out there are rolling their own. It's more work, but you will certainly get more bang for your buck than buying a preassembled machine.

After years of building my own, I bought a Dell T3610 workstation for my personal machine at home (same CPU/chipset as the MP6,1 six core).

ECC RAM was a requirement. Once you go from the Core i7 motherboards to the ECC capable motherboards, the price for BYO jumps rather markedly.

Second thing was Dell's Next-Business-Day on-site warranty. If there's a hardware problem, for four years Dell will come to my home the next day to fix it.

ps: The T3610 has 8 DIMM slots. I bought it with 16 GiB (4 x 4) from Dell, and added 64 GiB (4 x 16) to get 80 GiB from the start. Since then I've upgraded the graphics (Quadro K600 to GTX 960 - mainly to get three DP outputs for 4K displays), and got 4 more 16 GiB DIMMs to get to 128 GiB.

 

[yaxomoxay]

I am not a professional (as meant as someone that needs a super-mega computer with 20 CPUs and 128GB of RAM), but I have to agree with the OP. As you can see from the signature I have a lot of apple stuff, but the Mac line truly sucks. It has been abandoned. And you want to know the truth? I don't trust them anymore, meaning that yeah they can have a new Mac at WWDC, but what if the line is left again for dead for five years or so? The Macbook is a nice machine (and just what the MBA should be now), it would fit my needs, but I refuse to pay $1,700 for it. I truly refuse. I got the iPP (which I like a lot) mainly because I knew it would've helped my wife's workflow, and it does. So I swallowed the fact that it's probably overpriced, mainly for the love of my wife, not of the product itself.
The real bummer is that Apple's ecosystem used to be the high note of all the products. What the product lacked in tech specs was nothing compared the beautiful ecosystem.
iCloud sucks, it's just an overhyped backup drive.
Photos sucks
ATV4, I like it, but it's far from where it should be
iTunes... well. iTunes.
ApplePay it's a hit or miss depending on where you are.\
Maps. It once tried to send me in a pond
Siri... I love her, but it's time for a sharper girl.

I can't believe that I am saying this, but can apple acquire Nadella?

 

[mindquest]

So I found myself researching HP workstations.
A couple days research later, I had my system. The HP Z640 Workstation. 3.5 GHZ 6 core Xeon, 256GB PCI Flash Drive, adding an AMD 390x graphics card and 64GB of RAM. With the additional memory and graphics card, it came to just over $3,000.00

[doublepost=1461876080][/doublepost]Oh, i will admit, I'm keeping the old Mac Pro as well. Still perfectly suitable for photo editing and personal use. . Just wish Apple could come to their senses and build a real replacement for the Mac Pro.

Just curious what monitor you bought for this bad boy!

 

[yaxomoxay]

Just curious what monitor you bought for this bad boy!

Obviously the only monitor that would make it worth it:

 

[Larry-K]

Of course they are aware, but the Mac Pro doesn't really account for much of Apples income. And according to Tims last keynote the iPad Pro was the future of professionals in his opinion.

And we all know Tim spends most of his days cranking out cutting-edge graphics,
when he's not busy fighting with the FBI.

Tim knows less than Jon Snow.

Sure, fewer workstations are being sold these days, but fewer professionals are looking Apple's way for them.

It doesn't amount to much of Apple's income, because they've turned it into an overpriced, boutique basket-case.

 

[Renzatic]

You dont have Time Machine in Windows but https://www.bvckup2.com is a good replacement. You have to set it up yourself though.

Actually, there is. It's called File History.

 

[jdiamond]

I agree with you, but I dont think Apple does. Its interesting times for sure, it will be fun to see how all this unfolds in the coming years.

IMO, the biggest difference with Apple pre and post Steve Jobs is that Steve Jobs, at least to some extent, acted as a genuine user of Apple products. He could spot things that would affect actual users, not just theoretical points. I feel like there's a disconnect now - the current Apple execs are not true computer users and so these points are lost on them.

Classic example was when they let Johnny Ive design the GUI interface for a year - that was a disaster. Turns out there's a difference between how something looks and how it functions. And all the models Johnny had made all those years didn't actually operate - they were just mockups.

 

[JamesPDX]

Every time my Mac Pro 2013 crashes due to the acknowledged graphics problem, I come to Macrumors' Mac Pro forums to see if there are people switching.

I too am thinking of switching. Back in 2013, I felt the Mac Pro is quite worth the money. I still do actually when I look back in time. For customers, it would be silly to buy 2013 computer in 2016 at 2013's price. If I know my friend is buying a 2013 Mac Pro, I can't help but say that he/she is silly. It's like Apple professional customers are silly.

I should be sending in the Mac Pro for repairs but I just can't afford the days of downtime since I work everyday. It's faster to just restart and pray that it doesn't crash again.

So yeah, I'm also looking at other non-Mac options now given that I'm quite frustrated with the crashes. Final Cut Pro is nice but maybe it's just better to switch to Premiere.

The only good thing about Mac is MacOS. Without it, Apple computers will just be as cheap as whatever brand that's out there.

Rant over.

You just saved me a few thousand dollars and a lot of man-gear-heartache. But I need a really quiet machine for my studio, otherwise I'd get the cMP2012. I just don't know how loud they are. My Mini is silent. Maybe I should just pickup a machine to run headless over ethernet for my VEP5 stuff.

I can't be certain that even the refurbs have fixed the video issue. I chatted online trying to get a RAM swap done. The "handler" transferred the chat over to "a systems engineer" -who was actually not an engineer, but just someone who barely knew the RAM spec and that the CPU was soldered-in and could never be upgraded. -So those were the magic words. It was like a morality tale or an Aesop fable. "The Sales-Hipster Who Didn't Know the Product Line."

Salesfolk: Know Your Product.

 

[jdiamond]

And we all know Tim spends most of his days cranking out cutting-edge graphics,
when he's not busy fighting with the FBI.

Tim knows less than Jon Snow.

Sure, fewer workstations are being sold these days, but fewer professionals are looking Apple's way for them.

It doesn't amount to much of Apple's income, because they've turned it into an overpriced, boutique basket-case.

All Macs combined have often fallen to less than 10% of Apple's income, but the catch is that Apple NEEDS Macs to create their software and devices. The developers within Apple are surely power users who would benefit from Apple providing high end compute options, even at a loss. I can't even for a minute believe Apple would be OK with their own engineers using Windows computers because Macs were too inferior.

 

[JamesPDX]

Possibly because they don't see a suitable replacement from Apple.

They spent a lot of money on their cMP, and an nMP is fairly expensive and doesn't fit some needs.

If someone has a four or five year old Dell/HP/Boxx..., it can make more sense to buy a new system with new technology rather than investing more money into a system that's a couple of generations old. (Particularly if depreciation or other tax breaks can reduce the "on books" cost.)




After years of building my own, I bought a Dell T3610 workstation for my personal machine at home (same CPU/chipset as the MP6,1 six core).

ECC RAM was a requirement. Once you go from the Core i7 motherboards to the ECC capable motherboards, the price for BYO jumps rather markedly.

Second thing was Dell's Next-Business-Day on-site warranty. If there's a hardware problem, for four years Dell will come to my home the next day to fix it.

ps: The T3610 has 8 DIMM slots. I bought it with 16 GiB (4 x 4) from Dell, and added 64 GiB (4 x 16) to get 80 GiB from the start. Since then I've upgraded the graphics (Quadro K600 to GTX 960 - mainly to get three DP outputs for 4K displays), and got 4 more 16 GiB DIMMs to get to 128 GiB.

Ah! I just found something funny. My gift to you all... http://www.boxxtech.com/landing-pages/mac-pro-no

 

[Larry-K]

All Macs combined have often fallen to less than 10% of Apple's income, but the catch is that Apple NEEDS Macs to create their software and devices. The developers within Apple are surely power users who would benefit from Apple providing high end compute options, even at a loss. I can't even for a minute believe Apple would be OK with their own engineers using Windows computers because Macs were too inferior.

I can, all that matters is the stock price these days.

 

[AidenShaw]

Ah! I just found something funny. My gift to you all... http://www.boxxtech.com/landing-pages/mac-pro-no

That's old (2013), but still funny.

It would be fun to update it....

• Does it have Broadwell processors?
  • No.
• So it has Haswell processors?
  • No.
• It still has Ivy Bridge processors?
  • (sheepish) Yes.
• How about DDR4 memory
  • No.
• NVMe SSDs?
  • No.
• 1.5 TiB RAM support?
  • No, just 64 GiB.
• How many CUDA cores?
  • 0.

 

[Larry-K]

That's old (2013), but still funny.

I've seen that ad a couple of times, and first, it always amazes me that BOXX did an ad, and when the guy runs up with the nMP, how much it looks like something to cook toaster waffles in.