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D700 GPU pricing - Shocked?

VirtualRain

VirtualRain

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 1, 2008
6,304
118
Vancouver, BC
So the front page says the D700 GPUs are a $600 BTO option for the standard 6-Core config. If the D500s are around $500, that means the D700s are an $1100 add to the D300s. If we assign a value of $400 to the D300s, that means...

Apple is effectively selling a pair of Firepro W9000 GPUs for $1500 or $750 each.

That compares fairly favourably with...(see attached)

Based on past discussions about this, I'd expect a lot of people are shocked. I know I am. :eek: If these cards are recognized by Windows as Firepro cards and can run the Catalyst Pro drivers, I'll be doubly shocked.
 

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Aren't the FirePro's basically AMD R9 chips like 2XX series cards but with different drivers?
 
undesign said:
Aren't the FirePro's basically AMD R9 chips like 2XX series cards but with different drivers?
Click to expand...

And different support and certification. Honestly I'd have been more surprised if Apple did come out and charge the retail price of the equivalent cards when they aren't the same. I doubt Apple are paying much more than they would have paid for Radeon cards if at all, that's how Apple and AMD do business on this scale (see console GPU pricing and why AMD have all the contracts). No doubt we'll get all the "Apple are actually cheaper than PC!" nonsense now when the real world performance of these cards will likely be no different than if Apple had gone with Radeons. You already got custom drivers, support and certification with all Apple GPUs. That was all regulated by Apple already, do people think this really changes that?

It's marketing.
 
I was pleasantly surprised at the rumored BTO cost. I thought it was going to be 1500-2000 on top of the D500.

I want the D700 = W9000, but the cynic in my thinks they will be some hybrid mid-way between a 7970 and W9000. I mean best case its 88% of a W9000 based on the Tflops. At least I know I'm getting 6GB of Vram, and the most powerful card I can put in the case, so I can sleep well knowing that. However I love the idea of apple selling two W9000's at 75% off.

* Actually is it less than a 7970 looking at the Tflops. Maybe its a "7960" with Firepro drivers.
 
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I'm pleasantly surprised if those prices are right, as my intended machine would be the six-core with D500's plus 512gb SSD, however at $600 the D700's could be a worthy upgrade.

Moreso for people who know they'll be able to run OpenCL workloads, but even so it's pretty good value.
 
VirtualRain said:
So the front page says the D700 GPUs are a $600 BTO option for the standard 6-Core config. If the D500s are around $500, that means the D700s are an $1100 add to the D300s. If we assign a value of $400 to the D300s, that means...

Apple is effectively selling a pair of Firepro W9000 GPUs for $1500 or $750 each.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. I'm surprised that Apple would not gouge on these. I'm not shocked however because I believe the whole FirePro thing to be pure marketing and branding. These are custom chips based on existing consumer GPU's (as are the FirePro), with Apple (not AMD, never mind if they helped) drivers. Most of the cost for FirePro is for the software, not the hardware which is little different from consumer.

Putting it all together, if true I think Apple's marketing is doing some smart things here. For most of their products the upgrades get expensive quick. For this, the cost of entry is high but the upgrades scale slower. I think we already have evidence for this, an extra $1k for the quad/D300 to the hex/d500 is a fairly reasonable upgrade, so we have some evidence already on their pricing scheme.

I dearly hope this is true, if so the RAM and D700 upgrades aren't too bad, and I'd go for at least the D700's in addition to the hex core.
 
It could be just a matter of volume. The number of FirePro's ordered in the MacPro on the first day could be higher than the last year or more sales. I'd bet that the volumes of the w9000 are not the same as the radeon cards.
 
Not really shocked more relieved tbh.

With the volumes they are going to shift of them and it being just PCB parts with (maybe) a larger PSU I'm glad they have seemingly priced the upgrades fairly competitively if these prices turn out to be spot on.
 
Not shocked at all. Gaming GPUs with FirePro name slapped on. It was the only logical way to drive consumer perception of the nMP being a good value.

Plus with FirePro being such a minute market share of overall workstation graphics cards its no surprise they are aggressive.
 
Gav Mack said:
seemingly priced the upgrades fairly competitively
Click to expand...

750$ instead of 3300$ is fairly competitively???

If, as you say, the rumors are right on the price; and if the drivers are good, this is *insanely* low priced.

Loa
 
I'm not shocked at all. Die pricing versus a complete video card. I was shocked when people thought the "price" of a W9000 card was somewhat related to the card's costs.

price does not equal cost
 
Loa said:
750$ instead of 3300$ is fairly competitively???

If, as you say, the rumors are right on the price; and if the drivers are good, this is *insanely* low priced.

Loa
Click to expand...

Too premature to tell till chip works X-ray the GPU's. In all likelihood Apple are going to sell more D700's in 2014 than AMD have sold W9000's in total so no wonder they've got them cheap!
 
VirtualRain said:
So the front page says the D700 GPUs are a $600 BTO option for the standard 6-Core config. If the D500s are around $500, that means the D700s are an $1100 add to the D300s. If we assign a value of $400 to the D300s, that means...

Apple is effectively selling a pair of Firepro W9000 GPUs for $1500 or $750 each.

That compares fairly favourably with...(see attached)

Based on past discussions about this, I'd expect a lot of people are shocked. I know I am. :eek: If these cards are recognized by Windows as Firepro cards and can run the Catalyst Pro drivers, I'll be doubly shocked.
Click to expand...

If they don't run the Catalyst Pro drivers then they will be overpriced. A GTX 780 is faster at some things for $500 and also supports OpenCL.
 
Last edited:
fixmdude said:
Actually it depends on Which openCL benchmark you look at, some of the OpenCL benchmarks are faster on the GTX 780Ti.
Click to expand...

As of 10.9.1, we have no support for the 780Ti though. So if you're suggesting OS X with that card: no workie. It might change if nVidia ever released their web drivers for 10.9.1.
 
ssls6 said:
I'm not shocked at all. Die pricing versus a complete video card. I was shocked when people thought the "price" of a W9000 card was somewhat related to the card's costs.

price does not equal cost
Click to expand...

Yep, yep.

Even if these run like W7000/W9000 FirePros in Windows, that doesn't mean much for OS X. I mean what applications do people expect to get massive driver benefits over consumer cards for? Maya is all that springs to mind for me. Image editing, audio, video doesn't benefit on Windows/Linux so I don't see why it would on OS X.

Until I see otherwise, these are no different than consumer cards except Apple have found a way to make them seem better than they are.
 
Umbongo said:
Yep, yep.

Even if these run like W7000/W9000 FirePros in Windows, that doesn't mean much for OS X. I mean what applications do people expect to get massive driver benefits over consumer cards for? Maya is all that springs to mind for me. Image editing, audio, video doesn't benefit on Windows/Linux so I don't see why it would on OS X.

Until I see otherwise, these are no different than consumer cards except Apple have found a way to make them seem better than they are.
Click to expand...

+1

Comparing them to the pricing on similar Windows versions is not a valid value judgement at this time. There, the extra money is buying the drivers, not the hardware.
 
beaker7 said:
Not shocked at all. Gaming GPUs with FirePro name slapped on. It was the only logical way to drive consumer perception of the nMP being a good value.

Plus with FirePro being such a minute market share of overall workstation graphics cards its no surprise they are aggressive.
Click to expand...

People who are going to spend $3000+ on a computer tend to be more informed then the average user. They will already tend to know what kind of graphics they will be needing for what software applications. I've heard people for years claim they are just gaming cards, but offer little proof beyond a few benchmarks.
 
beaker7 said:
Not shocked at all. Gaming GPUs with FirePro name slapped on. It was the only logical way to drive consumer perception of the nMP being a good value.

Plus with FirePro being such a minute market share of overall workstation graphics cards its no surprise they are aggressive.
Click to expand...

I'd be quite happy if they were actually gaming cards, because with my image editing work, a gaming card would be more beneficial that a card build for 3D rendering and such.. :D
 
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