MP 7,1 Do most of y’all who own the new Mac Pro buy the new XDR display as well?

[Hieveryone]

I’m flirting with the idea of buying a base model Mac Pro with a 1 TB SSD upgrade mainly bc the Mac Mini isn’t enough for me.

I would sell my base mode 2019 MacBook Pro 15”, which I have been using as a desktop.

The only thing is my monitor is the LG 4K monitor that’s being sold in Apple stores.

I would imagine most people use a nicer monitor for Mac Pro level hardware

 

[retta283]

A Mac Pro is almost certainly overkill. What about a 27" iMac?

 

[machenryr]

Nope. I use a Samsung curved screen. 32”? I can’t remember the size. Getting the Apple one didn’t make sense to me. I’m a musician and need the MP for a recording studio. If i were making serious movies or graphics I might’ve thought more about it.

 

[Hieveryone]

I just don't like the idea of an all in one device unless it's a laptop tbh @retta283
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Nope. I use a Samsung curved screen. 32”? I can’t remember the size. Getting the Apple one didn’t make sense to me. I’m a musician and need the MP for a recording studio. If i were making serious movies or graphics I might’ve thought more about it.

How's the curve working out? I almost bought one from Amazon before going with my LG

 

[codehead1]

I think you need to decide is if you want to stick with normal sizing of the user interface elements without non-integer scaling. I'll let other people chime in or argue about the importance of it, but the bottom line is that a 24" 4K, 27" 5K, or 32" 6K maintains the same perspective. 4K panels are cheap these days due to popularity in TVs, in which maintaining physical sizes of objects displayed is not important, so the choice become limited quickly above 4K.

Hence the popularity of mating with the XDR or the LG UltraFine 5K with the Mac Pro. It's pretty annoying not being able to audition them in a store, in the current environment. For me, the LG made the most sense, economically—could have two for half the price of the XDR, and you'd have webcams and cheesey speakers too (absent in the XDR). But I went with an XDR, because I wasn't sure I'd be happy with 27", wanted a bigger move up after years with multiple 24's.

Or, it might be more important to you to have an ultra wide monitor, or maybe the higher retina-type resolution is not important. If so, other choices open up.

 

[Hieveryone]

I think you need to decide is if you want to stick with normal sizing of the user interface elements without non-integer scaling. I'll let other people chime in or argue about the importance of it, but the bottom line is that a 24" 4K, 27" 5K, or 32" 6K maintains the same perspective. 4K panels are cheap these days due to popularity in TVs, in which maintaining physical sizes of objects displayed is not important, so the choice become limited quickly above 4K.

Hence the popularity of mating with the XDR or the LG UltraFine 5K with the Mac Pro. It's pretty annoying not being able to audition them in a store, in the current environment. For me, the LG made the most sense, economically—could have two for half the price of the XDR, and you'd have webcams and cheesey speakers too (absent in the XDR). But I went with an XDR, because I wasn't sure I'd be happy with 27", wanted a bigger move up after years with multiple 24's.

Or, it might be more important to you to have an ultra wide monitor, or maybe the higher retina-type resolution is not important. If so, other choices open up.

Ok makes sense so it’s either LG 24 or 27 or XDR from a technological standpoint.

XDR + Mac Pro = dream setup but pricey

Two 27” LG + Mac Pro = balance between price and setup

24” just doesn’t feel fair to the Mac Pro lol

 

[machenryr]

I just don't like the idea of an all in one device unless it's a laptop tbh @retta283
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How's the curve working out? I almost bought one from Amazon before going with my LG

I actually love it. I didn’t intend to get one, but it was going in a control room. I need to work in another room sometimes and look at the monitor from various angles from a distance. It always looks good, better certainly than a flat screen.

 

[Hieveryone]

I actually love it. I didn’t intend to get one, but it was going in a control room. I need to work in another room sometimes and look at the monitor from various angles from a distance. It always looks good, better certainly than a flat screen.

Right makes sense. I just need to find a curved one that is most compatible with Mac. I would imagine the most straight forward would be the Apple LG ones and of course XDR

 

[flowrider]

I have the 24"

LG 4K monitor that’s being sold in Apple stores.

And I like it a lot ?

That monitor is LG UltraFine 24MD4KL-B and carries a price tag of $700. I know of no other monitor that size that even comes close to that price

Lou

 

[Hieveryone]

I have the 24" And I like it a lot ?

That monitor is LG UltraFine 24MD4KL-B and carries a price tag of $700. I know of no other monitor that size that even comes close to that price

Lou

yea I paid around that much maybe more bc of tax. Why is it so much???

 

[mattspace]

I think you need to decide is if you want to stick with normal sizing of the user interface elements without non-integer scaling. I'll let other people chime in or argue about the importance of it, but the bottom line is that a 24" 4K, 27" 5K, or 32" 6K maintains the same perspective.

Bearing in mind, OP's MacBook Pro has non-integer scaling, as do all of Apple's laptops.

 

[Hieveryone]

Bearing in mind, OP's MacBook Pro has non-integer scaling, as do all of Apple's laptops.

How much would my setup be worth in a year or 2?

Like if I get the XDR and Mac Pro, and get bored with it in a couple years or just don’t need it could I get 50% back?

And where could I sell it without getting scammed? Lol

 

[Hieveryone]

I just built my set up and it was almost $15,000

All believe all I added was wheels, 1TB SSD, stand, and apple care.

If I could get back $10,000 in a couple years I might bite.

$2,500 a year or ~$200 a month seems fair

 

[MarciaFunebre]

XDR did not make any sense to me. WAY too small! I have 43" 4K screens and I would only go bigger.

 

[flowrider]

yea I paid around that much maybe more bc of tax. Why is it so much???

Quality my friend Quality? Before I bought the UltraFine, I tried the LG 4K 24" consumer monitor?. I returned it after two weeks. It doesn't hold a candle to the UltraFine? Ya gets what ya pay for.

Lou

 

[OkiRun]

I actually love it. I didn’t intend to get one, but it was going in a control room. I need to work in another room sometimes and look at the monitor from various angles from a distance. It always looks good, better certainly than a flat screen.

There are often many people looking at footage on our XDR at once - and nobody complains their angle gives a bad perspective - which is very important to clients. It looks a tad more 'muted' than the iMac 5k Retina Screen.

 

[daveedjackson]

Nope. And looking at the pro reviews I won’t be. For what is fundamentally a bloody expensive lcd display. With dimming issues, shoddy workmanship on a 1k stand which doesn’t even tilt, pan or swivel.

 

[jasonmvp]

I didn't go with one primarily because my displays are shared between a gaming PC, my work's laptop (MBP), and my Mac Pro. The PC needs a higher refresh display than the XDR offers, so that just eliminates it as an option for me. The next display I get will likely be an Asus PG32UQX, but that has to actually exist, first. And so far, Asus has been mum on it other than introducing it in January.

 

[SayCheese]

I use a BenQ SW2700PT. I'm a photographer and I had it on my 5,1 Mac Pro and simply moved it over to the 7,1.

It's perfectly colour balanced and that's important for my work.

An XDR doesn't work for me.

 

[jerrygladh]

No, I want to know what i see and use hardware calibrated monitors.
You get an Eizo CG 319 for the same price.
If you not need a display for color critical work, why the heck should you pay 6k for it?

 

[codehead1]

Bearing in mind, OP's MacBook Pro has non-integer scaling, as do all of Apple's laptops.

Very good point. Still, switching to integer on those you're still in the ballpark of typical Apple scaling, so you can make a choice between screen real estate and exact pixel alignment without the integer choice being an awkward size.

Anyway, it was just one of several choices for me that I wasn't sure whether it would bother me or not, and the shutdown took away my ability to audition the choices. Mostly it was being unsure where I'd be as happy going from 24 to 27 as to 32, being unsure whether non-integer scaling would bug me, especially for panels where the closest integer scaling choice would be particularly bad, size-wise, andat least to a very small degree, whether it would but me staring at a pair of cheap-looking enclosures (if I didn't get the XDR, it would have been two LGs) would bug me. (At least with my old/current setup, the LED Cinema is even today a good-looking display, and my old Cinema HD not bad.)

In all, I figured if I liked the display, I'd have trouble regretting spending such an insane amount on it. In absense of being able to try them, that was the deciding factor. Many people think it's insane to buy a BWM over a WRX, what you get for the $, but there are probably few BMW owners driving around with regret they overpaid and should have gone with the WRX, so to each his own It helps that I've been able to go many years without buying a new Mac, due to slower advances the past decade, hpe this one will do for a few.

Just my rationale for my choice, I can certainly see the point of view of those who like the ultrawide configurations, Dell 8K, even they insanely good bang/buck of some of the 4K displays. But for the integer-scaling + retina + same-size-UI want—if that's important to a person—unfortunately the field gets pretty narrow, wish it weren't so.

 

[The Other One]

A couple years ago, I switched to a 43" LG monitor. There is nothing in this world that would convince me to go to anything smaller. And that seems to be increasingly true the older I get. ?

 

[AlexMaximus]

Since you talk about monitor alternatives for the new Mac Pro, here is a budget - fanboy question.

At the moment I am still very happy with what I have. I use the original 27' Apple Cinema Display along with my pimped MP 5.1 from 2012. Now, - here is the question:
Assuming I never really use the sleep function on my existing setup, it would be very easy to just swap my Vega VII into a standard MP7.1, move all the PCI cards over and just keeping my existing Apple Cinema Display on the new setup. - Done.
This way, I would have the new MP7.1 with an older standard of display. (But- Not even 4K(!). This setup would be more expensive than a new iMac 5K, but I would not have to buy an external eGPU case, an external TB3 box for all the PCIe cards as well as an external 3,5 HDD case, assuming I go with the Promise 2J cage for 3,5 HDDs. In Europe, all these external cases mentioned above would cost me at least 1000Euros. So, in the end, I will have to choose between two systems. A) A consumer-grade iMac with great 5K resolution but lots of additional costs to accommodate my current PCIe enhancements together with a shorter live span or B) - a professional and expandable Mac Pro with a massive longer live span and much greater design but a lower resolution old school display. What would you choose?
I can't help it, but I somehow always come out on the 7.1 version. The original Apple Display is still great in my opinion. Would I be nuts to choose the MP7.1 over an iMac or iMac Pro?

 

[codehead1]

Reluctant to wake a sleeping thread, but after having six full days and change on the new system...

First, going with a "retina" type display was unquestionably the right thing to do, for me, at any price. The first couple of hours, the smaller UI (fonts, etc.) made it a little hard to feel focussed on the display as I configured the system and populated it. A 12-point typeface is about 15% smaller on the XDR than my Apple LED Cinema sitting next to it. The next morning I was already over it, didn't really notice unless I looked at the Cinema next to it. But with everything rendered at twice the resolution on top of that, the crispness of XDR is stunning next to the old system. Though smaller, it's so much sharper that it's easier on the eyes. I'm significantly nearsighted but try to wear no correction at the monitor so it doesn't get worse (it's from living in front of a computer monitor for decades, of course).

My vision is better with the XDR, the eyes aren't struggling to bring into focus something that is not quite in focus (any anti-aliased text on a non-retina display). I have no doubt this will be a huge win for my vision, long term. So, as for the issue of going with higher resolution versus ultra wide and other non-retina options, I'll never question that move for a nano-second.

The other issue of what size—again I was looking for a "roughly 2x" resolution monitor, displaying something near the UI size of my old system at double the res. That pretty much means 24" 4K, 27" 5K, or 32" 6K. Wasn't interested in staying with 24", even with multiple monitors, I wanted at least one screen significantly larger than my old ones. That pretty much meant the Apple XDR or LG UltraFine 5K. (The Dell 8K was another possibility, other considerations.) I wanted a significant move up in screen real estate, I went with the XDR. I was apprehensive, maybe the 5K would big enough, maybe the 6K awkwardly big—I couldn't audition them due to the shutdown. So I gambled big by going XDR, but I'm happy with the decision. I think I would have wished for more if I'd gone with the 27" 5K—the 32" 6K is large but not overwhelming, I like the size.

One unexpected thing that I'm thinking now is that I'm so happy with the XDR as a main monitor, I might be OK with one or two 24" 4K monitors as side monitors, which are very cheap and plentiful. I think if I'd gone with the LG 5K, I'd want at least two if not three, so it would help mitigate the cost difference a bit if I'm content with smaller 4Ks for the sides.