MP 7,1 Does it make sense to purchase a 7,1 Mac Pro today?

[AndreeOnline]

I don't think we have to be afraid of not getting enough use out of a Mac Pro 2019 for many years to come. And with a bit of luck, the higher end components will become more affordable on the 2nd hand market. And maybe Apple will release some new MPX-modules as well. That would actually be good—almost necessary—to show that the 7.1 isn't the 6.1 all over again; a one off.

But it is likely that during the time of the 7.1's relevance, much cheaper offerings will exceed its performance. Probably even in multi core with the 28 core CPU. But dual Duos? Hmm, not for some time.

I didn't plan on getting my 7.1, but stumbled on what seemed like a good deal to me. I had bought a 2020 iMac 10-core with the 5700 XT 16GB. I'm really happy with its price/performance. It does photo (duh) and video well. Resolve in a UHD timeline is a pleasure for entry level to some intermediate work. For more involved node setups you might want to drop to a HD timeline for realtime playback. Which isn't an issue, since you can set the timeline back to UHD before export.

That said, I'm super happy with the look and feel of my 7.1. I'm looking for reasons to take off the cover just for the pleasure of removing it from its tight fit, look at the insides and then put it back on and twist the handle in place.

I find myself fighting the urge to make sound effects with my mouth during the process.

 

[ghostwind]

I don't think we have to be afraid of not getting enough use out of a Mac Pro 2019 for many years to come. And with a bit of luck, the higher end components will become more affordable on the 2nd hand market. And maybe Apple will release some new MPX-modules as well. That would actually be good—almost necessary—to show that the 7.1 isn't the 6.1 all over again; a one off.

But it is likely that during the time of the 7.1's relevance, much cheaper offerings will exceed its performance. Probably even in multi core with the 28 core CPU. But dual Duos? Hmm, not for some time.

I didn't plan on getting my 7.1, but stumbled on what seemed like a good deal to me. I had bought a 2020 iMac 10-core with the 5700 XT 16GB. I'm really happy with its price/performance. It does photo (duh) and video well. Resolve in a UHD timeline is a pleasure for entry level to some intermediate work. For more involved node setups you might want to drop to a HD timeline for realtime playback. Which isn't an issue, since you can set the timeline back to UHD before export.

That said, I'm super happy with the look and feel of my 7.1. I'm looking for reasons to take off the cover just for the pleasure of removing it from its tight fit, look at the insides and then put it back on and twist the handle in place.

I find myself fighting the urge to make sound effects with my mouth during the process.

What kind of work can't it keep up with in Resolve? That sound a bit concerning, as Resolve should use the GPU a lot and is a lot more efficient than Premiere. What is being maxed out? CPU, RAM?

 

[IA64]

I'm not at all confused - I'm undecided. And a custom PC is an option, as I actually pointed out, so not sure where you got that from. Mac Mini is not an option as I stated, and yes, XDR is flawed.

I remember you pointed out custom PC but didn't go for it because of the transition to Windows which is not worth it if it's going to be outperformed by Apple computers in the near future so I assumed that a custom PC was NOT an option.

 

[ghostwind]

I remember you pointed out custom PC but didn't go for it because of the transition to Windows which is not worth it if it's going to be outperformed by Apple computers in the near future so I assumed that a custom PC was NOT an option.

I haven't decided yet, that's the truth. I still have some time to think about it, so am looking at all options, angles, etc. It's OK, I like to research and read a lot before spending, and since I have another month, no hurry.

I'm looking at a custom Puget PC or the Mac Pro. I was also looking at monitors, but ruled out the XDR in place of the Eizo. To be honest, I'm leaning more PC now, but hate the idea of Windows. Hate that I can't tie it into my Mac ecosystem. Not a fan of the boring design (or lack thereof) either compared to the beautiful Mac Pro, which is inspiring. I also don't like loud fans, taking me back 20 years. But there are the clear advantages nobody can deny. So yeah, still reading about GPUs, AMD chips, SSD speeds, options, configs, etc. And thinking about the tradeoffs if going to PC/Windows. And taking my times as I said. For many, this thread is useless, or "garbage". For me it's not. With every post I'm reading something new that helps one way or the other. So I continue on!

I do wonder what Apple is doing. Are they really serious about the pro market? I posted about it before. I wonder why they even bother at times, as their revenue is not from that. Is it simply to appease a tiny percentage of users? To play with some R&D that tickles down? Marketing? Who knows. Who cares? I do, because you know, support...I look at the XDR for example - what a great piece of design and engineering. But no ability to calibrate like most pro monitors? No SDI or HDMI inputs? It's crazy to me, sorry. I'm the perfect example of one who's willing to pay the premium that Apple commands. But they just don't feel serious to me about these products. That's my truth, or how I see it. It's like I want to be convinced, but haven't yet been.

 

[IA64]

I'm looking at a custom Puget PC or the Mac Pro. I was also looking at monitors, but ruled out the XDR in place of the Eizo. To be honest, I'm leaning more PC now, but hate the idea of Windows. Hate that I can't tie it into my Mac ecosystem. Not a fan of the boring design (or lack thereof) either compared to the beautiful Mac Pro, which is inspiring. I also don't like loud fans, taking me back 20 years. But there are the clear advantages nobody can deny. So yeah, still reading about GPUs, AMD chips, SSD speeds, options, configs, etc. And thinking about the tradeoffs if going to PC/Windows. And taking my times as I said. For many, this thread is useless, or "garbage". For me it's not. With every post I'm reading something new that helps one way or the other. So I continue on!

Well, there are the details and there's the big picture. The truth is that the custom built PC will have today's hardware whereas the Mac Pro is a 1 year old tech.

Custom built PC will have two advantages, a faster CPU and PCIE 4.0 M/B. That's it. On the other hand the MP7,1 will have all the other goodies which a normal PC will never get which I mentioned in another post. Are you willing to pay a premium price for that?


From a subjective point of view, a 20% or even 30% difference in CPU performance is not enough to move to a completely different ecosystem given that the GPU, storage and every other component will have a similar performance and that both systems will be outperformed sooner or later.

I do wonder what Apple is doing. Are they really serious about the pro market? I posted about it before. I wonder why they even bother at times, as their revenue is not from that. Is it simply to appease a tiny percentage of users? To play with some R&D that tickles down? Marketing? Who knows. Who cares? I do, because you know, support...I look at the XDR for example - what a great piece of design and engineering. But no ability to calibrate like most pro monitors? No SDI or HDMI inputs? It's crazy to me, sorry. I'm the perfect example of one who's willing to pay the premium that Apple commands. But they just don't feel serious to me about these products. That's my truth, or how I see it. It's like I want to be convinced, but haven't yet been.

Someone mentioned that you can now calibrate the display with this

Pro Display XDR Calibrator 1.0.0 - Apple Support (LB)

Every Pro Display XDR undergoes state-of-the-art factory calibration with laboratory grade instrumentation.

support.apple.com

The XDR doesn't have hardware control so a Mac PC is a must ( unless you want to go for a titan ridge card on a Win PC ) so having an HDMI and SDI IMO is meaningless because of TB3; they know what they're doing, If they wanted to sell more they would have made it available for consumers but their main focus is to keep you stuck in their ecosystem which is very smart.

IMO Apple doesn't care about selling more in this stage. They changed completely their business focus. No more cross compatibility, no more Bootcamp whatsoever and the benefit of having the cake and eating it.

Now it's more like we are leading either you come with us or leave. It's an ecosystem war where Microsoft failed miserabilist to the point where they had to go for android as a last resort. Very soon, Windows PC will be able to run Android apps natively which I find it funny but let's not drift away from the original topic.

 

[blackadde]

A custom built PC can have a massive, massive price advantage for performance you cannot achieve on a 7,1, if you need something like a 64 core / 128 thread monster for large parallel tasks (eg. CPU based 3D rendering). You can build a 64 core TR system for about as much as a base 8 core 7,1 where I am.

That’s pretty messed up. It’s money you or I can invest in software, lights, studio equipment, a vacation, etc.

The 7,1 IMO is caught in a bad place due to bets Apple made a long time ago on Intel / AMD, when in reality AMD / Nvidia ended up leaps ahead for many professional workloads even at the time of release. It was true a year ago and only continues to be more true as time goes by.

You have a 7,1 and you’re stuck with whatever Apple gives you for driver support, MPX modules, etc. CPU upgrades are not supported. You have to pay extra just to get some drive cages and headers. On a PC you can just buy anything from any vendor and shove it in there and it works. If expandability is the whole point of a big tower, it’s hard to argue against that.

For many, many users this is not important - no wonder laptops are the biggest segment in the personal computing space - and with M1 Apple is killing it there. But long term ‘big iron’ investments need actual development roadmaps, something Apple doesn’t bother to share. Their ecosystem is famed for deep integration, but the pool is about two feet wide with walls ten feet high. It’s the perfect purpose-built FCPX machine and perhaps not much else.

Again, you know, IMO. Please don’t crucify me, MR forum.

 

[AndreeOnline]

What kind of work can't it keep up with in Resolve? That sound a bit concerning, as Resolve should use the GPU a lot and is a lot more efficient than Premiere. What is being maxed out? CPU, RAM?

Forgive my clumsy writing. What I meant to say in my post was:

I bought a new iMac a few months back as a stop gap trying to keep my 4.1 on life support until the next revision of the Mac Pro. I have that iMac in my apartment, while the Mac Pro is in my "studio" room. So what I'm writing about Resolve concerns the iMac. I wanted to point out that today's iMac is a pretty capable machine with less of an up front investment (that still includes that 5K display) that serves well as a general purpose computer. Depending on how involved video work someone is aiming to do, it could easily work beyond the short term into mid term.

Almost ironically, just as I bought the 7.1 I decided to upgrade the 4.1 to Big Sur to see what that would bring. And indeed: it did boost its capabilities a bit, letter my Vega Frontier Edition be used for HW acceleration, for instance in Resolve. A last stretch of its legs, let's call it.

The 7.1 is a new take on the Cheesegrater. It's what we wanted. Had it been launched with the 12 core CPU, a 5700 XT 16GB, 48GB RAM (to get 6 channel) and at least 512GB SSD as the default config for $6500 I think it would have been very popular. As it turned out, the entry point back then was too expensive and too tired so I skipped it. For those of you lucky enough to not have to worry too much about the price could jump to a better config and be happy with that.

Deals on the 7.1 might be few and far apart, but I got mine for $6500 without the keyboard and mouse (have my own Swedish setup) and have boosted it with a Sonnet Fusion 4x4 NVMe card and a Sonnet Fusion Flex J3i 16TB HDD (own drives) Raid. So the current config of 12 core, Vega Pro II 32GB, 48GB RAM, 2TB SSD, 4TB NMVe and 16TB HDD has set me back $8200.

Short term I'll get at least 96GB RAM. Mid to long term I'll change CPU and either add another Vega Pro II or go Duo depending on what become available.

 

[IA64]

A custom built PC can have a massive, massive price advantage for performance you cannot achieve on a 7,1, if you need something like a 64 core / 128 thread monster for large parallel tasks (eg. CPU based 3D rendering). You can build a 64 core TR system for about as much as a base 8 core 7,1 where I am.

The TR3990X price alone is $4000, you still have the price of the MB, RAM, SSD, Case, power supply, GPU etc...

Really, Let's not exaggerate.... Yes you can build a 64 core PC for the price of a 12 core Mac pro maybe but not the base model. I'm in the US so I must be getting the best prices here.

 

[The_Interloper]

But long term ‘big iron’ investments need actual development roadmaps, something Apple doesn’t bother to share. Their ecosystem is famed for deep integration, but the pool is about two feet wide with walls ten feet high. It’s the perfect purpose-built FCPX machine and perhaps not much else.

This was a point I also made much earlier in the thread that I can't agree with enough. If you aren't using FCP, I cannot understand why you would spend megabucks on a Mac Pro. Premiere works best on Windows. Forget the OS, buy the best tool for the job.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Forget the OS, buy the best tool for the job.

More than anything, I wonder if the OS isn't the tool in question?

Many of us here are simply picking macOS, and only THEN it's time for step 2.

 

[The_Interloper]

More than anything, I wonder if the OS isn't the tool in question?

Many of us here are simply picking macOS, and only THEN it's time for step 2.

The OS is absolutely the tool in question when it’s inextricably tied to the hardware it runs on. OP states he is a Premiere Pro user and does not want to switch to a FCP workflow. Yet he is choosing a platform that does not allow the use of bazillion-core Threadripper CPUs and Nvidia GPUs, both hardware that significantly boost the performance of Premiere.

By choosing macOS over Windows, he is knowingly hampering the performance of his preferred editing software while spending vastly more money to do so. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot and then blowing off a hand as well.

Look, I love macOS. But if the software I need to make a living isn’t optimised for that platform (and, in my case, won’t run on it at all) then it’s an irrational choice. It’s his money, though.

 

[AndreeOnline]

The OS is absolutely the tool in question when it’s inextricably tied to the hardware it runs on.

I would probably agree to such a narrow definition if it was a single purpose machine; maybe a Linux build for Resolve.

But I think most of us are using macOS as a launch pad for many activities. Sure, we want our software and hardware to play well together. But it seems to me that Apple is ahead by a VERY large margin here if we consider the efforts going on with macOS and Metal as well as Silicon on the hardware side.

Among FCPX, DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro, the latter is the one struggling to keep up, lagging many user benchmarks by an order of magnitude for common tasks. But the OP is aware of this too, and said he is familiar with Premiere Pro, that he likes it and will keep using it. Alright—case closed. The most important thing is to find out for oneself what works.

I probably dislike overspending as much as the next guy, but sometimes I think we get carried away by absolute numbers and benchmarks. If I can get hardware I'm happy with that runs my Resolve timeline at 50 fps, I wouldn't trade that for a computer that runs it at 90 fps for the same money—if it came with a bunch of trade-offs. I think the divorce term is: irreconcilable differences. I shoot at 25 fps, and once the computer is fast enough, it's good. After that, there are MANY things that are more important that absolute speed.

And we all know the NVMe speed tests that are popular now. For a second, to saturate the SATA bus of a cheese grater at around 250 MB/s with instant access was crazy good. Then the bar moved to 1500 MB/s. To 2500... no over 3000 MB/s.

3000? Weak sauce. Hold my beer..... 12000 MB/s. Hah!

That's great news for the large file transfer community. Anyone know where they have their forum? I think on my side, most OS activity and 80% or more of all file activity consists of small files that are what.... 80MB/s? If that.

OK, then.. the fast RAID arrays ARE nice for a few things. But as a single number benchmark, I question their value.

But if the software I need to make a living isn’t optimised for that platform (and, in my case, won’t run on it at all) then it’s an irrational choice.

Sounds reasonable enough.

 

[tanoanian]

On a PC you can just buy anything from any vendor and shove it in there and it works.

That's some seriously funny stuff right there... Thanks for the laughter to start my day.

 

[The_Interloper]

But I think most of us are using macOS as a launch pad for many activities. Sure, we want our software and hardware to play well together. But it seems to me that Apple is ahead by a VERY large margin here if we consider the efforts going on with macOS and Metal as well as Silicon on the hardware side.

And this, in particular, is what makes spending this amount of money on a Mac Pro so problematic. It's not just whether a MP is the right tool for a Premiere job, it's also the fact that Apple has made it abundantly clear that Intel is dead to them.

The OP has mentioned that the lifespan of support for this machine is a consideration, even if it's not the primary issue. So, yes, he could spend the money and write it down as a business expense and, hopefully, in the next few years it will have paid for itself. The cost is the cost.

But this is not a machine that should only last a few years. Look how long people have been running their old cheesegraters. As I mentioned previously, I went through the last transition from PowerPC to Intel and got significantly burned on one of the final model PowerMacs. As optimistic as people seem to be, I have a sneaking feeling that the second Apple is done and dusted with Intel (and, in all honesty, they already are) they will drop support like a hot potato.

They have history in this area. Not just that transition, but also with software. They left iWork and Final Cut users high and dry when they decided to revamp the software. Some of that lost functionality took years to return; some of it never did. I once again paid the price for investing in a pro-Apple workflow when they unceremoniously dumped Aperture. That caused absolute consternation among professional photographers at the time.

You're right, Apple is striding forward with their efforts. But none of those involve Intel chips or the Mac hardware that currently uses them. In some respects the numbers cannot be ignored. The OP is talking about dumping a serious sum of money on a dead platform (Intel) for a piece of software not optimised for it (Premiere).

 

[MarkC426]

On a PC you can just buy anything from any vendor and shove it in there and it works. If expandability is the whole point of a big tower, it’s hard to argue against that.

That is THE beauty of Apple hw, everything is built and optimised to work in unison with the OS.
PC’s have always been a ‘bitch’ as every manufacturer puts in every different make under the sun all needing different drivers.

 

[blackadde]

The TR3990X price alone is $4000, you still have the price of the MB, RAM, SSD, Case, power supply, GPU etc...

Really, Let's not exaggerate.... Yes you can build a 64 core PC for the price of a 12 core Mac pro maybe but not the base model. I'm in the US so I must be getting the best prices here.

I’m serious. The 3990x was $3500 this summer:

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-Core, 128-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor (B0815SBQ9W)

Amazon price tracking & price history for AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-Core, 128-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor (B0815SBQ9W)

camelcamelcamel.com

(Before you say that must be an anomaly, it isn’t. The 3990x is getting expensive now because it’s scarce and being replaced soon.)

That’s about 4500 CAD, whereas the base MP is 7500 CAD, leaving us 3000 CAD dollars to buy 32GB of RAM, a case, a mobo, PSU, 256GB SSD, and 580X equivalent. That’s a huge budget!

Hell, for the 3000 dollar difference I could build a whole 16 core 5950X system and have enough left over for a years worth of Adobe software.

You’re paying for the Apple experience, integration, software stack, design, etc. But you’re really paying out the nose to be a second class performer, too, whereas M1 customers get all that and the performance crown to boot.

 

[blackadde]

That's some seriously funny stuff right there... Thanks for the laughter to start my day.

Look at the crazy stuff people on this very forum have to do to keep their 5,1s still running. PSU mods, kext edits, tricking the latest OS to load, ‘here’s the latest Nvidia card you can re-flash to work’, etc. Even on the 7,1 people are asking stuff like: hey, do I need to unplug my new Nvidia / Bootcamp card to not break sleep issues with MacOS?

Laugh if ya want, but that’s some crazy stuff. On the other side if you have a PSU, CPU, breakout box, or graphics / sound / PCIe expansion card from essentially any vendor you can probably make it work. You don’t really need to think about it. It’s not 1996 anymore.

 

[MarkC426]

quote: ‘You’re paying for the Apple experience, integration, software stack, design, etc. But you’re really paying out the nose to be a second class performer, too, whereas M1 customers get all that and the performance crown to boot.’

And generally reliability.......

I have never had to do any ‘hack’s’ in 10 years.
The 3090 isn’t officially supported, there are plenty of Apple options available.

 

[blackadde]

And generally reliability.......

I have never had to do any ‘hack’s’ in 10 years.
The 3090 isn’t officially supported, there are plenty of Apple options available.

This is exactly what I’m talkin’ about. There’s an Apple approved list, and it’s very very small. If what you need is on that list then you’re golden. If it isn’t, like say, you need a CUDA card, you’re boned.

It’s a philosophy with big advantages and big drawbacks. Whether it’s to a particular users advantage will depend on what they need the computer to do.

 

[bcomer]

And this, in particular, is what makes spending this amount of money on a Mac Pro so problematic. It's not just whether a MP is the right tool for a Premiere job, it's also the fact that Apple has made it abundantly clear that Intel is dead to them.

The OP has mentioned that the lifespan of support for this machine is a consideration, even if it's not the primary issue. So, yes, he could spend the money and write it down as a business expense and, hopefully, in the next few years it will have paid for itself. The cost is the cost.

But this is not a machine that should only last a few years. Look how long people have been running their old cheesegraters. As I mentioned previously, I went through the last transition from PowerPC to Intel and got significantly burned on one of the final model PowerMacs. As optimistic as people seem to be, I have a sneaking feeling that the second Apple is done and dusted with Intel (and, in all honesty, they already are) they will drop support like a hot potato.

They have history in this area. Not just that transition, but also with software. They left iWork and Final Cut users high and dry when they decided to revamp the software. Some of that lost functionality took years to return; some of it never did. I once again paid the price for investing in a pro-Apple workflow when they unceremoniously dumped Aperture. That caused absolute consternation among professional photographers at the time.

You're right, Apple is striding forward with their efforts. But none of those involve Intel chips or the Mac hardware that currently uses them. In some respects the numbers cannot be ignored. The OP is talking about dumping a serious sum of money on a dead platform (Intel) for a piece of software not optimised for it (Premiere).

As much as I hate Windows and have a 7,1 if Premiere is your MAIN software you should consider a Windows box for the money involved. I am a Java software developer and do a fair amount of photography so the 7,1 made sense to me. I dumped Windows in 2008 for a MacPro and have never looked back - yes I pay the price but my sanity is worth it.

 

[MarkC426]

This is exactly what I’m talkin’ about. There’s an Apple approved list, and it’s very very small. If what you need is on that list then you’re golden. If it isn’t, like say, you need a CUDA card, you’re boned.

It’s a philosophy with big advantages and big drawbacks. Whether it’s to a particular users advantage will depend on what they need the computer to do.

Apple havn’t supported nvidia gpu’s for a long time, this is nothing new.
Plus a lot of software is now supporting metal (Redshift, Octane, Resolve/Fusion).

 

[IA64]

I’m serious. The 3990x was $3500 this summer:

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-Core, 128-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor (B0815SBQ9W)

Amazon price tracking & price history for AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-Core, 128-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor (B0815SBQ9W)

camelcamelcamel.com

(Before you say that must be an anomaly, it isn’t. The 3990x is getting expensive now because it’s scarce and being replaced soon.)

That’s about 4500 CAD, whereas the base MP is 7500 CAD, leaving us 3000 CAD dollars to buy 32GB of RAM, a case, a mobo, PSU, 256GB SSD, and 580X equivalent. That’s a huge budget!

Hell, for the 3000 dollar difference I could build a whole 16 core 5950X system and have enough left over for a years worth of Adobe software.

You’re paying for the Apple experience, integration, software stack, design, etc. But you’re really paying out the nose to be a second class performer, too, whereas M1 customers get all that and the performance crown to boot.

I don't know where to start but let me break it down for you. A 3990X is around $4000-5000 USD. The EpYC 64 core processor is almost double the price which is almost the price of the entry level MP...

Does it make the Epyc processor bad compared to the very similar performer 3990X? Of course not although both are 64 cores. You probably know the difference, one is consumer and one is server grade.

Mac Pro has server grade components and it's NOT a consumer machine. In fact there is no real Apple consumer machine that is expandable. Sure you wouldn't care about the number of PCIE lanes or the ECC whatsoever but that's a major difference in price.

The MP7,1 is a Pro not consumer machine. You can't compare it to an intel i7/i9 nor a threadripper... doesn't matter if the performance isn't on par.

As of today, you have the iMac or iMac pro ( meh) and that's basically it. The only reason why the iMac pro was not bashed that much when it comes to pricing was because of it's form factor. No competition around. One can argue that the MP is very comparable to your daily driver custom built PC but no it is a different class.

In the US, the 3990X MSRP is $3990 USD excluding tax.

I did my research back in time and the cheapest I could find was something like this ( A ****** desktop case, 6 GB VRAM, mediocre cooling and no 10G Ethernet and no TB3 )

Apple havn’t supported nvidia gpu’s for a long time, this is nothing new.
Plus a lot of software is now supporting metal (Redshift, Octane, Resolve/Fusion).

Plus you have Bootcamp just in case...

 

[blackadde]

The consumer / prosumer / professional paradigm doesn't always make sense in this space. I think it does nothing but muddy the water for most practical use cases. It's not like consumer Mac's or PCs just implode under the strain of a multi-threaded workload, or CPUs regularly wear out from proper voltage. Plenty of serious work gets done (reliably, for years) on what are otherwise marketed as 'consumer' Macs and PCs. Most CG artists doing GPU rendering are using 'consumer' RTX cards, not Quadros.

I can put it this way; I worry about the shutter life in my camera, so I’m willing to spend money on a higher-rated mechanism (SSD, PSU). But I know the sensor is going to last essentially forever even in cheap point-and-shoots (CPU, RAM).

'Server grade' platforms for both AMD and Intel in 2020 usually means things like having access to larger pools of RAM, better virtualization hardware, more PCIe lanes, or dual-socket motherboard solutions. If you don't have a use for those things then there's no difference. In some cases the silicon is literally the same, just binned differently with some traces disabled.

Some people need 64 cores and 128 GB of ram. Some people need 12 cores and 2 TB of ram. Horses for courses.

 

[MisterAndrew]

'Threadripper Pro' is the AMD analogue for Intel's Xeon W. It's the Epyc for workstations. I think they're only selling them through Lenovo right now. I made a post in this forum about those workstations.

 

[OkiRun]

I think it's time to leave the OP in quietude to find his zen and pocketbook.