iMac Pro Launched Seven Years Ago Today

[Wanted797]

Not the OP but I've been running a Mac mini with an external display for the last six years and I have to say it isn't great. Problems include:

1. DRM doesn't work so I can't stream HD content.
2. The monitor is slow at coming up when I bring the Mac out of sleep.
3. If the Mac is rebooted the monitor never comes on, I need to wait an appropriate time then type my password blind and wait for login to complete. Alternatively connect a crappy HDMI monitor I have kicking around.
4. The panel is yellowing so I will need to replace it within the next couple of years. It will probably reach its end of life at the same time as the Mac mini.
5. When Sonoma was released it couldn't set 5K resolution until an update was available.

This is the LG 5K monitor purchased from Apple, I had worse problems with a previous Dell monitor.

It seems Apple isn't great at dealing with 3rd party monitors so I would be inclined to buy an all in one next time.

The only thing putting me off is the lack of height adjustment in any of the iMacs.

That sounds like a pretty rubbish display.

I have an AOC I bought cheap when the pandemic hit. No issues other than it’s a bit wobbly. So I 3D printed a stabilising base.

Work provided me with a 32” widescreen dell. Which has been excellent. It’s probably getting close the 6 years old or older and it’s only now showing a few dead pixels. My only gripe with it is it has no KVM and touch buttons so if I want to use my Mac mini over work Mac I have to switch it.

 

[drrich2]

and a focus on external expansion using Thunderbolt.

Which is so odd. Internal expansion was a big positive for the Pro, only with TB 5 is there near parity on storage speed, and even now external is more hassle.

 

[mode11]

No, that's taking it ad absurdum.

That's like arguing "oh, if Apple wanted the Mac mini to be truly mini, why didn't they make it even smaller by giving it a lower-end SoC and less RAM and storage?" Because everything is a tradeoff is why.

The previous Mac Pro had space for two large GPUs. If the future was GPU compute, why make its successor only able to take a couple of smaller GPUs? And why not ensure they were adequately cooled? GPU failures in the 6,1 were endemic.

Yes, they could've made the 2013 Mac Pro larger. But they wanted to make a high-end Mac based on the assumptions they made for the time: fairly fast Xeon CPU, two GPUs because GPGPU seemed to become a big thing, and a focus on external expansion using Thunderbolt.

They made the Mac Pro something like 1/8 the size of the previous Mac Pro. No one was asking for that, it was Apple’s decision. The emphasis was clearly not on making a high-end Mac; it was making it as high end as possible whilst making it very small.

Why not give each motherboard 96 RAM slots?

Now who’s arguing ad absurdum?

This is a very silly argument. You could argue for the same reason that they'll discontinue the 13-inch iPad Pro.

The box for the Mac Pro 5,1 was huge; the box for the 6,1 was small. The 13” iPad Pro is only slightly bigger than the 11”; furthermore, it’s a volume seller.

Heck, if that were it, why follow it up with, of all things, the 27-inch iMac Pro, which takes up way more space?

The 27” was a stop gap when the 6,1 ran into trouble. In any case, the point is that Apple tried to reduce the size of the Mac Pro. The fact they were ultimately forced to backtrack doesn’t take anything away from that.

Well, yes? And it turned out that some of the choices they made weren't quite it.

Yes. They tried to make it smaller, it didn’t work out technically or commercially, so they reversed course. Note they doubled the price at that point. If they couldn’t reduce their costs, they needed to increase the price.

No, it was a deliberate design choice.

Yes, but IMO, for different reasons than you think.

 

[chucker23n1]

The 27” was a stop gap when the 6,1 ran into trouble.

Nope. The iMac Pro was intended as the successor. The meeting was called in to say that they’d decided to change plans and still release the iMac Pro, but also have a Mac Pro again.

 

[mode11]

Nope. The iMac Pro was intended as the successor. The meeting was called in to say that they’d decided to change plans and still release the iMac Pro, but also have a Mac Pro again.

Actually, I agree with this. I think Apple saw the Mac Pro was a slow seller and it basically needed to pay its way. They tried making it much smaller, then when that didn’t work out, hoped a Xeon iMac would do. But as its release date neared, realised that wasn’t going to cut it either. Then because they’d have to start from scratch designing a new tower, which would take years, they were forced to call that emergency meeting. If they’d done their usual thing of maintaining radio silence, there would have been an exodus of MP users to Windows.

Even so, it was a bit disingenuous. They invited a bunch to tame journalists who were so honoured to be at Apple HQ, meeting their top brass, they just repeated everything they were told with zero pushback. Contemporary articles speculated the new Mac Pro might be out within the year, an impression Apple did nothing to dispel. In reality it took well over two and a half.

 

[switz]

For over $3.000 more than the Mac Studio, one gets a huge enclosure with four PCI card slots and the same memory limit and CPU as the fully configured Mac Studio. What a deal?

May consider the 2025 version of the Mac Studio, but the specs need to be compelling. If it has the M5 chip, I would really consider it.

All four M4 chip versions will have basically the same single core speed just like the M1 models all had about the same single core speed.

 

[Rychiar]

imagine a iMac or iMac Pro with 27-32 inch screen with promotion OLED with m4 pro and max chips ...

Now imagine it’s price 😂

 

[drrich2]

The previous Mac Pro had space for two large GPUs. If the future was GPU compute, why make its successor only able to take a couple of smaller GPUs?

And now everything except the (priced out of normal people's reach) Mac Pro sticks us with integrated graphics and we're not allowed to have non-integrated GPUs.

Then because they’d have to start from scratch designing a new tower

Which raises a question. Why did they have to start from scratch? I would imagine they could've used what amounts to a fairly generic PC component tower, but no...it's gotta be some highly engineered work of 'industrial art,' even if that creates delays, cheese grater jokes and grossly overpriced optional wheels.

If they'd bowed to practical reality and just decided to put the thing out in a less 'Apple made from scratch, over-engineered' tower (or maybe just used the prior pre-trash can Mac Pro design) how much faster could they've gotten it out the door?

Not everything needs to be innovated every time.

 

[switz]

I had a 27” iMac towards the end of the run.

My new 27” “iMac” consists of a 27” Studio nano Display with the Twelve South monitor stand shelf attached with my new M4 Pro Mac mini (20-core Gpu, 64GB Ram, 8 TB SSD, 10Gb Ethernet) sitting in the shelf behind the screen. It has better performance numbers than my M1 Ultra MacStudio

There is no ”chin” below the screen. If the mini has a processor failure or whatever, the screen will not need to be thrown out.

A very quiet system. Cost is probably what an equivalent new iMac would be if Apple made a M series iMac.

 

[seek3r]

Which is so odd. Internal expansion was a big positive for the Pro, only with TB 5 is there near parity on storage speed, and even now external is more hassle.

1) the internal nvme drive in a 6,1 is 4xpcie2, which was what you’d expect from nvme then. That’s a theoretical max of 2GB/s, in practice a bit less. Thunderbolt 2, as in the 6,1, has a max ceiling of ~2.5GB/s, higher than but in practice roughly the same as the internal NVMe. It was as fast as internal storage at the time.

2) For a lot of pro users their main storage are large arrays that wont fit in a 5,1 style chassis anyway.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

As much as I would love to see this again, I think iMac is one size moving forward, and studio display or Pro Display plus a Mac mini, Mac Studio, or Mac Pro is the way forward for anything beyond 23.5” iMac size.

 

[drrich2]

As much as I would love to see this again, I think iMac is one size moving forward, and studio display or Pro Display plus a Mac mini, Mac Studio, or Mac Pro is the way forward for anything beyond 23.5” iMac size.

A number of people are fans of the 27" iMac, so we're back to a useful concept that's arisen in this thread - how strong a market do you think there is for a new Apple Studio Display designed so that what amounts to a Mac Mini 'module' can be inserted into a cavity in the back, creating what amounts to an iMac, but that same module can be removed and replaced with a better Mac Mini in a few years?

So let's say an ASD is around $1,600 and you get, oh, say, a $1,000 module (people in love with iMac minimalism may not like the external SSD attached by cable approach so internal SSD > 256 gig). Throw in sales tax and Apple care, knock off some for buying with a sale or education discount, etc..., and what are we looking at...around 3 grand, give or take a couple of hundred?

Is this something many of you see yourselves buying if offered?

 

[JonathanX64]

I’d happily buy and maybe even use one if I weren’t striving to minimise the possessions in my life. Coolest Intel Mac ever; the one to get.

Prices are pretty reasonable nowadays, plus it can be noticeably upgraded with cheap Xeon and DDR4 ECC memory from China. If only it accepted NVMe storage like 2019 Intel iMacs do...

 

[chucker23n1]

Actually, I agree with this. I think Apple saw the Mac Pro was a slow seller and it basically needed to pay its way. They tried making it much smaller, then when that didn’t work out, hoped a Xeon iMac would do. But as its release date neared, realised that wasn’t going to cut it either. Then because they’d have to start from scratch designing a new tower, which would take years, they were forced to call that emergency meeting. If they’d done their usual thing of maintaining radio silence, there would have been an exodus of MP users to Windows.

I think I agree with all that.

Contemporary articles speculated the new Mac Pro might be out within the year,

Maybe, but those articles would be silly, because Apple explicitly said "not this year".

These next-gen Mac Pros and pro displays “will not ship this year”. (I hope that means “next year”, but all Apple said was “not this year”.)

In that same vein:

We think it’s really important to create something great for our pro customers who want a Mac Pro modular system, and that’ll take longer than this year to do.

That said, it ended up shipping over two and a half years after that meeting, which… I'm not sure if that was Apple's plan all along or if there were delays for some reason or another. (The Skylake Xeon Ws they used were at that point two years old, at least on paper, that shouldn't be the reason.)

To be fair, they did a fair amount more than just slap existing components in a tower and call it a day. The logic board is their own design, the case is, they made the Afterburner card, the display, and so on. Whether the end result is what people were hoping for, I'm not sure.

But I would caution against "all I want is a $1,000 tower like I can buy from Dell" hopes, because Apple isn't going to make that any more.

an impression Apple did nothing to dispel. In reality it took well over two and a half.

See, I don't quite agree with the first sentence there, but yes on the second.

 

[drrich2]

But I would caution against "all I want is a $1,000 tower like I can buy from Dell" hopes, because Apple isn't going to make that any more.

Yes, and I wonder what the reasoning is. There would be a market for it. I suspect a lot of these 'Hackintoshes' I hear about look like this.

"We think it’s really important to create something great for our pro customers who want a Mac Pro modular system..."

How many of their pro. customers actually wanted it that 'modular?'

While people do like the option of adding external storage and displays (modular), computer owners with unused internal drive bays and a Thunderbolt port would likely opt for preferentially using internal bays - very compact, often one less thing to plug in, a couple less cables cluttering the desktop, cheaper).

So if modular means you can plug in external devices, great. If it means the thing has no internal expansion options so you're stuck with external devices, not great.

There's an irony here. On the one hand, we criticize the iMac Pro for lacking adequate modularity (e.g.: built-in display, discard with system) and the 'Trashcan' Mac Pro for being too far the other way. So now Apple only makes one Mac with internal drive bays, and they've carefully priced it so high it might as well not exist for most of us.

 

[mode11]

Maybe, but those articles would be silly, because Apple explicitly said "not this year".

The meeting was in April 2017. 'Not this year' doesn't rule out next year - including January 2018. There was huge pent up demand for a new Mac Pro, and associated wishful thinking. Apple didn't tell people to wait almost 3 years for their new machine (for obvious reasons).

To be fair, they did a fair amount more than just slap existing components in a tower and call it a day.

That was their choice. Obviously pride wouldn't let themgo back to the old cheesegrater design. But if they had reconfigured it a bit, perhaps removing the optical drives and putting the HDD bays in their place, freeing up additional PCIe space, it would have gone down well. It could have come out in six months, and been cheaper to make, as well.

At the end of the day, I doubt ASUS would take almost 3 years to design a new chassis.

The logic board is their own design

Perhaps, though probably subcontracted out to Foxconn. It's essentially a custom Xeon motherboard.

they made the Afterburner card, the display, and so on.

The afterburner didn't really see much use in the end. It was basically a ProRes encoder / decoder that didn't see any updates.

The XDR is an impressive bit of kit; it would have taken time to put together.

But I would caution against "all I want is a $1,000 tower like I can buy from Dell" hopes, because Apple isn't going to make that any more.

They never did. The cMP was hardly in that category.

 

[Timpetus]

imagine a iMac or iMac Pro with 27-32 inch screen with promotion OLED with m4 pro and max chips ...

Imagine paying $8000 to start on an iMac...

 

[minik]

It was another dead end. Just like the trash can Mac Pro.

To be honest, I still use the trash can Mac Pro at work on day-to-day basis even macOS Monterey is the highest it can go officially. Meanwhile, the iMac Pro was very unreliable.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

A number of people are fans of the 27" iMac, so we're back to a useful concept that's arisen in this thread - how strong a market do you think there is for a new Apple Studio Display designed so that what amounts to a Mac Mini 'module' can be inserted into a cavity in the back, creating what amounts to an iMac, but that same module can be removed and replaced with a better Mac Mini in a few years?

So let's say an ASD is around $1,600 and you get, oh, say, a $1,000 module (people in love with iMac minimalism may not like the external SSD attached by cable approach so internal SSD > 256 gig). Throw in sales tax and Apple care, knock off some for buying with a sale or education discount, etc..., and what are we looking at...around 3 grand, give or take a couple of hundred?

Is this something many of you see yourselves buying if offered?

Awesome concept, and I would love this, but I don’t think Apple will do it. I think the module is a Mac mini, Mac Studio, or Mac Pro. it just seems like Apple is dead set on having the iMac, which is now one machine, one size, and anything else is modular, but meaning the studio display or pro display, combined with various desktops and peripherals.

That’s what I would wager at least.

 

[mode11]

I think the module is a Mac mini, Mac Studio, or Mac Pro. it just seems like Apple is dead set on having the iMac, which is now one machine, one size, and anything else is modular, but meaning the studio display or pro display, combined with various desktops and peripherals.

Personally, I think this is great and makes a lot of sense. People were saying for years what a waste it is to have a high-end 5K display anchored to slowly obsolescing guts. I just think people would be happier if the Studio Display were £800-1000, rather than £1600.

The typical 27" iMac buyer bought it as much for the value for money as the desire for an all in one (what was the alternative? A 2019 Mac Pro?). £1600 is a very expensive 27" monitor by almost anyone's standards. Very good 4K monitors of that size can be had for £500 (with equivalent colour gamut and brightness, plus multiple inputs and high refresh rates).

 

[ehhemmer]

All in ones had a lot of initial appeal, looking much prettier and taking up less space than what went before; and meeting the need in many low intensity/consumer settings.

What many buyers came to realise, myself included, is how wasteful it feels to chuck away a perfectly good monitor/computer when the other part fails and isn’t economical to replace. There’s no rational argument, nor sustainable demand in tying the two together and making one dependent on the other; when the alternative is being able to replace/upgrade each independently and at much lower cost.

Yet, the iMac still sells in its 24" form factor, based on elegant design and attractive price. Apparently that's where the demand sweet spot lies for all-in-ones, in the consumer market.

 

[switz]

Notice that the current M4 iMac has only one CPU choice and limited memory and SSD choices. Maxed out to 32GB memory and 2TB SSD it costs $2,699. Putting the M4 mini in that same configuration costs $1,799 plus the Studio Display at $1,599 gives a total price of $3,398. These displays are without the "nano" display option or faster ethernet option of the mini. Taxes and Apple Care not included.

The ability to replace individual the individual parts costs a $700 premium before the keyboard and mouse options for the mini.

At the base level, the iMac has 8 core with 8 gpu, 256GB SSD and 16GB Ram for $1,299 while the baae level Mac mini has 10 core with 10 gpu and the same memory & SSD for $599. The iMac costs $200 more to have 10 core and 10 GPU option. The mini option with studio display costs $2,199 or $900 more for base model comparison of $700 more if the iMac has the $200 upgrade for 10 core and 10 gpu.

Apple's target audience either lacks that extra cash or would see no benefit in the modularity for them to see websites, their photos and email.

In the Apple world, one has always had to pay to play clear back to the SE30 (9" B&W screen) days that cost over $3,500 in 1990 dollars.

Apple has had to create lower price loss leaders to get folks in the door and then tries to upsell the options.

The iMac screen is smaller and this requires less width space on a desk or table which is another consideration.

After crunching the numbers, I do not see a larger iMac being in Apple's interest to add to their product mix.

Especially if one acquires a third party Display which are far less costly that the Studio Display. A 27" Dell monitor is available for the list price $599. That plus the base Mini puts the cost for a functional system at under $1,200 plus keyboard and mouse.

 

[drrich2]

The ability to replace individual the individual parts costs a $700 premium before the keyboard and mouse options for the mini.

And you get a 27" rather than 24" 5K 'retina' resolution display with spatial audio, plus it's Thunderbolt and you pick up some ports.

If you don't care about spatial audio or built-in webcam/Center Stage (but would like a longer warranty, height-adjustable stand and VESA holes all at no extra charge), the new ASUS 27" 5K display is roughly $800. That with your Mini configuration would be roughly $2,600. And the Mini opens up the option for an M4 Pro, it's not limited to the M4.

Or let's say that you, like me, in the 2024 holiday shopping season caught a great deal (Dell U2723QE 27" 4K 'open box condition' display from Woot! $320.50 tax and all), or already had a nice monitor and you go with that, but next year there's a big sale on that new roughly $1,200 ASUS 32" 6K display and you want to upgrade... With the iMac, you've got a sunk cost in the built-in display. Can't sell the display without selling the computer. Can't give it as a hand-me-down, either.

 

[switz]

My personal solution is a nano Studio Display with stand and a M4 Pro Mac mini (64GB ram, 10Gb ethernet and 8TB SSD) for our summer place (also serves as a battle spare for my M1 Ultra Mac Studio (128GB Ram and 8TB SSD).

When back home I have a dedicated M4 Pro Mac mini as a file server (64GB Ram, 10 Gb ethernet and 2TB SSD) with attached RAID array.

 

[mode11]

My personal solution is a nano Studio Display with stand and a M4 Pro Mac mini (64GB ram, 10Gb ethernet and 8TB SSD) for our summer place (also serves as a battle spare for my M1 Ultra Mac Studio (128GB Ram and 8TB SSD).

When back home I have a dedicated M4 Pro Mac mini as a file server (64GB Ram, 10 Gb ethernet and 2TB SSD) with attached RAID array.

Got anything good in the yacht?