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CosmoCopus

macrumors regular
Nov 1, 2012
209
295
This thread was very interesting to read. So has anyone else purchase a 7,1 Mac Pro since Apple announced the new one?
 

CosmoCopus

macrumors regular
Nov 1, 2012
209
295
My main reasoning behind this: I'd love to have one last really powerful Mac, that can still run Windows through Bootcamp natively. Usage would be probably 50/50 – and I really like the idea of having 1 nice looking machine doing both instead of 2 boxes standing around (one being an ugly PC tower…).

From what I know so far, there is no way and no way in near sight to run Windows natively on any Macs with AS chips. This may change in future (years), but for the time being it's a disappointing situation.

I also like the idea of being able to upgrade the Mac Pro 2019 over coming years (been using a 2009 Mac Pro this way for 10+ years), though being aware full macOS support will vanish probably in the next 3-5y, freezing the machine with the then last macOS version to still support Intel. This would be OK for me, hoping the Windows support will hopefully(?) outlast the macOS support. So worstcase I could probably still upgrade it with new GPUs in 3+ years and run it mostly under Windows with that setup then...

The only part being a real con for me is the hardware not being updated (mostly CPUs) in ~3 years. I know there were rumors of a speedbump update with latest Intel chips being references in some Xcode beta last year – but this update obviously never manifested. And with every rumor of an AS Mac Pro coming soon I find it more and more unlikely we will ever see such an Intel update still.

Guess I am not really sure what to ask even… but curious if anyone else has similar thoughts or is/was in a similar situation even?
If you don’t mind me asking what was your final decision on a 7,1 Mac Pro?
 

mattspace

macrumors 68040
Jun 5, 2013
3,344
2,975
Australia
Summay:

Current Mac Studio outperforms, by a significative margin, Mac Pro 2019.

On some metrics, and on some others the Xeon Mac Pro will outperform it.

Mac Pro 2019 (intel) is out of apple silicon ecosystem.

...and if that was a thing, it would matter, but all of the Apple ecosystem works fine on intel machines.

One must be nuts to buy a Mac Pro 2019 now.

Or want a Machine that supports more displays, more thunderbolt ports, higher potential 3D performance, has ECC memory, higher sustained performance with a stronger cooling system, can virtualise X86 operating systems, can run larger memory tasks etc etc etc.
 

ZombiePhysicist

Suspended
May 22, 2014
2,884
2,794
If the Intel machine gets 2 more full updates I think everyone will think it had a pretty good life. Meaning Sonoma + the version after that. If it gets 3 updates, I think that would be really Fantastic, and considering it was sold still in 2023, it one last update in 2026 to the latest OS could happen.
 

Canubis

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 22, 2008
439
556
Vienna, Austria
If you don’t mind me asking what was your final decision on a 7,1 Mac Pro?
To be frank, I completely forgot I had created this thread. 😅

But to answer your question: I did it! :)

When Apple kinda surprisingly (at least to me, as rumors pointed to somewhen much later) unveiled the new Mac Pro 2023 this spring, and completely removed the 2019 model from sale, I got really nervous.

Luckily they had put remaining stock into their Refurbished Online Store. I decided it's now or never & got a 16 core with 96GB RAM, 4TB and the W6800X for € 9.5k (VAT included). There was a pretty nice discount on it, not just the usual Refurbished discount but they actually also dropped the price further on all Refurbished Mac Pro 2019 models the day they introduced the 2023 model.
And it also paid to act quickly, because when I checked the store few times after my purchase the same model never returned for sale. And it was exactly the model I put my eyes on for months.

Personally, I am really super happy about my decision to still get one of these beasts as I plan to use it 50/50 with macOS and Windows, incl. occasional gaming. For at least the next 3-5 years I think it will do a pretty great job. The ability to upgrade certain parts will definitely help with that.
While a Mac Studio may beat the Intel Mac Pro in some benchmarks I frankly don't really care – the ability to boot Windows on the same machine and being able to put in a different GPU in 1-2 year outweighs the Apple Silicon performance gains for me.
Though I wouldn't rule out an additional Mac Studio with M3 or M4 may join my team of Macs in the next 2-3 years.
 
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avro707

macrumors 68020
Dec 13, 2010
2,263
1,654
Summay:

Current Mac Studio outperforms, by a significative margin, Mac Pro 2019.
Mac Pro 2019 (intel) is out of apple silicon ecosystem.
One must be nuts to buy a Mac Pro 2019 now.
How does it go in Windows?

Happy with my 7,1.

If I went Studio I’d need to spend big money on a PC workstation as well. It was cheaper to have the 7,1 which does both jobs well and doesn’t clutter my desk with another computer.
 

CosmoCopus

macrumors regular
Nov 1, 2012
209
295
To be frank, I completely forgot I had created this thread. 😅

But to answer your question: I did it! :)

When Apple kinda surprisingly (at least to me, as rumors pointed to somewhen much later) unveiled the new Mac Pro 2023 this spring, and completely removed the 2019 model from sale, I got really nervous.

Luckily they had put remaining stock into their Refurbished Online Store. I decided it's now or never & got a 16 core with 96GB RAM, 4TB and the W6800X for € 9.5k (VAT included). There was a pretty nice discount on it, not just the usual Refurbished discount but they actually also dropped the price further on all Refurbished Mac Pro 2019 models the day they introduced the 2023 model.
And it also paid to act quickly, because when I checked the store few times after my purchase the same model never returned for sale. And it was exactly the model I put my eyes on for months.

Personally, I am really super happy about my decision to still get one of these beasts as I plan to use it 50/50 with macOS and Windows, incl. occasional gaming. For at least the next 3-5 years I think it will do a pretty great job. The ability to upgrade certain parts will definitely help with that.
While a Mac Studio may beat the Intel Mac Pro in some benchmarks I frankly don't really care – the ability to boot Windows on the same machine and being able to put in a different GPU in 1-2 year outweighs the Apple Silicon performance gains for me.
Though I wouldn't rule out an additional Mac Studio with M3 or M4 may join my team of Macs in the next 2-3 years.
Excellent, thanks for the reply.
 

richinaus

macrumors 68020
Oct 26, 2014
2,431
2,186
To be frank, I completely forgot I had created this thread. 😅

But to answer your question: I did it! :)

When Apple kinda surprisingly (at least to me, as rumors pointed to somewhen much later) unveiled the new Mac Pro 2023 this spring, and completely removed the 2019 model from sale, I got really nervous.

Luckily they had put remaining stock into their Refurbished Online Store. I decided it's now or never & got a 16 core with 96GB RAM, 4TB and the W6800X for € 9.5k (VAT included). There was a pretty nice discount on it, not just the usual Refurbished discount but they actually also dropped the price further on all Refurbished Mac Pro 2019 models the day they introduced the 2023 model.
And it also paid to act quickly, because when I checked the store few times after my purchase the same model never returned for sale. And it was exactly the model I put my eyes on for months.

Personally, I am really super happy about my decision to still get one of these beasts as I plan to use it 50/50 with macOS and Windows, incl. occasional gaming. For at least the next 3-5 years I think it will do a pretty great job. The ability to upgrade certain parts will definitely help with that.
While a Mac Studio may beat the Intel Mac Pro in some benchmarks I frankly don't really care – the ability to boot Windows on the same machine and being able to put in a different GPU in 1-2 year outweighs the Apple Silicon performance gains for me.
Though I wouldn't rule out an additional Mac Studio with M3 or M4 may join my team of Macs in the next 2-3 years.
I just have a Mac studio ultra and run the pc next to me through Parsec. Works a treat and can access the same PC anywhere for my 4090 needs.
For when I really need to use the PC directly, I got the long TB cable for the Studio display, and simply hook it up [also using the Logitech MX keyboard and mouse as a KVM].
 
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solaris8x86

macrumors regular
Nov 24, 2007
235
64
Saturn
I, as a cloud engineer. I have no choice but to pick those used intel Mac (for running ubuntu linux). The Mac Pro 2019 is nice due to equipped with many vCPU threads if your work is Linux or windows server related (to launch VMs). It is unaffected by the decommission window by apple.
 
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solaris8x86

macrumors regular
Nov 24, 2007
235
64
Saturn
Yes, for now. But for how long?
The hardware itself would last around 10 year. (my just-gone Mac Pro 2010 ran for 13 years even though it had been gone thru to replace 3 motherboards during 13 years of its service time).

Apple supports each generation of Apple Mac hardware running their MacOSes for around 7 generations. The last generation of Intel Mac was launched in 2019-2020. As a result, Apple would exterminate the whole Intel Mac OS at around 2019+7 = 2026. Plus +3 additional years for you to run only the last generation of intel MacOS with Parallels-Linux/Windows. Thus, The last generation of intel Mac would last up to 2029 around.

I did a calculation before I bought my newly-used MacBook Pro 2019 15' i9 (1TB SSD, 32GB RAM) on yesterday from my local second hand market. Now is 2023 mid. Therefore, my Intel MacBook Pro still has 6 years to go. Seem pretty fair for this investment to me. So, take it fast is more wisely and worthy for now I think. Being late would become less worthy for its remaining lifetime.
 
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tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,454
13,601
Plus +3 additional years for you to run only the last generation of intel MacOS with Parallels-Linux/Windows. Thus, The last generation of intel Mac would last up to 2029 around.

It's the year of the release plus two additional years of Security Updates, not three years of macOS Security Updates. After that the macOS release is considered obsolete, with no further support.
 

ThunderSkunk

macrumors 601
Dec 31, 2007
4,075
4,561
Milwaukee Area
I'd love to have one last really powerful Mac, that can still run Windows through Bootcamp natively. ?
Thats why we’re all buying them. The Mx Macs may be just dandy at running mac apps, but when you have a real need to run windows as well, then there are classic macs, and they are a many splendored thing. In the last year or so, I’ve bought up a couple 17” MBP’s, a brilliant 2012 13” MBP, a 2015 15”, and a few fully decked-out 2019 MBPs. Each has their drawbacks, but in each, those drawbacks are manageable.

The late 2011 17” MBP is my favorite computer ever made by anyone, but is limited by the self-destructing AMD GPU’s in its final form + a faulty capacitor. However, I had a company remove those AMD gpu chips and install NVIDIA & fix the cap, and now it runs flawlessly, with a highres antiglare display, 16gb of ram, a quad core i7 gpu, two 8TB SSDs, fiber optic audio, etc. Its the Steve Jobs laptop, has a vintage apple decal over the glowing logo. If my house is on fire, its what I’m grabbing.

The 2015 MBP has an even high resolution disolay but is only 15” and isn’t anti-glare. It only a 4tb ssd but is a speedier nvme and is yet still replaceable. It also has a nice fat 2gb GPU, and useful i/o on both sides of the machine, and is the svelte size & weight of the 2019 MBP‘sl. It is also a machine worth under a grand, even with the aftermarket 4tb ssd, so if it gets stolen or destroyed, idgaf.

The 2019s are absolute powerhouses. Too much power in fact. 4x the resources than the 2015, and in the case of the 5600m model, more than that. The downside is peak Jony Ive stupidity in the io, hardwired SSD, and utter lack of servicability, which are a problem bc of the big fault, Apples poor thermal design, which throttles the performance as soon as you actually need to use the resources of the machine. BUT, the back panel does come off if you‘re patient, and thermal transfer pads can be applied for under $10 which do largely fix the problem. Briefly it was thought that turning the aluminum bottom plate into a heatsink would heat & ruin the batteries. As it turns out, no, there are heat sensoirs in the batteries that will still throttle the machine to keep them under their temp threshold. Once you mitigate Ive’s design problem, the 2019 is like running windows on a Ferrari.

If you dont need it to be mobile, a 2019 iMac is like running windows on a spaceship, outperforming the imac pro’s, most of tye mac pro’s, pravtically every other computer Apple ever made under $14,000. I dont even bother with Boot Camp, bc the iMac has enough resources and cooling capacity to throw at running Win in a VM that driving solidworks and rendering complex viz models in real time while also calculating adaptive toolpaths for machining and playing a 4k film on an external LG ultrawide in the other room from the cozy OSX doesn’t break a sweat. It runs Mojave thru new OS’s and will until as long as there are people left to patch new ones. The SSD’s and RAM are replaceable and can be maxed out large. It has no drawbacks. For my personal computers, I could prob get away with this iMac and the 17” MBP and never need another computer again.

Ypu’re not proposing anything unthinkable by getting one to handle your win-inclusive workflow. These are very well-designed & built, highly capable, feature-rich, multi-purpose computers, and the very reason Apple grew and became as popular as they did. Compared to other Macs, not as exciting as whatever is new & shiniest, but compared to practically every other clunky plastic windows notebook in existence, an intel mac is still a luxury machine.
 
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Canubis

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 22, 2008
439
556
Vienna, Austria
I just have a Mac studio ultra and run the pc next to me through Parsec. Works a treat and can access the same PC anywhere for my 4090 needs.
For when I really need to use the PC directly, I got the long TB cable for the Studio display, and simply hook it up [also using the Logitech MX keyboard and mouse as a KVM].
It’s a viable solution to have a separate PC box for Windows needs. I’ve been thinking about that a lot and considered this myself. But in the end for my needs I decided I prefer one machine that can do both instead of two.
Plus I admit I really liked the design of the Mac Pro and wanted to have one in my collection. 😉
 
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avro707

macrumors 68020
Dec 13, 2010
2,263
1,654
It’s a viable solution to have a separate PC box for Windows needs. I’ve been thinking about that a lot and considered this myself. But in the end for my needs I decided I prefer one machine that can do both instead of two.
Plus I admit I really liked the design of the Mac Pro and wanted to have one in my collection. 😉
I also wanted one machine to do both windows and macOS.

Getting a decent PC workstation as well would have been expensive so it was cheaper to get the Mac Pro new which I did. My old machine had failed so no option.

If the Lenovo PX was available at the time I would have ordered that because it can be more easily (and to an higher degree) upgraded than any Mac.
 

Regulus67

macrumors 6502a
Aug 9, 2023
533
501
Värmland, Sweden
This is my first post, on this forum. But I have been following it for a while.

I bought a Mac Pro 7.1 back in May, from a company that had rented it out.
It came with 16-core CPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and Pro Vega II. Price around €3.300. I paid in SEK, of course.

Since purchase, I have upgraded it a bit.
6 sticks of 32GB ECC RAM, total 192 GB.
4TB SSD kit from Apple.
Promise J2i from Apple with 8TB.
Samsung EVO 870 1TB SSD

I am using Bootcamp and Win 10 on the Samsung SSD.
First time I have installed Windows on a mac.

The Thunderbolt Display I purchased last week, and tested it yesterday, when I got the adapter from Apple.

I love this setup
 
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