MP 7,1 Is the new 7,1 Mac Pro a failure on arrival

[ZombiePhysicist]

It doesn't have to cost a lot.

There are commodity cases, power supplies, peripherals, etc. out there. And if you spend a reasonable amount on them (like half what apple is charging) good quality parts are available. At retail cost! Never mind what apple could get at cost/trade price, in bulk!

All apple needs to do to make it their own is stick a t2 chip on it to support their apple special features (or similar) and call it a day.

An entry desktop mac without a monitor, but with expandability shouldn't cost more than $1000-1500 US, talk if $3k being baseline is no better than their current pricing.


That Mac Pro case is likely very expensive to make (due to machining intricate shapes in it from blocks of aluminium). And as a potential xMac user i just don't care. I'd rather spend the money on a blower for my car or whatever. The case looks nice, but its not nice to the point i'd pay what they're asking for it. And i would wager it cools no better than a properly cooled PC with well chosen off the shelf parts.

yea Apple will NEVER EVER EVER EVER use commodity cases etc. the case costs some money, but it’s not $4000. I think your sense of pricing scale is way off. And says you with regard to $3k. Some will say $1k is too much. The reality is the 2010 5,1 Mac Pro had a starting price around 2500. Cost adjusted, that’s Around 3k now.

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

It doesn't have to cost a lot.

There are commodity cases, power supplies, peripherals, etc. out there. And if you spend a reasonable amount on them (like half what apple is charging) good quality parts are available. At retail cost! Never mind what apple could get at cost/trade price, in bulk!

All apple needs to do to make it their own is stick a t2 chip on it to support their apple special features (or similar) and call it a day.

An entry desktop mac without a monitor, but with expandability shouldn't cost more than $1000-1500 US, talk if $3k being baseline is no better than their current pricing.


That Mac Pro case is likely very expensive to make (due to machining intricate shapes in it from blocks of aluminium). And as a potential xMac user i just don't care. I'd rather spend the money on a blower for my car or whatever. The case looks nice, but its not nice to the point i'd pay what they're asking for it. And i would wager it cools no better than a properly cooled PC with well chosen off the shelf parts.

Like I said, the xMac fans aren't interested in Apple's hardware, they just want the software. And for some reason they think Apple (primarily a hardware company) wants them as customers.

 

[ssgbryan]

Like I said, the xMac fans aren't interested in Apple's hardware, they just want the software. And for some reason they think Apple (primarily a hardware company) wants them as customers.

What Apple Hardware?

The T2 chip is pretty much the only Apple hardware that isn't commodity hardware.

 

[JoeG4]

Like I said, the xMac fans aren't interested in Apple's hardware, they just want the software. And for some reason they think Apple (primarily a hardware company) wants them as customers.

I already have a MacBook Pro. In fact i have 2. One for home use and one for work use. I want a tower. I have a PC Tower I spent a lot of money on, but not Mac Pro kinda money. I don't want to pay $6000 for an 8 core xeon tower just because it has a 96 lane PCIE switch and ECC ram.

Also taking note that you joined here in 2011 and are complaining about people who have been here longer.

 

[AidenShaw]

What Apple Hardware?

The T2 chip is pretty much the only Apple hardware that isn't commodity hardware.

Cough. Cough. MPX.

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

Also taking note that you joined here in 2011 and are complaining about people who have been here longer.

Who gives a flying flan about who's been here longer?

 

[JoeG4]

Who gives a flying flan about who's been here longer?

I just don't care for the recent toxicity over the Mac Pro. A cheaper one would be nice. The $6000-50,000 one is nice too. I hope people buy it and make the next hollywood masterpiece. Or buy it and take pictures of it with cheese slathered all over it and post it on instagram. Whatever floats their boat I guess.

I do want a cheaper one though. Also: This thread really makes me sad now lol. Really sad. The notifications are like getting dog poop on my shoes.

If apple made an i9 9900k tower I'd buy it. Whatever the price was. I don't care about all in ones. Frankly, the idea of owning an iMac sickens me. Not because it's "not pro", but because it's a really nice 27" screen glued permanently onto a machine I'd probably dispose of in 3-5 years. I usually get a longer life out of my monitors.

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

I just don't care for the recent toxicity over the Mac Pro. A cheaper one would be nice. The $6000-50,000 one is nice too. I hope people buy it and make the next hollywood masterpiece. Or buy it and take pictures of it with cheese slathered all over it and post it on instagram. Whatever floats their boat I guess.

I do want a cheaper one though. Also: This thread really makes me sad now lol. Really sad. The notifications are like getting dog poop on my shoes.

If apple made an i9 9900k tower I'd buy it. Whatever the price was. I don't care about all in ones. Frankly, the idea of owning an iMac sickens me. Not because it's "not pro", but because it's a really nice 27" screen glued permanently onto a machine I'd probably dispose of in 3-5 years. I usually get a longer life out of my monitors.

Well, I hope that you would sell or pass that machine down to someone who could use some really nice kit, but can't afford it new. My 5,1 has lasted me a decade, but it didn't have to be that way if the 6,1 had been an upgrade. Then my 5,1 could have gone to someone who couldn't afford to buy it new. I've never had any of my PC's last the way my Macs have, not even the ones I built myself. There's essentially two ways that computers become junk, from time, either by becoming obsolescent or wearing out, or from encouraging Joe Schmoe to stuck his fingers inside and bricking it. Not to say that Apple hasn't made any duds, but pretty much all of my Apple kit has become ewaste through becoming obsolescent, and I actually think it is a good idea that Apple discourages Joe Schmoe's. I've seen Android phones where you install a SIM or swap a battery by literally peeling the back cover off, with the board exposed right there. The owners didn't care, the phones were cheap crap that if they messed something up were easily replaced.

 

[JoeG4]

I've never had any of my PC's last the way my Macs have, not even the ones I built myself.

I've had kinda mixed luck with that. 2 out of my 3 PowerMacs were retired when their power supplies failed. The 3rd one was stolen, oddly enough, as it was pretty old when it got stolen.

I've never had an Apple laptop fail me though.

From what I've seen/heard of the old Mac Pro towers, I'm pretty sure these will easily last 10+ years. That 580x will probably start to feel like crap around the 3-4 year mark though. But I've seen worse. Remember how the old towers came with a Geforce GT130?! Geez. Talk about a sheep in wolf's clothing.

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

I've had kinda mixed luck with that. 2 out of my 3 PowerMacs were retired when their power supplies failed. The 3rd one was stolen, oddly enough, as it was pretty old when it got stolen.

My dad was using the Apple II we bought when I was in high school up until he died. Still going strong at 29 years old.

The most common item that the PC using people in my household have to replace is power supplies. Commodity parts that die a lot.

 

[AidenShaw]

The most common item that the PC using people in my household have to replace is power supplies. Commodity parts that die a lot.

...which is why servers (and very high end workstations) typically have redundant power supplies.

Sometimes many (6KW)....

 

[JoeG4]

lol, as a software guy and not an IT guy, I don't live in a server room. That said plenty of them exist and make it through the test lab I use. Out of the dozen or so I've regularly worked with, at least half eventually had a "power supply redundancy not available because power supply A failed test" error or whatever lol.

 

[AidenShaw]

...at least half eventually had a "power supply redundancy not available because power supply A failed test" error or whatever lol.

However - the system continues to run without errors because "power supply redundancy not available" simply means that if another power supply fails the system shuts down.

Similar to when a RAID-5 array says "one drive has failed" or a RAID-6 array says "two drives have failed". Running fine, but another failure and you're in trouble.

That's why we have redundant power supplies and parity RAID - so that a single failure doesn't wipe out our systems.

And the server in the picture runs OK with two power supplies - 3 KW is enough. It will run with two failed power supplies.

 

[JazzyGB1]

Like I said, the xMac fans aren't interested in Apple's hardware, they just want the software. And for some reason they think Apple (primarily a hardware company) wants them as customers.

It's not XMac fans...it's Apple Tower fans.
You're suggesting we want a product Apple have never made...that's not true.
What I (and many others wanted) is a product that Apple has made for decades...a tower.
A tower Mac that would replace the previous model (5,1 Mac Pro) at a similar price point.
The history of Apple towers goes back tens of years, so we are not asking for a new XMac (as you refer to it), we are asking for an Apple tower that starts at a price point in line with the towers of the previous 30 years.
iMac 1999 $1199, iMac 2005 $1299, iMac 2012 $1299, iMac 2020 $1099
PowerMac G3 1999 $1599, Powermac G5 2005 $1999, Mac Pro 2012, $1999, Mac Pro 2020 $5999!!!!
The towers Apple produced up until 2012 were no less 'Pro'. All have been used by many professionals and started at a third of the price of the current model.
So it's unreasonable to expect many (like me) who have owned all of the towers listed above to suddenly pay three times as much as I did for my 5,1 tower and then to to claim 'ah, but you want an 'XMac' - that's nonsense.
What I (and many others) wanted was for the entry level Apple tower that we waited nearly 8 years for, to be priced at a cost in keeping with its predecessors.
To be able to move my four internal SSDs and my PCIe cards from my 5,1 Mac Pro, I shouldn't have to pay upwards of $6000 - that's taking the piss!

 

[throAU]

yea Apple will NEVER EVER EVER EVER use commodity cases etc. the case costs some money, but it’s not $4000. I think your sense of pricing scale is way off. And says you with regard to $3k. Some will say $1k is too much. The reality is the 2010 5,1 Mac Pro had a starting price around 2500. Cost adjusted, that’s Around 3k now.

I know this.

However, I'm giving apple the "benefit of the doubt" as to their exorbitant pricing; the case is the only expensive proprietary thing in the new Mac pro - the rest of it is PC standard hardware (outside of a $5 t2 chip) and there is no justification anywhere else for the pricing.

Contrary to fanboy viewpoint - you can build a machine that cools just as well or better than the mac pro for FAR less, and it doesn't even have to be in a crap case.

 

[R3k]

Had my 12 core for about a week, I’m really happy with the investment, I nice upgrade from my 2013 MP. I put 2 x Sonnet PCI - SSD cards in there and populated them with 4 SSD’s. System flys

Im feeling this system will do me for about a decade.. as its upgradable, I’ll be able to put a 28core CPU and some NVMe storage later on down the road if necessary.

It also didn’t cost me as much as one would think. BHPhoto has an instant $500 off. I didn’t pay sales tax as I used their credit card. As I use it for work, I’ll get 24% of it back on taxes. Then I sold my 2013 MP, OWC Thunderbay RAID with drives, and also the keyboard and mouse that came in the box. This dropped the price considerably.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I know this.

However, I'm giving apple the "benefit of the doubt" as to their exorbitant pricing; the case is the only expensive proprietary thing in the new Mac pro - the rest of it is PC standard hardware (outside of a $5 t2 chip) and there is no justification anywhere else for the pricing.

Contrary to fanboy viewpoint - you can build a machine that cools just as well or better than the mac pro for FAR less, and it doesn't even have to be in a crap case.

The MPX slots are new. Routing thunderbolt around a motherboard like this is new. 8 slots is a lot and new at least for this type of machine. But yea, I agree, in that it's not that earth shaking. I think the exorbitant pricing has more to do with "apple can get away with it". But I'm probably being overly cynical.

 

[R3k]

6 core 3.0ghz Mac mini
Sonnet Echo Express 3 bay TB3 to PCI expansion chassis
OWC Thunderbay - 4 drive SATA to TB3 expansion chassis.

$1990
= xMac?

 

[mattspace]

6 core 3.0ghz Mac mini
Sonnet Echo Express 3 bay TB3 to PCI expansion chassis
OWC Thunderbay - 4 drive SATA to TB3 expansion chassis.

$1990
= xMac?

All together now:

Thunderbolt
is not a substitute
for Motherboard PCI...

...Four Calling Birds,
three French Hens,
two Turtle Doves,
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

 

[throAU]

All together now:

Thunderbolt
is not a substitute
for Motherboard PCI...

...Four Calling Birds,
three French Hens,
two Turtle Doves,
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

Not a direct substitute no, but in the absence of anything sensibly priced from apple, it can be "good enough" for those who don't want to pay an extra 4-6,000 dollars for things they don't need, purely to get a discrete GPU that's better than an RX580 which was mid-range performance and mid-range price - back in 2016...

 

[ssgbryan]

Not a direct substitute no, but in the absence of anything sensibly priced from apple, it can be "good enough" for those who don't want to pay an extra 4-6,000 dollars for things they don't need, purely to get a discrete GPU that's better than an RX580 which was mid-range performance and mid-range price - back in 2016...

Settle for "good enough"? Seriously? It is only "good enough" if you are chained to OSX.

I am moving to a Ryzen 7 system - roughly the same performance as the base 7,1 for around $1300. And with the 3900X down to $400, I can bump back up to 12 cores. Or spring for a 16 core 3950X at xmas, or a 4000 series Ryzen

It has been a fun 20 years, I am a 3d art hobbyist, and Apple no longer makes a reasonably affordable computer to do that.

The problem for me isn't the $6,000 base price - it is how little one gets for that $6,000. A $4,500 apple tax is simply too much.

 

[mikas]

Is the new 7,1 Mac Pro a failure on arrival?

No it’s not. It’s not a failure as a machine. It’s just too costly for what it is, at arrival.
I am not gonna list all of it here again. It’s all been out there already many times in numerous threads.

It’s not too little too late. It’s asking too much too late, and setting the starting price really really wrong.

You can get by with the processor family, and the fact that it’s the last of the line.
You can (barely) get by the T2 chip, because you can boot from other sources too.
You can get by the Display price, you can buy other displays as you want, not XDR if it’s not needed.
You can get by Catalina, it’s gonna mature for production needs some day, I’m sure. Not today though.

You can’t get by with the price of this base system they ask. That’s it. It’s way too much.

I knew it’s gonna go really absurd then they (three amigos) said; ”we are going to invite some Pros here and gonna carefully find out and study what a Pro workflow is, and what it consists of.”

Yeah. It seems I am not a Pro. At least to Apple I am not.

 

[R3k]

it is how little one gets for that $6,000. A $4,500 apple tax is simply too much.

Out of interest, I went to the dell Website and built a comparable system.12 core 32gb Ram 256gb NVMe drive Mouse and Keyboard.

The Dell has a lower clock speed CPU and the video card is slower than the 580X

Dell = $5572
Mac Pro $6999

So, lets amend that to an approx $1427 Apple tax. Maybe as little as $1100 if the CPU and GPU were the same.

A couple of things of note. The Dell has 8 x Sata connectors. A PCI to SSD card for the MP from Sonnet runs at $99 for a two SSD interface.

Not sure if the dell supports TB3 etc.

Other benefits of the MP of the Dell:

More aesthetically pleasing
Better build quality
Higher quality supporting components (case, screws, covers, etc)
Easier Access to internals
Product box has been specifically designed to be used again, for people who ship their MP's around.
Larger Power supply than the Dell (200%)
Dead silent under load due to airflow design.

 

[ssgbryan]

But why go with Intel at all?

More money, less performance.

 

[R3k]

But why go with Intel at all?

More money, less performance.

Under 2 decades ago Intel hit a clockspeed / thermal wall and AMD chips with their lower clock and more threads became the better choice. That lasted a few years as intel got things together and then they took the lead again. The last 2 decades Intel have been ahead most of the time.

It would be a major effort for Apple to "re-tool" so to speak and drop AMD chips in all their systems and tweak until its all working nicely. After all that, a few years will go by and Intel will take the lead again. Apple have to think of the long game.

Also, can you even get Thunderbolt 3 working with an AMD chip?