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

[Macsonic]

that's almost like a marketing message from Nvidia. Wait, it IS a marketing message from Nvidia, several of them in fact.

Yeah they may be marketing news but they also show a glimpse of what tools and hardware the market is hanging on to long term. These Nvida updates also indicate the strong “marriage” between these big companies to Nvidia for the past 10+ years. To transition into the 2019 Mac Pro may be a tough shot, I think Linux and Windows have a strong foothold on the pro market since new, better products are always released from time to time for those Operating Systems.

 

[vinegarshots]

The 2019 New Mac Pro might be a Niche Market machine. Aside from it’s high pricing, crucial is the lack of Official Nvidia GPU support, driver support on the latest OS. There are pro users using softwares with Nvidia compatibility. Like the “Big Players” Industrial Light and Magic, Dreamworks Animation using Nvidia GPUs in HP workstations for their 3D and motion graphics effects. I may be wrong, but it’s likely Nvidia and HP assigns a team for monthly tech support which Apple may not offer. Certain companies may want after sales tech support long term.

I wish the pricing would be lower and there’s official Nvidia GPU support. Maybe thru a hack Nvidia GPUs may still be installed in the 2019 Mac Pro but companies would prefer an official support. Just my thoughts.

And what do we hear from ATI? ...crickets...

View attachment 877157

All Apple needs is Metal support from the big video/3D companies. If that happens, Nvidia becomes a non-issue, and so does AMD if Apple releases their own GPU hardware at some point.


"
Leading app developers for a variety of workflows, from video and photo editing to music production and advanced 3D content creation, have announced their support for the all-new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR.
Adobe
“We’re incredibly excited about the new Mac Pro, which represents a strong commitment from Apple towards creatives working in 3D. We’ve already started porting the Substance line of tools, as well as Dimension, to Apple’s new graphic API Metal to fully take advantage of the immense power the new Mac Pro hardware offers and empower 3D creatives in unprecedented ways.” — Sebastien Deguy, vice president of 3D and Immersive, Adobe
“Apple continues to innovate for video professionals. With the power offered by the new Mac Pro, editors will be able to work with 8K without the need for any proxy workflows in a future release of Premiere Pro.” — Steven Warner, vice president of Digital Video and Audio, Adobe
“We can’t wait to leverage Apple’s new Pro Display XDR and to support its capabilities to the fullest in an upcoming release of Photoshop. For the first time, customers will be able to see and edit their Photoshop files in high dynamic range and their photos will come to life, revealing details not visible before.” — Maria Yap, vice president of Digital Imaging, Adobe
OTOY
“OTOY is incredibly excited about the all-new Mac Pro and how it will empower our users. Octane X — the 10th anniversary edition of Octane — has been rewritten from the ground up in Metal for Mac Pro, and is the culmination of a long and deep collaboration with Apple’s world-class engineering team. Mac Pro is like nothing we’ve seen before in a desktop system. Octane X will be leveraging this unprecedented performance to take interactive and production GPU rendering for film, TV, motion graphics and AR/VR to a whole new level. Octane X is truly a labor of love, and we can’t wait to get it into the hands of our Mac customers later this year.” — Jules Urbach, CEO and founder, OTOY
Blackmagic Design
“DaVinci Resolve is the world’s most advanced color correction and online editing software for high-end film and television work. It was the first professional software to adopt Metal and now, with the new Mac Pro and Afterburner, we’re seeing full-quality 8K performance in real time with color correction and effects, something we could never dream of doing before. DaVinci Resolve running on the new Mac Pro is easily the fastest way to edit, grade and finish movies and TV shows.” — Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design
Maxon
“Tapping into the amazing performance of the new Mac Pro, we’re excited to develop Redshift for Metal, and we’re working with Apple to bring an optimized version to the Mac Pro for the first time by the end of the year. We’re also actively developing Metal support for Cinema 4D, which will provide our Mac users with accelerated workflows for the most complex content creation. The new Mac Pro graphics architecture is incredibly powerful and is the best system to run Cinema 4D.” — David McGavran, CEO, Maxon
Avid
“Avid’s Pro Tools team is blown away by the unprecedented processing power of the new Mac Pro, and thanks to its internal expansion capabilities, up to six Pro Tools HDX cards can be installed within the system – a first for Avid’s flagship audio workstation. We’re now able to deliver never-before-seen performance and capabilities for audio production in a single system and deliver a platform that professional users in music and post have been eagerly awaiting.” — Francois Quereuil, director of Product Management, Avid
Unity
“We’re so excited for Unity creators to tap into the incredible power of the all-new Mac Pro. Our powerful and accessible real-time technology, combined with Mac Pro’s massive CPU power and Metal-enabled high-end graphics performance, along with the gorgeous new Pro Display XDR, will give creators everything they need to create the next smash-hit game, augmented reality experience or award-winning animated feature.” — Ralph Hauwert, vice president of Platforms, Unity
Pixar
“We are thrilled to announce full Metal support in Hydra in an upcoming release of USD toward the end of the year. Together with this new release, the new Mac Pro will dramatically accelerate the most demanding 3D graphics workflows thanks to an excellent combination of memory, bandwidth and computational performance. This new machine clearly shows Apple is delivering on the needs of professionals at high-end production facilities like Pixar.” — Guido Quaroni, vice president of Software Research and Development, Pixar
Autodesk
“Autodesk is fully embracing the all-new Mac Pro and we are already working on optimized updates to AutoCAD, Maya, Fusion and Flame. This level of innovation, combined with next-generation graphics APIs, such as Metal, bring extremely high graphics performance and visual fidelity to our Design, Manufacturing and Creation products and enable us to bring greater value to our customers.” — Amy Bunszel, senior vice president, Autodesk Design and Creation Products
Red Digital Cinema
“Apple’s new hardware will bring a mind-blowing level of performance to Metal-accelerated, proxy-free R3D workflows in Final Cut Pro X that editors truly have never seen before. We are very excited to bring a Metal-optimized version of R3D in September.” — Jarred Land, president, Red Digital Cinema
Foundry
“With the all-new Mac Pro, Apple delivers incredible performance for media and entertainment professionals, and we can’t wait to see what our customers create with the immense power and flexibility that Mac Pro brings to artists. HDR is quickly becoming the standard for capturing and delivering high quality content, and the Pro Display XDR will enable Nuke and Nuke Studio artists to work closer to the final image on their desktop, improving their speed and giving them the freedom to focus on the quality of their work. We look forward to updating our products to take advantage of what Mac Pro offers.” — Jody Madden, chief product and customer officer, Foundry
Universal Audio
“The new Mac Pro is a breakthrough in recording and mixing performance. Thunderbolt 3 and the numerous PCIe slots for installing UAD plug-in co-processors pair perfectly with our Apollo X series of audio interfaces. Combined with the sheer processing power of the Mac Pro, our most demanding users will be able to track and mix the largest sessions effortlessly.” – Bill Putnam Jr., CEO, Universal Audio
Cine Tracer
“Thanks to the unbelievable power of the new Mac Pro, users of Cine Tracer will be able to work in 4K and higher resolution in real time when visualizing their projects. And with twice as many lights to work with in the same scene, combined with Unreal Engine’s real-time graphics technology, artists can now load scenes that were previously too large or graphically taxing.” — Matt Workman, developer, Cine Tracer
Pixelmator
“The new Mac Pro is insanely fast — it’s by far the fastest image editor we’ve ever experienced or seen. With the incredible Pro Display XDR, all-new photo editing workflows are now a reality. When editing RAW shots, users can choose to view extended dynamic detail in images, invisible on other displays, for a phenomenal viewing experience like we never imagined.” — Simonas Bastys, lead developer, Pixelmator
Serif
“Affinity Photo users demand the highest levels of performance, and the new, insanely powerful Mac Pro, coupled with the new discrete, multi-GPU support in Photo 1.7 allows our users to work in real time on massive, deep-color projects. Thanks to our extensive Metal adoption, every stage of the editing process is accelerated. And as Photo scales linearly with multiple GPUs, users will see up to four-time performance gains over the iMac Pro and 20 times over typical PC hardware. It’s the fastest system we’ve ever run on. Our Metal support also means incredible HDR support for the new Pro Display XDR.” — Ashley Hewson, managing director, Serif
"
SideFX
“With the new Mac Pro’s incredible compute performance and amazing graphics architecture, Houdini users will be able to work faster and more efficiently, unleashing a whole new level of creativity.” — Cristin Barghiel, vice president of Product Development, SideFX
Epic Games
“Epic’s Unreal Engine on the new Mac Pro takes advantage of its incredible graphics performance to deliver amazing visual quality, and will enable workflows that were never possible before on a Mac. We can’t wait to see how the new Mac Pro enhances our customers’ limitless creativity in cinematic production, visualization, games and more.” — Kim Libreri, CTO, Epic Games

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

My personal issue is not the $6K price tag. My issue is the SSD size and sub-$190.00 GPU that is used for the 6K machine. A really close second is no nvidia support.

A base machine should be a base machine. My biggest beef with the 6,1 was the fact that they were cramming 2 video cards, one of which was completely useless to me, down my throat with the base config. All I need is a video card that can run multiple monitors at decent resolution. I don't want the base config to come with (a price tag for) more than that.

There are also users whose need for the included drive is to have space for the OS and a few apps. Any more internal storage will be money down the drain for them. Your base config is not everybody's base config.

 

[dysamoria]

Prediction: Not only has this new machine's pricing likely dropped many of the product line's existing customers, corporations that are in the market for heavy duty workstations are going to see better profit margins by continuing to buy comparable & cheaper PCs, and NOT by buying these premium-priced Apple machines. Result: this product is way more niche than it ever was before. It's as if they set this as the goal. "We want to sell as few of these as possible!"

I waited for ten years, only for Apple to tell me that I'm irrelevant to them. I'm not the only one. When dedicated, PC-hating consumers like us are priced out, who's left?

But hey, maybe that's why it's so expensive: going to sell a tiny number of machines? Make them cost a hell of a lot to make up for it.

 

[G4DPII]

That's an impresive list of software vendors.

Ignore Serif though, their stuff is terrible, Photo, and Designer are poor imitations of Illustrator and Photoshop. The development is a joke, they introduce more bugs with every rellease than Apple do.

 

[dysamoria]

That's an impresive list of software vendors.

Ignore Serif though, their stuff is terrible, Photo, and Designer are poor imitations of Illustrator and Photoshop. The development is a joke, they introduce more bugs with every rellease than Apple do.

I was stunned at just how horribly and obviously buggy Photo for iPad was. And yes, WORSE than iOS itself (because I submit new bug reports to Apple seemingly weekly, yet Photo was basically unusable to me).

 

[OkiRun]

I was stunned at just how horribly and obviously buggy Photo for iPad was. And yes, WORSE than iOS itself (because I submit new bug reports to Apple seemingly weekly, yet Photo was basically unusable to me).

I can understand a lot of what you are arguing. I don't use Photo either. I don't use Numbers although I do use Pages. I prefer it to Word and my clients want pdfs sent to them so the old days of needing Word to work in the world of business are gone (at least for me). However, I believe (note the word if the Fact Police are awake this morning) that there are a lot of LCCs out there waiting for the 7.1 either to upgrade from the trashcan or waiting to move off of Windows. There are also a lot of Japanese, Korean, Chinese companies and individuals hooked on Apple with deep pockets that will make creating and selling this computer profitable. Those number were crunched at Apple years ago. Some posters have said the bulk of sales will be in the first few months. Again, I don't think so. With the cost of the base model... some of the young will save and pawn (like I did with my Fender guitar to buy my first computer) and over time - get this computer or its latest variant.

Cheers ~

 

[H. Flower]

More like failure to arrive.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

So roughly 56% see the new Mac Pro as a failure on arrival with its dated component. I suspect there will be enough initial demand for people desperate for a modern mac tower, but makes me wonder what happens a year later if apple doesn’t have a significant update?

 

[ssgbryan]

So roughly 56% see the new Mac Pro as a failure on arrival with its dated component. I suspect there will be enough initial demand for people desperate for a modern mac tower, but makes me wonder what happens a year later if apple doesn’t have a significant update?

I wouldn't expect a significant upgrade for at least 36 months - Apple tends to be the last to the party afa tech upgrades - but I do expect to see an 8,1 when the 3 year lease period is up for the 7,1.

 

[iMi]

Having been with Apple since Apple iie with the Alpha Syntauri/mountain soundcards, it's getting harder to argue for. My iphone X face id stopped working - Apple promised to replace, then renagued, then said water damage ( I KNOW it's not). Apple is not what it was. Court date set for 4th Dec. How hard can it be to have a larger Mini pro, w replacable graphics, memory, SSD? I'll probably end up with the new Mac pro as I need 2 x 4k x42" screens for CAD. But the delay is simply inexcusable.

I've been using Apple since at least 2002 and could not agree more. I remember when I was in college, I had a faulty MacBook that was maybe a year or two old. It went in for the forth repair when I got a call from someone at Apple. They decided to replace the machine with a brand new one that was a newer model because "it wasn't the experience Apple had in mind" for it's customers.

That day they earned a customer for life. I've spend tens of thousands of dollars on Apple gear since. In the past few years I've tried the Surface and considered moving away from Apple's ecosystem.

Reading your story shows just how much that customer focus has changed (could it be because a finance guy is running the show? Maybe). The fact they are now hiding behind "water damage" on a phone that is supposed to be water resistant is really something. Every year they tell us how much stronger the phones are and how much better they are, yet AppleCare is only getting more and more expensive and STILL excludes water damage on the latest iPhones, which are supposed to be pretty much waterproof.
[automerge]1574178988[/automerge]

Indeed. This is one of the main reasons for the whole Hackintosh scene.

This.

I agree 100%. I would love to buy a Mac tower that is fully upgradable and expandable but geared toward user that don't require as much power. Same goes for the display. Just a stand alone 5K Retina found in today's iMac would suffice. I even considered buying the new Mac Pro when it comes out, but the display really killed it for me. Sure, I could buy UltraFine or some other ugly alternative, but I want a matching Apple display.

I could justify the cost of the Mac itself as it would probably last a decade for the uses I have before upgrading. The display on the other hand is just crazy expensive.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

So roughly 56% see the new Mac Pro as a failure on arrival with its dated component. I suspect there will be enough initial demand for people desperate for a modern mac tower, but makes me wonder what happens a year later if apple doesn’t have a significant update?

Nearly 82% of respondents in a more recent poll felt the 2019 Mac Pro is either awesome or are drooling for it. Seems the population has changed its mind since the dated survey you cited.

Good news though, two people are going to start a support group for those who are hung up about PCIe4.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Nearly 82% of respondents in a more recent poll felt the 2019 Mac Pro is either awesome or are drooling for it. Seems the population has changed its mind since the dated survey you cited.

Good news though, two people are going to start a support group for those who are hung up about PCIe4.

I see you started your own apologist support group with that poll. Congrats.

 

[deconstruct60]

So roughly 56% see the new Mac Pro as a failure on arrival with its dated component. I suspect there will be enough initial demand for people desperate for a modern mac tower,

The poll is also being done without significant information. How much Afterburner costs and how well it improves the workflow could flip that to sub 50% if the value is there. Right now exceedingly few (practically nobody with respect to this poll) knows what the bang for the buck is there so the value judgements really aren't complete. Apple doesn't have to sweep in "everybody" with that but they only need to move the needle much to 50% approval also.

Very similar thing with the new Infinity Fabric extensions to Metal. Pragmatically nobody on the poll has used them on their personal workflow so premature to put a value judgement on them. ( how many software packages adopt and leverage these will probably significantly increase over the first year it is deployed. ) .

Getting a 50% "no" response isn't all that surprising in the context that most of these folks aren't going to buy a new Mac Pro this year anyway. Some are either already on new equipment or off macOS (or both). Some are on "good enough for now" equipment. A substantive number of those folks are inclined to say 'fail' because it simply aligns with their "no buy" status. IF this was only in a sample space of likely buyers that effect goes away.


When more reports come from MP 2009-2012 folks putting their PCI-e v3 cards into a actual PCI-e v3 system and getting a performance bump, that too will probably shift a couple percentage points also.

but makes me wonder what happens a year later if apple doesn’t have a significant update?

The bar on significant probably is a very low hurdle. If Apple pushed out a Navi replacement for the 580X in 6-7 months that would probably help a lot to quell the anxiety. Similarly if they did a significant bump to the iMac Pro in early 2020 that too would be indicative that they were not completely asleep at the wheel.

Another move would be to move the 256GB start storage off to just the rack mount enclosure. ( IMHO I suspect that is what this capacity is primarily intended for but got weaved into the deskside tower configs. I don't think it really 'helps' Apple there more than it hurts. )


Promoting the expectation that has to create something new in 12 months is probably just setting them up for failure. Apple has done a whole lot of nothing to indicate that is their work cycle at all over the last 10 years. There should be pressure for 2 years as they don't have the kind of time to waste as they have from 2014-2017. The competition between the major component vendors is substantially higher now.

If 40% think it is not a failure and 25% move now and 15% move in year two that probably is not by any rational measure a 'failure'. That 15% number is likely to move up as some more folks will be sitting on even more aged out workstations. ( It is more than bit rich to rail about how 'dated' the Mac Pro 2019 is when sitting on something 7-10 years older and most likely in the Obsolete classification status on the Apple supported systems list. ).

Similarly the failure numbers could shift higher if the BTO price list rubs more folks the wrong way. ( e.g., Apple puts a high tax on top of Intel >1TB tax on the top two CPU options. $4-5K mark ups will send a number of folks in a different direction. ).

 

[Zdigital2015]

This argument plays out in the real world of business every day. In my office there is a PC working group - I just purchased an i9 PC configuration from JUNS and it wasn't cheap! This groups wants PCs because they like PCs. That's the only reason - personal preference. I have a Mac working group - and they only want Macs. It's a personal preference. As their leader - I have to make both groups happy. It's worth the money to me. So, the Mac group wants... wait for it... a Mac Pro! They are going to get it. But NOT tricked out! Mid-tier with room to expand when they earn the company enough money to make the initial investment worthwhile. Same goes for the Windows group. Make the company money and you can expand computers all you want. In the past I never took an interest in computers the groups use and wanted. However, costs for both PCs and Macs is increasing and therefore I am visiting sites to learn as much as I need to better discuss needs vs wants with them.

This is pure conjecture on my part, but I would think the sweet spot for the Mac Pro is going to be the 16-core (+$1,600), 48GB of DRAM (+$200), 1TB SSD (+$400.00), AMD Radeon Pro Vega II (+$800) plus Afterburner (+$800, if you are committed to FCP X), which I am going to logically guess will cost ~$9,800.00, which is just shy of the magic $10K.

EDIT: $9,800.00USD, sorry, didn't see where you were located until I read your profile.

 

[deconstruct60]

This is pure conjecture on my part, but I would think the sweet spot for the Mac Pro is going to be the 16-core (+$1,600), 48GB of DRAM (+$200), 1TB SSD (+$400.00), AMD Radeon Pro Vega II (+$800) plus Afterburner (+$800, if you are committed to FCP X), which I am going to logically guess will cost ~$9,800.00, which is just shy of the magic $10K.

The 16 W lists for $1999. ( for the iMac Pro the 18 core lists for $2553 and Apple sales at $2,400 so $153 difference while there is a $1440 gap between the 8 core and 18 core. ). Going to be paying for a much bigger chunk of the processor being swapping out in a supposed 'trade'.


That Vega II price seems likely to be low also. If tyring to 'buy' a $4-500 credit with the 580X
'trade in'. It probably won't be that high.

The SSD is probably in the $4-500 range.

If Afterburner is in that zone they'll sell more than a decent number of them. I suspect it will be higher because the higher Vega II price will give them more maneuvering room. I think they are going to price it higher based on value of proxy disk space "saved" and time saved. At Apple SDD $/GB that is more than a couple hundred bucks. ( Plus RED is going to goose the price up too since ProRes incurs fees too. )

 

[Blair Paulsen]

FWIW, content creators working with UHD/4K (perhaps even some 8K) video assets might want more than 48GB DRAM. I'm planning on 96GB in my BTO - jumping to 384 or more via 3rd party once AppleCare runs out.
Since GPU performance is the crux of image manipulation tasks, I'd suggest the Vega II Duo is worth the extra cost over the single card. Until proper testing is done on shipping units it's just speculation, but based on the totality of the system configuration the Duo is the minimum amount of GPU resources I'd want in a workstation in this class.
If another couple grand for more RAM and a serious GPU solution is an issue, at the risk of sounding elitist, the 7,1 mMP might not be the droid you're looking for.

 

[mattspace]

That Vega II price seems likely to be low also. If tyring to 'buy' a $4-500 credit with the 580X
'trade in'. It probably won't be that high.

On the iMac Pro, "trading up" from the Vega 56 to 64 is literally just an increase in price equivalent to the (list) retail price of a Vega 64, and Apple keeps the Vega 56 you already paid for in the base price. It's not in any way related to the price delta between a Vega 56 & 64.

You don't get any tradein value for not taking delivery of the Vega 56. You pay for two GPUs and take delivery of one. Why would the Mac Pro be any different?

Prediction - the "upgrade" cost from the 580 to any other Apple-supplied GPU, will be ~ the retail price of the closest equivalent off the shelf version, and they won't put the original 580 that was part of the base price in a spare slot. Eg the "upgrade cost" will be "add $(x)", and adding 2 of them will be "add 2x $(x)" - it will be as if you were ordering a machine that started with no GPU installed in the first place, but still cost as much as one with the 580.

If the pricing works out that replacing the 580 is "add $(x)" but replacing it with two is "add $(x)+$(y)" there might be evidence (or the appearance) of tradein pricing operating, but whether it's aligned to the retail prices of equivalent cards will be telling.

 

[Zdigital2015]

The 16 W lists for $1999. ( for the iMac Pro the 18 core lists for $2553 and Apple sales at $2,400 so $153 difference while there is a $1440 gap between the 8 core and 18 core. ). Going to be paying for a much bigger chunk of the processor being swapping out in a supposed 'trade'.


That Vega II price seems likely to be low also. If tyring to 'buy' a $4-500 credit with the 580X
'trade in'. It probably won't be that high.

The SSD is probably in the $4-500 range.

If Afterburner is in that zone they'll sell more than a decent number of them. I suspect it will be higher because the higher Vega II price will give them more maneuvering room. I think they are going to price it higher based on value of proxy disk space "saved" and time saved. At Apple SDD $/GB that is more than a couple hundred bucks. ( Plus RED is going to goose the price up too since ProRes incurs fees too. )

I looked at the upgrade cost from 8-core to 14-core on the iMac Pro and used that instead as my guide number. Again, it’s purely conjecture on my part and I didn’t do extensive research. The Vega II cost could be higher, and I speculated the After tuner would be $1,200, which was poo-pooed as way too much, so I went with a lower, more practical number. Cannot wait for Apple to publish BTO costs. Of course, then the real howling will begin.

 

[Blair Paulsen]

AFAIK, licensing fees to RED for compressed RAW recording in camera are separate from any use of ProRes RAW in post.

 

[OkiRun]

FWIW, content creators working with UHD/4K (perhaps even some 8K) video assets might want more than 48GB DRAM. I'm planning on 96GB in my BTO - jumping to 384 or more via 3rd party once AppleCare runs out.
Since GPU performance is the crux of image manipulation tasks, I'd suggest the Vega II Duo is worth the extra cost over the single card. Until proper testing is done on shipping units it's just speculation, but based on the totality of the system configuration the Duo is the minimum amount of GPU resources I'd want in a workstation in this class.
If another couple grand for more RAM and a serious GPU solution is an issue, at the risk of sounding elitist, the 7,1 mMP might not be the droid you're looking for.

You are spot on ~ we could never get by on 48Gb per machine in my company. However, it will be much cheaper to start with that configuration and add more when the machine arrives. Thanks to Casperes for his willingness to answer questions via message and I greatly appreciate Mac Rumors posters assistance with all my questions.

 

[Blair Paulsen]

Once there are shipping units, I'll be interested to hear if 3rd party DIMMs mixed with "factory" DIMMs is an issue. The Westmere systems ( I have 4 of my own and have trouble shot others) were particularly finicky about matched RAM sticks. So, perhaps, I'm a bit paranoid.

My theory is to eat the Apple Tax to get to 96GB initially and run like that the first 2-3 years while under AppleCare. Yes, I know I could just pull the 3rd party DIMMs if I need service, but just installing them introduces some risk of issues that Apple might cite in a warrantee denial.

I'm also expecting 32GB DIMMs to drop in cost over the next 2 years, allowing me to install 384GB (12x32) at a cost that's enough lower than what they sell for currently, to offset the Apple Tax up front. Additionally, I could recoup some of that by selling the "factory" DIMMs on the used market.

Don't get me wrong, I hope the 7,1 can handle mixing DIMMs easily. Assuming the 48GB config is 6x 8GB one could add 6x 16GB 3rd party sticks to get to 144GB at a cost that might be very close to a 96GB BTO - yielding 48GB of "free" RAM. It's an attractive proposition, but only if it's rock solid.

 

[danwells]

There are two different statements here... One is "I'm in the market for a high end Xeon workstation, and this is how the Mac Pro does or doesn't serve my needs". In general, the answer seems to be "pretty well", although there are some specific complaints.

The second is "I want a powerful, but standard desktop computer, and I don't want the iMac Apple offers in that market segment". This is a completely different question... It's also a question Apple has long refused to answer. From the day the Bondi Blue iMac was released, Apple has never released an expandable desktop computer that starts cheaper than the most expensive iMac in base configuration. As the iMac gets more and more powerful, it occupies a broader and broader price range, and its protected territory expands. Apple is counting the base configuration of the iMac Pro as a protected iMac, and has positioned the Mac Pro comfortably above it.

This is a mix of greed (Apple wants to sell you a monitor, storage and RAM) and a legitimate decision to sell computers that require less support. All-in-ones come in a relatively limited number of configurations (there are 144 possible iMac Pros, plus 145 27" iMacs - some of which are simple RAM or storage variants), while an xMac would promptly sprout thousands of configurations, many of which Apple never tested or sold themselves. Some of those configurations would include unstable hardware, which Apple would be stuck dealing with...

 

[deconstruct60]

On the iMac Pro, "trading up" from the Vega 56 to 64 is literally just an increase in price equivalent to the (list) retail price of a Vega 64, and Apple keeps the Vega 56 you already paid for in the base price. It's not in any way related to the price delta between a Vega 56 & 64.

You don't get any tradein value for not taking delivery of the Vega 56. You pay for two GPUs and take delivery of one. Why would the Mac Pro be any different?

Because in the Mac Pro specs page in the Accesories section Apple lists the Vega II and Vega II Duo. So they will be selling them as individual items. So it will be as obvious as a turd in a punch bowl if the BTO price is the same as the in a separate box later price that there is no "credit" for the 580X.

Likewise MPX Bay 2 will start off empty. "Putting the GPU into an empty bay" and "substituting on a filled bay" options on the same page right next to each other is going to look stick out way more if cost exactly the same price.

It looks like though they are not going to be given folks a "all by itself" price for the 580X though. My suspicion on that though is because it isn't going to last all that long. And extremely few folks would want to buy two. Apple is primarily going to peddle the Vega II cards. Later if they come out with a Navi MPX half width card then would start selling "loose" versions of that.

In the iMac Pro GPU context, there are no "loose" Vegas for that system that Apple sells. There are no default empty bays/sockets on the iMac Pro. The compare involves doing some math which while not rocket science some folks aren't going to bother with. Empty slot versus filled slot right next to each other.... they'd have to be more than blind to miss that. No calculation needed, it would be the same price, but not "match".



P.S. If Apple was actually blindly greedy enough to sell at the same price for replace as buy separate box off the shelf it would create blowback. Folks would just buy the 580X in the mac pro and a separate Vega II box. Pull the 580X MPX module and sell it on eBay/2nd-hand-market cheap to get some money back. A bunch of cheaper MPX modules means some folks are going to buy them. A decent chunk of those folks would buy two 580X's if the second one was sold to them at firesale prices. For folks running apps that scale with GPUs .... guess what it is faster than a Vega II . So less demand from a chunk those folks.

Plus they will have pissed off even more folks than they already have.

Apple just collecting the AppleTax is good enough. They can simply just give a credit for the Apple Tax markup on the card (max surcharge since covering inventory costs completely. ) or a credit of the breakeven cost of the 580X card ( and keep the Apple tax were going to get anyway). They'd still be raking in money and piss off a lot fewer folks.

 

[ssgbryan]

Who would by a 580X?

It would only go in a 7,1.