MP 7,1 Is the new Mac Pro too expensive? [MERGED]

[ChrisA]

People are comparing the price of the new Mac Pro to a self-build gaming PC. That is a little unfair as the gaming PC does not have three empty slots for GPU card not does it have empty RAM slots that can hold up to 1.5 TB nor does you gaming PC even use ECC RAM. And you can't upgrade the CPU to a 28 core Xeon.

What would it cost to build a system that could be upgraded to the higher end specs?

Better to compare this to a higher end HP "Z" work station. Thos are great machines. I have one I bought when it came off-lase. It was 3 years old and had 64GB of ECC RAM installed and 16 a core Xeon. I added Nvidia GPU, some SSD storage and then Linux OS. The machine is used to support robotics and AI research

If you need low-cost power, the off-lease "Z" machines are the way to go but there is so much "DIY" involved.

The new Mac Pro is aimed at the person who wants to edit 4K video usig Final Cut Pro in native format and scroll around instantly with zero lag. You can not run FCP on a Window gamer PC. (or on my Linux workstation)

All that said. If you were a film editor who bought a Mac Pro how does your "work equipment" capital investment compared to your gardener's capital investment? I think it costs more to be a gardener. He needs a truck and some lawn mowers and leaf blowers and gasoline and what not. Then compare to a plumber. It might cost $50K to buy, outfit and stock a plumbing truck.

You have to compare the cost of the machine to the money you make using it over the machine's lifetime.

But the monitor is a bargain. Try to buy a 32" reference monitor for less.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Absolutely not! Around 1998-99 I desperately needed a powerful workstation for my AutoCad work designing communications systems for military hospitals. I paid over $10k for the first 486/25 called a Cheetah Gold, with a Rendition II graphics card and a 20" CRT monitor! Paid another $500 to upgrade the CPU when Intel came out with the 486/50 CPU! The new monitor would be overkill for type of CAD work I was doing (no renderings), but even the base configuration would be light years ahead of what I got for the same money!

486/50 on a 50MHz bus, probably with EISA slots as well, am I right? I used to pine for an ALR box back in the day. although that was in 92-93 when the 486/50 was in its heyday.

 

[filterdecay]

It would be great if there was a 'Prosumer' version of the MacPro.

Use the MacPro as the base, but replace the Xeon with an I7 or I9
Cut the ram slots in half
Forget the Afterburner card
Make sure it can run the some f the latest gen of Graphics cards 1080, 2080, etc.
Keep the Security and drive support.
Sell with or without graphic cards

(for the more pedantic of you, yes, I know that you can't just swap a Xeon with an i7 or i9. This would require a new motherboard, but I'm just dreaming anyway)

I will scrape together the $$ I need to get a new Mac Pro. I need something a bit more flexible than my Garbage Can for everything I'd like to be doing.

Hp does this with the z4. And its something they could add to the design relatively easy. But then it will cannibalise both the imac and the new macpro. Hp has to compete with other companies apple doesnt really have to so I wouldnt expect this.

 

[teejayhoward]

People are comparing the price of the new Mac Pro to a self-build gaming PC. That is a little unfair as the gaming PC does not have three empty slots for GPU card not does it have empty RAM slots that can hold up to 1.5 TB nor does you gaming PC even use ECC RAM. And you can't upgrade the CPU to a 28 core Xeon.

What would it cost to build a system that could be upgraded to the higher end specs?

About $2000. 7x PCIe, 3TB ECC RAM, same processor support. Oh, and it has lights-out management too - something no Apple has.

 

[skaertus]

Yeah, but time is money, and as long as the value proposition is there, film editors will buy the system. Think about Marvel and Star Wars movies coming out, where they announce the launch date at least a year in advance. Once the video has been shot, these editors don't have time to sit around waiting for their video editing system to render out scenes. And often reshoots are called for, meaning more editing time. These guys are busting ass to get a high quality product out the door.

I can understand that, and this is precisely why big companies may move away from Apple. I wonder how the editors could manage to deliver Avengers: Endgame on time using 2013 Mac Pros. Or did they use PCs?

For this industry, the point is: can Apple be trusted to deliver upgrades on a regular basis after five years failing to do so? Or will Apple will launch this high-end, premium-priced machine, just to neglect it for the next half-decade?

 

[wallysb01]

Cascade Lake W is already out - https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/series/125035/intel-xeon-w-processor.html (W-32xx)

These are Cascade Lake W+ (for lack of a better term) - https://wccftech.com/intel-core-x-next-gen-cascade-lake-x-hedt-cpu-fall-2019-launch/

That's core X, which is consumer version of Xeon W. Xeon W is "out" in that it was just released yesterday(!) but its available no where.

 

[skaertus]

I think the main thing this product needs to overcome is apple burning all the pros since 2013. They lost a lot and I hope that a $6000 base model will bring them back but will it? For me I may actually wait another 2 years to see if they are on an actual refresh cycle.

I would have the same feeling about Apple if I were in this industry.

Microsoft has proved itself a trustworthy company. It delivers a new Microsoft Office version every three years, and you can opt to subscribe to Microsoft Office 365 instead. Prices are kept roughly the same, and compatibility is maintained. No surprises.

Apple, on the other hand, likes surprises, which may be great for consumers and prosumers, but not for businesses. The only product Apple seems to be upgrading on a regular basis is the iPhone.

 

[Clint_Barton]

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_w Look at the Cascade Lake W-based processors, they line up with the SKUs of the new Mac Pro. The discrepancy in the cache is because apple seems to have added the L2 and L3 cache together.

 

[brentsg]

Face it folks. If you're even considering buying just the base model and maybe upgrading the CPU/RAM/GPU one day down the line, this computer is not for you. Apple will never make that computer as they don't care about that market. Just accept it and move to Windows or build a hackintosh if you want that for a reasonable price.

This Mac Pro is for companies who won't even think twice about dropping $10k+ on a professional workstation. It's not for prosumers, enthusiasts, youtubers, gamers, etc. While I still think the base model is overpriced, I can definitely see people in the actual target market finding it reasonable (and those people won't be buying the base model).

It's just disappointing because some of us did this before. I bought a refurb quad core base 2010 Mac Pro. I stripped everything out, went 6 core, added RAM, GPU, USB3, etc.. upgraded WiFi and Bluetooth. It was fun as hell and I used the box for 7+ years.

It's tough seeing this be viable down the road since the entry model pricing doesn't scale down well.

 

[filterdecay]

I think I can get 2 more years out of my 5,1 However if buying a 6k computer drops my tax bracket then maybe Ill do it.

 

[wallysb01]

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_w Look at the Cascade Lake W-based processors, they line up with the SKUs of the new Mac Pro. The discrepancy in the cache is because apple seems to have added the L2 and L3 cache together.

Thanks for finding/noticing that about the cache. Another poster was convinced this wasn't Cascade Lake W because of the caches and was assuming some unknown, custom, something in the range of Scalable Platinum.... ha, or not.

 

[filterdecay]

I can understand that, and this is precisely why big companies may move away from Apple. I wonder how the editors could manage to deliver Avengers: Endgame on time using 2013 Mac Pros. Or did they use PCs?

For this industry, the point is: can Apple be trusted to deliver upgrades on a regular basis after five years failing to do so? Or will Apple will launch this high-end, premium-priced machine, just to neglect it for the next half-decade?

Well imagine being a 55 year old editor who has always worked on mac and then being told you are switching to pc. A lot of those guys will continue to work on a slower mac then try to transition to pc. This is apples base user that they abuse, knowing that they wont leave the ecosystem. Im in that camp as well as my entire industry (audio post production in the us).
[doublepost=1559674502][/doublepost]

Thanks for finding/noticing that about the cache. Another poster was convinced this wasn't Cascade Lake W because of the caches and was assuming some unknown, custom, something in the range of Scalable Platinum.... ha, or not.

yeah I thought that as well. I was looking at the xeon gold cpus and then the price seemed fine to me. Now that I know its a $750 cpu the price is out of wack. But we will be able to do a apples to apples comparison when hp and dell release workstations. We can then figure out exactly the apple tax for the extra aluminum, t2 chip and what not.


To be clear I dont think the t2 chip is about OUR security. I think the t2 chip is about getting rid of hackintosh systems. At some point the only eligible macs for os updates will be macs with t2 chips and no pc motherboard will have a t2 chip onboard.

 

[Allyance]

486/50 on a 50MHz bus, probably with EISA slots as well, am I right? I used to pine for an ALR box back in the day. although that was in 92-93 when the 486/50 was in its heyday.

I was living in California when I got the 486, Cheetah was the first manufacture to have a 486 to market. I moved to upstate NY in June 1990 and already had the 486 for a while. I was working with large floor plans of hospitals. My machine was faster that the architects ISACAD proprietary machines and they could only work on very small file sizes. It took 438 1/4" drawings to cover the entire hospital (Brooke Army Medical Center million and half square feet). I would take all the plans for each floor and combine then into one large X-ref for all our drawings.

 

[Zdigital2015]

There is no way this is on Scalable. Clocks and core counts match W all the way up the spec list, except for the cache. No scalable has that cache either... Maybe they are getting some custom chip with non-disabled cache, but I'm guessing this is fuzzy accounting or an outright mistake.

No, I actually just remembered that Apple combined the L2 and L3 cache numbers to get that ridiculous amount of Cache. My bad. They are using Cascade Lake Xeon-W.

The base 8-core Mac Pro has 1MB of L2 cache per core (8MB) plus 16.5MB of L3 cache for a total of 24.5MB, so its the Xeon W-3223.

The top 28-core has 28MB of L2 cache and 38.5MB of L3 for a total of 66.5MB of cache, so its the Xeon W-3275M (2TB DRAM support).

On the plus side, all of these these CPUs have x64 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

You can fill in the blanks in the middle for the other CPUs Apple is using, but they are the W-3265M, W-3245 and W-3235.

That means relative to time period, the old Mac Pros gave a better value per dollar. Those Duel Processor Mac Pros were essentially the tippy top of the line then. It would be like Apple using the top gold 62xx series in there. Now their has been price expansion due to SP taking over the old 4+ socket servers too and the increasing size of dies, etc. But I think you'll miss this anyway.

You can't compare the base model 4-core 3.2GHz 2012 Mac Pro to the 8-core base model Mac Pro and expect the same pricing. I agree that if you can figure out what metric to determine the value per dollar of the 3.2GHz quad core and separately the 8-core 2019 Mac Pro and make a value comparison that might be interesting, but I suspect they will be closer than anyone wants to admit.


Funny thing. This base model is going to perform about the same as that i9....

We shall see. And even if it does, so what? The Core i9 and the iMac chassis is not meant for all day use, this is. And it has WAY more expansion than the iMac from storage to DRAM to GPU to cooling. It is a completely different class of machine. My work would sing on the Core i9 iMac, but I have zero use case for the Mac Pro right now.


So what? So they aren't using it. No way, no how. I'd stake my house on it.
I never said that were using Scalable, I only used it as a reference when building the HP Z8. I never built a Dell or used it for comparison.

It's clear they are using Xeon W as it stated on the Mac Pro's Tech Specs page.


Then why are you bothering to compare the Mac Pro (SP) to a 7920 with a DP board? Hmm... let see, you'll compare the Mac Pro to the Duel processor board Dell configured with a single processor in it, oh and you'll use that unicorn of a CPU to jack the comparison even further from the truth....

The HP Z8 comparison was for another thread and I probably should have looked harder for a Cascade Lake Xeon W comparison. I didn't and I apologize.

You wonder why I'm treating you like an imbecile?

Because you're a jackass...or someone who just doesn't play well with others, I just can't decide.


Its this fact right here that proves the cache thing is a sign of something very strange going on. No way they are putting 66.5MB of cache on W processor. Those 92xx are TWO 82xx fused together, are only going to see very specialized use.

See my first paragraph above regarding how Apple "calculates" Cache. Is been almost two years since I figured out what they did, I filed it away and forgot. Again, my bad.




Where the hell did they get the room to nearly double the cache? And if this is using 31xx its even more of fail than I'm thinking, as its using Skylake, not Cascade lake.

Answers inline

Have a wonderful day.

[doublepost=1559675441][/doublepost]

I was living in California when I got the 486, Cheetah was the first manufacture to have a 486 to market. I moved to upstate NY in June 1990 and already had the 486 for a while. I was working with large floor plans of hospitals. My machine was faster that the architects ISACAD proprietary machines and they could only work on very small file sizes. It took 438 1/4" drawings to cover the entire hospital (Brooke Army Medical Center million and half square feet). I would take all the plans for each floor and combine then into one large X-ref for all our drawings.

YIKES...

Yeah, you're right, closer to 1990-91. In 1992, I was working at CompUSA at the time and all anyone wanted was a 486 DX2/66 and a Diamond Viper to play Strike Commander. Tried to tell them the 486/50 was better (50MHz bus instead of 33MHz)...nope, too expensive. Seems like some things never change.

I was the Mac guy at the time and it was low time in the Mac world.

 

[filterdecay]

ok as far as does the x xeon compare to the i9 yes and no. Clock for clock they compete but the xeon has double as in double the pci-e lanes that the i9 does. This matters.

 

[wallysb01]

See my first paragraph.

Have a wonderful day.

If that first paragraph was a mea culpa, why in the hell did you spend the rest of the post defending the 6244....

 

[Zdigital2015]

That's core X, which is consumer version of Xeon W. Xeon W is "out" in that it was just released yesterday(!) but its available no where.

You are correct. I read one of the paragraphs mentioning the Xeon W and conflated it with the Core X-Series as well, as they were loosely linked to each in the first generation.

It seems like so little time since they released the Core X-9xxx Series and now they are already on to a third Gen...
[doublepost=1559676112][/doublepost]

If that first paragraph was a mea culpa, why in the hell did you spend the rest of the post defending the 6244....

Because at the time, I didn't even know the Xeon W (Cascade Lake) was in the ARK. Besides, its not like they are giving the Cascade Lake Xeon Ws away.

The 28-core retails for $7500.00

The 8-core is $750.00, reply reasonable.
12 core is $1400.00, not bad.
16-core is $2000.00, meh.
24 core is $6353.00
28-core is $7453.00
[doublepost=1559676364][/doublepost]

ok as far as does the x xeon compare to the i9 yes and no. Clock for clock they compete but the xeon has double as in double the pci-e lanes that the i9 does. This matters.

The Xeon W (Cascade Lake) has x64 lanes of PCIe 3.0 now, which is 4x the amount on the Core i9-9900K. That's insane and it equals the Threadripper 2 2990WX.

 

[!!!]

For that price, the AMD 580 is just unacceptable. Why has Apple moved away from Nvidia? From what I've seen, Nvidia hardware is much better for machine learning applications.

 

[Clint_Barton]

Yes. It's $2000 in components in a $4000 case.

$750  Xeon W-3223
$500   Supermicro X11SPA-TF
$275   4x8GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM
$200   Power Supply
$175   Radeon 580
$50    EATX Case
$35    M.2 256GB SSD

I actually priced out the workstation components:
CPU - Xeon W-3223: ~750$ (https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_w/w-3223)
Motherboard - C621 AORUS XTREME: 1800$ (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1460397-REG/asus_rog_dominus_extreme_eeb_atx.html/?ap=y&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrdjnBRDXARIsAEcE5YmUxq_U_KtEUSG5uox1vEkJ39AyNlbTS0_-cEc-1VFQtPcIkGa3PTcaAtiLEALw_wcB&lsft=BI:514&smp=Y)
RAM - 4x Supermicro 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 2666: 296$ (https://store.supermicro.com/memory/ddr4/8gb-ddr4-2666-mem-dr480l-hl02-er26.html)
Power Supply - Enermax MaxTytan 80+ Titanium certified Full Modular 1250W: 400$ (https://www.newegg.com/enermax-maxtytan-edt1250ewt-1250w/p/N82E16817194132)
GPU - Radeon Pro WX 7100: ~ 500$ (https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16814105069?Description=radeon pro wx&cm_re=radeon_pro_wx-_-14-105-069-_-Product) - Its the closest thing i could find to the Radeon Pro 580X
SSD - SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 250GB: 135$ (https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-250gb/p/N82E16820147689)
Dual 10G NIC - AddOn - Network Upgrades 656596-B21-AOK Gigabit Ethernet Card 10Gbps PCI-Express 2 x RJ45: 440$ (https://www.newegg.com/addon-network-upgrades-656596-b21-aok/p/N82E16833516137)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: ~ 4,321$ Note: This does not include the case, multiple TB3 ports or an operating system.
Base Mac Pro: 6,000$

Yes, its expensive, but given the workstation grade components, i do not feel that it is over the top expensive. More research is required, but i would hazard a guess that it may get more economical as the SKU goes up.

 

[filterdecay]

For that price, the AMD 580 is just unacceptable. Why has Apple moved away from Nvidia? From what I've seen, Nvidia hardware is much better for machine learning applications.

apple hates nvidia. Go read about all the lawsuits flying back and forth.
[doublepost=1559678038][/doublepost]

I actually priced out the workstation components:
CPU - Xeon W-3223: ~750$ (https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_w/w-3223)
Motherboard - C621 AORUS XTREME: 1800$ (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1460397-REG/asus_rog_dominus_extreme_eeb_atx.html/?ap=y&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrdjnBRDXARIsAEcE5YmUxq_U_KtEUSG5uox1vEkJ39AyNlbTS0_-cEc-1VFQtPcIkGa3PTcaAtiLEALw_wcB&lsft=BI:514&smp=Y)
RAM - 4x Supermicro 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 2666: 296$ (https://store.supermicro.com/memory/ddr4/8gb-ddr4-2666-mem-dr480l-hl02-er26.html)
Power Supply - Enermax MaxTytan 80+ Titanium certified Full Modular 1250W: 400$ (https://www.newegg.com/enermax-maxtytan-edt1250ewt-1250w/p/N82E16817194132)
GPU - Radeon Pro WX 7100: ~ 500$ (https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16814105069?Description=radeon pro wx&cm_re=radeon_pro_wx-_-14-105-069-_-Product) - Its the closest thing i could find to the Radeon Pro 580X
SSD - SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 250GB: 135$ (https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-250gb/p/N82E16820147689)
Dual 10G NIC - AddOn - Network Upgrades 656596-B21-AOK Gigabit Ethernet Card 10Gbps PCI-Express 2 x RJ45: 440$ (https://www.newegg.com/addon-network-upgrades-656596-b21-aok/p/N82E16833516137)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: ~ 4,321$ Note: This does not include the case, multiple TB3 ports or an operating system.
Base Mac Pro: 6,000$

Yes, its expensive, but given the workstation grade components, i do not feel that it is over the top expensive. More research is required, but i would hazard a guess that it may get more economical as the SKU goes up.

thats a good break down. This is the most expensive e-atx case on newegg...

https://www.newegg.com/black-space-...x case&cm_re=eatx_case-_-11-133-383-_-Product

$1000

 

[Clint_Barton]

This is the price for a Z workstation that has similar config. It seems the 7,1 isn't that expensive indeed.

View attachment 840448

Agreed
I actually priced out the workstation components:

CPU - Xeon W-3223: ~750$ (https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_w/w-3223)

Motherboard - C621 AORUS XTREME: 1800$ (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1460397-REG/asus_rog_dominus_extreme_eeb_atx.html/?ap=y&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrdjnBRDXARIsAEcE5YmUxq_U_KtEUSG5uox1vEkJ39AyNlbTS0_-cEc-1VFQtPcIkGa3PTcaAtiLEALw_wcB&lsft=BI:514&smp=Y)

RAM - 4x Supermicro 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 2666: 296$ (https://store.supermicro.com/memory/ddr4/8gb-ddr4-2666-mem-dr480l-hl02-er26.html)

Power Supply - Enermax MaxTytan 80+ Titanium certified Full Modular 1250W: 400$ (https://www.newegg.com/enermax-maxtytan-edt1250ewt-1250w/p/N82E16817194132)

GPU - Radeon Pro WX 7100: ~ 500$ (https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16814105069?Description=radeon pro wx&cm_re=radeon_pro_wx-_-14-105-069-_-Product) - Its the closest thing i could find to the Radeon Pro 580X

SSD - SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 250GB: 135$ (https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-250gb/p/N82E16820147689)

Dual 10G NIC - AddOn - Network Upgrades 656596-B21-AOK Gigabit Ethernet Card 10Gbps PCI-Express 2 x RJ45: 440$ (https://www.newegg.com/addon-network-upgrades-656596-b21-aok/p/N82E16833516137)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total: ~ 4,321$ Note: This does not include the case, multiple TB3 ports or an operating system.

Base Mac Pro: 6,000$



Yes, its expensive, but given the workstation grade components, i do not feel that it is over the top expensive. More research is required, but i would hazard a guess that it may get more economical as the SKU goes up.
[doublepost=1559678037][/doublepost]

well somebody is wrong because apple is listing the 8 core model with 24.5mb of cache and the 8 core part you show only has 16.5

Add the L2 and L3 cache, and presto, the same amount that apple quotes
[doublepost=1559678338][/doublepost]

3 PCIe x4; 1 PCIe x8; 2 PCIe x16; 2 M.2 PCIe x4

These price comparisons are never exact. I took a quick look at the Z8: 3.4GHz Xeon, 32GB RAM, 256 SSD = $6300. Add your GPU of choice, I'm not sure which compares most directly to the 580, but if it's just to drive a screen, go for a cheapie.

Again, this doesn't reflect the discounts HP will give anyone with a business account. AND the Z8 has more headroom for expansion. I feel the Z6 has more overlap with the 7,1 and of course it's even less expensive.

The closest GPU to the 580x is the Radeon Pro WX 7100
At least that i found...

 

[Clint_Barton]

apple hates nvidia. Go read about all the lawsuits flying back and forth.
[doublepost=1559678038][/doublepost]

thats a good break down. This is the most expensive e-atx case on newegg...

https://www.newegg.com/black-space-gray-thermaltake-level-20-tg-e-atx-cube-case/p/N82E16811133383?Description=eatx case&cm_re=eatx_case-_-11-133-383-_-Product

$1000

I decided to not even try to price out a case, because it would be against apple, so who the heck knows how much R&D budget went into it

 

[filterdecay]

I decided to not even try to price out a case, because it would be against apple, so who the heck knows how much R&D budget went into it

Well its safe to assume with $1000 monitor stand that the remaining price of the system could be the case. Its only $1700 which is only $700 more then the most expensive case made by another. Also apple has that 4xpci-e thunderbolt/usb card.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1432667-REG/hp_3uu05aa_hunderbolt_3_pcie_2_port_i_o_card.html

hp makes one for the z4 and its $200

So $1500 for the case and $200 for that card.

 

[Clint_Barton]

Well its safe to assume with $1000 monitor stand that the remaining price of the system could be the case. Its only $1700 which is only $700 more then the most expensive case made by another. Also apple has that 4xpci-e thunderbolt/usb card.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1432667-REG/hp_3uu05aa_hunderbolt_3_pcie_2_port_i_o_card.html

hp makes one for the z4 and its $200

So $1500 for the case and $200 for that card.

It also has 2 TB3 ports on the top, integrated into the case... so yeah

 

[wallysb01]

I actually priced out the workstation components:
CPU - Xeon W-3223: ~750$ (https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_w/w-3223)
Motherboard - C621 AORUS XTREME: 1800$ (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1460397-REG/asus_rog_dominus_extreme_eeb_atx.html/?ap=y&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrdjnBRDXARIsAEcE5YmUxq_U_KtEUSG5uox1vEkJ39AyNlbTS0_-cEc-1VFQtPcIkGa3PTcaAtiLEALw_wcB&lsft=BI:514&smp=Y)
RAM - 4x Supermicro 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 2666: 296$ (https://store.supermicro.com/memory/ddr4/8gb-ddr4-2666-mem-dr480l-hl02-er26.html)
Power Supply - Enermax MaxTytan 80+ Titanium certified Full Modular 1250W: 400$ (https://www.newegg.com/enermax-maxtytan-edt1250ewt-1250w/p/N82E16817194132)
GPU - Radeon Pro WX 7100: ~ 500$ (https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16814105069?Description=radeon pro wx&cm_re=radeon_pro_wx-_-14-105-069-_-Product) - Its the closest thing i could find to the Radeon Pro 580X
SSD - SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 250GB: 135$ (https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-250gb/p/N82E16820147689)
Dual 10G NIC - AddOn - Network Upgrades 656596-B21-AOK Gigabit Ethernet Card 10Gbps PCI-Express 2 x RJ45: 440$ (https://www.newegg.com/addon-network-upgrades-656596-b21-aok/p/N82E16833516137)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: ~ 4,321$ Note: This does not include the case, multiple TB3 ports or an operating system.
Base Mac Pro: 6,000$

Yes, its expensive, but given the workstation grade components, i do not feel that it is over the top expensive. More research is required, but i would hazard a guess that it may get more economical as the SKU goes up.

I'm not a GPU guy, but the WX 7100 is significantly above the 580X from the look of it, though when I've been configuring dells/hps, that's also the card I've been using. The 580 and that 580X advertised with the Mac Pro seems pretty similar. The 580 is $270. Also that mother board has 1 10Gbps port. Not sure you really need the dual 10G add-on in that case. Single 10Gbps are like $100 or so. All that said, it only saves maybe $500-600.

I think like the Trash Can, you can squint and see the value here, its just that given the apple markup its hard to swallow if its not the exact right system for you. Ie, why do I need to pay an extra $2K-$3K for a fancy case and 4 GPU slots, if all I really need is a headless Mac with 12 cores and 1 GPU?