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

[Bug-Creator]

My machine is already 10 years old,

Same here (2010 base model with SSD and some GeForce to run Mojave), kinda last option as they never sold the 2012s around here.

But with my needs not growing as fast as the tech I could easily settle for a (newish)MacMini or non-pro iMac aslong as RAM can be upgraded.

 

[William Payne]

This is all like me saying that I could have an incredible body if only I had gone to the gym and ate right 5 years ago. I didn't so I don't.

 

[mode11]

This is all like me saying that I could have an incredible body if only I had gone to the gym and ate right 5 years ago. I didn't so I don't.

Not sure I follow. We’re only discussing the context of the new Mac Pro. It’s great that it’s finally come out, but the 2x cost and the lack of recent towers means it’ll be a long time until there’s a modern Apple tower to buy second hand. In the long run it could be OK, but it poses a problem for now.

 

[William Payne]

Not sure I follow. We’re only discussing the context of the new Mac Pro. It’s great that it’s finally come out, but the 2x cost and the lack of recent towers means it’ll be a long time until there’s a modern Apple tower to buy second hand. In the long run it could be OK, but it poses a problem for now.

What I am saying is we have absolutely no control over yesterday, or even 5 minutes ago. Only right now.

 

[mode11]

We cannot control anything that apple has done up until now. Lets focus on today.

We can’t control what Apple does today, or in future either.

 

[William Payne]

We can’t control what Apple does today, or in future either.

No but we can make the most of what we have now and put ourselves into the path to attain whatever comes later.

 

[mode11]

No but we can make the most of what we have now and put ourselves into the path to attain whatever comes later.

Get a higher paid job? Switch to Windows?

 

[William Payne]

Get a higher paid job? Switch to Windows?

If you are an employee than your equipment should be supplied by your employer. If you are a business owner than you can action a plan to move your business towards higher paying clients.

As for windows. Use the tool that best fits the work you do. If I could not in any way do my work on macs and a windows PC was the be all and end all of systems for my work than that is what I would use.

For example say I was a full time CAD designer. If that was the case than I wouldn’t even be in the Mac ecosystem. Solid works for example doesn’t even have a Mac version.

My personal business is photography. I can do what I need to do on a Mac. It is still an industry that is very much Mac heavy.

If I was a hardcore gamer, once again I wouldn’t even consider a Mac. Not the right system for that use case.

Apple Mac comes with pages and numbers. I installed Office 365 and use outlook for my business email.

Why? Because office is what damn near everyone in business uses. It makes my documents compatible with whatever my clients have. I don’t have to remember to save something as a PDF or whether the recipient can open the file.

It all depends on your workflow.
[doublepost=1559992962][/doublepost]Honestly the most awesome thing for me on a Mac is using my computer to take a phone call. That is awesome to me. Being able to take a call and keep working without even picking up my phone.

The way the devices all talk to each other in the ecosystem for me is awesome and really handy.

 

[saulinpa]

Original Mac in 1984 was US$2495. Put it in an inflation calculator and you get just over US$6000. Don't think it is a coincidence.

 

[Ishayu]

I'm finding it increasingly hilarious that people are defending this product.

Oh, it's not for the prosumer or small business owner because it's too expensive. Alright then, fair enough!

But it's not for corporations and production studios because although it has high level components and is priced like a workstation, it doesn't have the support infrastructure of HP and Dell.

So that means you've got a prosumer product with enterprise workstation pricing. The enterprise isn't happy and the prosumer isn't happy and the small business owner isn't happy.

So who is actually happy, then? Who is this actually, really, for? People with too much money who really want MacOS and literally nobody else. Nice. Good job Apple!

 

[Zwhaler]

/thread

 

[aaronhead14]

If existing Mac Pro customers can't afford a new Mac Pro with the same specs w.r.t. the state of the art then, yes, that means it is too expensive.

You can try all the double-think you like, but the entry-level Mac Pro is the replacement for the old Mac Pro and, even allowing for inflation (although that has never really affected PC prices in the past) it has doubled in price.

Ignore the 28 core, quad Vega II monster that was demoed - we have no idea how much that will cost and maybe Pixar will think its worth every penny - all we have so far is a $6000 entry-level tower with the spec of a $3500 PC



https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=4RX30EA&opt=ABU&sel=WKS - £3178 in UK tax (probably ~ $3500 in US) - definitely not a consumer PC, reputable (deservedly or not) manufacturer, 3.7 GHz 8-core Xeon W, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD (but its not gonna cost $2500 to add a PCIe/M.2 SSD and 10Gb Ethernet if you need those).

If you're getting $6000+ for an 8 core Xeon tower then you may need to research the difference between a $800 Xeon and a $2000 Xeon, or a $400 NVIDIA Quadro and a $3000 NVIDIA Quadro.

Inconvenient truth - the specs of that $6000 Mac Pro are no better than you'd expect from a $2500 cheesegrater (so, low $3000s after inflation) bumped to modern price-point-equivalent specs.

You’re comparing apples and oranges. The Z4 doesn’t have the same expandability as the Mac Pro. If you’re comparing raw performance then yes, of course you can get a PC for cheaper. But it’s not going to have 12 DIMM slots, 8 PCIe slots, 2.6GB/s SSD speeds and four Thunderbolt 3 ports. You’re just simply not going to find a PC with that kind of expandability for much less than $6K, so stop pretending like you can.

 

[theluggage]

But it’s not going to have 12 DIMM slots, 8 PCIe slots, 2.6GB/s SSD speeds and four Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Maybe, just maybe, because PC makers are actually responding to demand and most customers for entry-level workstation-class machines don't need more PCIe and RAM slots than an entry-level Xeon system can actually drive effectively? That Z4 has a decent complement of internal expansion slots - maybe you have some use cases for needing 8 PCIe slots that don't also need something better than a 8-core CPU and consumer-level GPU?

Its ridiculous - we've gone from 'You don't need any PCIe slots - Thunderbolt and external expansion is the future' to 'only 8 PCIe slots will do'.

Remind me, who was complaining about the old Cheesegrater only having 4 PCIe slots?

 

[William Payne]

8 PCIE slots is pretty awesome. Especially them all being full size slots. I can see them being handy.

This argument is never going to be resolved. Too many people with vastly different requirements.

I’m the wrong person to get an opinion from. I have never worked in any industry where nearly everything isn’t ridiculously expensive.

 

[cube]

8 PCIE slots is pretty awesome. Especially them all being full size slots. I can see them being handy.

How many lanes does the CPU have? Does the logic board have PCIe switches?

 

[William Payne]

How many lanes does the CPU have? Does the logic board have PCIe switches?

It’s a yet to be released cpu in that machine. That we will have to wait and see.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The strangest part about this product is that it was introduced at WWDC.

I presume that was simply because of the audience and media coverage WWDC draws every year.

The machine is absolutely clearly targeted at Hollywood studios and people in that space. It really should’ve been introduced at a special event catering towards them, and not developers of their apps/software who largely have no need for anything like this and were not really asking for a machine that made these specific choices and tradeoffs leading to the breathtaking price points.

It would be amazing and refreshing if they would make a scaled back version of it to slot between the Mac mini and the iMacs.

 

[Grakkle]

While I would love to buy a new Mac Pro for its industrial good looks alone, I'll never use even a tenth of its capability and thus for me it would be a monumental waste of money.

However, for someone in the graphics/video/audio business, it would be a worthwhile investment. Look at it this way: I'm an electrician, and if I'm going to upgrade my work van to a Mercedes Sprinter it's going to cost me a cool $60,000. If I'm an audio/visual professional, $40,000 for a new workstation that will last a number of years is a reasonable cost.

That being said, it would be awesome if a similarly-upgradable non-pro desktop tower were to be offered at a lower price point.

 

[William Payne]

While I would love to buy a new Mac Pro for its' industrial good looks alone, I'll never use even a tenth of its' capability and thus for me it would be a monumental waste of money.

However, for someone in the graphics/video/audio business, it would be a worthwhile investment. Look at it this way: I'm an electrician, and if I'm going to upgrade my work van to a Mercedes Sprinter it's going to cost me a cool $60,000. If I'm an audio/visual professional, $40,000 for a new workstation that will last a number of years is a reasonable cost.

THIS!!! How is buying this computer any different to buying a work vehicle or any other business investment that brings an ROI?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Guys I don’t think anybody is arguing against the ROI concept for making a purchase decision.

I think what everybody is upset about is that the floor is so high.

There are huge swaths of people that are either professionals or aspiring professionals, or perhaps just not as affluent, who would like to get in on a Mac that’s upgradable and make it a base investment to build on over time as their needs and budget allow.

Those users are simply priced out here to begin with.
That’s the largest frustration I think I’m seeing.

To some extent it’s shortsighted of Apple to not make it more flexible and accessible to get new people into their ecosystem at the beginning.

The iMac is a “thing”, a great thing...but a very different thing.

I personally don’t have huge upgrade needs over time but they eclipse what the iMac allows one to do internally on the upgrade front and that has always turned me off from buying one.

It just feels like most of us don’t want to change the CPUs, but we do want to be able to swap in NVMe and SSD drives and update ram and change out GPUs over time.

Just those abilities alone dramatically increase the longevity of the product

 

[Falhófnir]

Guys I don’t think anybody is arguing against the ROI concept for making a purchase decision.

I think what everybody is upset about is that the floor is so high.

There are huge swaths of people that are either professionals or aspiring professionals, or perhaps just not as affluent, who would like to get in on a Mac that’s upgradable and make it a base investment to build on over time as their needs and budget allow.

Those users are simply priced out here to begin with.
That’s the largest frustration I think I’m seeing.

To some extent it’s shortsighted of Apple to not make it more flexible and accessible to get new people into their ecosystem at the beginning.

The iMac is a “thing”, a great thing...but a very different thing.

I personally don’t have huge upgrade needs over time but they eclipse what the iMac allows one to do internally on the upgrade front and that has always turned me off from buying one.

It just feels like most of us don’t want to change the CPUs, but we do want to be able to swap in NVMe and SSD drives and update ram and change out GPUs over time.

Just those abilities alone dramatically increase the longevity of the product

I wonder if eventually they may do just this - once the design and engineering costs have amortised they could come out with a cheaper entry version that might appeal to enthusiasts. I don't know what exactly they would cut to make it cheaper though, other than perhaps offering it with regular consumer i5/i7 chips and RAM and a regular iMac GPU (if these are even compatible)

 

[William Payne]

Guys I don’t think anybody is arguing against the ROI concept for making a purchase decision.

I think what everybody is upset about is that the floor is so high.

There are huge swaths of people that are either professionals or aspiring professionals, or perhaps just not as affluent, who would like to get in on a Mac that’s upgradable and make it a base investment over time who are simply priced out here to begin with. That’s the largest frustration I think I’m seeing.

To some extent it’s shortsighted of Apple to not make it more flexible and accessible to get new people into their ecosystem at the beginning. The iMac just doesn’t approach it in the way that many want.

I can’t afford crap. I have to make every penny work. But in the industry I want to work in and at the level I want to work at I need to find a way to make the investments required. I want to do the high level work for high level clients.

I may live in small town New Zealand but I’ll go wherever a client is willing to pay me to go. I am happiest when I travel. Travel is my zen place.

I would be an absolute hypocrite to complain about the base prise while knowing that the camera gear I want costs more.
[doublepost=1560015876][/doublepost]I will say though that maybe they should have done what they do with the iMacs and MacBooks. Have different tiers. Have the top dog one. But also a more sedate one.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I would say to everyone defending the pricing on the basis of return on investment and work pay back…

Is there any price where you would not make that argument anymore?

There is a spectrum here and Apple is excluding a huge portion of the spectrum of people that are professionals and do make money using their hardware, but perhaps not at the level, scale and budgets that can ever justify something that starts at $6000 and realistically needs to get up to 10 to 12 for the good configurations (all before any monitor is considered also).

There’s a lot of room underneath where they decided to start this product and I think that’s the frustration.
[doublepost=1560017015][/doublepost]I guess I would just encourage everyone who is OK with the pricing and can justify it to have some empathy with those that can’t and maybe are aspirationally trying to reach and perhaps grow a business or get one started, etc.

It’s actually in everybody’s best interest to argue for Apple to have lower priced expandable options to greatly increase the pool of what’s accessible and to whom and where.

 

[William Payne]

I would say to everyone defending the pricing on the basis of return on investment and work pay back…

Is there any price where you would not make that argument anymore?

There is a spectrum here and Apple is excluding a huge portion of the spectrum of people that are professionals and do make money using their hardware, but perhaps not at the level, scale and budgets that can ever justify something that starts at $6000 and realistically needs to get up to 10 to 12 for the good configurations (all before any monitor is considered also).

There’s a lot of room underneath where they decided to start this product and I think that’s the frustration.

That’s an easy answer. If your expenditures exceed your profits consistently something is wrong. Healthy sustainable growth should allow a company to profit. Now remember that word company. Even as a sole trader entity with one employee who is also the owner the money you make from your business is not your income. You draw wage from the business but the business itself has to make money.

Living week to week is not sustainable whether you work for someone else or are self employed.

 

[turbineseaplane]

That’s an easy answer. If your expenditures exceed your profits consistently something is wrong. Healthy sustainable growth should allow a company to profit. Now remember that word company. Even as a sole trader entity with one employee who is also the owner the money you make from your business is not your income. You draw wage from the business but the business itself has to make money.

Living week to week is not sustainable whether you work for someone else or are self employed.

Who said anything about not making profit?

There are places in the world where just from the currency exchange standpoint these prices are a non starter, even if your business is profitable. It’s not good for Apple to be so exclusionary with pricing even if you yourself can afford it.

Come on guys…
Are we really going to defend this to the nth degree here?

What if it started at 20k?
40k?

For the types of shops that everyone is saying will gobble these up, Apple could price this at $500,000+…

Would we really still defend that even though there are some businesses that would have no problem with it?