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

[amedias]

So now what? Do I pay $10-16K to stay on Mac OS? Or do I just go to Puget or Boxx and live with an OS I hate but a ROI I can get behind?

Well that depends on your workflow and priorities doesn't it. For some users $10k is money they'd happily pay to stay on their chosen OS, for others they'll use whatever hardware or software gets the job finished in the least time.

The point is that when you're talking about a machine that earns you 400k, for a lot of people the difference between initial outlay of $2K vs $10k is either moot, or dictated by things beyond an extra few grand.

In my world, most of my bottleneck isn't my machine. It's waiting on approvals. I can't get more jobs in while I'm waiting for jobs to complete. So paying that much for a machine that will let me twiddle my thumbs longer doesn't seem like a great value.

Which is fine, just cos it's not going to work for you doesn't mean it wont work for others.

It's built to expand. And that's what they're charging for. But by the time I put 1.5TB of RAM in it, I'll be on another machine.

If you need it now you'll buy it now. If you need it shortly you'll buy it now. If you need it in 3-4 years you'll be buying it 'now' but with the replacement machine in 3-4 years.
But if you're the user that buys it now with 64GB of ram and upgrades to 256 or 512GB in a few years you're again a different user.

There is a difference between 'expandable over time' and 'configurable at point of purchase', there's an overlap too, but there's also a difference in intended user.

 

[mattspace]

Well, expandability should not cost more.

First, Apple restricts expandability from all its products, and sell it as a feature, adding a premium to it.

Now, Apple builds an expandable computer, and sells expandability as a premium feature, charging more for it.

And people still buy into this stuff.

Go figure.

When the discussions veered into on how much the 7,1 would cost once the iMac Pro came out, there were those who said "it will be the iMac Pro, but without the price of the monitor". Personally, I thought it would be "the price of the iMac Pro, whose monitor is considered to be a freebie bundled with the computer, and the 7,1 will get PCI expandability as its freebie"

Turns out it was "more expensive than the iMac Pro, and PCI expandability is a paid additional feature".

 

[wallysb01]

This is the big problem - due to phones Apple is the biggest company in the world with a massive basic consumer market. So when they do a niche product for professionals they think it's ridiculous priced because they have no concept of professional tools.

For what you get the Mac Pro is a bargain, but it's aimed at a very small user base.

£7000 is not a lot to pay for a reference monitor with those specs (Obviously the Sony is 43k). Professional recording studios spend £8000+ on reference monitor speakers. This is normal money for actual pros. Not prosumers, no home enthusiasts, not youtubers. The BIG studios across the world - in this case writing film scores and mastering HDR material for Blu-ray.

The people complaining about the price on here, had no idea that HP workstation even existed until yesterday - and they have no use for a Mac Pro.

I'm glad one of the biggest companies in the world are making very complex niche products they'll barely sell any of, when they could just make iOS devices and services which will remain 99% of their profit - no they're not have a "cash grab" with a monitor stand, think how many they'll actually sell, it's not even going to factor into their sales figures at all.

On the monitor I’ll happily plead ignorance. But on the workstations, yeah... no. I have multiple Dell 7920s in my group. I’m right now spec-ing our a contribution to a cluster.... This thing is absurdly over priced, even for Apple.

 

[alphaswift]

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

Thanks for the morning amusement.
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Don't forget to tack on another grand for the matte option on the monitor...

Don't forget to tack on another grand for the monitor stand.

 

[cajun67]

If you have to ask about the price, you are not in the right market. Seriously, the target audience that these systems are for usually make up the cost in one job.

Also, business folks are going to write off the expense of the system on their taxes, anyway.

 

[amedias]

Don't forget to tack on another grand for the monitor stand.

This one keeps getting mentioned, I agree that the price is stupidly high but if you're the intended user for this kind of screen chances are it's going to be bolted to your existing VESA mount arm, and possibly alongside more than one of these screens.

For most places this kind of screen will be found the first thing that happens when it gets taken out of box is the stand is removed and the panel bolted to your existing multi-joint boom setup.

So yes, silly price, but having it as a separate option? Ideal.

 

[Falhófnir]

If you were wanting a machine which would also appeal to enthusiasts/ prosumers, yeah it's definitely overly expensive... the thing is though, it shoots a lot higher than that and for enterprise, its pretty much par for the course - companies will pay ludicrous amounts of money for a computer if it's going to pay for itself several times over through the course of it's lifetime.

 

[dannys1]

On the monitor I’ll happily plead ignorance. But on the workstations, yeah... no. I have multiple Dell 7920s in my group. I’m right now spec-ing our a contribution to a cluster.... This thing is absurdly over priced, even for Apple.

But it isnt, not at all. An eqiv motherboard alone with those specs is £2000, the Xeon processor is over a grand.

The nearest Dell 7920 (with a slower Xeon Gold) costs MORE than the Mac Pro.

 

[dlewis23]

Except it’s the 3223, $750...

Except it's not, look at the cache. The CPU you think it is, only has 16.5 MB of cache. The CPU Apple is using has 24.5 MB of cache for the 8 core version.

Try again. The processors Apple are using in the Mac Pro are not listed in Arc, look at the cache.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

Apple has a huge marketing team that extensively surveys what the market demands, and what the market will pay for that demand.

Did they get the market for the iPhone right?

 

[skaertus]

If you were wanting a machine which would also appeal to enthusiasts/ prosumers, yeah it's definitely overly expensive... the thing is though, it shoots a lot higher than that and for enterprise, its pretty much par for the course - companies will pay ludicrous amounts of money for a computer if it's going to pay for itself several times over through the course of it's lifetime.

Well, but this is also the point.

Companies require at least some predictability. Apple released the last Mac Pro in 2013, and now, more than 5 years later, it unveils another one at double the price.

The way I see it, this is an absolute nightmare in terms of time and cost. What about all the money a company lost by having to use outdated Mac Pros during the last few years, if it was unable to or unwilling to switch to PCs? Apple is unpredictable and that may “wow” consumers, prosumers and enthusiasts, but not businesses.

If I was running a company, I would have switched to PCs long ago. I would be able to choose from different manufacturers, and would not be locked in Apple’s environment, subject to long periods of neglect or sudden price increases.

 

[wallysb01]

Except it's not, look at the cache. The CPU you think it is, only has 16.5 MB of cache. The CPU Apple is using has 24.5 MB of cache for the 8 core version.

Try again. The processors Apple are using in the Mac Pro are not listed in Arc, look at the cache.

Assuming they didn't screw up? They have 68MB of cache on that 28 core. Highest the current products, even Xeon SP Platinum 82xx (the not 2 SPs fused together line), gets is 39MB. Apple either needs some copy editing, is getting a drastically changed custom chip (not likely), or is doing some funny accounting. The frequencies (base and turbo) and core counts perfectly match the whole way up the Xeon W line and those caches don't make any damned sense.

 

[Falhófnir]

Well, but this is also the point.

Companies require at least some predictability. Apple released the last Mac Pro in 2013, and now, more than 5 years later, it unveils another one at double the price.

The way I see it, this is an absolute nightmare in terms of time and cost. What about all the money a company lost by having to use outdated Mac Pros during the last few years, if it was unable to or unwilling to switch to PCs? Apple is unpredictable and that may “wow” consumers, prosumers and enthusiasts, but not businesses.

If I was running a company, I would have switched to PCs long ago. I would be able to choose from different manufacturers, and would not be locked in Apple’s environment, subject to long periods of neglect or sudden price increases.

You're certainly right they screwed up royally on the upgrade path, but I guess that means they have to start fresh somewhere - hopefully they will do the sensible thing and keep iterating this machine for the next decade+ with new CPUs and GPUs compatible with older boxes for years to come. If they do this right, this could be the start of rebuilding the trust they need for this sort of computer.

 

[zync]

Well that depends on your workflow and priorities doesn't it. For some users $10k is money they'd happily pay to stay on their chosen OS, for others they'll use whatever hardware or software gets the job finished in the least time.

The point is that when you're talking about a machine that earns you 400k, for a lot of people the difference between initial outlay of $2K vs $10k is either moot, or dictated by things beyond an extra few grand.

Which is fine, just cos it's not going to work for you doesn't mean it wont work for others.

If you need it now you'll buy it now. If you need it shortly you'll buy it now. If you need it in 3-4 years you'll be buying it 'now' but with the replacement machine in 3-4 years.
But if you're the user that buys it now with 64GB of ram and upgrades to 256 or 512GB in a few years you're again a different user.

There is a difference between 'expandable over time' and 'configurable at point of purchase', there's an overlap too, but there's also a difference in intended user.

I never claimed to be the same as every user out there. I know a ton of people and they're all wondering how this fits into their workflow. There are people out there that need more and this might make sense for them. For me, and everyone I've talked to, Xeons are overkill. We don't need ECC RAM. We'd like Nvidia because Redshift currently doesn't work with AMD. Anyone who ever deals with AE needs single-core performance for that outdated program where even "consumer" chips would beat this. What would have been compelling to me, would have been a solid I9 option or—and this was always a long shot—a Ryzen or Threadripper option. Xeons and 1.5TB of ECC RAM just wouldn't be able to help me. AE won't use it. C4D might, but we'd be on GPU anyway. Resolve probably could, but honestly it's optimized enough that it can work with 4K RED on my laptop.

As you said, it's not about a few thousand dollars. It's about what you get for it. You're being raked over the coals already for the base and with Apple, upgrades are often exceedingly overpriced. The only value is in upgrading it. But if I spent $20K on this machine (besides the opportunity cost) I just don't see how I'd fair better than spending $10K with a good builder or by building myself with quality components. Also, they're selling upgradeability, so I don't think buying now with 64GB and upgrading to 512GB RAM would make me all that different than what they're shooting for.

Anyway, nice having a discussion with someone rational on here.

 

[amedias]

Companies require at least some predictability. Apple released the last Mac Pro in 2013, and now, more than 5 years later, it unveils another one at double the price.

The way I see it, this is an absolute nightmare in terms of time and cost.

Or it's exactly what they've been waiting for...it's only the entry level that's doubled, and most pro users didn't, and won't be buying the entry level. The new Mac Pro is price competitive with other options from other vendors. The new pricing has pushed out 'power users' for sure bu it's not out of line for pro users at all.

What about all the money a company lost by having to use outdated Mac Pros during the last few years, if it was unable to or unwilling to switch to PCs?

It's been a genuine annoyance of a lot of people forced to battle on with ageing hardware, or swapping to a form factor that's less than ideal (iMac/Mini), which is why this release has been so anticipated. Hopefully it shows a commitment to a return to the cMP way of doing things with an upgradeable chassis that will also receive regular updates, but only time will tell.

If I was running a company, I would have switched to PCs long ago.

Even if you had an established workflow on software that was macOS only, with thousands invested in that software and an in an employee base that knows it inside out?

The cost of a wholesale shift in workflow can be huge, it's not just 'buy some cheaper PC hardware and carry on'

The cost of deploying a new PC/windows based environment (including swapping/deploying AD etc.), installing and testing/QA'ing new software, and then retraining your existing staff, and the time taken to settle them into a new workflow could easily eclipse the cost of waiting a bit longer and buying a load of new Mac Pros...

 

[bobbie424242]

Long story short: Apple is not interested in making a prosumer "Mac Mini Pro" or a "Mac Pro Mini" (depending on who you ask), also known as Hackintosh in term of form factor, of the boxy kind. It's intended audience for the Mac Pro is Pixar and the likes that would go for comparable HP, Dell and Lenovo powerful (and pricey) workstations otherwise. It also has not designed the XDR monitor for mere mortals. And mere mortals are pissed and shocked they are not pro enough for it.

 

[H2SO4]

This is the big problem - due to phones Apple is the biggest company in the world with a massive basic consumer market. So when they do a niche product for professionals they think it's ridiculous priced because they have no concept of professional tools.

For what you get the Mac Pro is a bargain, but it's aimed at a very small user base.

£7000 is not a lot to pay for a reference monitor with those specs (Obviously the Sony is 43k). Professional recording studios spend £8000+ on reference monitor speakers. This is normal money for actual pros. Not prosumers, no home enthusiasts, not youtubers. The BIG studios across the world - in this case writing film scores and mastering HDR material for Blu-ray.

The people complaining about the price on here, had no idea that HP workstation even existed until yesterday - and they have no use for a Mac Pro.

I'm glad one of the biggest companies in the world are making very complex niche products they'll barely sell any of, when they could just make iOS devices and services which will remain 99% of their profit - no they're not have a "cash grab" with a monitor stand, think how many they'll actually sell, it's not even going to factor into their sales figures at all.

HUGE number of assumptions in there mate. Think you need to have a word with yourself.

 

[Zdigital2015]

lol you gotta check the price of HP Z8 G4 with similar spec and you will be surprised.

For comparison, I specced an HP Z8 G4 with:

- Xeon Gold 6144 - 8 cores/16 threads, 3.5GHz, 4.2GHz Turbo Boost, 24.75MB Cache , 2666MHz Memory support. (I simply tried to match the core count, clock speed and cache as closely as possible to the base Mac Pro), I know it is unreleased Xeon W, so I expect the W will cost less.
- HP Z8 G4 90 1450W Chassis
- 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4-2666 ECC
- 256GB Internal Storage (Required component according to the configurator, but included in cost)
- AMD Radeon Pro WX7100 (8GB GDDR5, seems to be the closest analog to the 580X in terms of CUs, TFlops, memory, GPU bandwidth, etc)
- Premium - 2x USB 3.1 Type-C;2xUSB 3.0 Type-A
- Premium Wired Keyboard
- Premium Wired Mouse

Total Cost - $9,790.94.

Amount above the cost of the base 2019 Mac Pro - $3,791.94

If you spec the cheapest 8-core, you get the Xeon Silver 4108 - 1.8GHz, 3.0GHz Turbo boost, 11MB cache, 2400MHZ memory support) and your total cost then drops to $5,758.40 and you save a grand total of $240.60, for what I am sure will be a miserable day to day experience.

I didn't add anything else to try and inflate the price and to keep the Z8 as close to the same configuration as the base 2019 Mac Pro. I have no doubt that people will be nitpicking this config as soon as I hit the Post Reply button and they read it.

 

[amedias]

I never claimed to be the same as every user out there. I know a ton of people and they're all wondering how this fits into their workflow. There are people out there that need more and this might make sense for them. For me, and everyone I've talked to, Xeons are overkill. We don't need ECC RAM. We'd like Nvidia because Redshift currently doesn't work with AMD. Anyone who ever deals with AE needs single-core performance for that outdated program where even "consumer" chips would beat this. What would have been compelling to me, would have been a solid I9 option or—and this was always a long shot—a Ryzen or Threadripper option. Xeons and 1.5TB of ECC RAM just wouldn't be able to help me. AE won't use it. C4D might, but we'd be on GPU anyway. Resolve probably could, but honestly it's optimized enough that it can work with 4K RED on my laptop.

As you said, it's not about a few thousand dollars. It's about what you get for it. You're being raked over the coals already for the base and with Apple, upgrades are often exceedingly overpriced. The only value is in upgrading it. But if I spent $20K on this machine (besides the opportunity cost) I just don't see how I'd fair better than spending $10K with a good builder or by building myself with quality components. Also, they're selling upgradeability, so I don't think buying now with 64GB and upgrading to 512GB RAM would make me all that different than what they're shooting for.

Anyway, nice having a discussion with someone rational on here.

Indeed, I am still massively irked by the fact there is no sub-Xeon/Consumer CPU £2-4K option of an expandable macOS tower without going Hackintosh. We all know Apple just don't want to do it (for numerous reasons) but it's frustrating that they wont. The new Mac Pro is currently out of my budget for my use, but then it's also the wrong kind of machine for my use, but so is a Mini, and so is an iMac, there is simply no middle ground offering from Apple that could fill, and expand into that gap, annoying in the extreme, but as I've said elsewhere that doesn't make the new Mac Pro a bad machine, it's just the wrong machine for me. But I do know people who it is absolutely the right machine for, and they will almost certainly be sinking 10-20k into each one they buy.

I think you are a user who has a very deep an technical understanding of your needs, you're actually quite rare, even amongst 'pros', many just want to buy an off the shelf, supported computer that will run their workload, with the option of some point-of-purchase customisation and also of making it a bit more capable later on with further upgrades, even if those upgrades are actually overpriced when bought from the vendor*. Once you're into building specialised and optimised machines you've already diverged from the typical Apple or HP or Dell workstation user I think.

I'm not so bothered about AMD, the CPU landscape is always volatile and although they offer some genuinely excellent CPUs right now I don't necessarily think Apple flipping to AMD (for how long?) would be the right option, but it's always hard to guage these things without the benefit of hindsight ;-)

I also think the Nvidia thing is a bit of a sticky point... I am genuinely interested to see how that plays out...for both Apple and the users.

* Case in point, I *have* to buy HP approved Ram for our servers at work, it's company policy to maintain support. It normally ends up costing between 2-10x what I could buy the same spec Ram for from another vendor. Does my company care? not one tiny little bit...what's £10k in one-off/annual Ram upgrades on a single platform (of many), when a software license renewal is £100k per annum or more.

We've got machines that cost more in electricity to run over 3 years than they originally cost to buy, it's a funny old world when spending several thousand pounds on new hardware can end up saving you money over the lifetime of the machine just due to increases in efficiency.

 

[johnbono]

Hi all,

The 2019 Mac Pro which was previewed at the WWDC is quite interesting, both in terms of design and specs.

Although I applaud Apple's decision to return to a "tower" design as opposed to using a ridiculous "stack / Lego" design, it looks quite ugly. Of course, "function over form" is the important thing in a pro-level workstation. However, is it not possible to have function and form? The industrial design of the 2019 Mac Pro is hideous, in my opinion. It's like having the performance of a Porsche in the body of a cheap Cube (car). Nevertheless, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The design is supposed to remind buyers of the cheese grater. It is a far better design overall than the trashcan. This is a mac for people who get their hands dirty.

 

[wallysb01]

But it isnt, not at all. An eqiv motherboard alone with those specs is £2000, the Xeon processor is over a grand.

The nearest Dell 7920 (with a slower Xeon Gold) costs MORE than the Mac Pro.

What? No. Going to the duel gold 5218 would net you 32 total cores (duel 16 cores) without other changes at $4.9K. Add in the WX 7100, 4x8GB RAM and a dell ultra speed 256 SSD and we're at $5.9K. For low threaded things, this computer would be slower, yes, though not by as much as you maybe think. The Cascade Lake Scalable line increased those max turbos a lot, that 5218 gets up to 3.7 now, not far behind the 4.0 on the 8-core Mac Pro. Anyway, it would also mop the floor with the base Mac Pro on anything that scales well beyond just a few threads. And to catch the Mac Pro up to it on those tasks, or at least narrow the gap, you're probably looking at a ~$10-15K BTO... If you walked back the processors to the silver lineup, which would still crush the Mac Pro in highly threaded tasks, you could save some $1700 or so, and it would be ~$4.1K (4214, duel 12 cores).

The fact of the matter is that Dell doesn't really have a great comparable to the new Mac Pro, as it sits between the 5820 (Single socket but limited to duel GPU) and the 7920 (can get all the PCIe, but now duel socket). To make things more confusing for people, the Dell 5820 of course can't be configured with the Cascade Lake W, since they aren't released yet. So people here keep going over there and seeing 4 cores or 6 cores, and moving up to the 8/12 not knowing better.
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For comparison, I specced an HP Z8 G4 with:

- Xeon Gold 6144 - 8 cores/16 threads, 3.5GHz, 4.2GHz Turbo Boost, 24.75MB Cache , 2666MHz Memory support. (I simply tried to match the core count, clock speed and cache as closely as possible to the base Mac Pro), I know it is unreleased Xeon W, so I expect the W will cost less.

Stopped right there. That's Skylake.

 

[Zdigital2015]

So your telling me 7 years ago $6K got me nearly the same CPU power (duel 2.66 was 12 cores right? What’s the bench mark like on that 12 core vs this 8 core?), same RAM, and I just need to put in a modern GPU and like a $80 SSD. I mean, I get the platform upgrades and all, but I feel like that should come out of the equation as normal progress. As should things like RAM...

The price is not nearly as bad as everyone wants to portray it, even against older model Mac Pros.

https://www.macworld.com/article/1167386/meet-the-new-mac-pro-about-the-same-as-the-old-mac-pro.html

The mid-2012 Mac Pro 5,1 with dual 2.4GHz Xeon E5645, 12GB of DDR3-1333MHz, 1TB HDD and Radeon 57770 1GB video card started at $3799.00 and went up from there.

SC score - 2207
MC score - 17039

http://browser.geekbench.com/macs/341

The single core was truly awful and the multi-core score wasn't too bad, but a 2019 13" MacBook Pro can run circles around both scores now for a $1000 less.

The GPU was pretty awful even when the 2012 was released and you were saddled with a spinning hard drive. I think the 512GB 2.5" SSD was a $1200 or $1600 upgrade on that thing, IIRC.

We don't know the benchmark for this new 8-core, but the current 3.2GHz Xeon W 8-core in the iMac Pro is -
SC - 5063
MC - 31231

http://browser.geekbench.com/macs/426

In the Macworld article there is a reference to a Mid-2010 Mac Pro that was the first 12-core model @2.66Ghz and it retailed for $4999.

You aren't going to approach the new Mac Pro, even the base model, no matter how much you mod a 5,1. with a giant GPU and a NVMe PCIe card.
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What? No. Going to the duel gold 5218 would net you 32 total cores (duel 16 cores) without other changes at $4.9K. Add in the WX 7100, 4x8GB RAM and a dell ultra speed 256 SSD and we're at $5.9K. For low threaded things, this computer would be slower, yes, though not by as much as you maybe think. The Cascade Lake Scalable line increased those max turbos a lot, that 5218 gets up to 3.7 now, not far behind the 4.0 on the 8-core Mac Pro. Anyway, it would also mop the floor with the base Mac Pro on anything that scales well beyond just a few threads. And to catch the Mac Pro up to it on those tasks, or at least narrow the gap, you're probably looking at a ~$10-15K BTO... If you walked back the processors to the silver lineup, which would still crush the Mac Pro in highly threaded tasks, you could save some $1700 or so, and it would be ~$4.1K (4214, duel 12 cores).

The fact of the matter is that Dell doesn't really have a great comparable to the new Mac Pro, as it sits between the 5820 (Single socket but limited to duel GPU) and the 7920 (can get all the PCIe, but now duel socket). To make things more confusing for people, the Dell 5820 of course can't be configured with the Cascade Lake W, since they aren't released yet. So people here keep going over there and seeing 4 cores or 6 cores, and moving up to the 8/12 not knowing better.
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Stopped right there. That's Skylake.

Nope, sorry., green light means go...I went back and changed the CPU to the Xeon Gold 6244 (Cascade Lake) and the price dropped to $8,750.40, so now only $2,751.40 more expensive than the base Mac Pro.

 

[Ethosik]

Smelling BS here... but it's OK. You seem to need it. So you are claiming that you can pay off a 15k machine from one month of your salary after subtracting all the normal fixed and living costs? And that is the base salary of your "profession"? Then are only a few professions coming into mind... pimp, drug dealer, wall street criminal, etc... But I don't see what you would you use a Mac Pro for then.

Um the base is $6,000. I don’t need the display.

 

[BB8]

Long story short: Apple is not interested in making a prosumer "Mac Mini Pro" or a "Mac Pro Mini" (depending on who you ask), also known as Hackintosh in term of form factor, of the boxy kind. It's intended audience for the Mac Pro is Pixar and the likes that would go for comparable HP, Dell and Lenovo powerful (and pricey) workstations otherwise. It also has not designed the XDR monitor for mere mortals. And mere mortals are pissed and shocked they are not pro enough for it.

You're 100% right but my question is, why not? Would adding additional configs for the same chassis to target prosumers really be too difficult/too much of an investment? From my perspective it just seems like they're leaving money on the table, but maybe Apple knows something I don't.

The monitor is something else though. I think a lot of people were hoping/expecting for an Apple Thunderbolt Display replacement and what we got is something Apple has never sold before.

 

[jinnyman]

Stop comparing the xeon w stuff with past generation gold silver platinum whatever. Due to the cpu core war ongoing between intel and AMD and intel's total failure in advancing beyond 14nm process resulted in hyper core count inflation and price down.

For a NEW product with xeon w, the base price of Mac pro is crazy. Xeon w-3175x is very nice 28core 56thread intel cpu with price tag of just $3000 USD. That cpu is able to handle 6 channel 12 slot memory ecc so platform wise I don't see any difference. Let's see how much Mac Pro with faster clock speed 28 core cost.

My take is that baseline mac pro is total rip off, and I suspect that the high-end Mac pro is going to be another rip off, and Apple is using hyper cost of previous intel work stations as an excuse.

Consumer level CPU's are now reaching 12 core 24thread, and expect to soon reach 16/32 with less than 1000 price tag. Consider the speed of improvement in CPU, and I see that Apple's development team is either unable to quickly adapt to the technology as to benefit its customers with respectable price point or they are only care about maximizing profit.