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Why does the case need to open for a BTO? There are BTO options for every Mac in the line right now, and none of them open easily and some come with key components soldered to the board. This kind of design isn't important for BTO, it's important if the customer needs to tweak it when it's in their hands.
I think that I should have said "configured at the time of purchase", rather than literally BTO from Apple.

Compare the number of BTO options on a Mac Pro with the options on a Z8.
 
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Yes, but we get premium support from dell (we have hundreds of them @ work) I use a T5820 with a 10 core Xeon, 64GB ram, 1TB SSD and a RTX2080TI and it cost 4k with 5 yaear premium support.

Just to add, most of the work that used to need a mac pro, now can be done in an imac. Even a macmini if you don't need GPU.

To be fair your cost was $5200+ after you added the aftermarket 2080Ti. ;)
 
The question I'm wondering is...

Clearly this new MacPro with its $6K entry price and likely $10K "usable" price is targeted towards high end businesses with big budgets.

But it's likely that many of the companies whom this MacPro is targeted towards have migrated over to Windows PCs long ago, leaving the Mac behind.

So the question stands:

Are the companies that this computer is targeted at going to all of a sudden switch platforms back to the Mac?
 
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If they would release a lower priced and spec’ed model, people would most likely not be happy with the specs.
Or at least they would find it still too expensive for the specs.
I’m just glad that Apple didn’t abandon the Mac Pro. People speculated about that before the nMP came out and they did the last couple of years.

Apple just released a lower spec model, but at too high a price .
That's what people are not happy about .
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Apple have decided not to make a computer that serves a certain bracket of customer [I have no idea how big or small this is].
It is their choice.

I disagree .
Apple have finally made an MP that again can serve as many users as possible .
Something the Minis and iMacs could never do dure to their restrictions .

They just chose to price it in a way that made it an unreasonable choice for many of those users , whether they can afford it can afford it or not .

In turn, I think they decided just to make the most powerful and technically impressive desktop they could, so they did.


The nMP is neither of those things .
 
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I disagree .
Apple have finally made an MP that again can serve as many users as possible .
Something the Minis and iMacs could never do dure to their restrictions .

That is a little disingenuous if people can't afford it or are priced out of it. The MP isn't targeted to everyone. That is fine but it shouldn't be defended as if it is.

After all, everyone can buy a $100 million home, a $5 million car, etc... but most people can't afford it.
 
How do the TB3 ports add more than 64Gb of ram?

How do the TB3 ports add more cores?

How do the TB3 ports keep the system from throttling under load?
As I said in my original post, I’m not saying Apple’s “solution” is one that works for everyone.

I’m just trying to articulate what I think Apple is thinking here. The mini goes up to a six-core i7, and the iMac goes up to an 8-core i9. Both can take 64 GB of RAM and use tons of external storage and GPUs.

If that’s not enough, the iMac pro goes up to an 18-core Xeon and 256 GB of RAM.

If that’s not enough, then you’re in Mac Pro land.

I get that some people will not be satisfied with those options, for a variety of reasons. But I don’t think Apple is crazy for thinking that they have adequately covered the field in terms of options here.

The people who badly want an upgradable headless Mac at a consumer/prosumer price point have been disappointed for many years now, and that’s not going to change. Apple clearly doesn’t see the value in making a computer for that (small) group of people.
 
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Coming into this late, and haven't had time to read 15 pages of comments... But willing to bet my points haven't been adequately covered or advocated for:

1. Please stop including the monitor in the price of a "complete Mac Pro setup". It can be used with ANY monitor. This is OBVIOUSLY a niche monitor for high-end graphics where color accuracy is of utmost concern. It is for the most critical print production and Hollywood movie production. Apple's only mistake here was in the marketing message. You don't need that monitor and you don't need that stand. Yet - for the market it is targeted at - it is at a revolutionary low price point. Anybody else - the only reason they "need" this monitor is because it has a shiny case that matches the tower. And, yes, there are those who will buy the monitor for that reason and that reason alone. I gasped along with the audience on the price of the stand. But as it turns out, for the target audience for that monitor and that stand, the price is ho-hum. Apple failed to explain that, nor the fact that it (apparently?) does come with a more humdrum stand which wasn't shown.

2. I'm actually disappointed the new Mac Pro wasn't targeted HIGHER. I had predicted a high-end fully-outfitted price of ~$100,000. Clearly from the start, one important market was Hollywood production. But with only one CPU socket, that ain't gonna happen, at least not right now. I don't know if there is an upgradable CPU board/riser? I would hope that in the future this will be an option, as it was with the older Intel cheese graters. It would be a big boon the Apple - maybe more in prestige than sales (but don't underestimate the sales) to re-capture this market from Windows PCs.

3. On price (which OP doesn't want to hear...) it's not that much more than an iMac Pro, albeit with no monitor included. Even so, it seems a reasonable increment for the advantage of modularity. It's a system that can grow - vs. iMac Pro, where you have to make a hard decision at the time of purchase. I would imagine that most iMac Pro buyers over-buy a bit to future-proof, knowing that there is either no or very inconvenient upgrade path. FWIW, I use an iMac Pro for software development. I went with 64GB memory to future-proof it. I've never hit 64GB usage, but still glad I did that, as it does sometimes hover a bit over 32GB. I don't hear anybody complaining that the iMac Pro is "too niche".

4. Did anybody notice "Pro" in the name?

IMO, the range will broaden-out at both ends over time. Probably can't go much lower, as there is a floor to the costs associated with making it modular and upgradable. I think perhaps Apple wants that Hollywood market so badly that they bungled the message a bit, making others think it's not meant for them.

I don't think the new Mac Pro is too niche. I think perhaps the marketing message is, though.
 
One thing that I didn't realize is just how many hollywood movie producers/editors are out here on forums like this, and reddit. lol :D It sounds like Apple might make more selling these new Mac Pros than iPhones this year.

I suppose they were right. The rest of us can live with a crappy Mac Mini with dongles and external boxes.

And yes, the Mac Mini is a piece of crap. A poor excuse for a computer, IMHO.
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Perhaps you missed it where I said gamers are a significant portion of the high end desktop market.

Kinda, but HEDT really refers to stuff like Intel's X299 and AMD's X399 platform. Not many gamers buy those, since the lower priced stuff (like z390+i9 9900k) performs better in games anyway. The problem with the "mainstream" z390 and x470 is the lack of PCIE lanes. X_X AMD gives you 20, and Intel gives you 16. SIXTEEN! You plug in an RTX 2080ti and you've got no room for an SSD anymore without sacrificing performance!
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I think Apple's response to those who want a configurable desktop but can't afford/can't justify the MP would be to use the TB3 ports on a Mac mini to expand it as needed.

I'm not saying that's a GOOD answer or that it gives the people what they wanted, but I do think it's the solution Apple sees to the need you're describing.

You're right. I went back to building my own PC towers. I use a 2018 i9 Macbook Pro for work that I wouldn't personally buy because I'm not a fan of the keyboard - and for personal laptop use, my 2014 is still going strong. The only Macs I plan to buy in the near future are probably a couple of new Mac Minis since a couple of family members have 2014s that I've never been fond of.
 
I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but I'll make the same point here, this is Tim making the grand gesture. He seems to understand the big reveal that Steve Jobs always did, but with Steve, it seemed to be something for the masses, with Tim Cook, it is something that goes beyond what everyone else is doing and who cares if it will sell to a smaller market. I don't think that you can call the market for the new 7,1 a niche market, because when you're talking about all the film, video and VR production studios, that is a large market for any manufacturer.

What I have read is that the price is not unreasonable for that market, but that the entry price point is not a reasonable value for the performance. Does the difference in performance between the Mac Mini, iMac, iMac Pro and new Mac Pro justify the difference in price. While it does seemed stepped in price, it doesn't seem justified.

When I read the comments, what I really hear is that this product isn't geared to the niche that has helped support Apple in the long term, those that like to fiddle with computers, like to try out different configurations, like to use their Apple in ways that Apple doesn't see or understand. They bought the Mac Pro because it was powerful, but especially because you could change its configuration for your particular niche, which you can't do with either the Mac Mini or the iMac. And now the new Mac Pro has a price too high to justify for this niche.

But this is the Apple of Tim Cook, not Steve Jobs. Steve seemed to understand that while a too diverse product line was not a good thing, it is hard on the supply chain, too narrow a product line is also not a good thing, you leave behind consumers who use a machine for different purposes but still want the O/S. I think Tim is too much for the big show and not enough in how his customers actually use their devices, too much supply chain and not enough O/S. He could have easily kept the price point on the Mac Pro at a lower level, making it the modular device he was claiming it would be, but instead decided to take it to the top, and unnecessarily it seems to me when modularity would seem to allow a wider range of price points.

But then I don't know the R&D costs to develop the new case, the new motherboard, the various little bells and whistles that have been added to know for sure. What I do know for sure is that my little hobby of a Mac Pro has just been EOLed and the replacement is way out of my price range, so I will go waiting for Apple to release a Mac Pro for the rest of us.
 
Kinda, but HEDT really refers to stuff like Intel's X299 and AMD's X399 platform. Not many gamers buy those, since the lower priced stuff (like z390+i9 9900k) performs better in games anyway. The problem with the "mainstream" z390 and x470 is the lack of PCIE lanes. X_X AMD gives you 20, and Intel gives you 16. SIXTEEN! You plug in an RTX 2080ti and you've got no room for an SSD anymore without sacrificing performance!
Not exactly, the chipset provides 24 PCIe lanes (Z370/390), so usually you have 2x16 CPU PCI lanes (for 1x16 or 2x8 GPUs) and another 24 served by chipset. Although the chipset talks to CPU over a link that has equivalent of 4x PCIe bandwidth so the chipset 24 will compete for CPU access. But you can run any contemporary SSD and GPU together at full speed.
 
That is a little disingenuous if people can't afford it or are priced out of it. The MP isn't targeted to everyone. That is fine but it shouldn't be defended as if it is.

After all, everyone can buy a $100 million home, a $5 million car, etc... but most people can't afford it.

That's my point entirely , I should have been more clear .
The nMP is a great design - apart from storage and OS 10.15 - and usable for everyone .
But the pricing makes it a sensible choice for virtually nobody .
 
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Coming into this late, and haven't had time to read 15 pages of comments... But willing to bet my points haven't been adequately covered or advocated for:

They have been covered. They are not very original .

2. I'm actually disappointed the new Mac Pro wasn't targeted HIGHER. I had predicted a high-end fully-outfitted price of ~$100,000. Clearly from the start, one important market was Hollywood production.

No , it was neither clear from the start nor is it now .

3. On price (which OP doesn't want to hear...) it's not that much more than an iMac Pro, albeit with no monitor included. Even so, it seems a reasonable increment for the advantage of modularity.

Modularity using industry standard parts is cheaper than proprietary tech .

I don't hear anybody complaining that the iMac Pro is "too niche".

To hear you first have to listen .

4. Did anybody notice "Pro" in the name?

No .

IMO, the range will broaden-out at both ends over time. Probably can't go much lower, as there is a floor to the costs associated with making it modular and upgradable.

The pricing is artificial .
Again, modularity is cheaper .

I don't think the new Mac Pro is too niche. I think perhaps the marketing message is, though.

It's not niche at all .
The pricing is silly .
 
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I heard that the vega pro 2 duo is around 20k $ ? It cant be right
From the Z4 BTO menu:

rtx8000.jpg


It could be right - especially with HBM instead of GDDR6, and that proprietary form factor.
 
And what value does a P6000 have on an Apple? $0.
Irrelevant post... I was talking about something else. Again im waiting an answer from people who are in these professional work with workstation gpu. The rest, please, don't spam/flame
 
I think that I should have said "configured at the time of purchase", rather than literally BTO from Apple.

Compare the number of BTO options on a Mac Pro with the options on a Z8.
Ok, so now that we agree with the question I was asking, are there any stats out there that anyone knows of? What percentage of users actually open the case on the machines they buy?
 
I heard that the vega pro 2 duo is around 20k $ ? It cant be right

Conceptually it could be an upper bound .

AMD lists their Instinct MI25 for $10k . See ‘shop’ section on this page.

https://www.amd.com/en/products/professional-graphics/instinct-mi25

Some lower prices show up if search on google for MI25 being sold elsewhere ( e.g.
http://www.neutronusa.com/prod.cfm/...MIr6u38arl4gIVCSSGCh3q0wFSEAsYAiABEgKcgPD_BwE )
)

The Vega Pro II is basically equivalent to an Instinct MI60 . The MI60 superseded the MI25 as AMD’s top end MI card. So it could take same price . 2 * $10k is $20k .

The MI 60 price does not show up on public internet searches. If there was a public average street price that would be a better upper bound inference point .

The P6000 as a grounding point is off because neither 7nm ‘big die’ nor 32GB of HBM2 . Neither of those is lower cost . Vega VII isn’t a good upper bound estimation point . It is a stripped down MI50 .( infinity fabric is disabled , lower FP64 , and a few other things
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13923/the-amd-radeon-vii-review/3
) . Pretty good chance AMD is selling the Vega VII ptretty close to at cost because “have too” until get get big Navi uncorked ( 2020 ) . The high prices on MI offset those too low margins so don’t have to eat all of that.

Pro Vega II on AMD site has slower Infinity Fabric speed than MI60

https://www.amd.com/en/graphics/workstations-radeon-pro-vega-ii

https://www.amd.com/en/products/professional-graphics/instinct-mi60

Apple may have had them kneecap the FP64 and strip the INT 4 & 8 out like the Vega VII . So $10k is probably too high but how far down is hard to tell . $2-4K for solo is probably closer than $10k. So $4-8k for duo . The duo having Infinity fabric may mean solo and duo is not a 2x jump in price . And duo packages may need to be binned better to run warmer .

How many folks are buying MI60’s probably plays a role. If not much inventory lying around then AMD can make more money elsewhere . If so few that Apple is biggest buyer by far then could be in $1-2k range for solo.
 
It's too niche. I have to wait and see what Apple'd charge for bto options, but I suspect that it will be spectacular.

Those people who argue that prosumer should opt for imac pro is missing the point. We don't know if Apple would keep updating iMac Pro line anymore. Is it going to meet the same fate as Macbook Pro without touchbar? or is it going to be a continuous? nobody knows. And heck, nobody knows for this generation of Mac Pro either. Apple is obviously not updating iMac Pro internals.

And all the serious studios or those that this Mac Pro is supposed to target already migrated to Windows or other OS platform for either beter support, cheaper price, or reliable upgrade path. If I were them, I would never trust Apple to keep offering their proprietary internals like VGA for long time while PC options accept a generic graphic card. The studios must have invested a lot in software suit along the way also. Why do they have to suddenly adapt Mac pro throwing away all the softwares and training they went through?

I think Apple's going a very weird business model way on this. It almost look like Apple's no longer aiming for maximizing profit by going too niche on Mac Pro, but then, I'd guess the target audience may be to reluctant to switch to Mac. It's actually too late to show off best of best after that many years of void in professional device development. If they are going to discontinue iMac Pro, then this Mac Pro could have been a great machine if the baseline or cheaper version with consumer grade mobo was available. They could easily charge less featured Mac pro with 1/3 of pcie lines at 3000 and still sell a lot more unit, but decided not to. I suspect that this MP will sell less than trash can MP.
 
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And all the serious studios or those that this Mac Pro is supposed to target already migrated to Windows or other OS platform for either beter support, cheaper price, or reliable upgrade path. If I were them, I would never trust Apple to keep offering their proprietary internals like VGA for long time while PC options accept a generic graphic card. The studios must have invested a lot in software suit along the way also. Why do they have to suddenly adapt Mac pro throwing away all the softwares and training they went through? .

The new MacPro also accept a generic graphic card. So you´re wrong. And the studios who migrated can come back in the same way.
 
It's too niche. I have to wait and see what Apple'd charge for bto options, but I suspect that it will be spectacular.

Those people who argue that prosumer should opt for imac pro is missing the point. We don't know if Apple would keep updating iMac Pro line anymore. Is it going to meet the same fate as Macbook Pro without touchbar? or is it going to be a continuous? nobody knows. And heck, nobody knows for this generation of Mac Pro either. Apple is obviously not updating iMac Pro internals.

Right now there aren't really any iMac Pro internals to upgrade to if just increment on the major components.
Intel is not moving the Xeon W 2xxx series forward at the moment. The Mac Pro jumps in at the W-32xx which is a different socket and chipset. If Apple isn't moving to AMD then there is nothing to move to at the moment.

That is probably why they did a minor spec bump in March ( larger max on RAM capacity and a spec bump on the GPU). If the iMac Pro was completely 'dead in the water' then it would have gotten nothing. Mac Pro 2013 got nothing even when there were incremental updates like those.

Similarly on the GPU side if Apple is staying with AMD then the Pro Vega II are likely far more expesnive and not viable at iMac Pro price points. The Navi/RDNA replacements for Vega haven't really appears. While the RX 5700/5700XT took up price points close to what Vega 64/56 rolled out at they are somewhat Polaris replacements at higher price points. The logic board in the iMac Pro (unless they change the size of the enslosure) is more geared to a HBM2 solution which will probably come substantially later. (i.e. 2020 ).

If all the major components to move the iMac Pro were available and Apple was doing lots of 'nothing' then would be a bad sign. However, some of these have taking a big 'left turn' in terms of available of the next generation. The imac Pro being stalled on that clearing up shouldn't be very surprising.

Additionally, Apple carving out a Mac Pro price point above a large chunk of the iMac Pro price range is also indicative that it isn't going anywhere any time soon. And that Apple clearly sees them as separate. ( product manager said as much https://www.relay.fm/mpu/485 )

The same product manager is over the Mac Pro and iMac Pro. so mac Pro , rack Mac Pro , then iMac Pro is probably the sequence.


And all the serious studios or those that this Mac Pro is supposed to target already migrated to Windows or other OS platform for either beter support, cheaper price, or reliable upgrade path. If I were them, I would never trust Apple to keep offering their proprietary internals like VGA for long time while PC options accept a generic graphic card. The studios must have invested a lot in software suit along the way also. Why do they have to suddenly adapt Mac pro throwing away all the softwares and training they went through?

First they migrated away and then by the end of the paragraph they know nothing about using Macs. Lots of folks will use right tool for the right job. And they don't buy systems and use the mforever. Some folks who iterated off 4-6 years ago are up to new round of hardware buys.

And some folks never left.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/vote-current-mac-pro-owners.2185514/

At the snapshot on this link the number of folks sitting and squating on current Mac Pro is biggest group ( 34% ) One of the second biggest groups is "Yes I'll buy 7,1 later second hard " at (15% ). Those two add up to 49% of the folks in the poll. Basically half aren't going anywhere soon. Massive stampede off to Windows ... not really there.
[ this forum is a highly skewed sampling but the notion that 'everybody left" isn't really true. Or that "everybody" had to upgrade in the first several months after the new Mac Pro is available. Not individual upgrade period cycles vary. Everyone isn't synced up on a single cycle. ]


Honestly, MPX doesn't look all that proprietary. there are multiple edges and some are basically standard PCI-e and the ones that aren't don't get in the way of a standard card. Drivers support is a bigger issue than this bay design.



I think Apple's going a very weird business model way on this. It almost look like Apple's no longer aiming for maximizing profit by going too niche on Mac Pro, but then, I'd guess the target audience may be to reluctant to switch to Mac.

They are not maximize profit by a higher weighting on volume, but they are certainly maximize profit with a higher weighting on average selling price. The base price the new Mac Pro is chock full of a hefty margin on each box sold. The BTO options layered on top will only likely boost that even higher. They are probably not going to loose money on this.

The Mac Pro is not the whole Mac product line up. The Mac Pro money is really kind of "gravy on top" money for the Mac Pro line. Apple doesn't desperately need it. It is a nice to have.

The fact there is another arm of Apple handing out $1B on content production means folks are going to buy at least some of this stuff if only because content folks will be looking for apple to "make it rain" on them. "Hey I buy lots of your stuff you should green light my movie".


It's actually too late to show off best of best after that many years of void in professional device development. If they are going to discontinue iMac Pro, then this Mac Pro could have been a great machine if the baseline or cheaper version with consumer grade mobo was available. They could easily charge less featured Mac pro with 1/3 of pcie lines at 3000 and still sell a lot more unit, but decided not to. I suspect that this MP will sell less than trash can MP.

Apple doesn't report unit numbers in their quarterly finance conference calls anymore. They have switched to metrics like average selling price and margin. That they are selling less won't even show up there. That the margins are higher will.

Apple could move the iMac Pro down a bit in price and also sell more while leave the Mac Pro about exactly where it is.
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The new MacPro also accept a generic graphic card. So you´re wrong. And the studios who migrated can come back in the same way.

Physically can take many cards. How that is supported in firmware/drivers/software isn't necessarily as easy a path. It never was. This Mac Pro is probably incrementally better ( e.g., anything on eGPU card support this probably works inside too. )

The form over function argument that if Apple just put standard sockets in would be some soft of panacea misses a very substantial function issue. (does the associated software function?).
 
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