MP 7,1 Is the new Mac Pro too niche?

[fendersrule]

They don't have to make a budget PC, but they can at least price the base model relative to what it was (with inflation) to 2008-2012 base model prices. For some reason, they had to apply 2x and above pricing on something that was already very expensive to astronomically expensive with no reason to buy unless you are a pro (and someone else is buying it for you). The demographics are going to be very niche for this new Mac Pro. Not to mention the outdated storage and graphics card.

I was talking to some "pros" in the industry last week, and they brought up a good point. There are far, far more "up and coming" pros than there are pros. Think of all the students in school, pros that are in between jobs, freelancing, or simply just people that do this on the side, etc. They're the ones that should be included as a demographic--they certainly were in the past, but with Apple's base-model pricing strategy, I can guarantee that they are going to go the PC route.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I doubt the Apple SSD is going to be garbage! Dual SSD in some form RAID 0 on the T2 chip for Security (not in the base config though, really think it should've started at 1TB or maybe 512Gb personally).

Apple's SSDs do about 2.5GB/sec. The Micron 15TB NVMe SSD does 3.5GB/sec. The 15tb micron drive costs less than the upgrade cost to the 4TB apple upgrade, and is faster. So Apple's SSD are expensive garbage.

https://www.micron.com/products/solid-state-drives/product-lines/9300
https://www.nothingbutsavings.com/P...MI9t7d9tme4gIVQ0sNCh2b6AcWEAkYASABEgLlPfD_BwE

 

[09872738]

apple isnt going to make a budget pc. Clearly its never going to happen. And once t2 chips are in all the macs that are on the compatibility list goodbye hackintosh.

If this is Apple's strategy it is a dangerous one. It could easily backfire: goodbye hackintosh might mean hello Linux.

That said, its also kind of missing the point: why wasting resources on taking on hackintoshes if they could just as easily give us a decent tower prosumer Mac?
Its not like the hackintoshers want to hackintosh. Its just Apple for whatever reason prefers to not manufacture an upper-midrange tower, below the MP, above the Mini.

 

[goMac]

apple isnt going to make a budget pc. Clearly its never going to happen. And once t2 chips are in all the macs that are on the compatibility list goodbye hackintosh.

I don't think T2 is the magic answer to Hackintosh, and I really don't think Apple cares. The number of Hackintoshes out there is microscopic to Apple. And it would be easy enough to work around.

It's been implied at a few points they're perfectly willing to put up with Hackintoshes because they're never going to build an xMac, and it at least keeps the xMac folks quieter.

I don't believe the issues with NVidia have anything to do with stability. I used the Nvidia drivers, while they worked on my hackintosh, with no issues. I'm not sure what the issue is between NVidia and Apple, but stability isn't the issue.

It's an open secret the Nvidia drivers aren't the stable. Most people haven't noticed because software has workarounds for the bugs.

There was a good podcast a while ago on how not only the Nvidia drivers were buggy, but that the response times from Nvidia for fixing issues were quite long compared to AMD and the Intel GPU team (which apparently is a single guy?)

 

[ekwipt]

Yes, I would love that.
The only rationale I can see why Apple is not doing that is due the fact it will canabalize sales of the 6K display. It's a shame. I would buy two or three 5K displays in a heartbeat if they were around $1k.
I love the 6K display but it's just too much considering the stand and nano tech that is a must for anyone working outside of a totally dark environment.

If I had the money I'd buy two of these 5K screens and a 6K one!
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I am more concerned with the T2 related kernel panics and audio interface issues, than it being a fast SSD controller or not. Even with the latest macOS build, macs with T2 are still getting reports with those, including the MBP 2019.

(I work in audio related field, the iMac 2019 becomes #1 on our company's purchase list exactly due to its lack of T2 so it is free of potential issues on that front)

The audio issue on the T2 is fixed and was only for USB Audio cards

 

[cram501]

It's an open secret the Nvidia drivers aren't the stable. Most people haven't noticed because software has workarounds for the bugs.

There was a good podcast a while ago on how not only the Nvidia drivers were buggy, but that the response times from Nvidia for fixing issues were quite long compared to AMD and the Intel GPU team (which apparently is a single guy?)

I can only reference my experience. I used the Nvidia for over a year (El Capitan through High Sierra) on my hackintosh and I didn't experience anything I don't see using my iMac Pro. They were pretty reliable and stable for the uses I had. New drivers seemed to appear within a week or two after an OS update so I didn't think they lagged very far behind.

I didn't push the drivers hard and I wasn't using Cuda so there could be bugs for features I didn't need.

 

[Rad]

If I had the money I'd buy two of these 5K screens and a 6K one!
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The audio issue on the T2 is fixed and was only for USB Audio cards

It is not fixed on a 2018 15 inch i9 MBP.

 

[goMac]

It is not fixed on a 2018 15 inch i9 MBP.

T2 doesn’t operate the same on the Mac Pro, so it’s possible it doesn’t handle audio and wouldn’t have the same issue. One big difference already is it doesn’t handle compressed video on the Mac Pro. That’s back on the GPU.

 

[flygbuss]

once you get into doing big conforms protools turns to expletive on a 5,1 macpro. I agree its probably more power then needed but the older machines are missing out on so much new tech at this point.

I know. I usually turn off undo or reduce the amount of it and take the video track offline. That helps a lot with the performance during conforming but you most likely know that.
I just meant that so much horsepower is not as desperately needed as in vfx or animation. But it’s great anyways because even if it’s not absolutely necessary right now, it’s a nice and needed perspective future wise.

 

[dollystereo]

The iMac Pro and high end iMac are taking the place of the old Mac Pros price bracket. Apple is not going to release a modular machine at the same price point as it would eat into iMac sales. Apple wants the majority of people locked into thier all in one unrepairable machines so they can make maximum profit. Apple only cares about profit, and thier customer base laps it up. Amazing marketing really.

I think you are right sir

 

[ekwipt]

T2 doesn’t operate the same on the Mac Pro, so it’s possible it doesn’t handle audio and wouldn’t have the same issue. One big difference already is it doesn’t handle compressed video on the Mac Pro. That’s back on the GPU.

is this a software thing (EFI) or the actual T2 chip is different, and how do you know?

 

[Rad]

is this a software thing (EFI) or the actual T2 chip is different, and how do you know?

Of course they don’t know. Beware of misinformation on these boards.

 

[BlueTide]

I was expecting this to be expensive, but the base model is in such a new LOL territory that it's hilarious. Sure enough, one can justify the components, but performance for the price for the base for media use... LOL.