MP 7,1 Mac Pro 7,1 - hit or Miss?

[JazzyGB1]

So it's been out over a year now, is it fair to say that the current Mac Pro has bombed or do you think it's been a success?

It's certainly seems scarce here in the UK.

The cMP was ubiquitous and the found just about everywhere, especially in studios and web/graphic design companies, but in my (all be it VERY limited) experience that's not the case at all with the current model and Ive yet to see one 'in the wild'.

Has the high entry price point doomed it to be a niche product?

Or is it just that the music studios and web/graphic design companies are no longer the target market for the 'Pro' Mac?

I know it's impossible to ever know how many units Apple have sold, but from what I have (not) seen it appears to be considerably less in comparison to the the cMP and appears a long way from gaining the traction the last tower Mac did.

Do you think they need a sub £3k Mac, maybe the rumoured Mac Mini Pro?

Ive seen posts about problems with W5700X GPU, is there a reliability issue?

For those who took the plunge and purchased one has it lived up to expectations, or has it left you underwhelmed?

Be interesting to see what you guys think.

 

[blackadde]

It really depends on how you want to define success, right?

Only Apple knows what they invested into the product, what they projected their sales to be, and what they actually were. I'm sure they also have some sense of it's value as a halo / prestige device too, making pure ROI calculations a little fuzzy.

I can only come at it from a "does this make sense for X use case?" POV. I wrote a whole mountain of text out, but nobody really wants to read that stuff. IMO:

• It's great for FCP and Logic and other heavy Mac-only workflows. It's your only choice, anyways.
• It's probably very performant for video work (Resolve, Premiere, etc.). I don't know much about this market so I won't pollute those waters in this thread.
• I think it's a terrible buy for most OS-agnostic 2D work (Adobe, Harmony, Affinity) because it's overpowered for the use case and the market is price-sensitive. Almost everything in this category can be handled by a docked MBP or iMac if you're determined to stay in the Apple ecosystem. These people do not need a bundle of spare PCIe lanes or huge RAM headroom and they won't pay for it.
• I think it's an even worse buy for 3D work (CPU / GPU grunt per workstation or software license) because it's underpowered relative to the competition even when price isn't a factor, and worse when price *is* a factor. It's not Apple's design choices. They just bet on the wrong horses.

Disclaimer: I seriously considered a MP for a new workstation earlier this year to work in Houdini and Octane in addition to the usual Adobe stuff I do. I ended up with a 32C TR machine with an RTX 3090. It would have been almost four times (4x!!) the price to order a comparable max-ish-spec MP (28C, Vega II Duo) that still would have been significantly slower for my use case. I can handle a little Apple Tax here and there but that disparity was impossible to justify.

 

[strangerthanlight]

Just finished expanding this baby. A hit? Hell yeah - 16 Core, 768GB Ram, 24TB SSD storage (8TB Apple SSD, 4x2TB Nvme SSD in Raid 0 via Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card, 2x4TB SATA SSD via Pegasus J2i Cage), and waiting for Nvidia RTX A6000 card to use in Windows for compute. I added extra USB C ports via Sonnet Allegro PCIe Card and an Universal Audio Octo Core PCIe DSP Card as well. Did I say it's damn near silent too?

 

[rpmurray]

I'm just hoping that when Apple brings out a newer updated Mac Pro (sometime in 2026?) that they will have an option that only costs an arm instead of an arm and a leg.

 

[Average Pro]

Please reword the question. If someone answers "yes", "no" or "not sure"? That implies they are saying "yes", "no" or "not sure" the MacPro is a hit...or..."yes", "no" or "not sure" the MacPro is a miss.

 

[blackadde]

I guess RTX 3090 is a GPU not made by AMD ;-) but else no idea what you are talking about.
please elaborate.

Octane is a GPU renderer for a number of 3D packages, eg. 3DS MAX, blender, Cinema4D, Rhino, Maya, Houdini, etc.
It scales almost linearly with raw compute performance, CUDA / Metal optimization differences notwithstanding.

These are the list prices, GPUs, and benchmark scores (all prices in CAD, without tax) for what works in OSX. OctaneBench is a fairly reliable indicator of real world render times.

https://render.otoy.com/octanebench...le_by=linear&filter=&singleGPU=1&showRTXOff=0
$2,399.00* - 1x RTX 3090 - 655

https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=75411
$7,000.00 - Radeon Pro Vega II Duo - 446 - 2.9x the price for 68% of the performance
$3,500.00 - Radeon Pro Vega II - 223 - 1.5x the price for 36% of the performance
$1,250.00 - 5700 XT - 184 - 0.5x the price for 28% of the performance

It doesn't make sense to go with AMD / Mac Pro GPUs for Octane. It's not possible to compare the existing 6XXX series of AMD cards because Octane won't work with them at all off the Mac platform and Apple hasn't released drivers.

In CPU rendering the MP also struggles: the 28C Xeon scores 9,940 in Cinebench and the 3970X TR scores 16,988.**
The 28C Xeon is an $8,750.00 upgrade from Apple or ~$3,750 on eBay. The 3970X TR is ~$2,600.00 retail with a warranty.

As a necessary caveat: computers are more than just their benchmark numbers, and there are things you can do with an MP you simply cannot on some generic PC. But if your workflow is OS agnostic and this is what you want to do with the box under your desk, you can't ignore them either.

* I lucked out and scored retail MSRP when I bought mine. The GPU market is really f'd up right now.
** This site has different numbers, since there are variables like RAM speed, etc., but the relative performance is very similar.

 

[The_Interloper]

I'm sure it's a hit for those who've bought it. But I do wonder how many pros had already jumped ship before it was announced. A huge amount must have also been waiting (and waiting...and waiting) for it only to be shocked at the starting price.

 

[DrEGPU]

I'm not privy to the internal workings of how Apple makes business or tech design decisions, but I think they REALLY missed the boat on AMD CPU's and PCIe 4.0. That whole PCIe lane usgae utility would've been wholly unnecessary and the MAc Pro could have had all their slots be 16x, or close to it. As it stands now, they used Intel and were forced to use PLX switching chips or whatever. The TB3 ports could have had their own dedicated PCIe lanes, but they don't. So if you've loaded up you Mac Pro with GPU's, afterburner card, capture card, nvme storage cards, then you potentially get bottlenecked transferring data from external drives. I like my Mac Pro as it is generally well-designed and functional, but it lacks performance and power. Apple definitely has a very, VERY narrow definition of what a "pro" user is. Just opinions, obviosly.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I love my 7,1. I bought one for work and personal use, replacing my iMac Pro which got me over the hump until the Mac Pro came out.

I haven't had any reliability problems, and I'm using a third party GPU and third party RAM. The performance is great and the price, while steep, is definitely worth the product.

It's a total hit for me too. But I got it super early, one of the first delivered so I've gotten a lot of use out of it and nothin really competes with it yet. That will change once the new apple chip machines come out, but the use has been great.

Also, it has improved a LOT with each upgrade of the OS. For example, being on the bleeding edge having gotten it in December of 2019, I threw in a Radeon Pro WX 9100 card in there to drive 6 30" cinema displays, and a High Point SSD7120 to drive a U.2 format NVMe Micron 15TB SSD.

Initially, if the machine went to sleep, the system would kernel panic hard randomly. Wasn't clear if it was the video card or the PCI/SSD card. So I had to set the machine to never sleep. Big Sur solved that problem (and for all I know it was fixed earlier) and it sleeps great.

My guess is the Mac Pro level replacement won't happen until 2022, and at that point I will be nearing nearly 3 years of time with this machine, which means it will have gotten a good run.

Yes, the machine is too expensive, and the PCI 3 parts are too old, but it was the best you could get from Apple. Hopefully the replacement will have a better price/benefit ratio, but in the mean time, if you got it early enough, it's a bit easier to justify the price across 3 years of use (if not more).

Oh and no way it compares to the cMP, particularly the 4,1 and 5,1 models. Those are the gold standard models of price/performance ratio--among the best machines Apple ever produced IMO.

 

[mattspace]

Similarly the leaked Mac Pro so far has significantly less slots and probably soldered on package RAM.

"We made a non-upgradable appliance to replace our hugely upgradable slotbox, and boy did we hear from you as to how much you hated it. So, here's a new machine, that's the most slotty slotbox we've ever made."

"It's too expensive at the low end for the performance you get"

"We heard how you thought our slotbox was too expensive, so here's a non-upgradable appliance computer. Also, it's more expensive than before. Want to complain some more?"

 

[SecuritySteve]

I love my 7,1. I bought one for work and personal use, replacing my iMac Pro which got me over the hump until the Mac Pro came out.

I haven't had any reliability problems, and I'm using a third party GPU and third party RAM. The performance is great and the price, while steep, is definitely worth the product.

 

[ssgbryan]

I'm sure it's a hit for those who've bought it. But I do wonder how many pros had already jumped ship before it was announced. A huge amount must have also been waiting (and waiting...and waiting) for it only to be shocked at the starting price.

That was me. I jumped ship & I haven't looked back. If Timmy had told us in 2017 what they were actually cooking up, I could have jumped 3 years earlier.

OTOH, I am now a typical Apple user - I have an iphone, an ipad, and I do all of my real work on an inexpensive windows box that massively outperforms Apple's desktop line.

 

[blackadde]

Totally disconnected from any judgement on the MP, I can't help but viscerally feel the cynical sting of the YouTube tech-hype-cycle watching those videos.

New Thing sounds incredible - I can't believe they're finally making NEW THING!
Look at this unboxing beauty shot! New Thing is amazing and will totally change your life!
...
It turns out New Thing was actually Worst Thing, watch 11 minute video to find out why.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Enthusiasts aren't really a product category you can build around if you're Apple.

Funny, they were enough of a category to save the company from bankruptcy. Think different.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I think the price is the biggest issue for the 7,1. A 12 Core Lenovo ThinkStation P620 starts at $2099 and has more up to date hardware. Of course the 7,1 has a more premium case design, some special features like the MPX slots, and the USA labor to manufacture it is more expensive. I think the base model would be a better buy at $3-4k. The price isn't much of an issue for those who need it, but it is for those who want it.

 

[darthaddie]

I bought the Mac Pro 2019 in February 2020. The 12Core/96GB/Vega II/1Tb model. (RAM was upgraded after purchase). I totally love the machine. However, I had the opportunity to use Davinci Studio (My go to video editing system) on a Intel 10850K PC (5Ghz all cores) with a Nvidia 3080 GPU last week. I was blown away by the difference in performance. The PC could do realtime OpenFX Noise Reduction, Beauty Filter and a LUT all put together without the need for a render. Something impossible on even 2 Vega II's. I pushed my PC real hard and it beat the Mac Pro in almost every possible DaVinci Scenario. Footage is 4k 60 ProRes. Exporting H.265 and H.264 is also 1.5x to 2x faster. I have since moved my Video production to the PC and use the Mac only for photo editing now. Which is a bummer in some sense. I am seriously thinking of selling the Mac Pro, as even if I want to keep a Mac for Photo Edits, the M1 Mac mini does it pretty well.

I think the Mac Pro compared to hardware releases in 2020 has fallen a lot behind in terms of performance. It was rough working on Windows again, but having the ability to edit on the fly with various effects applied really gave me more creative freedom.

I dreaded pop ups on Windows all these years. Sadly the mac has as many popups and security notifications that it didn't feel that different using both systems this time.

 

[blackquartz]

Hit for me.
Went for 12 Cores, 32 GB Ram, Radeon W5700x, 1TB

I am an industrial designer and do heavy 3D modeling work and illustration.

Upgraded RAM to 128GB, Some mirrored internal 16GB Spinning drives for backup, 2TB M2 For windows along with NVDIA card, looking to upgrade the processor to 28C sometime in the near future as it keeps getting cheaper and also Im waiting for the BIG NAVI support.

The price was steep but the machine delivered and payed itself within its first months.

 

[blackquartz]

I love it. Do you just run the machine without a cover?

Actually its possible but not really recommended!! heres how:

Running the Mac Pro without the top housing breaks the whole thermal design, But when installing new hardware components I do it just to test stuff, its really practical just so you don't have to disconnect everything again and again

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I initially defended the 7,1 when it was announced, mostly based on unrealized potential that Apple was touting for Metal support. As time as passed, its become clear to me that:

1) It's simply another stopgap machine, just like the iMac Pro, to keep people distracted while Apple finalized its transition to Apple Silicon.
2) It has extremely limited use-cases for true "Pros." Let's be honest...it's a FCP/Logic machine. Seems that Apple leaned heavily into high-profile YouTube creators as their target market. Or Apple enthusiasts with deep pockets who don't use the machines for any Pro work at all.
3) Price to performance value is absolute garbage.

Also, why did they bother making this thing upgradable at all. They might as well have just made another iMac Pro, because the Apple Silicon version of this is going to make it totally obsolete. It arguably already is.

I agree in part and disagree in part. It was outdated on introduction. You already had 64core PCIe 4 machines out at the time selling for substantially less than a 28 core PCIe Mac Pro (at best).

That said, look how long the 4,1 and 5,1 machines have stayed relevant and vibrant. This is the only true Mac that is expandable and is at least more modern than the ancient 4,1/5,1 machines. Bang for buck it is a complete loser to the 4,1 and 5,1, but still, it's the only true Mac game in town.

The second big feature, other than being a real Mac, is it's intel. That means regular PC Cards work with it. That means this thing is more expandable than the ancient 4,1 and 5,1 in that even normal PC video cards will work with it. Also, if you need any Windows/PC/Intel virtualization, it's the only expandable Mac game in town that can do that. At some point maybe VMware will make some intel virtualization for the new apple chips, might not be for a while, and I highly doubt it will run as fast as on native intel chips for quite a while. You need a lot of single core grunt for the 'experience' of virtualization to feel like it's running well, and in the past you needed around 4x the throughput to feel like 1x the speed (back when you emulated intel on PPC).

And lastly, it's not clear if Apple Chip based Macs with slots will be able to use PC Cards. One hopes they do the right thing and it will be able to, but a lot of the PCIe boards on PCs may need the other chipsets found with intel chips, and so, you may be looking at a world where you need Mac based PCI cards. An intel based Mac with PC slot support may then become one of the the last machines that offer that broad compatibility, and a bit of a Rosetta Stone Mac at that; a lot of specialized cards from the audio/video industry that those companies will not bother making a Mac only version for will only be usable on the intel Mac Pro.

That said, if youre looking for pure grunt processing per $ spent, the 7,1 came out a dud, and unless there is a crazy price drop, will remain a dud. I guess the best case cost wise is to get a base level, maybe luck out and get near a 10% discount at some outlet or EDU, add ram yourself, and add out a maxed out 28core chip for less than $3k, and you can get that system at around $8k... Still grossly expensive and a loser to a 64core PCI4 AMD system. But thats the price you pay to still be on macOS. Only game in town.

BTW, I was disgusted to read that apple may plan to STILL price gouge Mac users with the apple processor chip models still going for ~$20k. Their pricing suggests they just really hate pro and enthusiast users. Disgusting price levels if true. They will drive the last pro and enthusiast users away for sure with this tone deaf price gouging:

"Mac Pro, 2022. Configurations:
1) 32 cores (24 performance). 64GB Ram 32 GPU cores $5499+
2) 48 cores (36 performance). 256GB Ram 64 GPU cores $11999+
3) 64 cores (48 performance). 512GB Ram 128 GPU cores $18999+"

A 64-core Mac Pro priced at $19,000+ rumored to arrive next year

The speculation comes from @LeaksApplePro, who claims at least three Mac Pro configurations will arrive next year featuring Arm-based SoCs that mix performance and efficiency cores, just...

www.techspot.com

Definition of price gouging and tone deaf if above is true. AMD pricing makes it clear IMO.

 

[penguinlust]

If Apple would just communicate with its high-end users more frequently a lot of the negative press could be avoided. As is, if there is no update by the end of WWDC then we can probably safely assume we've been abandoned.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

This rebuttal reminds me of those nagging spouses who point out that one time you did that one thing twenty years ago and still bring it up constantly.

It was great for Apple and those enthusiasts back then. But time marches on, and Apple would never have grown to be as successful as it is if catering to its old customers was its overriding concern. Yeah, it sucks if you're left out of the continuing vision of the company, but that's the world of consumer products. If something doesn't work for you, you buy something else. Demanding a company cater to you specifically is fine and well, just don't expect them to actually do it.

Apple doesn't owe me jack for being a Mac user 30 years, any more than I owe a computer company loyalty.


Paul Chato's videos are some of the cringiest content I come across on Youtube. An angry old guy upset the world has changed while adopting the clickbait look of people young enough to be his grandkids at this point.

MaxTech has incredibly dumb arguments too (I wonder what parallel dimension he wandered in from where Apple promised the 6,1 would have GPU upgrades) but he doesn't look as much of a tool while he does it.

Yea the ONE and only time the company almost went bankrupt! the one time the company was formed with a confounding enthusiast. The one time after formation it was sold only to enthusiasts for years. The one time for decades it was sold to enthusiasts as the majority of their market share. The one time for decades financial analysts and others noticed its rabid loyal customers at its core were enthusiasts. That one time for decades that enthusiasts in Hollywood would shove macs into media constantly giving it free exposure. the one time enthusiasts helped it transition from computers into iPods and broader markets by being enthusiastic evangelists And supporting a product panned by the broader market...yea that one time...🙄

a lot more than one company would kill for any one of those one times...

This rebuttal reminds me why people and the internet sucks, all the more so in combination.

 

[randy85]

This seems wrong on so many levels: the very people who were excitedly discussing the new Mac Pro throughout 2019 and shared their experiences with them in 2020 are now lamenting its demise in 2021.

There does seem to be a bit of a gulf between the 'I just need something that works' crowd and the tech enthusiasts who can't endorse anything but the latest (or yet to be released) products.

My Mac Pro quietly sits there and does whatever I ask. The 5700 XT works fine and the system never crashes. Every week I quickly turn around work I get paid for and I spend very little time watching rendering bars etc.

Maybe we all need to post more about how everything is going fine, just to balance out all the horror stories or tales of disappointment.

 

[arche3]

There does seem to be a bit of a gulf between the 'I just need something that works' crowd and the tech enthusiasts who can't endorse anything but the latest (or yet to be released) products.

My Mac Pro quietly sits there and does whatever I ask. The 5700 XT works fine and the system never crashes. Every week I quickly turn around work I get paid for and I spend very little time watching rendering bars etc.

Maybe we all need to post more about how everything is going fine, just to balance out all the horror stories or tales of disappointment.

Those YouTube people don't actually get paid for their work. They get paid for YouTube views. So they have to sensationaliz everything. They have no need of a 7.1 with Vegas. They wouldn't even know how to use a compositor to actually need the Vega. They just run tests and spam video.

 

[jinnyman]

I have eight SSDs mounted internally - 2TB each- in addition, two hard drives totaling 26TB more. There are still empty slots for more storage if needed.

Is this what you were asking about?

Tom

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was looking for 5,1 kind of machine. not stupidly expensive for what it is at the performance level I'd use. I get that a base or near low end 7,1 is the baseline meant for higher end configuration, but definitely not for consumer enthusiasts like me. I'm ok with paying apple tax, but I can't pay x2~x3 of what I can get from Windows world.

It's good for people working for video industry who requires the performance, but not me. And I know I'm not alone. 7,1 effectively abandoned many prosumer developers, folks in photo industry, typical enthusiasts that 5,1 like replacement would have suit just fine.

 

[blackquartz]

Ive been really enjoying my 7,1, Cant say any other computer has given me this level of satisfaction or confidence for my job. I don't have any complaints so far and I honestly believe It's the perfect machine for me, its inspiring, expandable and capable, Im also Looking to upgrade to 28 cores and the new MPX GPUs that got leaked some days ago.

I don't really see the point of people still complaining about this, there are many options available if you decide a Mac Pro isn't for you, even more so than launch day.