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ZombiePhysicist

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May 22, 2014
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So what's your point? Because your answering your question yourself, for Marques his workflow the Mac Studio is faster than the max-specced Mac Pro. So he switched, because time = money.

You seem to be suggesting that Marques shouldn't have switched, because for other people their workflow it may not be faster...

That he's a full of it frisbee player YouTube hustler thats telling a slanted story that benefits himself and skews the truth into oblivion. Nothing new for him, so yea, old news to many.
 
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killawat

macrumors 68000
Sep 11, 2014
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Of all the Tech YouTubers Marques is not the most offensive by any means. Anyone who gets to chat with Tim Cook is OK in my book.
 
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dz5b609

macrumors 6502a
Mar 22, 2019
738
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That he's a full of it frisbee player YouTube hustler thats telling a slanted story that benefits himself and skews the truth into oblivion. Nothing new for him, so yea, old news to many.
How? Where is he exactly telling this slanted story, he just switched from a Mac Pro to a Mac studio because it's faster for his workflow...

I don't want to read too much into your comment but there's some jealousy vibes coming of it, because I have no idea what his hobbies have to do with this. But yeah I mean I guess if you're some sort of failed Youtuber there's probably some resentment at the ones who did make it.

Also another question, reading your other comments you obviously hate Apple and everything with it but at the same time you have 1400 comments on a mac forum, don't you think that's a bit sad?
 

ZombiePhysicist

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May 22, 2014
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How? Where is he exactly telling this slanted story, he just switched from a Mac Pro to a Mac studio because it's faster for him...

I don't want to read too much into your comment but there's some jealousy vibes coming of it, because I have no idea what his hobbies have to do with this. But yeah I mean I guess if you're some sort of failed Youtuber there's probably some resentment at the ones who did make it.
Mis representing that the Mac studio is generally faster than the Mac Pro when it is for only a few tasks, and in particular that the gpu is faster when that’s been proven a false narrative. He falls in the YouTube space of “ apple lackey” and gets interviews with apple brass because of it.

That’s my opinion. Clearly yours differs. Enjoy.
 

Chevysales

macrumors 6502
Sep 30, 2019
355
334
Rene Ritchie is great, I love his videos too.

To be clear, I do enjoy MKBHD's videos and he has a very refined quality to them. I was mostly using his example of switching as a sort of defense to the Mac Pro.

He has been a fan of Apple products, including the Mac Pro for a long time - so I understand his angle. His audience will be a bit more general in nature, so it is not always detailed tech reviews, but more subjective opinion pieces.

I think his studio has multiple Mac Pros, and I'm sure with R3D Raw, which is what his studio uses, the majority of the heavy lifting is still done on the Mac Pros - who knows if he himself personally edits more than the main video or so from multiple videos.

My point is that at the end of the day, the Mac Pro with a W6800x duo is still significantly faster than the Mac Studio Ultra for R3D raw, over 60% in my experience in FCP and Resolve with export times, stabilize, etc. That makes a big difference.

The hardware accelerators are incredible for ProRes and H265 type codecs, that's where it really shines - and many YouTubers who use cameras like the Sony A7S iii (Much more common than Red cameras) will benefit much more.
nah...

You used your example as punching bag nothing more. Wether consciously or not who knows as it is same result either way. More about the presenter not the actual item.

As for those that joined in with their built in bias towards him clearly don't know him and seem jealous as heck to me.

And for the record I don't watch him that much but have watched a few of his you tubes showing Apple losing in many head to heads on iPhone cameras and such. That doesn't come off as an "Apple Lackey" to me or anyone who doesn't have a preconceived bias.
 
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Chevysales

macrumors 6502
Sep 30, 2019
355
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Mis representing that the Mac studio is generally faster than the Mac Pro when it is for only a few tasks, and in particular that the gpu is faster when that’s been proven a false narrative. He falls in the YouTube space of “ apple lackey” and gets interviews with apple brass because of it.

That’s my opinion. Clearly yours differs. Enjoy.
Show me where he said anything about faster overall and not just for his tasks? Because he didn't.

Jealous much?

It shows as why else would anyone bring up unrelated personal things?
 
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brucewayne

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Nov 8, 2005
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I just listened to MKBHD’s podcast where he said (at 20 minute mark) that he traded in his 2019 Mac Pro - 28 core, 768GB RAM, afterburner, 2xVega II Duo, that he orignally paid $42,000 for, wait for it… for a $4700 Apple gift card at Apple!!!

I’m speechless…

He starts talking about the whole process at 14 minute mark:


So apple can resell it for 30k https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...55f1c2349c8842836f5678fabc4090df5122a583cb997
 

ZombiePhysicist

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May 22, 2014
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Show me where he said anything about faster overall and not just for his tasks? Because he didn't.

Jealous much?

It shows as why else would anyone bring up unrelated personal things?

So the implication for switching… Mhmm.

That you would draw that conclusion and cannot conceive “why else” shows more about your own bias.
 

EugW

macrumors G5
Jun 18, 2017
14,907
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Most of you likely already know this, but it seems appropriate to mention just in case some of you don't:

All these purchases are tax write-offs of course. Some of my friends buy new iPhones every year and new Macs or iPads every couple of years, just because it's relatively inexpensive to do so, as the hardware can legally be completely written off as business expenses in pre-tax dollars. I personally can't be bothered to upgrade that often even though I can write everything off too, but from a budget perspective I can definitely understand where those that do are coming from.

It makes even more sense if they actually make money from reviewing the hardware. Personally I'd view any YouTuber with suspicion if they didn't actually purchase and use such equipment over an extended period. It's one thing to receive a review unit to test for a week, and a completely different thing to buy one and use it for 3 months as your primary driver.
 
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osin

macrumors 6502
Jun 8, 2008
309
10
New Jersey
Most of you likely already know this, but it seems appropriate to mention just in case some of you don't:

All these purchases are tax write-offs of course. Some of my friends buy new iPhones every year and new Macs or iPads every couple of years, just because it's relatively inexpensive to do so, as the hardware can legally be completely written off as business expenses in pre-tax dollars. I personally can't be bothered to upgrade that often even though I can write everything off too, but from a budget perspective I can definitely understand where those that do are coming from.

It makes even more sense if they actually make money from reviewing the hardware. Personally I'd view any YouTuber with suspicion if they didn't actually purchase and use such equipment over an extended period. It's one thing to receive a review unit to test for a week, and a completely different thing to buy one and use it for 3 months as your primary driver.
I understand that most their purchases are tax write-offs but why would anyone sell it for so cheap at the end? He could easily make more money by selling just the GPUs separately.
 
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EugW

macrumors G5
Jun 18, 2017
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I understand that most their purchases are tax write-offs but why would anyone sell it for so cheap at the end? He could easily make more money by selling just the GPUs separately.
What, like on Kijiji you mean? Have you checked out Kijiji lately? I almost never sell any of my Macs or iPhones or iPads on Kijiji these days. Not worth the hassle and aggravation IMO. I don't sell on eBay either. For my Macs and iPads, I often end up just keeping them a long time and sometimes eventually even just give some away to family and friends. I do admit sometimes I've bought from Kijiji or eBay, but for very select older items, so I'm glad there are good sellers on there.

For my iPhones I sell to Orchard (in Canada). I might get less money than selling on Kijiji, but selling to Orchard is completely painless. No need to deal with morons on Kijiji.

IIRC, MBKHD is a millionaire, and one of the most recognized YouTubers in the world. Do you think he really wants to spend his time (or his employees' time) dealing with Kijiji buyers?
 
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osin

macrumors 6502
Jun 8, 2008
309
10
New Jersey
What, like on Kijiji you mean? Have you checked out Kijiji lately? I almost never sell any of my Macs or iPhones or iPads on Kijiji these days. Not worth the hassle and aggravation IMO. I don't sell on eBay either. For my Macs and iPads, I often end up just keeping them a long time and sometimes eventually even just give some away to family and friends. I do admit sometimes I've bought from Kijiji or eBay, but for very select older items, so I'm glad there are good sellers on there.

For my iPhones I sell to Orchard (in Canada). I might get less money than selling on Kijiji, but selling to Orchard is completely painless. No need to deal with morons on Kijiji.

IIRC, MBKHD is a millionaire, and one of the most recognized YouTubers in the world. Do you think he really wants to spend his time (or his employees' time) dealing with Kijiji buyers?
On the same podcast I posted a link to in my previous post, he said that he often resells phones, being sent to him for testing, on eBay. So apparently, he’s got time to recover few bucks once in a while ;)
 

EugW

macrumors G5
Jun 18, 2017
14,907
12,880
On the same podcast I posted a link to in my previous post, he said that he often resells phones, being sent to him for testing, on eBay. So apparently, he’s got time to recover few bucks once in a while ;)
Interesting, and I suspect then its his employees. Actually come to think of it, I believe Linus (or Linus' employee) does the same thing. eBay does make sense though, whereas Kijiji would be a bad idea. If I were an employee of one of these guys and was told that part of my job description was to sell on Kijiji, I'd likely just find a job elsewhere. At least eBay offers some protection, and it's at arm's length. No direct in-person interaction like with Kijiji.

Does he resell his iPhones on eBay? My guess is he just sells back to Apple or others like that since they are available. A lot of those buyers of second hand equipment don't buy many Android brands. For example, up until recently, my buyer of choice, Orchard, never bought iPads and never bought Android phones at all. Only recently have they been taking those, but even for the Android phones, it's only for specific brands and models, mostly Google Pixel and Samsung ones.
 
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osin

macrumors 6502
Jun 8, 2008
309
10
New Jersey
Interesting, and I suspect then its his employees. Actually come to think of it, I believe Linus (or Linus' employee) does the same thing. eBay does make sense though, whereas Kijiji would be a bad idea. If I were an employee of one of these guys and was told that part of my job description was to sell on Kijiji, I'd likely just find a job elsewhere. At least eBay offers some protection, and it's at arm's length. No direct in-person interaction like with Kijiji.

Does he resell his iPhones on eBay? My guess is he just sells back to Apple or others like that since they are available. A lot of those buyers of second hand equipment don't buy many Android brands. For example, up until recently, my buyer of choice, Orchard, never bought iPads and never bought Android phones at all. Only recently have they been taking those, but even for the Android phones, it's only for specific brands and models, mostly Google Pixel and Samsung ones.
I don’t follow his work that much, honestly I’ve watched maybe 5-10 of his videos over the years, and was turned to his podcast by seeing this forum post last night.

On the same episode, he said that he sells (most of his) phones on eBay. It makes no sense for me that he takes time to “make few hundreds” by selling phones while he lost thousands in one transaction on trading in his Mac Pro at Apple.



I don’t care how he spends his money but the problem is that people will expect to get deep discounts on 2019 Mac Pros from now on. There is now way I would sell mine at 90% discount.
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,493
4,053
I understand that most their purchases are tax write-offs but why would anyone sell it for so cheap at the end? He could easily make more money by selling just the GPUs separately.

If he is on a 3 year depreciation schedule then there probably is some residual worth that hasn't been written off yet. He probably didn't buy it on day 1 of release. ( even if Apple gave him an option to buy of a review unit.. exercising that option would have taken some time. If he had to order one from scratch then also would have had to wait a decent while for the order to cycle through. MP 2019 there were shipping delays for certain configurations. )


So a $4,700 gift card trade in is a 88% write down. Let's say it would worth 4,600 on his 'books' . If he got $100 more then it is only a $100 of income (not 4,700). If was worth $5,000 on his books then there is zero income, but not much of a tangible loss.

He could roll that $4,700 into the new Studio and start taking it on a depreciation schedule. (if it was a 2 year depreciation schedule then it is all income and now need something to write off income against. That would be odd since USA if I recall correctly (not tax expert advice ) it is about 5 years for standard computer equipment. 3 years would be aggressive for computers for a "more competitive than standard" context. )


If he has been writing off the purchase then making "more money" on the asset sale would be income and he'd owe taxes on whatever over the book value left was. ( he would have realized a capital gain. ) Don't really want to make money on asset have been using to lower your tax payments. Once it is done to zero then treat it as though doesn't have value. if the book value was still $10K then yes, maybe doing some gyrations would be an issue.


P.S. I wouldn't read a whole bunch into this. When the Mac Pro 2013 came along he didn't try to cling to the Mac Pro 4,1-5,1 he had as long as possible. When the iMac Pro 2017 came along ... didn't try to cling to the MP 2013. When the Mac Pro 2017 came two years later.... again traded and moved on.

He business is making money. It is pretty apparent for his business these systems don't need 3-4 years to get outright paid for ( tax filing hocus pocus incantations aside )
 
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Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
6,261
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In his review, he did explicitly mention that the Mac Studio isn't a fast for him as his Mac Pro, but as the biggest tech YouTuber in the world, he needs to put in some real usage with the latest devices to accurately assess them. It's clearly fast enough for his specific workflow even if it is slightly slower than before.

Even after he's done reviewing, he frequently posts updated thoughts on his Twitter based on long-term usage and if the deviations in long-term usage are quite significant from his original reviews, he bring it up in future videos. He did that with the Pixel 6 series. Gave them a great review early on but reined in the praise a month or two later due to how unbearably buggy the device had become.
Yes, and he also mentioned that he was planning to see what the upcoming Mac Pro brought to the table and he might switch to that if it gave enough performance boost. Seems like a reasonable and flexible approach. Fortunate for him that his business can support that.
 

nastysailboat

Cancelled
May 7, 2021
306
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Unfortunately the 2019 Mac Pro always has a huge target on its head because of its high price and perceived cost to performance, being challenged by literally every Apple Silicon newcomer as it’s demise.

Even the YouTuber MKBHD today said that he’s switching to the mac studio, which is interesting for a number of reasons.

first, he and I both use R3D Raw.

My Mac Pro has the w6800x duo, and it’s 60% faster than my Mac Studio Ultra, which is maxed out Spec wise save for a 2tb ssd.

it’s not even remotely close, on test after test. I feel like there’s so much misinformation out there that it’s really frustrating as people think the new Apple products can do absolutely everything, which they cannot.

The biggest part of this misinformation comes down to the mac studio having hardware accelerators with ProRes and H265. it will handedly will beat any conventional computer such as the Mac Pro.

but not everyone uses specifically those types of workflows, and many professionals do in fact use r3d raw and other GPU heavy workflows that are still very far away from being matched.

sure the next Mac Pro will either be or match the current one, but we’re definitely not there yet by a significant margin, in fact 60% faster still for my workflow.

I have no horse in this race, I own both and both are fantastic for their own specific use cases. I just happen to have a special affinity with the Macpro that goes back nearly 20 years to the power macs, so I feel the duty to speak up! ?
Are you an FCP user? The M1 is awesome especially with software optimized for it. I don’t know r3d does it run natively on M1. The difference I’ve notice in FCP from my old intel is worth the switch alone.

I listened to mkbhd’s podcast on why they dumped it. I more got the impression that he wanted to get some money out of the intel Mac Pro before the Apple silicone Mac Pro comes out and that he would use the Mac Studio until then.
 
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nastysailboat

Cancelled
May 7, 2021
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I understand that most their purchases are tax write-offs but why would anyone sell it for so cheap at the end? He could easily make more money by selling just the GPUs separately.
He explains it in the podcast. It just wasn’t worth his time or money to go through the hassle. Makes sense to me.
 
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EugW

macrumors G5
Jun 18, 2017
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I listened to mkbhd’s podcast on why they dumped it. I more got the impression that he wanted to get some money out of the intel Mac Pro before the Apple silicone Mac Pro comes out and that he would use the Mac Studio until then.
That’s a good point too. The buyback offer amounts usually drop significantly shortly after new releases.

This is important for iPhones but for Macs it’s hard to know when to sell back to Apple etc. because there is no set schedule for Mac releases. However, in this case we KNOW a new Mac Pro is coming relatively soon, since Apple has already confirmed it’s coming, and has given us that 2 year transition period. That means it’s pretty likely it will at least be announced at WWDC and released by fall.
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,493
4,053
Yes, and he also mentioned that he was planning to see what the upcoming Mac Pro brought to the table and he might switch to that if it gave enough performance boost. Seems like a reasonable and flexible approach. Fortunate for him that his business can support that.

He also said in the review video that he was seeing better SoC utilization (and performance) out of software that had been optimized for the M1. (e.g., made a comment about the beta Adobe Premiere being better). Pretty good chance he also expects to get more performance out of an Ultra Studio once macOS 13 and the set of 1st and 3rd party developers of his apps have another 6-12 months to optimize for the "dual Max" Ultra.


Other issue is that this may not be a "only one person" set up and there are other systems to upgrade. If there is another Mac Pro in his studio maybe that one gets allocated the corner case work that slowed the Ultra down. ( it was only when cranked up the levels of overlay processing and objects overhead that the Ultra started to sag. In straightforward editing, audio overlay, video ingest/export , and color corrections tasks, the Ultra wasn't "loosing". ) Perhaps don't have to spend $30-40K per editing 'bay' if have multiple ones.

There is decent chance that the entry Mac Pro could have a slightly different version of the Ultra. At that lower half price point it won't be much faster than the Studio. ( it could have 3-4 PCI-e slots and that would be a substantive differentiator for many ). So the "twice as fast" dual-Ultra that is about twice as fast that he alluded to were probably cost a lot more.

If going to iterative on a system every 2-3 years a $40K reoccurring cost may not be worth it for that limited set of edge cases that the Ultra Studio doesn't cover for his workflow.

There are 3-4 different cameras now that will do PreRes RAW to a Atmos Ninja V+. RAW workflow could be getting more diverse.



[ That Apple sends him two Studios to review (one Max and one Ultra) . If want them reviewed in a fixed amount of time then a decent chance more than just one person in the testing loop if the "test in daily workflow" is robust. ]


P.S. not just the Mac Pro hints. He basically labeled the Studio Display a bust. If Apple did a Studio Display "Pro" ( mini-LED and ProMotion) I suspect that would tilt his judgement from the Mac Pro Pro Vega II Duo he let go of.
 
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Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
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Yeah, that's why I take issue with the claim he's just a shill. A true shill wouldn't have called the Apple Studio Display a bad deal.
The review on his podcast was mixed about the Studio Monitor. Basically, good but not great monitor, high price, really no other equivalents. They did talk for a long time about whether it was a "good deal" but that is not necessarily relevant once you decide on what features are important.

The price is not outrageous but there are other monitors out there that are cheaper and have some better features and some weaker features. If 5K is important, there are only 2 options and neither is cheap. If the feature set is what you want and it won't break your budget, then it's a reasonable buy.
 

EugW

macrumors G5
Jun 18, 2017
14,907
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The review on his podcast was mixed about the Studio Monitor. Basically, good but not great monitor, high price, really no other equivalents. They did talk for a long time about whether it was a "good deal" but that is not necessarily relevant once you decide on what features are important.

The price is not outrageous but there are other monitors out there that are cheaper and have some better features and some weaker features. If 5K is important, there are only 2 options and neither is cheap. If the feature set is what you want and it won't break your budget, then it's a reasonable buy.
I agree. He did spend a long time saying the above, which makes sense, but I'll quote the conclusion of the review:

MKBHD said:
Maybe it doesn't really matter if it's a "good deal" or not, if it's exactly what you want. Like if there are other cheaper options, it doesn't really matter cuz there is only one that does the exact thing that you want it to. And so, that's what this is for some people. They're probably just gonna wanna get this one.

[closeup] But yeah, no, it's not a good deal. [/closeup]

BTW, the actual title of the review is "The Apple Studio Display is a Bad Deal". :D
 
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rondocap

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 18, 2011
542
341
I REALLY wish I hadn't listened to his Podcast explaining what he did to the Mac Pro. I recommend you listen and judge for yourself, but its a head scratcher.

So according to him, it was around $42,000 something when he bought.

He didn't want to go through the "hassle" of ebay and expensive ebay fees.

It's given him his money's worth...

So he traded it in to Apple's trade in program for $4700.

C'mon. He said it had TWO Vega ii Duo, which alone will easily fetch over $4700 even after eBay fees - not to mention he had 768GB of ram and 28 Cores, etc. Almost base Mac Pros still sell for only slightly less than that trade in price.

His excuse was that they had a new ebay account and had a selling limit and would get $5000 for it anyway.

Just a simple tweet to his follower base and I am sure he'd have a chance of easily finding someone local to buy it for considerably more, and still cheaper than its worth, but now it's lost in Apple Trade in land and never going to the hands of an enthusiast or 2nd hand buyer.


I am not usually one to critique, and I do mostly like his videos - but this just shows a big disconnect where you're basically throwing away minimum $5k-$10k+ that's not that hard to actually get with a small amount of "trying".

He can do whatever he wants of course - but it does have impact on the rest of people who see it too - i.e "mac pro is worthless" if he is willing to lose that much value on it because he's too lazy to actually correctly sell it. He should have kept that blunder private and not told people about it. It incorrectly affects perception of the value in a negative and unrealistic way for everyone else.

Who knows what "behind the scenes" perks he may have with Apple when he originally got it and may be ongoing, but I certainly don't know any normal highly successful people that brush off massive losses when not necessary with a small amount of energy.

=
 
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EugW

macrumors G5
Jun 18, 2017
14,907
12,880
He can do whatever he wants of course - but it does have impact on the rest of people who see it too - i.e "mac pro is worthless" if he is willing to lose that much value on it because he's too lazy to actually correctly sell it. He should have kept that blunder private and not told people about it. It incorrectly affects perception of the value in a negative and unrealistic way for everyone else.
You're really, really reaching there, and ultimately your argument makes no sense.

It's not as if he sold it to an individual for $4700. He got the standard buy back amount for it. Lots of people do this already. Apple will still charge end users the same refurb prices it would normal charge.

BTW, I am not optimistic for pricing on the used Intel Mac Pros once the Apple Silicon Mac Pro drops. I suspect the last Intel Mac Pro will drop in value quicker than is usual for the Mac Pro.

Yes, there is that core group of Mac Pro users who will need to stick with Intel for their workflows, but there will be a much bigger group of users who will flock to the Mac Studio instead, and of course, another smaller group that will flock to the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
 
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