Feels like Apple think 6k is right at the limit that the plebs will pay to keep the Mac Pro line alive.
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MP 7,1 Most won’t be able to afford a new Mac Pro
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Feels like Apple think 6k is right at the limit that the plebs will pay to keep the Mac Pro line alive.
Although the base Mac Pro 8 core with minimum everything costs $6K, that entry price (which is high for the immediate performance you get out of the box) lets you enter the new Mac Pro Universe.
What's that?
All the Xeon CPUs are socketed, not soldered, so in the future you'll be able to upgrade the CPU to a more powerful one (which is impossible with any other Mac).
Graphics cards will be upgradable, which is impossible with any other Mac
And you'll never run out of RAM (but maybe the money to pay for it).
So although the base 2019 MacPro may be expensive (and non-competitive for the money spent) it will give you a machine that you can grow with and upgrade in the future to a much more powerful computer— which is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying an iMac Pro every 5 years.
Can apple even repair the iMac Pro?
IMO, the iMac Pro is a time bomb.
What's that?
All the Xeon CPUs are socketed, not soldered, so in the future you'll be able to upgrade the CPU to a more powerful one (which is impossible with any other Mac).
Graphics cards will be upgradable, which is impossible with any other Mac
And you'll never run out of RAM (but maybe the money to pay for it).
So although the base 2019 MacPro may be expensive (and non-competitive for the money spent) it will give you a machine that you can grow with and upgrade in the future to a much more powerful computer— which is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying an iMac Pro every 5 years.
Can apple even repair the iMac Pro?
IMO, the iMac Pro is a time bomb.
Like I said in a previous thread.
What’s so special about the base 7,1 that makes it more so much more expensive than base 6,1 5,1 4,1 machines.
Looks like another Tim Cook cash grab.
And YET you'll still be stuck with that PCIe 3.x bus (3.0 is 2010; 3.1 is 2014) that is over 5 years old the day these are released. Meanwhile, PCIe 4.0 is arriving this summer for Asus motherboards using AMD chips and given that PCIe 5.0 has been finalized already, it's only a matter of time before Intel releases 5.0 motherboards as well (I'd guess 2-3 years tops, possibly sooner). So when you go to upgrade that $6000 (BASE) computer with a lousy 1TB hard drive in it (and won't take any media spinner drives internally no matter how useful having a 10TB drive in the case might be), you'll have to ask yourself if you're getting a GOOD DEAL to pay even more $$$ to upgrade a bandwidth limited computer. Meanwhile, you'll be able to buy an Asus based PCIe 4.0 motherboard as soon as this summer with an 11-core Ryzen 7nm chip on-board and PCIe 4.0 SSDs that can do 5GB/sec (that's gigaBYTE, not bit) and their new 7nm Radeons are set to be released as well for PCIe 4.0. No, it's not XEON, but it KICKS BUTT and you can put those motherboards (Asus plans to offer over 30 different ones to pick from) in ANY CASE you damn well please with any number of SSD and rotating drive combinations you want to use. You are not limited by Apple's "vision" of what you should have, but can pick what you actually want.
I know I'm thinking of building a new computer with AMD Ryzen and PCI 4.0. I figure the whole computer might cost $4000, but will blow the doors off the base Mac Pro at $6000 (I don't need XEON) and with double the PCI bandwidth, it'll be usable for a long time to come.
And while I've appreciated OS X (I still hate "macOS") all these years over the crappy Windows alternatives, Windows 10 isn't anywhere near as bad in most respects to use and even copied a lot of the Mac's functionality where it matters. Thanks to Steam, most of my games will port without any bother. I can upgrade my current Mini to SSD and continue to use it with Logic Pro, etc. for many years even so. There's no harm in having two desktop computers. Even my old Macbook Pro from 2008 feels much newer with an SSD in it (boots now in 20 seconds, for example).
I also don't trust Apple with "Notarization" in the future. I'm afraid it will eventually one day turn into another control method that could lead to less open software.
But this all sounds perfect then. You can buy all the stuff you want and without paying the Apple tax.
Surely nobody buys a bleeding edge supercomputer just to copy files around in the os and change some settings.
If you need that kind of power, you are in your task-specific software 99% of the time, and usually the only practical difference to your working day on Apple vs PC is that the Control and Command keys are in a slightly different spot...
It's not so much "that kind of power" rather what disappoints some of us is that we don't want a XEON tower. We want a BASE CONSUMER TOWER that we can upgrade for under $2000 like the old Power Macs and Mac Pro G5 used to offer. The Mac Mini is just not the same thing. And the Mac Pro is a workstation class machine. There ought to be room somewhere in one of the richest corporations on earth's portfolio for an upgradeable MID-PRICED consumer machine where we could at least change out the internal SSD (on a card) and graphics card in it without throwing out the rest of the machine (less eco-friendly to keep tossing machines for newer ones all the time just to get a faster GPU, for example). Apple could have put a single GPU express slot in a Mini case that's slightly larger than the one they use, but they choose not to. I suppose they at least offer an external graphics card option now, but it's pretty darn pricey to go there compared to a normal mini-tower with actual PCI-Express slots in it.
What would I use such a computer for?
There's the obvious choice of running some modern games instead of iOS class games due to a crappy GPU (even with Boot Camp you want a decent GPU option). I personally run Handbrake and MKVToolnix a LOT. I've purchased over 300 movies in the past year and half and I like to keep them on a server for the whole house to use (disc-less). I've had up to 10 movies ripped with MakeMKV from BD being recompressed and/or remuxed at a time. This can take literally 8-12 hours on my old Mac Mini with an i7 Quad Core. A brand new 2019 8-core or 11-core could cut that time down to an hour or two. I'd hardly call an hour or two "bleeding edge" though. I'd call 2 minutes bleeding edge, but clearly you and I have VASTLY different ideas what tasks computers are used to do. Copy some files? Play withs settings? That sounds like a Linux hobbyist or a Mac person that does Facebook and not much else. Yeah, you could use a computer from 2006 and still do those things efficiently. But yes, I do have to copy the finished movies over to the media drives when they're done (currently using 13TB of storage networked for regular movies and TV shows and another 11TB local for flat dump (no recompression) 3D movies on hard disc for my Zidoo X9S).
I think it's a bit dramatic to suggest people are 'tossing out' their computers. The oldest Mac I currently have is Mac Pro 1,1 still powering along completely stock as I bought it. I also have a 2013 Macbook Air, still functions perfectly well. It's a specious argument to bring in the environmental thing here. Old Macs are less likely to go to landfill than most I would wager.
Apple don't want to cater for people who want to change out hard drives and GPUs in mid-priced computers, that much has been clear for a long time. As I mentioned above, this market segment will never be happy because they'll want this CPU architecture or that, one PCIe revision or another without end. The demands and complaints will never end. It doesn't fit with Apple's simplified lineup, and 'friendly genius bar interactions' - Apple sell the whole experience from beginning to end.
What you describe doesn't fit with their business model.
I run a post-production company making broadcast TV with real deadlines. Not to sound rude, but what you're doing doesn't sound like it requires the urgency for it to be done as quickly as possible. Sure it would be nice if you could, but if it was really that important you would buy whatever tool delvers the job.
There's no room for sentimentality here. If it made a meaningful difference to my workflow I would drop Apple just like that. But quite frankly their offerings are pretty good for the broadcast space.
I think what Apple has laid out these days is that only the very highest-end hardware will be truly modular and upgradable. Everything else is, for the most part, a sealed unit you replace instead of performing upgrades on.
It's a little more justifiable with portable devices, but quite indefensible when it comes to desktops. There's no reason on earth (besides profits) they couldn't have also put out a machine at the Mac Mini tier (~$800-1200) that gave the user easy access to RAM, SSD and even a graphics card.
For all Apple's talk about being "green" they sure do love their glue and their pentalobe screws.
It's a little more justifiable with portable devices, but quite indefensible when it comes to desktops. There's no reason on earth (besides profits) they couldn't have also put out a machine at the Mac Mini tier (~$800-1200) that gave the user easy access to RAM, SSD and even a graphics card.
For all Apple's talk about being "green" they sure do love their glue and their pentalobe screws.
Serious question here. With the amount of R&D put into this, is there actually enough massive post houses that will purchase these machines? How many will they actually sell?
I think there's WAY more individual enthusiast and pro videographer/After Effects/Cinema4D/photographers who would spend $4500 for a new Mac Pro vs. the post house group.
With some saving, I could definitely do $4500 (assuming it would last 8+ years), but $6500+ (after adding ram, a decent video card, and some NVME drives is insane.
Thoughts?
I think there's WAY more individual enthusiast and pro videographer/After Effects/Cinema4D/photographers who would spend $4500 for a new Mac Pro vs. the post house group.
With some saving, I could definitely do $4500 (assuming it would last 8+ years), but $6500+ (after adding ram, a decent video card, and some NVME drives is insane.
Thoughts?
Apple's top Mac Pro computer costs more than the average car! $45,000 for a computer!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-ma...veiling-at-apple-developer-conference-monday/
Can anyone explain how can this make any sense? Anyone is planning to buy this maximum power imac pro?
I run a very small post house. An edit/graphics suite generates around $250,000 per year turnover.
I expect my computers to run non-stop for a minimum of three years, hopefully more.
In this context a $20k investment in a new Mac Pro and display isn't a hugely significant factor in the $750,000+ that seat generates.
I agree it's not priced for the hobbyist, but you don't need to be a massive post house to justify the cost.
Please I really doubt major movie studios look to apple.
Example.
https://www.slashfilm.com/cool-stuff-a-look-at-pixar-and-lucasfilms-renderfarms/
Example.
https://www.slashfilm.com/cool-stuff-a-look-at-pixar-and-lucasfilms-renderfarms/
I seriously doubt if Apple makes it very hard for anyone to upgrade through DIY, and then Apple charges crazy price to upgrade components through their service.
We should be glad that it’s a tower, not a darth Vader helmet. We should be glad that it’s upgradable, Sid, memories...hopefully cpu. Even gpu is upgradable. We have pcie. This is an almost a decade investment.
A maxed out Mac Pro is one excellent tax write-off for any company that wants/needs one and also needs expenses. You do an equipment lease and the full 100% monthly payment is tax deductible.
This piece of equipment is not meant to be purchased with after-tax dollars from W2 income.
This piece of equipment is not meant to be purchased with after-tax dollars from W2 income.
I was a bit surprised by the price but considering the spec I think it’s not too bad but would have preferred to see a cheaper lower spec model available as well. I bought a second hand trash can Mac Pro, 6 cores, 64gb ram 1tb ssd to replace my 2012 Mac mini which serves my needs very well. At some point the new macs will be available second hand or refurbished and I’ll get one then. Looked at hackintoshes but I’m just not dedicated enough to tinker, just want it to work so gave up on the idea. I use two calibrated Eizo monitors so iMacs are a pain to use, a PC would work but too wedded to macs ecosystem so I’ll just have to be patient.
I am wondering if this MP would be easy to hackintosh.
Looking at parts, you cannot get the original Apple motherboard but you can get the identical CPU, RAM and AMD cards. The closest MB was from Supermicro for Intel LGA 3647.
https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C620/X11SPA-TF.cfm,
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813183686, supports up to 3TB ECC RAM.
Pricing things out:
Motherboard $500 for Supermicro Motherboard
CPU: $750 for 8 core (max memory speed 2666MHz), https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...on-w-3225-processor-16-5m-cache-3-70-ghz.html or $1400 for 12 core and $2000 for 16 core
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-cascade-lake-3000-series-xeon-w-cpus,39575.html
Power supply about 1600W either Enermax Gold for $250 or EVGA P2 for $373 (80+ Platinum)
Case for E-ATX: starting at $250
Memory: minimum 32GB (4x8 GB) ECC DDR4-2933 (although 8 core only needs 2666MHz) $264
Graphics: from RX580 $180 , RX590 $210 to Vega VII for $670
250GB SSD $70
So at the lowest, comparable to the Apple $5999 starter configuration:
MB: $500, CPU $750, CPU-Cooling $200, Case $250, Memory $300, SSD 250GB $70, Graphics $210 (RX 590 versus RX5 80 Pro), Power supply: $250, Keyboard/Mouse $150 you end up with about $2680.
A more realistic higher-specced system would cost:
MB: $500, CPU $1400 for 12 core, Memory 384 GB (12 x 32GB DDR4-2933 ECC) $2280, 2 TB m.2 boot drive like HP EX950 for $300 (https://www.newegg.com/hp-ex950-2tb/p/N82E16820326181), Vega VII $670, EVGA P2 +rest for $6120 or if you want 16 cores: $6720.
The comparable Apple upgrades would be probably in the $12-15K range.
What you give up are all the Thunderbolt 3 ports and the MPX module options. OTOH you don't need an overpriced Promise MPX module to have couple hard drives in it.
If you absolutely need Thunderbolt 3 then the only MB I could find with it is this overpriced ASUS ROG Dominus Extreme model for $1800 but at that point you may as well just get the Apple MP.
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-Dominus-Extreme/
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813119192
Looking at parts, you cannot get the original Apple motherboard but you can get the identical CPU, RAM and AMD cards. The closest MB was from Supermicro for Intel LGA 3647.
https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C620/X11SPA-TF.cfm,
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813183686, supports up to 3TB ECC RAM.
Pricing things out:
Motherboard $500 for Supermicro Motherboard
CPU: $750 for 8 core (max memory speed 2666MHz), https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...on-w-3225-processor-16-5m-cache-3-70-ghz.html or $1400 for 12 core and $2000 for 16 core
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-cascade-lake-3000-series-xeon-w-cpus,39575.html
Power supply about 1600W either Enermax Gold for $250 or EVGA P2 for $373 (80+ Platinum)
Case for E-ATX: starting at $250
Memory: minimum 32GB (4x8 GB) ECC DDR4-2933 (although 8 core only needs 2666MHz) $264
Graphics: from RX580 $180 , RX590 $210 to Vega VII for $670
250GB SSD $70
So at the lowest, comparable to the Apple $5999 starter configuration:
MB: $500, CPU $750, CPU-Cooling $200, Case $250, Memory $300, SSD 250GB $70, Graphics $210 (RX 590 versus RX5 80 Pro), Power supply: $250, Keyboard/Mouse $150 you end up with about $2680.
A more realistic higher-specced system would cost:
MB: $500, CPU $1400 for 12 core, Memory 384 GB (12 x 32GB DDR4-2933 ECC) $2280, 2 TB m.2 boot drive like HP EX950 for $300 (https://www.newegg.com/hp-ex950-2tb/p/N82E16820326181), Vega VII $670, EVGA P2 +rest for $6120 or if you want 16 cores: $6720.
The comparable Apple upgrades would be probably in the $12-15K range.
What you give up are all the Thunderbolt 3 ports and the MPX module options. OTOH you don't need an overpriced Promise MPX module to have couple hard drives in it.
If you absolutely need Thunderbolt 3 then the only MB I could find with it is this overpriced ASUS ROG Dominus Extreme model for $1800 but at that point you may as well just get the Apple MP.
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-Dominus-Extreme/
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813119192
Here is a camera lens that costs more than the base model Mac Pro
https://www.photowarehouse.co.nz/sh...lenses/phase-one-schneider-40-80mm-f4-5-6-ls/
https://www.photowarehouse.co.nz/sh...lenses/phase-one-schneider-40-80mm-f4-5-6-ls/
Or you could just get yourself an AMD system and get between 3 or 4 times the performance.
Should I post a picture of a used car that costs more too? Irrelevant to normal consumers.
I get it. We aren't the market for this thing. We SHOULD be (as a lower tier model with consumer CPU/GPU), though. Consumer <> Loves iMac form factor. Some of us have wanted a small tower now for over a decade! Apple still treats their customers like they need to be TOLD what to do. Unfortunately, for a large number of Mac "fans" I think they're probably right the way they tow the company line and would probably never complain even if Apple wanted their first child in deference to Tim's godhood status....
Why do these kind of posts never get replied to?