Reactions to Mac Pro 7,1 2019 [consolidate here?!]

[Ph.D.]

Another point: The statement is that memory is "up to 2933 MHz," I believe meaning that likely only the base configuration will be this fast, with the others being slower.

 

[fhturner]

Just for further clarity: It appears that each of the two MPX bays have 300W aux power (net 4 8-pin connectors with 150W each for the whole system).

Ah, yes, lol, now we've finally zeroed in. Third time re-reading is the charm (for me anyway):

Each MPX bay provides:

x16 gen 3 bandwidth for graphics
x8 gen 3 bandwidth for Thunderbolt
DisplayPort video routing
Up to 500W power for an MPX Module
Alternatively, each MPX bay can support:
One full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slot and one full-length, double-wide x8 gen 3 slot (MPX bay 1)
Or two full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slots (MPX bay 2)
Up to 300W auxiliary power via two 8-pin connectors​

So, four 8-pin connectors total, with 600W total, or 150W per connector. Seems pretty decent and serious...no Pixlas Mod required?!

 

[ssgbryan]

Apple gave the pros what they asked for. It looks like an absolute beast of a computer.

Most of the people who are complaining about the cost probably have never purchased a Mac Pro when they were new.

Well, I have, and this is a great price, if it was 2016.

For an 8 core model, I can get a 16 core model along with 128Gb memory.

 

[Sko]

Most of the people who are complaining about the cost probably have never purchased a Mac Pro when they were new.

I bought the very first one half a year after availability as base with some extras like X1900X and WiFi/Bluetooth and it came in at 3200€, that‘s about 4K and a little today. 50% more is not my ballpark.

 

[Supermacguy]

I seriously was waiting for the punchline from Tim "no no that's not it...." but that never came. I think it's ugly like an F1 car is ugly - truly function over form to some degree. But I love the specs. The price is obvi way way out of control, but ppl that can put all that hardware to use know they need it.

 

[alphacen]

Where was Jony Ive on this thing?? You can't tell me that he was in love with the design of the new mac pro and monitor. If I was Ive, I'd be embarrassed by the feet on the mac pro and the stand for the new display.

 

[Sko]

I think it's ugly like an F1 car is ugly - truly function over form to some degree.

I was selling (and repairing) Macs for over a dekade, and what I learned was „never judge until you see it in person“. But this one doesn‘t look very promissing, I agree.

 

[Thysanoptera]

I seriously was waiting for the punchline from Tim "no no that's not it...." but that never came.

Not only you, I thought it was a joke, and judging from reaction almost everybody on site did so.

My take on it - it is for pros with capital P, with only two fields in mind - video and audio, it is not for prosumers, hobbyists etc. It looks designed with rack mount in mind, connected to SAN and used as rendering station. Cheap for large studios compared to dedicated equipment, priced out of the reach of everybody else. Questionable upgradability with T2 present, I wouldn't buy it until somebody verifies that you can change CPU and RAM yourself without being locked by T2. And that third party GPUs work with regular PCIe power cables. SSD upgrade is probably out of question.

 

[Pressure]

SSD upgrade is probably out of question.

You have 8 PCIe slots.

Insert your own adapter.

 

[StuAff]

(Insert 'shut up and take lots of my money' meme here).
Woah. Yes, it's a lot of dosh. But it wasn't ever going to be cheap, was it? The days of Apple doing ridiculous value for money are...about 13 years ago. My 1,1 was £1861, with the Radeon X1900. Only about £700-800 cheaper than the equivalent Dell Precision....
And yes, a 580 & 256GB are stingy for the base spec.....
But after all that
I WANT ONE!

 

[pastrychef]

Not only you, I thought it was a joke, and judging from reaction almost everybody on site did so.

My take on it - it is for pros with capital P, with only two fields in mind - video and audio, it is not for prosumers, hobbyists etc. It looks designed with rack mount in mind, connected to SAN and used as rendering station. Cheap for large studios compared to dedicated equipment, priced out of the reach of everybody else. Questionable upgradability with T2 present, I wouldn't buy it until somebody verifies that you can change CPU and RAM yourself without being locked by T2. And that third party GPUs work with regular PCIe power cables. SSD upgrade is probably out of question.

How would the T2 inhibit upgradability?

 

[Ph.D.]

So, four 8-pin connectors total, with 600W total, or 150W per connector. Seems pretty decent and serious...no Pixlas Mod required?!

From a visual inspection of one photo, it looks like there's one more 8-pin connector near the other non-MPX modules as well, though it's not mentioned anywhere in the specs.

 

[William Payne]

I LOVE the fact that after years of calling the original Mac Pro the cheese grater they are trolling us by giving us an actual cheese grater.

Seriously though I think it’s cool.

 

[vladid]

I LOVE the fact that after years of calling the original Mac Pro the cheese grater they are trolling us by giving us an actual cheese grater.

Seriously though I think it’s cool.

I am with you. The cheese grater gen of Mac Pro still appears to be touted as the pinnacle of Apple's pro grade efforts of the past years, so they gave us what we've loved all along. It's expandable, it's powerful, looks the part, will power countless creatives in their ventures for many years to come. In ten year's time, there will be those that scooped up 5 or 6 year old Mac Pros once used ones start hitting the streets.

 

[Oculus Mentis]

It’s a lovely towel heater, and by radiating up to 1,400 watts it will surely do the job...

 

[pastrychef]

It’s a lovely towel heater, and by radiating up to 1,400 watts it will surely do the job...

Just because it has a 1400W power supply, it doesn't mean that it will be pulling 1400W. It just means that it can. You'd have to load it up with lots of PCI-e cards for it to pull that much.

 

[Thysanoptera]

You have 8 PCIe slots.

Insert your own adapter.

Or you could use TB3 external enclosure, but that would be expanding the storage, not upgrading the existing one, but you're right, providing you can boot from it it would be functionally the same.

How would the T2 inhibit upgradability?

Given how Apple fights the right to repair legislation across all states it is not beyond the realms of possibility that they could use T2 when non-Apple hardware is detected to prevent booting. Technically it would still be "upgradable".

 

[orph]

the apple page
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019...w-mac-pro-and-groundbreaking-pro-display-xdr/
apple advert

relay looks like a flash back to the apple cube why is the mac min not more cube like

well looks like it's ok for holywood, vRAM is a big problem so it may work out cheep compared to buying a quadro with 32GB vram and that may sell units

got to say if the base modle relay comes with 64Gb of ram and 32GB vRAM then it's the first time the base modle was not peny pinching for ram upgrades (to be fair from the macpro 1.1 to 5.1 the GPU was hardly tuched by 99% of apps)

so who is this for? just big film/tv production or will there be more of a market?

@pastrychef yep power use wont be a problem, 5,1 has a 1Kw psu without mods it cant pull half of that and simply no one cares for this market, speed and power is king

i dont think the SSD is a problem it's desgined to be used over a network not with inernal drives.

 

[pastrychef]

Given how Apple fights the right to repair legislation across all states it is not beyond the realms of possibility that they could use T2 when non-Apple hardware is detected to prevent booting. Technically it would still be "upgradable".

That's a lot of unsubstantiated, negative speculation.

 

[William Payne]

My only issue with it is that unless I get into big time serious video, this thing is way more than I would ever need.

 

[pastrychef]

fun note apple you made a new PCI plug and i cant see any power plugs on the mobo photo so we will only have official apple GPU's now, no more generic PC cards

 

[orph]

edit,

if you buy this you wont DIY fix it and if apple wants to get back in to that market they will have to give red carpet treatment to all who buy it.

it is top end, will love to see some benchmarks but ill never buy one need a 8K red first

 

[fhturner]

the people who will buy this will not DIY fix it, if one go's down it will be swaped with the spare and sent of for repair.
this is apple going back to the PRO space in a big way and they need to give a gold carpet treatment to any one who buys them.
may take apple 2-3 genrations to get traction ? unless it truly is the best for what it dose.
(im thinking of coprate IT departments may be reluctant to invest in apple with the history of lack of suport for the macpro line may make some people less happy to inviest in it)

edit
yep i saw the 8 pins bit and edited my post, 12am :S tad slow

Ouch, that makes my brain hurt. Remember, spellcheck is your friend! And maybe Grammarly...

 

[MatrixRabbit]

My wife when I told her the price! It's too bad they can't incorporate the display into an iMac Pro model. That would be exactly what I want, and I bet the same for many. I think for anyone but the very elite, they just really re-defined the term "Pro". Maybe that was their goal.

I just searched "Mac Pro" this morning, and they're already saying it'll be $35,000+.

She did agree the monitor was A+ stunningly gorgeous. I get it on the stand, Apple doesn't want them sitting in storage for the people that mount. However, that's our choice, and it's already $4999. Given 99% are hooking it up to the new Mac Pro, why stab the customer one last time? We're already dead

 

[William Payne]

the display has actually caused a question mark for me. I had been planning on buying an eizo for around the same price. This is definitely something I will look at before hitting the buy button.