the 5K iMacs don't particularly compete with most of the Mac Pro line up in performance.
Generally true for the higher end nMPs, but where one does mainly 2d/video, the price and performance of a 5K iMac with the 4GHz i7 CPU option, 32G of ram and 1 T of PCIe storage more than competes with the current base nMP w/3.7GHz Xeon CPU, 32G of ram, 1T of PCIe storage + external 4k option's pricing and performance.
Where the prices are close to overlapping, sure there is more overlap but does it really make a huge difference to Apple if folks buy $2789 iMacs versus $2999 Mac Pro? They make money on both.
While I believe that it's true that Apple makes money on both, I don't know what makes a huge difference to Apple or how much that difference is.
The workloads aren't going to entirely match up.
Whether the workloads match up completely or not at all or somewhere in between depends on the users' needs. If the user wants a single Ultra HD display system for video work, then the match is close.
5K iMacs for heavy 3D work hobbled by just one "mobile" GPU aren't really in the same league.
Almost all of the 3d applications of which I'm aware that take advantage of GPUs rely on CUDA for final rendering. Thus, I'm unsure whether a significant number of post-2012 MP machine users constitute anything approximating a league.
Similarly, a MP with a two 4K monitor set up has alot more desktop area available.
True and that could be a significant (albeit a lot more costly) advantage.
In the iMac's favor folks who are primarily just 2D pixel peepers... the iMac makes sense.
True and this is where I believe that the new 5K iMac offers a significant advantage.
Faster Mac Pro hardware isn't going to particularly make much of a differential there.
Faster
alone may not make much of a difference. Pricing is also important, at least to me.
Apple can't go completely to sleep on the Mac Pro for 12 months... but that would be true if there whether this $2,499 spot that he "iMac Pro"/5K iMac is sitting in was filled or not.
I agree that Apple shouldn't sleep on improving the MP line for such a long period, but the disturbing thing is that Apple can go completely to sleep for long periods of time - Apple has done it the recent past.
The competitors over the whole of the space that the Mac Pro covers is going to be on the move to E5 v3 over the next 2-4 months. Those system will beat the down Apple revenues and profits far more than any BTO 5K iMac swapping with lower end Mac Pros.
True generally, and, additionally, because the competitors will also offer dual and quad CPU options with onboard PCIe slots for GPUs of choice. The correctness of the observation that "Those system will beat the down Apple revenues and profits far more than any BTO 5K iMac swapping with lower end Mac Pros" depend, at least in part, on user affinity to OSX (and, conversely, the willingness to use other OSes) and while I have no hesitation to use other OSes, I may not be the standard for the typical MP user.
A significant fraction of the folks buying $2,499-2,899 iMacs are those with budget limitations and/or lower performance requirements that largely negated them from being Mac Pro targeted customers in the first place. Apple may be squeeze a few into going past their limits, but that is healthy for Apple long term.
Those assessments may or may not be the case - I'm not aware of any hard data to support or discredit them, although I tend to lean towards those views myself also.
By Feb-March 2015 the Mac Pro should have moved to better CPU+GPU foundation just to be competitive generally. There is zero upside to not doing that.
I generally agree with these two statements. My only hesitancy is that I believe that what "competitive generally" means is that the MP would accommodate, at least, two CPUs and when I think about a better GPU foundation for 3d work I think of low cost/easy CUDA support. The cost of getting CUDA with any nMP has been significantly increased beyond what it was with the cMP and what I consider reasonable. With the cMP the difference is (and was) that we can/could purchase dual CPU systems (now only used ones) and just buy CUDA GPU(s), if that is what your applications would benefit from most, and install with the correct drivers. Now one must purchase an external enclosure also if one has a nMP. But since neither the 5K iMac offers multi-CPU & CUDA support, nor will the 2014-2015 nMP likely offer multi CPU & low cost/easy CUDA support, this competitiveness across all needs will likely be only within the Mac world and not more broadly, which is what I would call "competitive generally."
