Who is the Mac Pro going to be for?

[vel0city]

also, don't real £D things require Quadros?

3D absolutely does not require Quadros. I work in the entertainment industry on movie trailers, promo videos, 3D illustration for movie posters and videogames, and we all use gaming cards like the 1080ti for rendering and CUDA acceleration. I don't know anyone in the entire industry using Quadros, and I've been doing this for 20+ years. It's all about Octane and Redshift running on Nvidia GPUs.

 

[k2focus]

3D absolutely does not require Quadros. I work in the entertainment industry on movie trailers, promo videos, 3D illustration for movie posters and videogames, and we all use gaming cards like the 1080ti for rendering and CUDA acceleration. I don't know anyone in the entire industry using Quadros, and I've been doing this for 20+ years. It's all about Octane and Redshift running on Nvidia GPUs.

then you aren't doing intense 3d stuff which does require quadro. that's fine, which is why i asked. also, you're using 1080ti's - have fun with your new mac pro and those.

 

[barmann]

also - fine art photography? come on man. i'm a full time photographer and I don't see a need (maybe a want) for a Mac right now when PC's are just objectively better at the moment for that type of work. also, don't real £D things require Quadros?

Look mate, you are a wedding photographer .
As you have described earlier, you need to run through a big pile of image files quickly .
Beyond the processing, I guess you do some basic adjustments , maybe a little retouching on select images .

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's not proper photography, and it doesn't require a specific workstation configuration .
A few fast cores, enough RAM and fast drives are all it takes .

What mattspace describes is a completely different level of editing and variety of demands .
And he did seem to say that Apple isn't catering to his needs right now , didn't he ?

so once again, you haven't really provided an answer as to who they are for. you just got angry that i don't see a need for them (and apparently no one does either). but hey, by all means by a $5k mac with one AMD GPU and one or two small drives for your fine art photography and VR stuff. then another grand or two to make it work just well enough. you will definitely be in the minority and will be someone making emotional rather than financial decisions for your business.

So now this is a PC vs Mac discussion ?

If you have followed the discussions here and elsewhere, and read some tech articles, you might already know that Macs in general are considered shyte right now, and most people buy Macs only because - they are invested in OSX by way of software/workflow, Macs are pretty, or because using Windows sucks even worse than owning Macs .

So yes, current Macs are crap - happy ?

The topic got plenty of valid responses, and if you want to learn more, go to the 'Waiting for ...' thread .

 

[Blair Paulsen]

Use cases. Just within the content creation community, needs can vary substantially. If I were Apple, I'd want to offer a modestly priced base mMP that provides the foundation for a wide variety of specialty configs.

Who is the mMP 7,1 for? Everyone who wants a BTO system spot on for their needs - AND - the ability to upgrade things like GPUs down the road. Even if the "base" config is $3,500 - 5,000, I'd still expect the average selling price (ASP) to be $10K+.

Why would you offer a base model under $5K if the wheelhouse of your target market is going to spend 2 to 6 times that? Because you want to spread NRE/dev/component expenses over more units and make your installed base large enough that it's more economical to support per capita.

I also question the notion that Apple is worried about a sub $5K mMP cannibalizing iMP sales, as long as they get your $5K how have they lost? I also think there are a lot of people still running cMPs (I have 4 cheese graters myself) for whom a base model would be a huge step into modern computing - particularly I/O. Why make the price of entry so high they feel compelled to bite the bullet and go Windows.

 

[k2focus]

Look mate, you are a wedding photographer .
As you have described earlier, you need to run through a big pile of image files quickly .
Beyond the processing, I guess you do some basic adjustments , maybe a little retouching on select images .

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's not proper photography, and it doesn't require a specific workstation configuration .
A few fast cores, enough RAM and fast drives are all it takes .

What mattspace describes is a completely different level of editing and variety of demands .
And he did seem to say that Apple isn't catering to his needs right now , didn't he ?



So now this is a PC vs Mac discussion ?

If you have followed the discussions here and elsewhere, and read some tech articles, you might already know that Macs in general are considered shyte right now, and most people buy Macs only because - they are invested in OSX by way of software/workflow, Macs are pretty, or because using Windows sucks even worse than owning Macs .

So yes, current Macs are crap - happy ?

The topic got plenty of valid responses, and if you want to learn more, go to the 'Waiting for ...' thread .

Taking photos professionally for a living isn't photography? What is proper photography? What if I told you I was a fine art wedding photographer? On top of that I have a portrait studio where I take photos many would consider fine art. The thing is I don't have to tell people that my work is fine art.

 

[CRAYONSEED]

Look mate, you are a wedding photographer .
As you have described earlier, you need to run through a big pile of image files quickly .
Beyond the processing, I guess you do some basic adjustments , maybe a little retouching on select images .

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's not proper photography, and it doesn't require a specific workstation configuration .
A few fast cores, enough RAM and fast drives are all it takes .

What mattspace describes is a completely different level of editing and variety of demands .
And he did seem to say that Apple isn't catering to his needs right now , didn't he ?

I have no horse in this race, but I'm also a photographer (who doesn't shoot weddings btw), and just signed in to say wedding photography is absolutely "proper" photography. On average it doesn't require the computing power a commercial/agency photographer who extensively retouches does, but that has no bearing on the work itself.

You're possibly right about workstation needs, and I agree with the idea that Apple isn't catering to creative power users anymore, but even if you were a respected photographer yourself (which I'd doubt), you have no business declaring what kind of photography is more or less valid than others.

 

[Blair Paulsen]

Shooting weddings well is actually a pretty challenging assignment. Some key shots during specific moments have to be nailed as there is no second take. While some of the posed pictures can be beautifully lit with strobes, etc - many shots will have to be taken in less than ideal lighting and still make the subjects look their best. Making these poorly lit candids look flattering to the human subjects might actually take more effort, finesse and compute power than grading well shot originals in a high end shop. Just sayin'

 

[Nugget]

...so once again, you haven't really provided an answer...

So once again you are ignoring the answers people are providing.

 

[k2focus]

So once again you are ignoring the answers people are providing.

literally dude, give me a specific group that this is aimed for. saying i want one because i like macs isn't an answer. these have to be aimed for a group. nvidia made rtx cards mainly for gamers. they also made quadro cards for 3D and CAD stuff. dell makes alienware stuff for gamers, imacs are made for photographers and "creative content" people. intel made xeons for heavy processing like servers and jobs that require consistent non-stop heavy processing (stats, science, super-computers, stock trading). old mac pros were for music and animations (but anyone with no nvidia support). i can go on and on.

the problem is that, to my knowledge, the people who needed mac pros long ago don't need macs anymore and have long since moved on. what can apple possibly offer that brings professionals (who buy computers to use in their jobs) to spend a lot more on equipment that will have limited upgradeability, most likely a propriety super expensive motherboard, a design that is meant to look cool instead of being functional, and so on. i am not denying that it won't sell. i am not denying that people with loads of cash will buy this thing even though they have no need for it.

you haven't provided a sample of people that apple is making this for. if you don't know that's fine dude. i don't know either. it's ok to not know things. that's why we ask questions.

 

[Nugget]

i'd also like to say that no one has given me an answer.

You can say this, but it doesn't make it accurate. The thread has been full of people responding in good faith to your question. You're either immune to discussion or just trying to stir up drama.

 

[Blair Paulsen]

Not everyone who needs compute power is also technically sophisticated. Moreover, MacOS has long been well suited to certain user populations that find it powerful and intuitive - including many in the creative community.

People who are deep in the tech often don't think about how different the desires of the actual target user might be. A buttoned up hardware/OS combo with a warrantee for the whole shebang is attractive. If the performance is there, more likely due to better optimization than better H/W of course, then I'd expect it to sell well. I do a lot of spot work and many agencies are still Mac or combo houses.

 

[BlueTide]

then you aren't doing intense 3d stuff which does require quadro. that's fine, which is why i asked. also, you're using 1080ti's - have fun with your new mac pro and those.

Are you... trolling or something? Or just don't realize how that industry operates? Quadro's have been a bit of a joke for a good while, and relegated to few apps and a bit of driver support for specific features.

In other news, it amazes me how many people here need a monster computer for photography. Must be some very high-end bunch of folks here. /s

 

[Jack Burton]

IMO, the safe bet is that the new Mac Pro will be for people who are Final Cut Pro and/or Logic users. It will be a machine that allows the use of expandable internal storage, ram, and possibly more powerful and/or additional AMD GPUs nobody wants.

Everyone else will have to switch to windows or be OK with thermal throttled Macs and/or AMD GPUs.

 

[DaveP]

PC's are just objectively better

Yes, if you start with this assumption, then the Mac Pro has no market. In fact, there is no user for any Mac.

 

[AidenShaw]

>>PC's are just objectively better

That's one phrase of a larger post without the surrounding context....​

"Better" wasn't the best choice of words, unless you think that

• More powerful
• More flexible
• More expandable
• Less expensive

makes a computer "better".

 

[JazzyGB1]

my point is that you don't need a mac for what you're doing. you are choosing to have one. that is completely fine. if you want a mac then by all means get a mac.

Nonsense.

Logic only runs on a Mac - so you DO NEED a Mac for what you're doing, if what you're doing is making music using Logic.

I've used Logic since the days of Emagic when it was a cross platform product.

I have no wish to learn a brand new DAW from scratch having used Logic for more than a decade, so for me (and others like me) a Mac isn't a choice - it's mandatory.

As I also use very large sample libraries lots of RAM and expandable internal storage is a must too.

You can either accept the very extensive and reasonable responses that many people have given, or you can carry on being a polemicist.

My Mac Pro is a decade old and I need a more up to date version to hopefully serve me for the next 10 years, as do many others, but then you knew that already.

 

[mattspace]

so you need nice GPUs and you're going with AMD?

If Nvidia isn’t available on the next Mac Pro, and amd can’t pull their finger out and make a good gpu for 3D viewport performance, I’ll probably build a windows Nvidia machine.

also - fine art photography? come on man. i'm a full time photographer and I don't see a need (maybe a want) for a Mac right now when PC's are just objectively better at the moment for that type of work. also, don't real £D things require Quadros?

My photo processing pipeline uses about 20-30GB of ram while working. It’s a little more demanding than processing wedding photos.

Why I’d want a Mac? Because I use Windows for VR currently, and it’s a clunky, inelegant OS with the fit & finish of a hobbyist opensource project. Working in it, simply isn’t pleasant. Just like wearing a smock made of a potato sack with arm and head holes is just as capable at covering one’s naked form, but I’d prefer to wear actual clothes, for the qualitative experience.

Quadros are definitely not “required” for 3D modelling or animation, and are worse for VR because they’re not optimised for viewport performance.

You’ve asked a question, received numerous answers, and you seem to be dismissing said answers because they’re not the ones you want, as well as shifting the goalposts. Its a shame for you that you’re not getting what you want (if indeed what you want is more than to troll the group), but those are the answers you’re getting, from people who are current users of, and most likely part of the target market for the next Mac Pro.

 

[ssgbryan]

then you aren't doing intense 3d stuff which does require quadro. that's fine, which is why i asked. also, you're using 1080ti's - have fun with your new mac pro and those.

You keep moving the goalposts.

Do tell us which render engine “requires” a quadro - none of the ones I use do.

BTW, everything in 3D “stuff” is hardware intensive - even the hobbyist software will use every resource you throw at it.

The simplest way to explain is this:

The Mac Pro is for any workflow that pegs either the CPU or the GPU for long periods of time.

If Apple doesn’t deliver what I need, then my next computer will be an EPYC based system.

My hobby requires lots of cores, lots of ram, and as the AMD Pro Render Engine gets more plugins made for it, more video cards.

Hobbyist level software.

 

[danwells]

I pretty much agree with Jack Burton that Apple's conception of the target market is FCP and Logic users - they are specifically trying to satisfy the highest end of that market (people working with multiple 4K streams, 4K with intensive effects or 8K in FCP, and people making complex compositions in Logic).

In addition to that market, they are interested in the top end of the photography market (~50 MP cameras are easy to come by these days, and they like plenty of RAM and CPU power). They are also interested in the video market even outside of FCP - they are certainly happy to cater to Premiere, After Effects and Resolve users (etc.).

One factor driving power requirements for photo and video folks is the rapidly increasing size of image files. My still camera shoots 8K time-lapse. Right now, that statement narrows down the still camera I own to two models, my Nikon Z7 or its close cousin the D850 - but several more are either coming or already here and will gain 8K time-lapse in firmware upgrades.

There are five 40 MP+ still cameras on the market (not counting a number of more specialized medium format models) - the two Nikons that offer 8K time-lapse as a side feature plus models from Sony, Panasonic and Canon. Any of the five are under $5000 with a high-quality lens or two, plus a couple of batteries and memory cards. Any one of them will chew your computer's storage and processing to bits, and medium to high volume shooting with any of them is a Mac Pro use case.

As of now, 8K full motion video is extremely expensive to capture! The only shipping 8K camera I know of is a RED that costs at least $50,000 once it's got everything it needs to capture a clip - RED likes to sell things like a shutter button, a lens mount and a battery connector as accessories. Be careful what you wish for from Apple! How would you like a Mac that you took out of the box with no GPU, only a proprietary connector with a sticker on it that said "Apple GPU module goes here"? Oh, and not only would it ship without an SSD, you also need to buy the SSD mounting plate separately. No RAM, and the RAM slots are optional - that's how RED sells cameras. There are several more 8K cameras coming out for much less money, including a couple of $5000 models, and I suspect 8K capture will become a standard in the next 5 years - watch out, slightly creaky computers!

Windows is NOT objectively better (neither, necessarily, is Mac) for any of these things. Windows certainly has major advantages in available hardware configurations - you can buy pretty much anything you darn well please or build machines with exactly the components you want. On the other hand, Windows still requires significantly more work to maintain, is more vulnerable to malware, and is not as sophisticated at color management.

There's also a significant "devil you know" advantage in each direction. If you're an independent photographer, videomaker or musician (or in any other creative field), you are probably your own IT department. Whatever you have, you'd probably rather stick with it than switch, since you would need to learn the other OS, including basic maintenance... I've personally been using Macs for 35 years (yes, my first Mac had 128K of RAM), since I was 12, and I've just evolved in my ways of doing things on computers

 

[Eschers]

I personally think there wont be a new Mac Pro in 2019 at all.

Too early for In-house ARM gpu/cpu combo and intel/amd just no options to keep it interesting or to surprise the customer base..

So maybe a new dual-gpu-thunderbolt-3-case will be released to add some additional power to existing macs

 

[Jack Burton]

Let’s just hope the team that is working on this overdesigned Mac Pro isn’t the same bunch that was working on air power.

 

[mattspace]

As of now, 8K full motion video is extremely expensive to capture! The only shipping 8K camera I know of is a RED that costs at least $50,000 once it's got everything it needs to capture a clip

(I'm not picking on your posts, honest )

Outside of standard video formats, 8k immersive spherical video is a thing, and down in the ~$3000 range for the camera - it's the same amount of footage, and likely same or higher processing load on the editing station, but it emphasises (as @danwells said) how ridiculously quickly file sizes and processing requirements are ballooning in ways that the old graphs of needs over time, simply don't predict. We had 20-30 years of Video and Print target qualities staying relatively static, and simply making tools faster at doing the same thing.

Now the thing we want to do is accelerating rapidly (16k spherical is a new "normal" video format), and Apple seems to have been caught flat-footed in the decade-long project of leaving capability relatively static, while using advances to shrink the hardware (which includes tasks that required a desktop computer now being tablet-capable), at the same time as everyone else in all the industries they touch, has been on a "hardware stays the same size or grows (screen panel / file / sensor sizes), and capabilities grow, because that progress is the thing they're selling.

Realistically, everything Apple is selling right now, is from prior to any course correction implied by the very first "we dun goofed" meeting (because Apple has multiyear development timelines for every product), so it really isn't a good guide as to what the philosophy of the next machine will be.

 

[k2focus]

You keep moving the goalposts.

Do tell us which render engine “requires” a quadro - none of the ones I use do.

BTW, everything in 3D “stuff” is hardware intensive - even the hobbyist software will use every resource you throw at it.

The simplest way to explain is this:

The Mac Pro is for any workflow that pegs either the CPU or the GPU for long periods of time.

If Apple doesn’t deliver what I need, then my next computer will be an EPYC based system.

My hobby requires lots of cores, lots of ram, and as the AMD Pro Render Engine gets more plugins made for it, more video cards.

Hobbyist level software.

so you think apple is making this for hobbyists? not sure how many hobbyists will actually spend that kind of money for a hobby. maybe you can, but that can't be who they are aiming their flagship computer towards. i also never said people with enough money to spend on a hobby wouldn't buy it. the question wasn't a poll asking who would. i am trying to figure out who this is aimed towards and what groups will go out and buy this thing in droves.
[doublepost=1556617739][/doublepost]

IMO, the safe bet is that the new Mac Pro will be for people who are Final Cut Pro and/or Logic users. It will be a machine that allows the use of expandable internal storage, ram, and possibly more powerful and/or additional AMD GPUs nobody wants.

Everyone else will have to switch to windows or be OK with thermal throttled Macs and/or AMD GPUs.

thank you! this was the first actual answer.

is final cut used by large studios still, or have they all switched to PC available software? i honestly don't know.

in terms of Logic users, that make sense. I used to use logic back in school, and having resources when you're loading up all those plugins would be super helpful.

i wonder if those two groups will make up the majority of purchasers, and i also wonder if it will be enough.
[doublepost=1556618430][/doublepost]

I personally think there wont be a new Mac Pro in 2019 at all.

Too early for In-house ARM gpu/cpu combo and intel/amd just no options to keep it interesting or to surprise the customer base..

So maybe a new dual-gpu-thunderbolt-3-case will be released to add some additional power to existing macs

will them using their own ARM processors be a) better and b) will it require software to be rewritten?

are they developing their own chips because they think they can make better ones than intel and AMD, or are they just making them to gain tighter control over their products and save money? i know that loads of places use ARM for their own things, but why would you do it for general computers? also, i know they are planning on switching in the future, so i'm not asking if you think they are going to do it - i just don't really understand the benefits.

 

[k2focus]

I pretty much agree with Jack Burton that Apple's conception of the target market is FCP and Logic users - they are specifically trying to satisfy the highest end of that market (people working with multiple 4K streams, 4K with intensive effects or 8K in FCP, and people making complex compositions in Logic).

In addition to that market, they are interested in the top end of the photography market (~50 MP cameras are easy to come by these days, and they like plenty of RAM and CPU power). They are also interested in the video market even outside of FCP - they are certainly happy to cater to Premiere, After Effects and Resolve users (etc.).

One factor driving power requirements for photo and video folks is the rapidly increasing size of image files. My still camera shoots 8K time-lapse. Right now, that statement narrows down the still camera I own to two models, my Nikon Z7 or its close cousin the D850 - but several more are either coming or already here and will gain 8K time-lapse in firmware upgrades.

There are five 40 MP+ still cameras on the market (not counting a number of more specialized medium format models) - the two Nikons that offer 8K time-lapse as a side feature plus models from Sony, Panasonic and Canon. Any of the five are under $5000 with a high-quality lens or two, plus a couple of batteries and memory cards. Any one of them will chew your computer's storage and processing to bits, and medium to high volume shooting with any of them is a Mac Pro use case.

As of now, 8K full motion video is extremely expensive to capture! The only shipping 8K camera I know of is a RED that costs at least $50,000 once it's got everything it needs to capture a clip - RED likes to sell things like a shutter button, a lens mount and a battery connector as accessories. Be careful what you wish for from Apple! How would you like a Mac that you took out of the box with no GPU, only a proprietary connector with a sticker on it that said "Apple GPU module goes here"? Oh, and not only would it ship without an SSD, you also need to buy the SSD mounting plate separately. No RAM, and the RAM slots are optional - that's how RED sells cameras. There are several more 8K cameras coming out for much less money, including a couple of $5000 models, and I suspect 8K capture will become a standard in the next 5 years - watch out, slightly creaky computers!

Windows is NOT objectively better (neither, necessarily, is Mac) for any of these things. Windows certainly has major advantages in available hardware configurations - you can buy pretty much anything you darn well please or build machines with exactly the components you want. On the other hand, Windows still requires significantly more work to maintain, is more vulnerable to malware, and is not as sophisticated at color management.

There's also a significant "devil you know" advantage in each direction. If you're an independent photographer, videomaker or musician (or in any other creative field), you are probably your own IT department. Whatever you have, you'd probably rather stick with it than switch, since you would need to learn the other OS, including basic maintenance... I've personally been using Macs for 35 years (yes, my first Mac had 128K of RAM), since I was 12, and I've just evolved in my ways of doing things on computers

i'm not sure i completely agree with you about photographers and 8K video stuff. i would think that people who need serious power for those tasks aren't going to spend a lot more on apple stuff than a pc equivalent.

this is just my opinion, but if you're running a business that is dealing with those sorts of things, and you're busy, you want the fastest stuff with the least amount of headaches. windows machines are going to be cheaper and have way more options available for customizing/upgrading/repairing. i would think that businesses running macs for those types of things are people who use the computer as their main computer at home and just really prefer OSX. i don't get why businesses running software available on both platforms would opt into a controlled/expensive/semi-proprietary system. it just doesn't make financial sense. this of course is just my opinion.
[doublepost=1556626166][/doublepost]

You keep moving the goalposts.

Do tell us which render engine “requires” a quadro - none of the ones I use do.

BTW, everything in 3D “stuff” is hardware intensive - even the hobbyist software will use every resource you throw at it.

The simplest way to explain is this:

The Mac Pro is for any workflow that pegs either the CPU or the GPU for long periods of time.

If Apple doesn’t deliver what I need, then my next computer will be an EPYC based system.

My hobby requires lots of cores, lots of ram, and as the AMD Pro Render Engine gets more plugins made for it, more video cards.

Hobbyist level software.

so you're a hobbyist? i figured the mac pro was for pros. the fact that you don't use quadro cards doesn't really mean anything, and i'm not surprised seeing as you're a hobbyist. quadro cards are designed for virtual spaces and work way better. i don't mind that you don't need them for your hobby. the fact is that many people do require them and there really is no comparison with them.

 

[JazzyGB1]

so you think apple is making this for hobbyists? not sure how many hobbyists will actually spend that kind of money for a hobby. maybe you can, but that can't be who they are aiming their flagship computer towards. i also never said people with enough money to spend on a hobby wouldn't buy it. the question wasn't a poll asking who would.

It's not here yet.

So you're asking who a computer that hasn't yet been released, specced or priced is aimed at and then dismiss the answers you receive.

We can only answer who we feel it should be aimed at, and the easiest, shortest answer to that is it should be aimed at those who are still using classic Mac Pros as by definition they are the ones who Apple haven't yet met the needs of with any of their existing products.

There are a significant amount of users (like me) who require the flexibility offered by a tower based Mac system.

I have traditionally used Mac Towers all along and in my time I've owned a 7200, 9600, G3, G4 (every incarnation), Dual G5, Quad G5, Mac Pro 1.1, Mac Pro 3.1, Mac Pro 4.1, so if Apple don't think I'm their target audience they are deluded!

I'm not a Pro, but I am most definitely a Power User and have been for two decades. If the next Mac Pro is priced so highly that it's only affordable to professionals or the extremely wealthy it will fail - however powerful or flexible it is.

It's not just professionals who need the flexibility offered by a tower.

The next Mac Pro should be scalable and should have an entry level price point under $2500 which would meet the needs of power users like myself, but could also be specced into the $10,000+ mega systems that may be required for those at the cutting edge who require such power.

it won't 'cannibalise' iMac sales or Mac Mini's because those still using cMac Pro's aren't buying those anyway.

I think those of us still using a cMac Pro require the flexibility of an expandable internal system with replaceable parts and that brief is not met by the 2013 trashcan Mac Pro, iMac or the new Mac Mini.

Hopefully the new Mac Pro will fill that gap - just like it did before, but if Apple still choose another 'solution' it will likely fail again and they'd have no one to blame but themselves.