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MP 7,1 Will Apple cave on the 7,1 release?
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And watch Apple translate that into a 25% hike on the total price of the machine.'
Apple is run by bean counters who know that most of their customers aren't bothered by high prices.
Chuckle. in post #75 above , somehow just the ‘additional specs ‘ of new case , logic board , and power supply were the primary basis for the $2700 jump in price . 25% of only that delta would be a few hundred buck just on that differential from old Mac Pro offerings .
Can’t be both ‘ tons new hardware ‘ driven up price and the hardware is sliver of the price . There is way more than Apple’s typical 25-30% mark up in this new Mac Pro base price . a relatively low max tariff bump would only expose it a just a few hundred . The Apple ‘tax’ doesn’t get hit by tariffs .
( current upcoming tariff is only 10%. . That too would make it smaller. )
The base Mac Pro price probably at least as high of a “low volume “ tax on it as it has increase in component costs. That’s the “new” change in target .... a much smaller one . The pending issue for Apple will be whether it will be even smaller than they think it will be . Much of the “stretched higher than xMac” market from old entry price market bolted to windows during the 7 year drought with no new slot box Mac Pro. Now there is also like going to be a lower price but upcoming just as capable Threadripper alternatives out there piled on top of that . Toss on top the Nvidia fanboys who also want to bolt.
I don’t think Apple will move on price adjustments much more than they moved on adjusting to the Mac PRo 2013 target mismatches in a timely manner.
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Probably not . They priced the 2018 iPhones ( in particular the X-RAY ) to high and adjusted to that . Apple isn’t going to ‘eat’ the tariff , but a tax on their on tax ... even thief greed can’t blind them to at some point folks stop buying . None of the competitors are going to do that. They’d just be putting a bullseye on their backs for the other sales reps . Probably already going to get smoked bythe competitive Threadripper systems in ea
Ry 2020 .
I don’t expect them to move on that single 256GB drive.. First, the gap between 256 and 1TB is big enough they’ll get some folks to jump ‘ longer’ feeling that they “have to” . Second, there is probably a bigger group that just doesn’t want to buy Apple internal storage . So the less storage the ‘better’ ( that’s why only one of two storage blades) . With 8 slots it isn’t like there is no room for 3rd party internal storage or card to external NAS/SAN . If Apple chargers 512 price and only puts half the cost in, then they can simply pocket that ( or pay down overhead not being cover by much lower economy of scale ) .
I think the entry model is going to sell as a. barebones box to a more than decent percentage of the buyers . Folks will skip Apple’s BTO CPU , GPU , RAM , and SSD markups altogether and fill the box with other stuff and deploy ( or VAR sell ) . There will still be fat margins even in the barebones for Apple.
The USA price may go up if factors out of Apple’s control kick in ( tariffs ) . I highly doubt Apple will eat any of that
The 2TB and up will be lower than Apple probably initially planned . ( Apple backpedaled on those on several Mac products, but still way above market rates. ).
Just like all the other Mac Pros before this one. You know, the ones that started at $3000 but were customizable to much higher specs and prices? This is a bad argument. Re-read the ads for the previous Mac Pros and you'll find the same spiel.
Again, just like in the past.
The difference between all the other Mac Pros and this 2019 one is that base model is now way over priced. You said it yourself: a less expensive, 2 year old iMac pro with a very expensive display attached to it will (probably) be more powerful. How can the base model's specs justify that price tag?
But did the spiel match the goods ?
Mac Pro 2013 . Very few of the “ boxes with slots “ fans bought that hardware in the spell on that front.
Mac Pro 2009-2012 . Again what Apple delivered was more a cross in the area between the major workstation players top two variants. ( e.g. between HP z8 - z7 Or Dell 7000 - 5000 ) . Circa 2009-2012 there are moaners in these forum that the MP has too few slots , to few drives , not big enough ( or redundant ) power supplies .
Apple has moved out further into the bleeding edge , and much smaller, market with this move . Two factors . One, is that is that the rest of the line up covers more ground . ( yes the folks only want boxes will dig in their heels, but many in price sensitive zone walked away at this point and even cheaper mid range boxes with slots are to stop even more from coming back ... so Apple is cutting losses ). Two, Apple has ditched units as a measure . ....if the stick a larger than average margin on it and it pays off they’ll keep it ( especially if just a hobby product that just work on from time to time )
I don’t think they want the entry Mac Pro to be a iMac Pro killer . Once start adding BTO options to iMac Pro though it won’t look so good compared with MP with 3rd party option . If very high memory and/ or SSD size haven’t been selling well with iMac Pro then the Mac Pro May fill that gap , but not give much on margins .
In short the entry model is aimed a5 folks with even bigger budget ... just not going to spend all of 5hat at Apple . Apple is still betting a bit on more Thunderbolt usage. It just won’t be exclude path in product line .
I agree with what you say. But I still don't understand why Apple doesn't make (or make room for, using a cheap base model Mac Pro), the xMac.
There is SO much overlap in their laptop ranges, and there's a gaping hole around the xMac. Why?
Making it would be so simple: make a new simple box (by simple I mean one that doesn't require feats of engineering and 3d printing), add all the ingredients of the iMac Pro and voilà! Such a box would not take a single customer away from the new Mac Pro, nor would it take customers away from iMacs if they price it right (there's room for good pricing considering the high prices of displays that would replace the panels in the iMacs).
Of course it doesn't look all that good right now: it's two years old! I'm really eager to see what Apple will do when/if they update the iMac pro. I'm not even sure they will.
There is SO much overlap in their laptop ranges, and there's a gaping hole around the xMac. Why?
Making it would be so simple: make a new simple box (by simple I mean one that doesn't require feats of engineering and 3d printing), add all the ingredients of the iMac Pro and voilà! Such a box would not take a single customer away from the new Mac Pro, nor would it take customers away from iMacs if they price it right (there's room for good pricing considering the high prices of displays that would replace the panels in the iMacs).
Of course it doesn't look all that good right now: it's two years old! I'm really eager to see what Apple will do when/if they update the iMac pro. I'm not even sure they will.
Two charts get to the heart of the matter. Apple stopped reporting the specific desktop versus laptop numbers themselves a while back but the relationship represented here probably still holds true today. First, Apple sell lots more laptops than desktop
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-a...-segment-of-the-pc-market-that-still-matters/
This is not an Apple "chicken and egg" thing. ( if only Apple sold 'better' desktops the percentage would change. This shift is true across all vendors so this is primarily a customer thing (the market), not an "Apple is making people do X" thing).
same article. So not only did laptop percentage go up, but they sold more too.
So laptops are a bigger and higher growth market. More buyers can support broader choices in the line up.
And two more charts just to break down the trend more clearly in desktops and laptops
First a chart that covers from 2006 intro of x86 transition to 2009
https://www.macworld.com/article/1141829/appleq309.html
and from 2009 to 2011
https://www.macworld.com/article/11..._sales_help_apple_turn_in_record_quarter.html
relatively small growth in the 2006-2009 in desktop in first chart. As the iMac got more desktop processors ( and higher end 'mobole' GPU) there was a bump.
To a large extent there is fixed sized desktop market ( no high growth ).
Second major factor is that many folks are sitting on desktops longer. ( and again no this isn't an Apple thing because there has been no new Mac Pro box in 6 years. Service lifetime is growing on other vendors also. ). If spread a fixed pool of folks over more years is fewer buyers per year.
The "high end" Mac Pro went from 2013 to 2019 without an update. Somehow Apple is going to do about three as many systems with the same amount of folks? Part of the issue is Apple has a fixed number folks assigned to doing Macs. ( It is not only the Mac Pro that has had long lulls over the last 4-5 years ).
Why does Apple have limited number of folks on Mac products? Because that is the basic pattern set down by Jobs. Do a limited number of things extremely well and don't try to sell everything to everybody. It has basically work quite well. If they were loosing money ( or doing far below industry average margins, but technically profitable) then it would be easy to ask Apple why continue that strategy. But the opposite is true. It is profitable and if you broke out the Mac business into a separate business line it is doing better at a larger scale than most (if not all ) of the competitors. Chasing "everything" almost always costs more in margins lost. ( "everything" aren't all going to pay off and the not so well solutions will drag margins back. )
Apple is not in the monitor business ( largely due to its relatively high commoditization aspects ). They have been in the docking station display business for a while. So no, high priced Apple store display don't provide highly effective fratricide protections at all. You are hand waving away the affordable monitors that leave a much smaller gap to "hide" in. Folks with higher price sensitivity (so buying smaller than new Mac Pro box with slots) are also quite likely to be price sensitive when it comes to monitor also. As price sensitivity increases the fratricide between products will also go up.
Controlling the fratricide gap between the iMac Pro and Mac Pro is more tractable at iMac Pro price levels than the historic $2-3K price zone for the Mac Pro. More controllable, but still not zero.
Yes there are folks who "hole" all-in-one and won't buy them. There will be zero crossover from them. But they aren't the whole market in a given price zone. For the ones that don't hate AIO there will be more than one that flips.
As more 3rd parties are getting into the docking station display business, Apple has gone even higher end to stand next to even higher priced , even lower selling stuff ( the Pro XDR only looks relatively affordable next to the current reference monitors ).
I'm pretty sure they will. The Product Manager for the Mac Pro is also the same product manager for the iMac Pro.
He got interviewed shortly after WWDC.
https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/05/mac-pro-product-manager-interview/
Of note
"... That team is really a deep investment on what we’re doing here in the pro space. And it goes well beyond just Mac Pro to MacBook Pro and even iPad Pro. You’re going to see the benefits and the implications of that team across all of our Mac products and our pro products.
... "
the interview in full
https://www.relay.fm/mpu/485
One point touched in there was that they didn't see the iMac Pro as a "placement holder" or temporary product.
IMHO, the iMac Pro is probably going to timeslice with the Mac Pro. Apple will probably do some kind of leapfrog sequencing where each will take turns as the focus product for a upgrade. The other temporary issue is that the iMac Pro is 'stuck' for both a CPU or GPU upgrade along the lines they are currently using. Intel switched sockets and TDP enveloper for the Xeon W 3200 series ( currently there are no W 2200 upgrades to jump to). There isn't much to follow on on the iMac Pro GPU front either. If Apple is allocating more resources then it will be a two year cycle. MP 2019 , iMac Pro 2020 , Mac Pro 2021. If Apple is still approaching it somewhat as "hobby" products then MP 2019, iMac Pro late 2020 (for 3 year anniversary), MP 2022 , etc.
The doubt should be whether the Mac Pro actually does not go back into Rip van Winkle mode given Apple's track record. Apple will probably do something on the iMac Pro because the Mac Pro isn't going to move much for a substantial amount of time.
Two moves that Apple could do with the iMac Pro in 2020 would be to go bigger and/or switch CPU vendors. If the socket and TDP is going to get larger with either Intel or AMD solutions then they could shift to a larger panel (put a decent backlight on the 6k panel and use more room). If refactored so that could put back in a RAM door even more better as a "downscale" alternative to the Mac Pro holding the new higher price point. (and if Apple keeps the RAM door out of iMac Pro then mid-range and up Mac Pro still has better 3rd party upgrade vectors. )
If Apple is not happy with Intel's longer term roadmap, then the other option is a switch at CPU for the desktop line up. The iMac Pro could be first one to make the switch and the Mac Pro last (since it got a substantive 2019 upgrade finally, but goes back to the end of the upgrade line. ). If Apple is sticking with Intel and about the same size socket then I suspect the iMace will overlap less at the top end BTO CPU options on core count.
The iMac Pro will have to move because the iMac is going to move to cover more ground that the iMac Pro is in now at the its lower end.
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No, I don't think so. If they were to make a lower-priced Pro machine, it might be by creating a lower-cost iMac Pro. Here's my reasoning:
- The entire design of the 7,1 is a workaround for the bottlenecks in PCI 3.0. Ganging up two PCI slots for the MPX module proprietary expansion system is a brute-force workaround to get more bandwidth in and out of a single card. (Or are those really simply two cards in a really long slot?)
- The PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 standards are finalized, but there wasn't enough hardware available for Apple to design a workstation around. Devices and motherboards are only now starting to trickle into the market, mostly for the high-end server market, propelled by AMD. I don't know where Intel stands on this, or if they have chipsets / designs ready for PCIe 4/5 system busses, etc.
- PCIe 4.0 gives you double the speed of current PCIe 3.0 (32GB/s in a 16x slot, vs. 16GB at present) and PCI 5.0 doubles that yet again to 64GB/s in a 16x slot. If that had been available earlier and more broadly, it would have been much easier for Apple to pick that and engineer off the industry standard vs. going the proprietary route.
- Since Thunderbolt is based on PCIe, we can eventually expect even faster versions of TB for external devices, too. Easily support multiple 5k-6k-8k monitors daisy-chained, for instance.
- Similarly, DDR5 memory is just entering the market, and they couldn't really bank on having enough ECC memory for a workstation at the time they were booking purchases from manufacturing partners.
- FWIW, the proprietary card + PCIe 3.0-on-steroids route is probably the only path they could have followed to create a machine with the performance specifications they were aiming for, in the timeframe they were given. I think it's a splendid machine, but because it's not based on off-the-shelf parts, it's really expensive.
Now, when PCIe 4/5 rolls around and compatible peripherals, SSDs, DDR5 memory etc become more available and affordable, Apple will face a choice: Either abandon the dual-slot MPX approach and embrace industry-standard designs - which may give us a Mac Pro 8,1 at a lower entry-level price - or they will double down on the dual-slot approach and simply make everything faster, maintaining that premium price.
From an engineering point of view, I don't think I would want to rely on proprietary standards for too long, because they will become obsolete faster. I don't think many third-party companies would invest the resources in creating MPX dual-slot cards that can only be used in a single machine from a single manufacturer, unless they have a compelling reason (maybe ProTools hardware, or high-end video solutions) - i mean if you buy a 7,1 and don't populate it with MPX modules or the accelerator card, those slots are wasted, aren't they?
I don't think Logic Pro makes any use of GPU acceleration because audio DSP isn't a good match for how GPUs work. If you work in audio, unless you can get great performance from the CPU alone, you'd likely want to use as many PCIe slots as you can for DSP cards like Universal Audio's UAD-2 series.
From that standpoint, it's kind of a bummer that you seemingly can't order the 7,1 with a standard single-width graphics card - I would want one of those Radeon Pro workstations cards that are better for multi-monitor work rather than 3D graphics, like the WX4100.
I don't think this is what MPX is about.
- There are some hints that Apple might be using the two connectors to address each GPU as a separate card.
- More power is required than what a generic PCIe slot can provide. PCIe v4 adds more power, but still not enough.
- Putting Thunderbolt ports on the card will require a lot more traffic.
- Sending a display signal back will require a lot more traffic. This raises the possibility that the new connectors are possibly part DisplayPort and not even PCIe.
The MPX slot is even designed to passively cool, which is far beyond what the PCIe 4.0 specs even deal with.
...which is why it seems strange to pour R&D money into creating exotic, niche desktops like the new Mac Pro and the cylinder before it.
They could probably have developed a bog-standard Xeon tower for the money they spent tooling up for that fancy 3D-machined Swiss-cheese front grille...
We're not talking about a $1000 i7 tower that would cannibalise MacBook Pro and iMac sales here -it would still be a Xeon (or high-end AMD) system that they could sell for $3000-$4000 to people who needed Mac OS on a desktop tower.
...because, by choosing an exotic, non-standard, form-over-function design that could only work with a single mid-powered processor and two matching mid-powered GPUs they painted themselves into a corner with no realistic upgrade path. They've actually said that publicly. If they'd stuck to the 2010 design (which basically was an xMac - albeit Xeon-based with the associated price premium) it could have received regular updates.
It seems pretty likely that the press conference a couple of years ago where they admitted the failings of the cylinder and pre-announced the new Modular Mac Pro followed blood-on-the-carpet at Apple HQ and that someone had been forced to change policy.
There really doesn't seem to be much wrong with the new design apart for the ridiculous price of the entry-level configuration... having an insane number of PCIe slots and a limited edition sculpture as a front panel doesn't hurt it technically (...and, I guess, by the time you've added the 28 core Xeon, quad Vega, a couple of Afterburners and 4 wheels, that initial $6k is going to be a rounding error) but it does dump a whole segment of developers and "power users" who might have sent $3k+ on an 8-core entry machine and would have been over the moon to have 2 or 3 PCIe slots.
Actually, I think the deal breaker was that Intel processors don't support PCIe4 and I'm not even sure that the AMD CPUs that do include the Threadripper monsters that would be suitable for the higher-end Mac Pro configs. Otherwise, they were making their own motherboard anyway and their graphics cards are custom MPX units with bleeding-edge AMD tech... but no CPU, no deal.
I think the PCIe4 "thing" is more an issue for enthusiasts who might fork out $6k if they thought it was going to be an investment for the ages. Most of Apple's target market will be looking at 3-year leases...
The worry is that maybe most of Apple's target market were on Tim Cook's speed dial and, although they'll be planning on getting a full kit including $5000 display and $999 stand (they need to be able to look at the rushes, y'know - anyway it cost less than their executive carpet with the company logo woven in) that might change when they get round to working out the cost of similarly equipping everybody on the workfloor...
IBM Power9 have had PCIe 4 since 2017 and is currently used in the fastest computer in the world, summit (OLCF-4).
It's mostly server stuff like network interface cards and storage that benefit from the advantages of PCIe 4 right now.
There is nothing stopping Apple from releasing a new Mac Pro next year with the newest Intel workstation class processor that supports PCIe 4. It's only natural, although they could have had up to 64-cores and 128 PCIe v 4 lanes right now with ROME / CASTLE PEAK.
Not really.
Apple is making it rain on content market.
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/19/apple-tv-plus-6-billion-spent/
Netflix is borrowing money it doesn't have to make it rain on content market.
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/netflix-2-billion-debt-load-1203195285/
Amazon is making it rain on content market.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/08/amazon-prime-video-feature.html
It is a hobby product for Apple and if they can make incrementally some money back on the amount they are shoveling out with sky high priced hardware then all the better. That subset just goes in a circle back to Apple.
I'm not particularly surprised this is called macOS Catalina which is "heap truckloads of money into the entertainment business" that is coupled to the holistic roll out this year.
The design throttled their research budget? It throttled their allocation of resources ? Errr no. Apple chose to pursue the iMac Pro before doing anything with the Mac Pro. That was not largely limited by the MP 2013 design specifics at all.
Yes Apple thought the design would live longer, but when it didn't and nothing particularly happen to adjust for that.... that was Apple ; not the design.
I don't think Apple was forced to change policy. I think the a major contributor was the iPhone cooling off a bit but not turning into a problem that opened the door to less of an inclination to say "No" to the project.
The posturing that the "box with slots" faction completely bent Apple to their will is kind of delusional. There are several factors that probably went into it.
It is a super fat margin product that doesn't have to sell in volume, nor due they "have to" do a iteration every year.
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if Apple is handing people $100M checks then they can afford to buy some $999 stands.
I'm not suggesting that it was lack of design budget, rather, it was evidence that someone at Apple was refusing to contemplate a more traditional design. The iMac Pro - which would have been in an advanced stage of development when the "Modular Mac Pro climbdown" press conference happened - was another non-upgradable, thunderbolt-for-everything design very much from the same school as the trashcan. It is possible that the climbdown was triggered after they showed the iMac Pro to some key customers and got pushback - the timing is about right.
Why? The new Mac Pro is a box with slots - more that that, its Unique Selling Point over cheaper PC Xeon towers is that it has more slots. Its even got space for internal spinning rust drives... Ignoring the minor problem that the entry-level model makes zero sense at the price, it is everything the "box-with-slots" faction could have wanted, and the complete antithesis of the Trashcan and the iMac Pro.
They're not going to make up for stagnating iPhone revenues with the Mac Pro - even if the wheels really are $499 for a set of 3. Apple's solution to that is services and media.
One indirect link may be that the Mac Pro is partly a strategic move to get Apple logos on the end credits of movies and TV shows. Its a bit embarrassing if your flagship TV shows are all edited on HPs.
More realistically, throwing in a few "$999" stands for "free" is a good way to sweeten the deal for a large equipment purchase. The real ripoff is actually the $200 (or whatever) VESA adapter, without which the display is useless.
Not to be contradictory, but I don't think IBM were shipping anything with PCIe 4.0 in 2017 -- the standard was only completed in July 2017.
Unless they were really hot to include it in shipping systems and were actively developing the hardware in parallel with the PCI-SIG standards body? As far as I can tell, they only started shipping high-end server hardware with it in 2018; OLCF-4 was announced in June 2018.
Um, there's no internal mounting for hard drives, unless they fit on PCIe cards.
The Mac Pro has two slots for SSD blades (PCIe most likely) accessed at the front, RAM DIMMS on the rear face of the motherboard, but no SATA mounts or optical drive cages like the old Mac Pro 5,1; it's all space for the CPU, MPX modules, PCIe slots and then heat sinks / fans; the power supply is in the "floor" of the box.
It does have two internal SATA ports, but it's not clear what they are for.
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I’m sure he’s referring to the promise Pegasus addon which was developed in partnership with Apple and is available for sale directly from Apple.
Promise adapter comes with 1 8tb hdd pre-installed with room for another, no pricing yet, and no model on the hdd yet. There is an obvious spot at the top of the case where it the adapter is meant to connect and apple has provided power and 2 sata ports. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to add more 3.5" drives so you are limited to those two.
There are two products from promise. The larger one can hold four drives. It also appears that you could in theory run both at once for six total drives. You’d be using one of the MPX slots for storage though, so it would limit your GPU capacity.
I don’t really find either product particularly interesting. All my spinning rust sits happily on the other end of a 10 gigabit Ethernet link. I don’t think there’s a compelling reason to care about placing it inside my desktop machine any more.
The 4 drive version appears to take four 2.5" drives and is powered through the MPX slot. I'm not sure if that means that it takes one of your 2 extended MPX slots or if it can go in one of the regular PCIe slots. Either way I really like having 4 sata bays and it will be a downgrade to go back to 2, and that's after spending additional money on a 3rd party adapter for the privilege.
You know, to those Mac Pro is really meant for, the internal storage wouldn't really matter. Everything should be on the network, and if really necessary, the options like Pegasus is offering wouldn't be a problem even if it costs outrageous.
This is meant for big video farm remember?
This is meant for big video farm remember?
downstream in the heat path of the processor heatsink, where the SATA connectors are, there's a mounting cutout at the top (same as the tab the CPU cooler uses to attach) which is designed for mounting hardware to access the SATA ports - Promise have the J2i hard disk rack, which can mount dual 3.5" spinners in it, with no loss of PCI slots.
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Ah - I stand semi-corrected? The J2i does look like it'll go where those SATA ports are (top rear of the case), but the other one is an MPX module, so it'll use up PCIe slots.
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Thanks for the link. Odd that it wasn't mentioned anywhere on Apple's site AFAIK. I guess that does increase its versatility, but would I want them in the outflow from the processor heat sink?
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Agreed. Personally I would have preferred 4x of those SSD slots up front...
I just wish there was a way to have an internal Blu-ray drive on the new Mac Pro. We filmmakers still burn Blu-rays very frequently for festivals and screenings.
mount it sideways where that promise SATA array goes, cut out a window for tray ejecting in the side panel... is the machine wide enough for the depth of a compact bluray burner?