There's lots of reasons to buy a Mac Pro, but since you don't know what they are, you're not one of the people who would do so.
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13-Inch MacBook Pro With M2 Chip Outperforms Base Model Mac Pro Despite Costing Nearly $5,000 Less
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There's lots of reasons to buy a Mac Pro, but since you don't know what they are, you're not one of the people who would do so.
It's all very nice in theory, but try using a laptop with a handful of USB ports as a desktop computer in any high-load scenario and see for yourself.
I have slaughtered the battery in my MBP 15 in 3 months by trying to use it for screen recording / live streaming with camera and greenscreen. It would be infernally hot, fans running at full. Trying to connect all accessories (Camera, Mic, StreamDeck, ShuttlePro, headphone amp etc) was a nightmare because most of these don't work with USB hubs, and I already used up two USB ports for charging and Ethernet.
I ended up running out of USB ports and having to disconnect one of my screens just to be able to use the other accessories. I needed to move my demo environment to a localhost server (even more load on the computer) just so I can disconnect Ethernet to plug in other things.
So I ended up with a nightmare setup where I had to juggle cables and connections depending on what I wanted to do, while the computer was turning into an unholy crossbreed of a fusion reactor and Airbus A380 taking off.
With Mac Pro I have enough ports and power to connect all the accessories and do my job without worrying about noise or overheating killing the battery.
I fixed the laptop battery via Apple Care (they also gave me a new topcase because battery swelling started messing with the keyboard) and I am no longer using the laptop for these heavy tasks.
Now, I am not saying that laptops are useless or that they don't have some merit comparing a 2022 laptop with a 2019 desktop. And with the new laptops having a little better port situation it might be more bearable. But let's be honest, the desktop can do everything the laptop can (minus the portability) but the laptop cannot do everything the desktop can, even if the scenarios aren't very numerous.
I have slaughtered the battery in my MBP 15 in 3 months by trying to use it for screen recording / live streaming with camera and greenscreen. It would be infernally hot, fans running at full. Trying to connect all accessories (Camera, Mic, StreamDeck, ShuttlePro, headphone amp etc) was a nightmare because most of these don't work with USB hubs, and I already used up two USB ports for charging and Ethernet.
I ended up running out of USB ports and having to disconnect one of my screens just to be able to use the other accessories. I needed to move my demo environment to a localhost server (even more load on the computer) just so I can disconnect Ethernet to plug in other things.
So I ended up with a nightmare setup where I had to juggle cables and connections depending on what I wanted to do, while the computer was turning into an unholy crossbreed of a fusion reactor and Airbus A380 taking off.
With Mac Pro I have enough ports and power to connect all the accessories and do my job without worrying about noise or overheating killing the battery.
I fixed the laptop battery via Apple Care (they also gave me a new topcase because battery swelling started messing with the keyboard) and I am no longer using the laptop for these heavy tasks.
Now, I am not saying that laptops are useless or that they don't have some merit comparing a 2022 laptop with a 2019 desktop. And with the new laptops having a little better port situation it might be more bearable. But let's be honest, the desktop can do everything the laptop can (minus the portability) but the laptop cannot do everything the desktop can, even if the scenarios aren't very numerous.
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The Mac Pro has always been a mishandled product - almost always being capable of being outdone by a custom PC rig at half the price, or in the cases where the same model sat on the shelf for years without an update - simply a criminal enterprise on Apple’s part that they would continue selling it as a Pro product when it was being smashed by its laptops.
I remember working for a doomed, over invested startup where they gave all the developers Mac Pros, and I was like “why did you spend $3000 on my workstation? I easily published my last app with a $400 mini!”
I suspect 80% of Mac Pros are purchased not by the narrow specialties which need them, but by people with too much money who simply think the most expensive Mac must be the best one.
I remember working for a doomed, over invested startup where they gave all the developers Mac Pros, and I was like “why did you spend $3000 on my workstation? I easily published my last app with a $400 mini!”
I suspect 80% of Mac Pros are purchased not by the narrow specialties which need them, but by people with too much money who simply think the most expensive Mac must be the best one.
While there are many reasons for a MP I'm not sure I see how this is one of them. For a lot less than a MP I have a TS3+ that my laptop docks into, one port for everything, including power. If an accessory won't work off the USB bus on a a decent TB dock I doubt they work at all since it contains a full controller not just a hub.
No company buying at scale buys custom rigs, any possible purchase costs are completely eaten on support and productivity costs, and nobody wants their IT staff spending the time on putting machines together when they could be focusing on things like large scale fleet management instead.... and given the mac pro is mostly targeted at professionals whose employers pay for them and is priced pretty equivalently to similar workstations from other vendors.... I'm not sure why you would compare a custom pc rig.
Maybe it would have helped with some of my problems - except noise and heat. But I wasn't really in the mood to find, research, purchase something that might or might not ship to Malaysia and then might or might not work for me, a custom built Mac Pro took one swipe of debit card and a week to deliver
fair enoughMaybe it would have helped with some of my problems - except noise and heat. But I wasn't really in the mood to find, research, purchase something that might or might not ship to Malaysia and then might or might not work for me, a custom built Mac Pro took one swipe of debit card and a week to deliver
One Thunderbolt 4 port = 8 USB 3.0 ports (at 5gps). Many devices dont even take up that much bandwidth to even saturate a USB 3.0 - streamdeck,microphone, headphone amp.
Just saying. You can get a TB4 Hub and distribute that workload. But I get what you are saying. The nice thing on the M1 Pro, M1 max is you get full 40 Gbps. Per Port.
The problem is people using cheap USB3.0 port and then splitting it up 8 ways. A cheap hub w/ 8 devices will get you the 480 Mbps ******** from 2002.
I've gone through a lot of hubs and docks ands I always factor in the total Gbps. A USB 3.1 gen 2 hub is gonna yield more value then some USB 3 hub you got lying around from 2018.
Exactly. The scores will translate for some use cases, and then there’s very possibly others where the Pro will blitz it. We saw the same thing with the M1 where not every workflow benefits the same, and a Geekbench result which summarises the overall performance into a single number obscures a lot of the specifics that will impact certain scenarios.
Not to say the performance to cost ratio isn’t great, but don’t need to look much further than the 24GB ram limit of the Air/13” Pro to realise the entry level MacBooks are not going to serve as a workstation replacements for many people who would be in the market for a Mac Pro.
As much as I agree that Mac Pro is overpriced, pulling it out would be a bad move.
It would signal to professionals who use these machines to ditch MacOS for their Windows since they are not supported customers anymore.
And people thought that the trash can was a joke? If I had bought a Cheese Grater Mac Pro, I'd be wanting to delivery it to Tim's office with a note saying I'd quit Apple and gone to, hmm... Linux? Windows? Hmm...
I guess I'd ask for a free upgrade to the next newest thing to be deprecated and made a laughing stock for its owners.
I know it's not that bad, but I'm thinking of a similar instance where owners of something have been so embarrassed.
I know one, but I'm 'old'. I remember this high school teacher that bought a Commodore 64. It was expensive, for what it was worth. Yeah, back then it was hard to tell, but it was very expensive. Somewhat over the return time, Commodore slashed the price. Like nearly in half. OUCH. Buying one at the old inflated price, and bragging about it just fell flat. *shrug* He bought it from the place I worked at. The owner told some prospective purchasers to wait, but he apparently didn't. Oops... Funny... But it was still the same computer, same capabilities. Just bad timing.
I guess I'd ask for a free upgrade to the next newest thing to be deprecated and made a laughing stock for its owners.
I know it's not that bad, but I'm thinking of a similar instance where owners of something have been so embarrassed.
I know one, but I'm 'old'. I remember this high school teacher that bought a Commodore 64. It was expensive, for what it was worth. Yeah, back then it was hard to tell, but it was very expensive. Somewhat over the return time, Commodore slashed the price. Like nearly in half. OUCH. Buying one at the old inflated price, and bragging about it just fell flat. *shrug* He bought it from the place I worked at. The owner told some prospective purchasers to wait, but he apparently didn't. Oops... Funny... But it was still the same computer, same capabilities. Just bad timing.
No.
There are some workloads that isn't cost affective to switch to Windows. Example.
I have a consulting business that dynamically generates 1000s of Facebook videos/Instagram motion graphics. It is an application written in applescript that pulls from a database, inserts locations from a franchise group like KFC/Pizza Hut. Then it produces 1000s of videos with personalized videos for all the stores with their map and location. Then uploads 1000s of the same videos for each franchise to their Facebook regions. These videos all have motion graphics but automation swaps out title headlines for different store locations. No need to do manually export videos and load up content.
This cannot be done on a PC. Unless you know a way how to applescript Final Cut Pro/Motion 5 on Windows. Sure, you can do some of it with Javascript and After Effects. But if you already built a workflow, no PC will be a substitute unless I spends months re-writing all the code to what? Save a few bucks on hardware when one video campaign can pay for 4 or 5 mac pros?
But they aren't. Are they? The trash can, the iMac Pro, the cheese grater. They are capable, but they sure were expensive, and sure had rather short 'product times'. The trash can was a zombie box, practically disowned by Apple, yet still sold. iMac Pro was throttled, and works, but a slightly souped up iMac, that the newer iMacs left in the dust. Hmm... *shrug* I'd like one, but I already have a car to pay for, and taking out a mortgage on my house to buy a fully loaded MP is so not in the cards... It's more of a status item now?
Saw the writing on the wall. Apple should have just skipped the Mac Pro altogether. Now they are obligated to keep supporting it until god knows when.
Of course I'm talking relative to the times I'm writing.
I'm expected 500GB to be enough ram for this generation, when the next redesign will roll out, maybe 1TB will be the ceiling.
Or perhaps the new revision will come out soon as Apple stated.
At this point they can just forget about Mac Pro and pretend their Mac Studio is their new Mac Pro. They can even market it as "Most powerful and most affordable professional machine with server-grade computing power built-in".
We’re seeing the
But they’re explicitly working on something that is going to blow us away. Why call it a day at the studio when they’ve got their sights set on what they can do in a larger form factor?