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Apple Confirms iMac Pro Will Be Discontinued When Supplies Run Out, Recommends 27-Inch iMac
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The market has moved. We may not notice it but millennials are simply not buying desktop machines in any categories Mac or PC like previous generations. Desktop machines are left as business machines and now with the world going almost totally remote they will move in unison to the laptop / tablet world.
Pro models aren’t really Pro anymore. They are more video / audio / development workstations of which M1/2 is going to eradicate as well. I’d say the Pro line in desktop machines is dead.
Apple updated the maximum DRAM capacity, as well as a marginal GPU update (Pro Vega 64X) during the past few years. Also, moving the default CPU to the 10-core from the 8-core. None of the GPUs that AMD has introduced over the past few years has anything better to offer speed-wise than the Vega 64X. The Vega II Duo falls completely outside the thermal envelope of the iMac Pro. The replacement CPUs for the iMac Pro were marginally faster, but are a dead end as Intel has indicated that LGA-2066 was EOL a while ago. Moving to the LGA-3467 CPU socket was probably out of bounds for Apple as the size and electrical requirements were non-trivial engineering for a machine as constrained as the iMac Pro.
There are only two real faults the iMac Pro has over its lifetime and that is that it never received a Titan Ridge TB3 controller and opening it up was ridiculously onerous for what you paid.
Apple’s choices for updates to the iMac Pro were very limited due to Intel’s muddled Xeon-W strategy and AMD’s glacial RDNA GPU rollout.
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Probably has been said before but a "pro" machine shouldn't be in an AIO format. Honestly the entire AIO format is an environmental nightmare as the screen will most likely outlive the usefulness of the CPU by 2x minimum. How about mini's as the consumer model and then the Mac Pro for professionals or enthusiasts that want all the bells and whistles. Then some nice, shiny, new monitors that look good!
Macs hold their value though. A decade old PC is near worthless, but the same Mac would probably cover the third of the price of a new one.
Granted, how about a creative approach to this for example a stackable UPS in a similar fashion as a MacMini.
... the DC ups that runs my router is small and light enough to do this.
the AC ups that runs my Mac mini probably weighs more than my two 24” displays combined and is about half the size of a g4 power Mac tower.
Forget stacking or really even putting it on the desk. It’s also kind of a wiring nightmare to have it anywhere other than under the desk.
Yes I’m sure someone could make a smaller unit and have add on batteries that are less utilitarian in style. The question is why would they?
far more Apple customers use consumer-level displays and wifi routers, than use a ups, and Apple considers those markets to be adequately provided (in spite of piss poor high ppi screen availability).
if you want a ups for your iMac just buy one. Not everything needs to be integrated into one device or provided by one company.
Sadly you don't seem to understand business economics. For business machines are bought to serve a function and the iMac Pro from those that have posted that owned them performed very well indeed and continue to do so.
If someone never bought one, or it was outside their range, or they don't want one, then its hard to see why there has been so many posts from people who chose not to buy one, or never owned one. That's hardly subjective. Yet business users bought them, and I for one am extremely happy with how it has performed and its already paid for itself several times over, so do I think there should be a new iMac Pro. Unequivocal no for reasons I have stated previously. Namely it makes no sense now for Apple to do a solo design iMac Pro, with tooling costs, design, build etc., if it can be accommodated in an iMac design which leads to decreased costs for producing it and more easily to change specs for the range as newer chips etc. come into being.
I agree, but then there are several reasons why Apple would go with the AIO format:
- It improves a cohesive experience. If people would just buy separate monitors, Apple would not be able to assure the quality of user experience. If people bought separate keyboards, they would not have Apple's layout.
- It allows Apple to charge more for the package. Few people would want to buy overpriced Apple monitors, keyboards, and mouses/trackpads, when they can just go for cheaper alternatives. Why would someone pay $99 for Apple's keyboard when they can get a decent mechanical keyboard for less than that?
- Some people prefer to have an integrated desktop instead of different pieces connected by cables.
I am literally in the same boat as you except I have the 10 core Vegas 64 iMac Pro. I’ve had it for three years since I came out and I’m extremely happy with it. I also have the M1 MacBook Pro, which is nearly as good but the iMac Pro still renders out things about 30 to 40% faster. But aside from that I have found the timeline performance on both machines is identical if not even a little smoother on the MacBook. And that’s incredibly impressive for the price. What new IMAX with Intel Silicon are going to be absolutely stunning and processing speed for price and power. But I have no reason to sell this one until it dies because it does all the work I needed to do at a very fast clip.
I’m pretty sure that they will fit that gap with the Apple Silicon iMac regular. That’s why they discontinue the iMac Pro because there’s no real need for it when they’re going to have a machine that’s faster in the consumer line. I definitely need all in one form factor for my business, because of the way it’s laid out, and I’m sure I could eventually move over to the Apple silicon iMac and get more speed once the iMac Pro dies. I’m not worried.
It didn’t help the iMac pro’s situation when the regular iMac got a bump and surpassed it in performance at a lower price. The remaining stocks could sell on the novelty appeal of being a black iMac & the last great Mac cable of running windows, but since Apple isn’t offering a line of ASi Mac’s while keeping a model or 2 with intel chipsets, but just going their own way completely, the Apple ship has as good as sailed, so it doesn’t make any sense to make an expensive dead-end purchase just to delay the inevitable. Either way this is the end of the line for Apple/Windows users, so I can’t possibly imagine who would buy one of these albatrosses at this point.
It would be more than a retool though. With the M2 processor they wouldn't need all the fancy cooling process that was built into the iMac Pro to get it be that powerful in a All in One design.
There will be an iMac Pro using the to be released M2 chip (and likely some sort of Apple graphics chip as well), it just will not be based on the design here.
The Vega 64 was a really hot and power hungry card. I’m too lazy a guy to search for the tdp of the vega VII, the rx 5800 or rx 6900, but my guess is if apple really wanted or planned to, they’d have updated the gfx, and the reason they didn’t was either because it was intended from the beginning to be a one time thing or sales were not so good and decided to discontinue it.
Most likely that at the iMac Pro is being discontinued do to the Mac Pro fill the top end with the Xeon Processors. My guess is that we will see a Mac mini Pro tower still with Intel i9 desktop/Xeon processors or an option for a M2 processor.
A mini tower is a better option for people so they can upgrade with slots or select the monitor you want, which is not a option with the iMac Pro.
The lower iMac will most like have the M2 processor for people with less technology needs.
A mini tower is a better option for people so they can upgrade with slots or select the monitor you want, which is not a option with the iMac Pro.
The lower iMac will most like have the M2 processor for people with less technology needs.
It was a stupid idea all along. The all-in-one desktop is a consumer/office workstation. Pretending that it's capable of ever being a high end "pro" machine is idiotic.
And when you throw in "thin" all you're doing is forcing thermal throttling.
If you thought you need an iMac "Pro" you either need a 27" iMac or a Mac Pro.
Either way, buy it quickly. Apple is about to destroy the rest of the product line with the M chips.
And when you throw in "thin" all you're doing is forcing thermal throttling.
If you thought you need an iMac "Pro" you either need a 27" iMac or a Mac Pro.
Either way, buy it quickly. Apple is about to destroy the rest of the product line with the M chips.
Add me to this list of rough equipment pairing.
Have an:
- 8-core, 32gb, Vega 56 iMac Pro w/ 5700 XT eGPU
- m1 MacBook Pro 8gb
It's an incredible pair and while both have their specific qualities, the MacBook Pro could not replace the iMac Pro for me at this time. In addition to the lack of eGPU functionality (which allows me to game in bootcamp on the iMac Pro with excellent results & thermals), the iMac Pro under certain workflows outperforms the m1 MacBook Pro.
That said, the m1 definitely excels in the UX under normal use w/ the thermals, low-to-no-noise, and performance.
I would not hesitate to buy a future iMac (pro or not) that retained the qualities of this machine: stupid fast, near silent at all times (great for recording, streaming, or conference calls / video calls), and incredibly stable.
I've owned a lot of Macs and the iMac Pro feels like the most stable I've had. Conversely, had an m1 Mac mini for my mom and since December it has had 2 issues including a significant issue with upgrading to the most recent Big Sur as reported by others.
Tend to disagree here. While I understand your concept here, I think you are assuming that one or the other is best, the iMac Pro is really the blend. There are users (myself included) that benefit from the unique blend of the two that results in the iMac Pro. I would not be happy with a 2020 iMac due to noise and the Mac Pro would have cost me significantly more (once you factor in the 5k display especially) than my iMac Pro.
Add to this the incredible deals you can get on the secondary market for the iMac Pro... I think it is a compelling option right now for certain end users that take the time to learn what they want and what Apple products can offer.
No, the people who don't understand business economics are the ones who seem to think that everybody "in business" or who is a "pro" has a bottomless equipment budget (or a big pot of money that they're somehow free to shuffle between equipment, salaries, expenses etc. without major hassle) and is free to buy the absolute best tool for the job without having to defend every cent over the cost of a Dell breezeblock, doesn't have to worry about little things like service & support for a Mac in what may be a PC-centric company, doesn't have to worry about whether an equivalent product will be available to kit out a new employee, when a lease expires or when you've finished reclaiming the tax and the management says "buy new kit now or wait another 4 years".
"Business/pro user" is not a synonym for "Successful self-employed freelancer with excellent credit". Even at that level, more expensive equipment ultimately has to be paid for by your customers, which makes you more competetive.
Even then - yes, business machines are bought to serve a function, and if a product doesn't serve a function - or if something else serves the same function at half the price - it doesn't get bought, the business person buys something that does serve the function and then gets on with doing business. If they're very lucky and have plenty of autonomy then they might be allowed to factor in the "benefits" of keeping their FCPx muscle memory vs. having to learn a PC package. If they're not so lucky - well, truth is there's virtually nothing that you can do on a Mac that can't be done on Windows. I've literally sat in edit suites and watched the guy tearing through a job on a beige box PC running Avid, in front of shelves lined with dusty Macs and FCP boxes. People have a choice - they don't have blank checks for equipment that doesn't quite meet their needs.
So, no, it's no surprise that the people complaining are the people for whom Apple failed to come up with a product that met their needs and budget. You don't know how many of them were potential buyers of "pro" Mac desktops.
Sustained loads, over hours; not commonly addressed by common benchmarks or Internet forums.
Mehhh
the pro was over-priced for the wealthy - the rest is expensive maybe overpriced for the quality - but still if you are lucky you get a lot of time out of Appel devices. Battery is the deal-breaker!
I develop algorithms for living. Hardware requirements depend on the problem I'm working on and on whatever I think would be best for solving that problem. Sometimes I may need many CPU cores, massive amounts of memory, or a lot of fast disk space. Hypothetically I might also need a fast GPU or two for GPU computing, though I rarely work on numerical problems. The requirements change too often to replace the computer every time, but they also change too rarely to justify buying a maxed-out workstation with sufficient hardware for every possible demand.