Apple Engineers Explain New Mac Pro's Innovative Cooling Features

[IG88]

Not sure what config you’re referencing, but a single Xeon system with the Mac Pro’s specs clocks in at almost $90k, though with the 30% discount they’re offering it’s available for the low, low price of $62k.

Here's a look down towards the lower end.

Mac Pro
12 Core (3.3 / 4.4 GHz)
48 GB RAM
1 TB SSD
Radeon Pro 580X
$7700

Dell Precision 7920
12 Core (3.2 / 4.2 GHz)
48 GB RAM (2933)
1 TB PCI-E SSD
Radeon Pro WX 7100
$7600

So yeah, assuming the video cards are roughly comparable here, this Mac Pro pricing does seem more or less in line with the industry.

 

[jgk6502]

I'm not vell versed in liquid cooling, but I would guess that a) it is less reliable and b) when a liquid solution fails it fails in worse ways.

Of course it would also open up for the sale of magical Apple coolant, probably a missed opportunity 🌊

HaHa. Detractors would call it Apple KoolAid.

 

[LordVic]

Gamers are better served by less expensive PCs running Windows; it’s just not an important market for Apple.

Are you talking about removing the total heat the system creates (1,200W+) or just the couple hundred Watts from the CPU?

Where are you get 1200 watts?

also: Most custom loops will cover both CPU and GPU which are the two primary heat producers in a computer system.

 

[kemal]

Just a reminder of last time Apple tried liquid cooling.

 

[PickUrPoison]

A custom built PC computer that offers better performance, but similar featuresets
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 R9 3950x (16 core, 32thread, faster in all benchmarks, mixxing intel quicksync as a feature if required, but adds PCI-4.0 support)
RAM: DDR4 32gb (4 x 8) ECC at 2666mhz.
Graphics: Radeon R5700xt 8gb (faster than 580x pro and newer)
Motherboard: ASRock x570 AQUA... why? Because all the features faster Wifi although only one 10gbps ethernet. better audio. Support for up to 4x GPU's. 8x SATA. 2 x NVME PCIE x 4 interfaces
Storage: 1TB of PCI-E 4 storage at 5gbps
Case: Dune's highest end Mac Pro knock off case cause we want it to look the same
Total Price - $2,980


I love what Apple has sone with the new Mac Pro. it's going to be fast and quiet and cool. I think a premium from Apple is appropriate... but in this particular case, the lowest tiers of the Mac Pro are coming in at nearly a 2.5x premium price point for performance and features because of the over-engineering that they've put in to support the highest tiers.

Sure you can build a cheaper box. You don’t have $3 billion per month in operating expenses to cover

BOM cost is only a portion of Apple’s cost—and it’s smaller than the other costs that also comprise the selling price.

With those same parts, Apple’s selling price may very well be over $5,000; they aren’t that much less expensive than what Apple is using. The cost of MacOS also must be considered.

Where are you get 1200 watts?

also: Most custom loops will cover both CPU and GPU which are the two primary heat producers in a computer system.

Fully loaded, the Mac Pro can generate that much heat.

 

[dantroline]

A liquid cooling system makes it more difficult to upgrade or swap out components. And the systems ability to be upgraded by the user was one of Apples selling points for the MP.

Whereas in a DIY build liquid cooling is now commonplace. But your point is nonetheless valid.

 

[ElectricPotato]

"...the ridiculous processing power of the Mac Pro"

It's beyond ridiculous, it's gone to plaid.

 

[dantroline]

The low noise levels are going to make it so much better for my home theatre computer.

I have a fanless machine for that.

 

[Architect4122]

Anyone? Well played, John. Well played. 😆

"[...] grates on your nerves ... ," says John Ternus

 

[LordVic]

Sure you can build a cheaper box. You don’t have $3 billion per month in operating expenses to cover

BOM cost is only a portion of Apple’s cost—and it’s smaller than the other costs that also comprise the selling price.

With those same parts, Apple’s selling price may very well be over $5,000; they aren’t that much less expensive than what Apple is using. The cost of MacOS also must be considered.

problem is the market doesn't give a **** about the profit margins apple wants.

if Apple can't be competitive at that price and performance point, they may (i recognise I am speculating) have issues moving units at these price points.

I don't think there will be a problem with the upper tiers. Those who need those, know what they're getting and know why they're getting it. but it's these lower tiers, where Apple's over-designing is costing almost 2.5 times the price point for performance.

again: I am not judging the computer's specs. Nor it's hardware prowress. I think this is finally the Mac Pro that most of the Mac Pro users are absolutely looking for.

Just doing my typical Accounting cost to benefit analysis. And at the lower tiers, especially the "desktop" class performance levels, This is an over-engineered, and therefore comes with a pricetag that far exceeds the performance levels at this price point.

People can try and make excuses for it. Some valid. Some vapid.

Example of a vapid excuse: "Mac OS is worth the $2,000 premium". "they're just covering overhead costs of designing it"

If your design costs are so ridiculously high to essentially release a parity product to existing standards, than you have fundamental design and direction problems in your corporations direction.

 

[nexusrule]

Initial reports from the youtube influencers who received mac pro's from Apple said it was quiet. BUT... what was their ambient room temperature? How does the mac pro and the monitor perform when ambient temperature is 35C? I'm sure 4 fans will cool it adequately but it won't be quiet.

You start saying we don’t know the temperature in reviewer’s room and then you build an assumption based on the fact that they were cold...

Besides that, what do you think it happens when room temperature reaches 35C? That you have air conditioning if you hope to actually get work done. Not for the machine obviously, for yourself.

 

[PickUrPoison]

problem is the market doesn't give a **** about the profit margins apple wants.

if Apple can't be competitive at that price and performance point, they may (i recognise I am speculating) have issues moving units at these price points.

I don't think there will be a problem with the upper tiers. Those who need those, know what they're getting and know why they're getting it. but it's these lower tiers, where Apple's over-designing is costing almost 2.5 times the price point for performance.

again: I am not judging the computer's specs. Nor it's hardware prowress. I think this is finally the Mac Pro that most of the Mac Pro users are absolutely looking for.

Just doing my typical Accounting cost to benefit analysis. And at the lower tiers, especially the "desktop" class performance levels, This is an over-engineered, and therefore comes with a pricetag that far exceeds the performance levels at this price point.

People can try and make excuses for it. Some valid. Some vapid.

Example of a vapid excuse: "Mac OS is worth the $2,000 premium". "they're just covering overhead costs of designing it"

If your design costs are so ridiculously high to essentially release a parity product to existing standards, than you have fundamental design and direction problems in your corporations direction.

You’re missing the point. It has nothing to do with over-designing, over-engineering, design costs, etc. Like I said, BOM cost is only a portion of the selling price. You can’t put together a parts list of $3,000 and say that’s would Apple should sell it for.

That makes as much sense as saying Kellogg’s only has 17¢ worth of rice and sugar in a box of Rice Krispies, so it should be selling for 17¢ on the grocery shelf instead of $3.99. You can’t ignore the costs of manufacturing, advertising, transportation, etc. That parts list that totals $3k is a $5,500 box if Apple sells it.

Apple is a huge company and it has huge expenses. It’s not going to make you a cut-down version of the $6k Mac Pro, sell it for $3k, and lose $2k+ on every box. That would be foolish.

Apple’s costs are what they are, and they don’t try to compete in markets where they can’t be competitive—whether that’s a $100 or $200 iPhone or a $3k Mac Pro mini. You just wanting one isn’t enough. It’s a loser product for Apple, and they’re not going to make it.

 

[GeneralChang]

Some of you clearly have no idea what liquid cooking is.

I’ve been using custom built liquid cooling in my PCs for over 10 years now, often 24/7. Never failed once and it’s still running right this second.
Yes fans are used, but not only they don’t have to be used, they’re usually on the lowest setting. Only enough to create the air movement.

the water pump, sensors, fans, fittings nothing ever failed.

Uh... and you have cleaned out those loops sometime in the past decade... r-right?
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yes
THat is the point I'm making. That the baseline lower end Mac Pros are ridiculously overpriced because Apple has gone with a "one size fits all" approach for certain components.

While that's excellent from an upgradability standpoint and "future proofing" there is a cost loss to the user. especially on the lower tiers that do not make up for that price difference

Especially considering that standard ATX components are far less costly and offer almost identical upgrade paths as this new motherboard.

Apple to bring the costs down of the lower tiered Mac Pro probably would have been better served by having a cheaper internals option for those additional components.

I'm doing this just cause it's something I always do comparing performance, parts and price. Just wanted to see at the low end specs, could I build a computer with similar specs and performance to the Mac pro. What would it cost. And what would the differences be.

my build here is based on two requirements: Performance must be equal, or better than the Mac Pro. There's no point claiming something to be "Cheaper" if it doesn't perform the same. Feature set must be similar. There's no point in pricing out non-ECC RAM for example, because it's not a like to like comparison.

however, Here's the numbers, based on the bare minimum speced Mac Pro with only the CPU upgraded due to hard to find benchmarks on the w3223 (can find the 3235 benchmarks so far):

The Mac Pro for comparisons:
CPU: Xeon W-3235 (12 core, 24 Thread)
RAM: DDR4 32gb (4 x 8) ECC at 2666mhz.
Graphics: Radeon Pro 580x w/ 8gb VRAM
Storage: 256GB NVME SSD
Networking: Built in AC Wifi: 2 x 10gb Ethernet, bluetooth 5
Peripherals: ThunderBolt 3.1
Price: 7,999.00


A custom built PC computer that offers better performance, but similar featuresets
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 R9 3950x (16 core, 32thread, faster in all benchmarks, mixxing intel quicksync as a feature if required, but adds PCI-4.0 support)
RAM: DDR4 32gb (4 x 8) ECC at 2666mhz.
Graphics: Radeon R5700xt 8gb (faster than 580x pro and newer)
Motherboard: ASRock x570 AQUA... why? Because all the features faster Wifi although only one 10gbps ethernet. better audio. Support for up to 4x GPU's. 8x SATA. 2 x NVME PCIE x 4 interfaces
Storage: 1TB of PCI-E 4 storage at 5gbps
Case: Dune's highest end Mac Pro knock off case cause we want it to look the same
Total Price - $2,980


I love what Apple has sone with the new Mac Pro. it's going to be fast and quiet and cool. I think a premium from Apple is appropriate... but in this particular case, the lowest tiers of the Mac Pro are coming in at nearly a 2.5x premium price point for performance and features because of the over-engineering that they've put in to support the highest tiers.

So the big thing for me is that you went with a Ryzen system. It's not Apple's fault they married Intel back when Intel was good and AMD not so much.

To be clear I'm not disagreeing with your point. Just chiming in with the obligatory-for-2019 mocking of Intel's CPUs.

 

[LordVic]

You’re missing the point. It has nothing to do with over-designing, over-engineering, design costs, etc. Like I said, BOM cost is only a portion of the selling price. You can’t put together a parts list of $3,000 and say that’s would Apple should sell it for.

That makes as much sense as saying Kellogg’s only has 17¢ worth of rice and sugar in a box of Rice Krispies, so it should be selling for 17¢ on the grocery shelf instead of $3.99. You can’t ignore the costs of manufacturing, advertising, transportation, etc. That parts list that totals $3k is a $5,500 box if Apple sells it.

Apple is a huge company and it has huge expenses. It’s not going to make you a cut-down version of the $6k Mac Pro, sell it for $3k, and lose $2k+ on every box. That would be foolish.

Apple’s costs are what they are, and they don’t try to compete in markets where they can’t be competitive—whether that’s a $100 or $200 iPhone or a $3k Mac Pro mini. You just wanting one isn’t enough. It’s a loser product for Apple, and they’re not going to make it.

sir, it is you completely epicly missing the point.

it's like you've read 1 line from my post and decided to go spew out immediate "BUT YOUR WRONG APPLE IS ALWAYS RIGHT!"

i'm not discounting, or saying what you're saying is wrong. Only that from a price to performance perspective, you can absolutely get far better value than what Apple is able to offer because of the costs they have associated on paper to this device.

those costs being allocated as part of the pricing is IMHO a mistake. if Apple ended up having so much overhead to releasing this machine that the low end models require a $3000 premium on price. Than there is a fundamental problem in cost allocation.

I don't think a company like Apple is going to be the lowest price point. That would be unreasonable because yes there are other costs associated with any product release. you're not telling anything that anyone doesn't know.

What I'm saying is that if Apple here is barely breaking even on those costs which force them to have price points that are 2x that of retail price points of the parts themselves, than there's a serious problem in Apple's ability to deliver based on their overhead.

Ina ddition, if you think apple is breaking even on their costs than you're delusional. There is absolutely costs and profit margins associated in that pricing.

Especially when you can get custom built PC's already pre-built from a few manufacturers with the performance / parts I listed for 2-3k cheaper than the Mac Pro.

so again: the Reasons WHY Apple is charging 2x the price isn't the point I'm trying to make. I'm just trying to point out that regardless of those reasons, they're still coming in at a high premium that will be hard for those looking for that specific segment to stomach. Apple will have to justify to users why $2000-$3000 price premium offers them compelling value.

To me, as a consumer and not apple investor, or fanboy, is not sold on the excuses you are providing, because those excuses don't provide me, the consumer any value.

The Sum of the parts do not equal what they're selling. Essentially, by having such high engineering and BOM costs downloaded to the consumer, Apple may have priced themselves too high for that specific segment. This is what I mean by over-engineering. they've designed a solution for the highest end, that pushes the lowest end costs up higher than what would be generally considered reasonable for that performance segment.
[automerge]1576179932[/automerge]

Uh... and you have cleaned out those loops sometime in the past decade... r-right?
[automerge]1576179616[/automerge]

So the big thing for me is that you went with a Ryzen system. It's not Apple's fault they married Intel back when Intel was good and AMD not so much.

To be clear I'm not disagreeing with your point. Just chiming in with the obligatory-for-2019 mocking of Intel's CPUs.

I have nothing wrong with Intel. they have some really good stuff.

But AMD with Ryzen 3 generation has absolutel leapfrogged Intel in just about all metrics. Part of their Zen2 architecture, and additional node process changes (on 7um I believe, with 5um coming soon). Where intell has been stuck on the larger process for a few years and haven't had any core design changes (they've essentially released the same chips for the last 3 gens)

by catching up on IPC with Intel, Zen2's lower cost. Lower TDP's, Higher core counts, unlocked CPUs, PCI-4.0 support. It's almost impossible to match their performance and features with intel in the time being. And where Intel does match in performance/ features, they come in at significantly higher prices.

One additional reason I did AMD in that comparison is for feature sets as well. unlike intel, ALL RyZen chips are Unlocked multiplier, and ECC compatible.

 

[GeneralChang]

I have nothing wrong with Intel. they have some really good stuff.

But AMD with Ryzen 3 generation has absolutel leapfrogged Intel in just about all metrics. Part of their Zen2 architecture, and additional node process changes (on 7um I believe, with 5um coming soon). Where intell has been stuck on the larger process for a few years and haven't had any core design changes (they've essentially released the same chips for the last 3 gens)

by catching up on IPC with Intel, Zen2's lower cost. Lower TDP's, Higher core counts, unlocked CPUs, PCI-4.0 support. It's almost impossible to match their performance and features with intel in the time being. And where Intel does match in performance/ features, they come in at significantly higher prices.

One additional reason I did AMD in that comparison is for feature sets as well. unlike intel, ALL RyZen chips are Unlocked multiplier, and ECC compatible.

There's no doubt Intel has some strong chips still on the market, but it's like you said. In just about every metric you can find an AMD chip outperforming the Intel part for less money. So comparing a low-end Xeon W with a high end Ryzen consumer chip that costs half as much and performs significantly better is absolutely valid. The 3950X is a beast and deserves the respect it's being given.

I'm just saying that's probably $500-700 of additional cost the base Mac Pro has over the Ryzen system that isn't strictly Apple's fault. 😁

 

[LordVic]

There's no doubt Intel has some strong chips still on the market, but it's like you said. In just about every metric you can find an AMD chip outperforming the Intel part for less money. So comparing a low-end Xeon W with a high end Ryzen consumer chip that costs half as much and performs significantly better is absolutely valid. The 3950X is a beast and deserves the respect it's being given.

I'm just saying that's probably $500-700 of additional cost the base Mac Pro has over the Ryzen system that isn't strictly Apple's fault. 😁

no of course not. And I accept that there's often a premium on Apple products. I've paid it at times because there was value for that premium and the difference was reasonable.

nearly 2x the price at this particular performance level though is a little hard to stomach. For $6000 you can get a gnarly workstation pre-built from multiple different custom workstation vendors.

as I provided earlier. The parts I listed were all retail pricing (no bulk discounts that a company like Apple would have). They were all off the shelf, pure commodity standards. And yet for 1/2 the price, you got significantly more performance (Faster drives, faster CPU, faster GPU, in a case that looked identical )

this means that for $2000-$3000 difference, Apple is either pocketing massive amounts of profit off each device, or, their operational costs to sell these does not make fiscal sense.

And as I've pointed out once you also start getting into the higher skus and upgrade options, that margin of price difference does come down. Thus evidencing to me that they've taken this higher end stuff, over-engineered it, and hoped to shove it down the lower end market to make up the costs. it's an interesting business move purely because it puts the value of the low end Mac Pro into question.

I could have also use specific workstation only hardware for comparisons sake. But at $6000, you could build an amazingly powerful ThreadRipper dual GPU machine that would absolutely beat the snot out of the $6k Mac Pro.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

I have a fanless machine for that.

Lol, my thoughts exactly!!!
A Mac mini is my htpc... I did get a chuckle out of imagining someone using a $6k, obnoxiously big, industrial grade modular workstation powerhouse- to run their PLEX server.

 

[PickUrPoison]

sir, it is you completely epicly missing the point.

it's like you've read 1 line from my post and decided to go spew out immediate "BUT YOUR WRONG APPLE IS ALWAYS RIGHT!"

i'm not discounting, or saying what you're saying is wrong. Only that from a price to performance perspective, you can absolutely get far better value than what Apple is able to offer because of the costs they have associated on paper to this device.

those costs being allocated as part of the pricing is IMHO a mistake. if Apple ended up having so much overhead to releasing this machine that the low end models require a $3000 premium on price. Than there is a fundamental problem in cost allocation.

I don't think a company like Apple is going to be the lowest price point. That would be unreasonable because yes there are other costs associated with any product release. you're not telling anything that anyone doesn't know.

What I'm saying is that if Apple here is barely breaking even on those costs which force them to have price points that are 2x that of retail price points of the parts themselves, than there's a serious problem in Apple's ability to deliver based on their overhead.

Ina ddition, if you think apple is breaking even on their costs than you're delusional. There is absolutely costs and profit margins associated in that pricing.

Especially when you can get custom built PC's already pre-built from a few manufacturers with the performance / parts I listed for 2-3k cheaper than the Mac Pro.

so again: the Reasons WHY Apple is charging 2x the price isn't the point I'm trying to make. I'm just trying to point out that regardless of those reasons, they're still coming in at a high premium that will be hard for those looking for that specific segment to stomach. Apple will have to justify to users why $2000-$3000 price premium offers them compelling value.

To me, as a consumer and not apple investor, or fanboy, is not sold on the excuses you are providing, because those excuses don't provide me, the consumer any value.

The Sum of the parts do not equal what they're selling. Essentially, by having such high engineering and BOM costs downloaded to the consumer, Apple may have priced themselves too high for that specific segment. This is what I mean by over-engineering. they've designed a solution for the highest end, that pushes the lowest end costs up higher than what would be generally considered reasonable for that performance segment.

You’re the one missing the point.

Apple’s not trying to compete in “$3,000 desktop build” space that you specced. They’re not interested in competing in that space. No matter how upset you are about that, it doesn’t change the facts. They’re also not interested $200 iPhones.

The market they do want to address is those who want a highly expandable, highly configurable, high performance Xeon workstation. One that starts at $6k for an 8-core, 32GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 5.6 Teraflop GPU and ends at $52k for a 28-core, 1.5TB RAM, 4GB SSD, dual 28 Teraflop GPUs and a custom FPGA-based video encoder/decoder module that eats 12 streams of 4K ProRes RAW video or 16 streams of 4K ProRes 422 or 3 8K streams for lunch.

You might want them to compete in the $3k-5k desktop space for home users, “prosumers”, enthusiasts, hobbyists, tinkerers, gamers, etc. (or whatever you want to call it) but they don’t want to. You wanting them to build your preferred machine is not particularly relevant. They’re not interested.

You can always get what you want, even if you’re willing to pay for it.

 

[IG88]

nearly 2x the price at this particular performance level though is a little hard to stomach. For $6000 you can get a gnarly workstation pre-built from multiple different custom workstation vendors.

I was thinking that too until I priced a Dell 7920 Workstation. Seems to me Apple's price is in line with Dell.

There's a premium on Xeon and I think that's the issue.

 

[jerry333]

It's too bad no one else has ever manufactured a quiet fan. It's a good thing we have Apple to invent things!

The fan is quiet, it's the moving air that makes the noise.

 

[ilikewhey]

yep.

All I remember is you want turbulant flow, and one can derived an equation for fin height, distance between fins, air speed, etc. and calculate the power dissipation based on that.

most high end premium air cooler like noctua and cryorig have very high fin density, the fin density on the mac pro looks like these cheap 20 dollar cooler master air coolers.

 

[LordVic]

I was thinking that too until I priced a Dell 7920 Workstation. Seems to me Apple's price is in line with Dell.

There's a premium on Xeon and I think that's the issue.

Dell's not great value for workstations either. Same problem IMHO as Apple. They're expecting the low end people to pay for the profit margins and R&D for their niche high ends.

And yes, those Xeon's... which is silly because they're becoming less and less competitive lately.

I expect that you're probably right in some of the cost being intel's shenanigans. Its also hurting Intel significantly as since Ryzen's release, AMD has seen meteoric increases in market share. Since Zen 2, AMD is now poised to outsell Intel for the first time in decades.

Intel really is scrambling. And While I can't see Apple moving off Intel for reasons. Intel should be worried of other manufacturers abandoning them.
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The fan is quiet, it's the moving air that makes the noise.

you've never used cheap fans

they themselves can create a lot of noise due to cheap bearings or magnets. a good quality fan can absolutely be night and day from a cheap part

 

[nickgovier]

.

 

[bernuli]

I keep one of these air purifiers running in the front of my 5,1 on low setting. I don’t know how effective it actually is. But I just had my 5,1 open for vid card upgrade after at least 2 years of constant running. There was hardly any dust at all. Just a fine layer on horizontal surfaces. No dust bunnies, and fans only had a trace of sediment.

If 7,1 Mac Pro, maybe we’re gonna need a bigger purifier.


https://www.holmesproducts.com/air-...ith-true-hepa-filter/HAP706-NU-1.html#start=1

I'm a quiet fan fanatic, and am sure the MP does have an overall wonderful cooling system, but they just completely give up on the idea of preventing dust ingress?

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Is that yet another tired cheese grater/shredder joke there, or are you really pretending like you have a computer better than a new Mac Pro?

Both?