Apple Reveals All-New Mac Pro With Up to 28-Core Processor and 1.5TB of RAM, Starting at $5,999

[mdriftmeyer]

Apple makes plenty of machines that are appropriate for people who need reasonably powerful machines but don’t NEED a $6K+ Mac Pro.

These people don't seem to get that the old Mac Pro was too much for most ``power users'' and not enough for actual commercial users.

The iMac Pro is a general power user system
The Mac Pro is now a commercial studio deployment system to make films, music, television, etc.

 

[Onelifenofear]

I’m sold
Adobe
Cinema 4d
Redshift
Octane
Will all be compatible so that means Nvidia Cuda won’t have a strangle hold. Sure the RTX RaY tracing will be awesome but AMD have it coming

 

[milo]

They aren't forcing out the Pros from a Mac. They might be forcing out the semi-Pros.

And most of those people would be fine with one an iMac, a laptop, or a mini. I'd love to see a midrange headless in addition to this model but the people who need something in that range doesn't seem to be that big. If they were able to upgrade the mini to eight or twelve cores at some point that would cover a lot of them.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Soldered processor?

You won't upgrade that system, ever. Just like you won't upgrade an AMD Threadripper 2 or upcoming 3.

 

[bobbie424242]

Gruber approves. It is the bestest Mac ever made for writing Markdown in 6K!

 

[BigBoy2018]

I hope they worked out the issues with the T2 chip especial if it's incharge with the harddrive security.

Is there confirmation that this even has a t2 chip?

 

[FFR]

Do you realize that you can buy the base model and upgrade the RAM, CPU and storage for waaaaay cheaper?
You can easily throw a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO NVME for $229 + $20 on a M.2 to PCIe adapter, you are actually ignoring what makes this machine good

Sure could but that Samsung ssd is cheaper for a reason.

 

[pearvsapple]

Flagship Xeon + Flagship Nvidia would've been much better than underwhelming AMD Vegas...

 

[Stephen.R]

one to two man coding shops - will find this is priced out of their league.

I’m a one man ops/dev shop, and I spent $3K on a mini last year (plus the same on a mbp and half as much on displays but that’s besides the point), and I have zero upgrade options for memory or cpu (it is maxed out for both).

This machine is more expensive up front but can be a much longer term investment. I’ll almost certainly be switching over in a year or so when I’ve got sufficient value out of the mini.

 

[buckwheet]

I get that it's kind of a whacky design, visually, but I kinda like it. It's like some kind of steam punk renaissance aesthetic... Functionally it seems pretty perfect, and reasonably future-proofed. Too bad the starting price is so high, but I also kinda get it—the basic box is pretty sophisticated... and that PSU... ! (Still, I wish they had a really bare-bones version that we could upgrade with after market RAM, SSD, GPU.)
Hopefully this will inspire Nvidia to get/keep their macOS driver development up to date... It would be great to be able to run ML/DL code on one of these.

 

[felipey]

My only complaint is 2 thunderbolt ports and 2 usb ports.

I am barely making do with 4 TB3 ports and 4 USB3 ports on my imac Pro.

So is that a valid complaint? I am totally interested besides that, but can't think of any workaround to the huge amount of external audio gear I have in the studio.

4 ports on a 6 thousand dollar computer is indeed ridiculous.

It actually has 4 TB3 ports and 2 USB ports, like the Mac Mini. The two additional TB3 ports are on top of the tower enclosure. Most people who need even more have docks too. I use my two 5K displays as docks.

 

[hermes16]

Is there confirmation that this even has a t2 chip?

on Apple's website it is doing the encryption.
Apple T2 Security Chip.

Data on Mac Pro is protected by the Apple T2 Security Chip. It integrates discrete processors into a single chip. It also ensures that the lowest levels of software aren’t tampered with and that only operating system software trusted by Apple loads at startup.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

My only complaint is 2 thunderbolt ports and 2 usb ports.

I am barely making do with 4 TB3 ports and 4 USB3 ports on my imac Pro.

So is that a valid complaint? I am totally interested besides that, but can't think of any workaround to the huge amount of external audio gear I have in the studio.

4 ports on a 6 thousand dollar computer is indeed ridiculous.

The product page indicates that the I/O is attached to the half-size PCIe slot, and that it’s configurable just like each other major component.

 

[Ryth]

Thank you.
I have been saying this on this forum and people just don't get it. I work on motion graphics in LA/NY for the past 20 years. I freelance on several high end studios and I doubt they will buy many of these MP's and displays for their staff. It's too much $$$ and companies are budget conscious and they want to see performance for a good price.
Sure, I can see folks buying these but, starting at $11/12k for a MP/Display combo it's too much for a pro unless you are on the super high end bracket that brings Thousands of dollars per day of work.
I am just worried that lack of sales might constrain the further development in the future. Apple should have a option of MP/display starting at $5/6k and not on an iMac form factor.

Agreed...we're on the same page. I'm not sure what your experience is freelancing but our clients have become so budget conscious now....this isn't like 10 years ago when only post-houses had the keys to the kingdom and $$$ to buy the software and hardware.

I'm not sure why Apple can't figure out that most of the "Pros" want something similar to their current iMac higher end or iMac Pro in a upgradable tower and as a separate monitor.

This machine & monitor is out of the range of the majority of "Pro" users.

Well, it is for professionals. Professional video editors and professional musicians (the few who still make serious money from their craft) will love this machine. Basically, any professional that has a corporation writing the check to pay for this will love it.

You obviously have no idea what most "professionals" video editors/musicians are using...most would not be able to justify the cost of these 2 items.

And I don't see many corporations unless they have massive deep pockets and no idea what their creatives buy footing the bill for theses.

Again, these are aimed at the XTREME Pro user out there in Hollywood mainly.

 

[norbinhouston]

Apple makes plenty of machines that are appropriate for people who need reasonably powerful machines but don’t NEED a $6K+ Mac Pro.

Of course people need that power. That's why computers keep getting more and more powerful. Steve always made use of powerful Macs to leverage the cool software/things people could do on Macs. I want to edit 4K video of my kids on the fly, that's not any less noble than a youtuber doing it.

 

[phunkidude]

No CUDA

No Use

This is for Video Editors

 

[SuperMatt]

What I love about MacRumors forums:

2013: The new Mac Pro looks cool but I hate it because it's underpowered and not expandable. Give me something more powerful and expandable and I literally do not care what it looks like!

2019: The new Mac Pro might be ultra powerful and highly expandable, but I hate it because it looks terrible!

Oh MacRumors forums, why can't I quit you?

 

[macgenius34]

Omg I don’t like how it looks, although flawed and disliked, the 2013 Mac Pro is one of Apples most beautiful Macs ever made.

Seriously?? Who cares how the damn thing looks, it's all about the performance. . . maybe head over to wayfair if you are looking to decorate the home office!!

 

[felipey]

You guys need to compare it to a real workstation. The HP Z6 with a similar starting spec of a 8 core Xeon with 24.5MB cache (slower and older), and a slower 500GB HDD, same 32GB of RAM, but better Quadro video cards is priced at $6K as well.

 

[podiki]

You can't say Apple hasn't delivered. A serious new Mac Pro with serious professional software. Apple has listened to its customers. Look at all the optional professional expansions. For the first time in years I thought this was a good new line up.

 

[Ryth]

Thank you. In Jobs terms, We've been asking for a nice midsize pickup truck like they used to make... think Ford Ranger or Chevy Colorado. Apple says you want a pickup truck? Here's a $90,000 Ford F450 with semi truck wheels and tires, dual rear wheels, and every luxury feature you can imagine. Oh, and our steering wheel requires $1500 screws to mount it to the car.

Right...good analogy....

This new Mac Pro and Display is the Ford-150 Raptor fully loaded...where most of us want the low-mid range F-150 that we can add on as needed.

 

[MacBird]

Ok ... seriously? I see all the specs of this thing and I understand why it's going to have a high price.
But, only a 256GB SSD in the "entry level" model for $6000? I *do* take issue with that. I honestly can't see why you'd have less than 1TB of storage in a workstation at this price-point, this far into 2019? Even if the argument is that, "Some people just won't need or use it all.", it's not THAT much more expensive to provide a larger SSD. It should have been in there so people who otherwise are satisfied with the base configuration won't start out the gate with insufficient disk space as they put their photo, video and music collections on there for projects.

It could have been a 4500 rpm HD such as in the entry level iMacs.

 

[Stephen.R]

Is there confirmation that this even has a t2 chip?

Yes specs page says so specifically but also shows what looks like slotted SSDs

 

[CaTOAGU]

They aren't forcing out the Pros from a Mac. They might be forcing out the semi-Pros.

The iMac Pro is likely good enough for semi pro's or a good number of indie developer pro's. Honestly if you *need* this - Mac Pro - kind of performance the price isn't at all bad.

 

[mattias800]

If they would offer a "Mac" (non-Pro) with Intels HEDT CPU:s (not Xeon), or even the normal consumer CPU:s, non-ECC-RAM and half the PCI slots at a lower price, I'd buy it.

I can afford the Mac Pro, but the value proposition just isn't there. I'd be paying for stuff I don't need nor want.

And 256 GB and Radeon 580X is, to be frank, absurd.

I don't understand their business logic here. They make a machine for the absolute top niche professionals.
No problem at all.
But the market just below that (prosumers?) must be astronomical compared to people and companies who want the best, regardless of price. And for all those potential buyers, there is still no option with a PCI slot.