Right but the point is had Apple announced one price you wouldn’t have had mainstream media outlets like CNN writing stories about a $1K monitor stand. It was a PR blunder.
[doublepost=1560267971][/doublepost]
But is this what people need to get their work done or just something they want because they want to tinker, don’t want to pay Apple’s upgrade pricing, have a philosophical objection to sealed machines etc.?
My guess is if there’s a huge backlash and this machine doesn’t meet Apple’s internal sales expectations they may create a cheaper entry level machine. But I wouldn’t count on it. I’m sure Apple is expecting the Mac mini and iMac pro to fill the prosumer market.
on your first question. Both answers are true. It's a combination of some users just like to tinker, But also that it maybe necessary for some users to get their work done (Or remain competitive with their business rivals) without full system replacement.
Why the 2nd matters when it comes to keeping competitive. Lets say you just paid $20,000 for a shiny new computer for work and number crunching. Your business relies on getting numbers out the door as fast as possible. The faster, the better, the more money you make. You're competing against hundreds in the same field and they're all doing the same as you trying to get numbers out as fast as possible.
That $20,000 new shiny has 128gb of RAM. you operate for 2 years and a new version of the software comes out, and 256gb of RAM would result in a 20% increase to performance.
In a locked down machine. To get that 30% performance, you are going to have to pay for another new $20,000 machine. in a non-locked down machine, the 128gb RAM upgrade will only cost you $2000 for that 30% performance. All your competition is upgrading in some way, so if you don't, you are going to now be 30% slower than the rest of the industry.
In addition, letse say in the above scenario, RAM is the only thing that makes this software faster. no CPU or GPU upgrade helps. So why would spending $20,000 on a new full computer make sense over adding $2000 worth of parts instead? The ROI is greater on the upgrade versus buying new every time.
In addition, there are other reasons for "modular" parts that can be replaced. Especially in case of failure or hardware incompatibilities. With locked down, glued and soldered devices, should a piece of hardware fail on that board, the means to fix it is reduced. Usually ending up with lengthy trips to repair facilities, and possible loss of business operations for days or weeks depending on the manufacturer.
With Modular components, faulty hardware can be replaced nearly instantly (run to the store, run home, swap part, back up and running). RAM stick dies? easily swap it out. CPU fried? Easily swap it out. Storage dies? easily swap it out. Instead of replacing the whole computer or circuit board, you only need to maintain and replace the failed part. So this is partially philosophical, with real world implications.
I can't speak to the necessary price points Apple believes this thing is worth. And it might very well be at the higher SKU's the new Mac Pro holds its own in cost to performance. But at the lowest end, the cost to performance, compared to mainstream workstations is really high. the lowest end SKU of the Mac Pro is worse off performance wise than the iMac Pro. There is also almost no tangible benefit to the components they've used in the low end. ECC is overblown and is impossible to really test / prove (Intel doesn't even have any tests to demonstrate that ECC works), and AMD even includes ECC Support in every Ryzen CPU for no additional costs (meaning the Mac Pro's upsell at this price point is moot and completely irrelevant). Without ECC support then, the CPU option in the lowest end model is a poor choice that is not the best performing CPU at these price points. for $6000, one does not expect a CPU that underforms i7 and i9's available in machines at 1/2 the cost. In addition, the base model will have more limited PCI-E lanes. you only get the full PCI-E lanes offered by the Mac Pro if you upgrade to the more expensive versions with the upgraded CPUs
I think Apple's likely near $2000 premium on the lowest models is more likely there to try and offset the costs of the logic board they've included. This logic board is amazing, but doesn't scale down very well for lower cost computers. Hence the ridiculous starting price of $6000.
there should have been a "Mac" that falls between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro at $6000 should have far more "ooomph" in it than an 8c CPU, 16gb RAM and 256gb SSD with a 580x. Alll of those components for equal if not better performance can be had retail for < $3000 USD. This base model Sku should just not exist in this configuration for that price.
)
