Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Says New Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR Are Coming in September [Updated]
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Fewer slots might have an application, but please do not get rid of the ECC RAM and please do not use consumer CPUs. Pros deserve to know that things are not silently changing behind the scenes and to run full power without throttling.
The problem with upgrading is that Apple has a history of not releasing anything new. So if they go that route again, in five years, you'll be looking at buying the same GPUs you declined buying in the first place, for the same price, except that they will be old by then, and you'll be looking at spending $2K to $8K for 5 year old GPUs, for a 5 year old machine. And you won't be able to use those GPUs anywhere else. And forget about using third party (unless they surprise us) because they have proprietary everything. And you won't be able to sell your low end GPU that came with it because they will be 8 years old by then, and the lowest of the line. The Polaris GPUs that come with the $6K Mac Pro were released originally in mid 2016. That alone should give you an idea of Apple's pricing policy.
3 more months for us to sell our kidneys.
(Okay, okay, I know that this product is not for us and is for the real pros)
Also I'm not sure you can survive on no kidneys.
If you can’t afford the Mac Pro you almost certainly don’t need it and can easily make due with a Mac mini or iMac.
That's not how it works. They are the same speed (actually ECC is slightly slower IIRC). And Apple has shown with the Trashcan and the iMac Pro that they love throttling "pro" computers.
Moreover, the majority of the "pro" media users have no use in their applications for Xeon or ECC. Core and non-ECC are half the price and often faster.
There is always iMac Pro that cost cheaper but can get the work done for many Pros on a budget.
Honestly, the price does not shock me at all. This machine is just on another level and exactly what the Pros have been asking for! Lot's of real Pros seem to be excited about it. Is this gonna sell on a small number? Damn right. And I think Apple knows that.
Although you will lose the silent cooling of the stock GPUs, this Mac Pro is upgradable nad you can put any PCI based GPU in it. If Nvidia ever gets Mac OS drivers working again you will be able to put in any GPU but as it stands you can put any AMD GPU in.
This is nonsense
Mac Mini can't use advanced GPU's nor are the ones in the Mini ugpradable / swappable.
the iMac is an all in one and does not replace many users needs for a headless mac with reasonable GPU options.
The Mac mini can use advanced GPUs and they sure can be upgraded over time. There are several external GPU options. Professionals have more options than ever before from apple.
I was planning on buying a complete setup, but, I would rather put the money towards rent and groceries. Maybe in 5 years the price will come down.
And, after all that saving and starving, you'll have an average spec'd machine that, apart from the outward appearance, is very underwhelming. 8 core, 32GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $6000!
They couldn’t have been more explicit that new new design is completely geared toward not having throttling happen. By explicit I mean the presenter literally said onstage that the massive heatsink and airflow design was all about making sure these processors can run full blast at all times.
External GPU's are "ok" for some cases, but not all. They introduce bottlenecks in the GPU if you're using the GPU for gaming purposes (anywhere from 5-15% reports). They also add a significant amount of cost overhead that is not necessarily wanted or needed (now your GPU instead of costing $500, costs $1000 cause you're factoring in the external enclosure)
And the Mini currently cannot have it's Storage upgraded internally as it's soldered. want to add in a 2nd or larger storage option? again, you're going to need to add on an external controller which adds significant costs to the upgrade. Which shouldn't even be necessary since we know for a fact that Mac Mini chassis could support and has room for a 2.5" based drive anways. So the move to solder storage is intentional lock down to prevent the very upgrading we're talking about.
I'm not arguing that professionals don't have more options than before. I'm just pointing out that there are still a couple product gaps in Apple's computer lineup that computer users are looking for.
When I use a computer for example, I don't want a plethora of wires and dongles sticking everywhere. Which is what the Mac mini solution requires to expand / upgrade upon. to just get decent GPU support and more drive space options you are now adding 2 external enclosure boxes to your desktop setup.
It's well-designed with respect to display movement/articulation. Whether that's important to you and have the ability to afford it, well, that's personal.
"But there’s nothing else special with that stand,..."
Not true. Though you do pay for it.
After all this time you still focus on specs as if apple gives a ****. They have shown time and again that optimizing software can make lesser hard work perform better than competitors for the tasks those products are designed for.
I feel like I've heard this before...
"Coming soon"...
AirPower
I'll believe it when I see it.
"Coming soon"...
AirPower
I'll believe it when I see it.
Yeah, but most of us only really need an iMac Pro. This thing is for large studios and people who want to show off. Most freelancers aren't doing 8K ProRes RAW, and if they are, it sounds like they are probably being paid well enough to get something like this. I would think the same would go for audio production doing 1000 instruments at a time. Photographers don't need something this powerful except for maybe the fraction of a fraction of a percent that are making absolutely massive gigapixel panoramas and are doing so many that they need to crank through them in as little time as possible. I think the largest sensors now max out between 100MP-150MP and those are still pretty rare and can be handled by the iMac Pro fine. The vast majority of professionals are using 24-50MP gear currently.
The only thing that sucks for people like us is that we can't upgrade things on our own. What I want is basically a redesigned Mac Mini in a mini tower. Maybe just call it the "Mac" with a price around $1999, obviously going up from there with options. One PCI x16, maybe one or two regular PCI for capture card or expansion ports, couple M.2 SSD slots, 2-4 upgradeable RAM slots, 10Gb ethernet option, and option for a top-of-the-line i9. I'd also like it if Apple would just sell standalone 5K displays like what is in the iMac for around $1299 or less. I'd really love to have something like that with an RTX 2080 Ti that I upgraded myself and could use Bootcamp for Windows gaming. Some people use TB3 enclosures with their iMac but you lose a lot of performance and it can be a pain. What I'll probably end up doing instead is dealing with my Vega 48 for a couple more years (it runs most games ok at 1440p), and then just build an actual PC for gaming like I did back in the day.
Yeah, if you’re buying a Mac for gaming you’re wasting money. A $200 console will give a far better experience and library. I get where you’re coming from, and I totally understand the argument. I just think we finally have a variety of updated macs that cover pretty much everyone’s needs and the Mac Pro is almost exactly what the people who are going to buy it were asking for. The only legitimate complaint I can see is the lack of Nvidia support.
Not at all.
Depending on your use case, one or more categories of CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD will either be upgraded to some extent, maxed out, or left at the base spec.
Why would you want to make a customer buy a higher-end spec than they need? (Unless you’re an Apple shareholder
)
Last edited: