The power supply module easily slides out and without cable harness. The three fan assembly is easily removed and without a wire harness.
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Demo: Upgrading the RAM in the 2019 Mac Pro After Purchase
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The power supply module easily slides out and without cable harness. The three fan assembly is easily removed and without a wire harness.
Now show me a Mac laptop. Nope, you still have to replace the machine for thousands of dollars. Valid criticism since they just released the 16.
If you really want to save money then buy the RAM used on eBay. You can get 384 GB for under $1,000 from reputable sellers like memstore. RAM has such a long lifespan that it's virtually the same as buying it new (especially considering that it is DDR4 so it couldn't be very old).
Wow... Base is 32GB in 8x4GB config. How generous. I expected a 24GB base model in 12x2GB config. They sold you 12 slots, might as well fill all the slots you paid for 
This. Is the major reason I'm wondering if I will ever buy a brand new MBP again. The total cost of ownership is off this planet.
I truly wonder what the effect on Apple's total profits for Macs (and total profits of the entire ecosystem) would be, if they reverted to user upgradeable RAM and SSDs, and I somehow suspect they would be more profitable from being less greedy.
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I've been using OWC RAM and SSDs on multiple machines for 7 years now. Zero problems.
Apple's recent quality control issues however....
I wouldn’t really call it fiddly, but it does require a large, seemingly logic board breaking amount of insertion force. (It’s the same for any other computer manufacturer; Apple doesn’t make their own DIMM sockets). It’s because there are 288 edge connectors that all have to make a perfect connection. Just one weak contact and you’re screwed.
The better-engineered boards will have stand-offs or other proper support near the DIMM slots so the board doesn’t flex unduly during installation. Personally, I like to limit the number of installation/removal cycles of DIMMs, ideally once or twice every five years lol. But it should be good for hundreds.
One important thing I haven’t seen in any of these articles: these processors support “Six-Channel” bandwidth. In order to get it, you need to install DIMs in multiples of 6 (So: 6 or 12).
if you install a multiple of 4 then you only get quad-channel. If you out in 3 you will get triple-channel and 2 will have dual-channel.
This is the reason why Apple’s RAM configurations are mostly multiples of 6...
if you install a multiple of 4 then you only get quad-channel. If you out in 3 you will get triple-channel and 2 will have dual-channel.
This is the reason why Apple’s RAM configurations are mostly multiples of 6...
I am sure. If they read the logs and start seeing model numbers not matching the supported configuration there might be a few questions. We have customers denied service (or asked for a payment) for sticking additional memory not defined on their service contracts into servers.
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I remember inserting interface cards to Apple II while the machine was on.
You can't mix R-DIMMS and LR-DIMMS in the same system. Apple provides R-DIMMS for DIMMS that are 32G and under, and LR-DIMMS for 64G and up. Because they added 8 64G DIMMS, they would have been LR-DIMMS, which are incompatible with the base configuration R-DIMMS.
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There are some interesting considerations that appear in the specs.
For a start, there's a tiny note that the 12-core and above run memory at 2933MHz, the 8-core at only 2666MHz.
Pricing here in NZ runs at NZ$1550 for the Apple upgrade to 96Gb RAM, but an additional 8x8Gb DIMMs would be of the order of NZ$800 (giving 12 x 8Gb = 96Gb RAM). On the other hand, discarding the original RAM and installing 6 x 16Gb would be only a little more expensive at NZ$950 or so.
The question I guess would be whether you could usefully then install the 4x8Gb modules back in to give a total of 128Gb, but then you'd have 10 DIMMs and that might be a bit of a problem.
I'm guessing I would probably just buy another two 8Gb sticks (NZ$200) and get 48Gb RAM with the advantages of having 6 DIMMs installed.
For a start, there's a tiny note that the 12-core and above run memory at 2933MHz, the 8-core at only 2666MHz.
Pricing here in NZ runs at NZ$1550 for the Apple upgrade to 96Gb RAM, but an additional 8x8Gb DIMMs would be of the order of NZ$800 (giving 12 x 8Gb = 96Gb RAM). On the other hand, discarding the original RAM and installing 6 x 16Gb would be only a little more expensive at NZ$950 or so.
The question I guess would be whether you could usefully then install the 4x8Gb modules back in to give a total of 128Gb, but then you'd have 10 DIMMs and that might be a bit of a problem.
I'm guessing I would probably just buy another two 8Gb sticks (NZ$200) and get 48Gb RAM with the advantages of having 6 DIMMs installed.
It is ludicrous but not for the reasons you say. macOS is not Windows. It isn't a "any combination of CPU and GPU" OS. It's an OS written for and tuned to certain configurations. If they did a skeleton machine like you say, even ignoring the issue of margins, the internet would be afire with people complaining the machine is trash because their Frankenstein's monster edge-case combination isn't behaving right. So it wouldn't be especially cool either. They'd also bitch that it cost way too much for what it was (because, outside of silly fantasies about Apple abandoning its margins... Apple doesn't abandon its margins).
Well, my OWC RAM has yet to fail on my old iMac. Yet, the motherboard & graphics card had failed TWICE already.
It’s even better than that, brother!
I followed your link... those are brand-new unused sticks of RAM, not used.
Wow. That savings there is bonkers.
You save $5,000 over Apple’s price- that’s nearly enough for another Mac Pro, lol!
A bit of a non-statement to be honest.
Solid state devices are really really reliable as a general rule, as long as they aren't put in a place where they overheat and meet basic qualit standards.
And it runs Linux!
Almost expect Apple to invent a new RAM slot and then force you to buy the ram via them.
This Mac Pro is far from my mortal reaches and I can only stare at it in amazement like a kid looking in the toy shop window.
This Mac Pro is far from my mortal reaches and I can only stare at it in amazement like a kid looking in the toy shop window.
You remember wrong.
RAM
Step 1: Old Mac Pro - shut down, unplug everything, remove side door.
New Mac Pro - shut down, unplug everything, lift off casing.
Step 2: Old Mac Pro - undo 2 latches and slide out the processor tray.
New Mac Pro - undo 2 latches and remove RAM covers.
Step 3 is the same on both except all new Mac Pros have 12 RAM slots which some would call a win.
PCI-e cards require a Philips screwdriver to remove bracket plate on both. Of course the new Mac Pro has 8 PCI-e slots which most would call a win.
So though you could argue that sliding up the casing is harder than removing the side door I would argue that the 360 degree access makes everything a lot simpler after this “hardship”. I don’t know if you ever tried to access anything but the RAM in the old Mac Pro but I remember losing a couple hours removing the internal fan assembly to get at something for a repair which I don’t think would be the case in the new Mac Pro (was I trying to get to an internal power for a PCI card? I don’t remember).
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For all those looking for cheap RAM alternatives to Apple (or Dell or HP, which are more expensive still) you need to ask yourself what your time is worth. Diagnosis of a bad RAM chip can be maddening, it often feels like anything but RAM, and I have had this happen more than a few times with 3rd party RAM (twice with OWC) and once with Apple RAM. Difference is Apple just gave me a new computer. OWC RMA in Canada is not cheap never mind the days or weeks of intermittent failures, hangs, kernel panics that have you scrambling to figure out what is going wrong. So you gotta ask yourself “Are you feeling lucky? Well are you, punk?”
Don’t get me wrong, personally I still roll the dice. But I wouldn’t do that on a production machine on a movie where time is worth more than money. That I learned the hard way.
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Samsung and Micron (Crucial). Also NEC and Toshiba back in the day; are they still around? Anyway, that’s it for me. Never had an issue with them. There might be others that are just as solid, for instance I’ve heard good things about SK hynix but I’ll stay with what I know, thank you very much
The last problem I had was with a friend’s computer, it was Kingston. Flaky, which is so much worse than a hard failure 😡
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They just charge more for RAM. Yesterday I tried to configure a Dell workstation and the RAM update costed about the same as for the Mac Pro. As far as I remember they had similar prices for CPU upgrades too.
This thing would be more worth it if it took 64-core AMD CPUs with PCI-Express 4.0, Thunderbolt 4.0, and USB 4.0. Didn’t Intel make Thunderbolt open source or something so AMD can use it now? Also it needs to support Nvidia GPUs. If they added support for all of that this time next year then I would be really tempted to buy the base model and max it out myself over time. But right now the connectivity and Intel CPUs seem like a big limiting factor for future proofing. If I’m going to spend $6000 on a modular Mac it better damn well be as future proof as possible!
That said they should just make macOS OpenSource. The last Mac that I could describe with awesome, wonderful, impressive is my MacBook Pro from 2012 and the last true MacPro.
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