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Hands-On With Apple's New 2019 Mac Pro
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Well, I would like to use MacOS for a start. Right now I just have separate machines - an iMac for Final Cut and a Linux PC for rendering and 3d - and those two machines together are less expensive than a base model Mac Pro.
I would rather just use one system, but with Apple’s options that doesn’t make sense currently.
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I've been trying to point out for months that the Mac Pro will be bought by more than just "3d artists" or "video renderers" or whatever terminology the people use for those working in tv/movie production related fields.
But the people complaining about the cost or the low base spec generally don't actually want to hear an explanation of why e.g. the base video card is mediocre - they want to whinge and whine, and proclaim that they can make something better, they don't want to understand that different professions have different requirements.
This whole thing is literally why I didn't buy either of the previous Mac Pro or the iMac Pro - I need CPU and Memory and SSD storage. Beyond driving a couple of 4k displays, the GPU does nothing for me, so anything higher than the 580 is (in terms of the GPU itself) a waste for my purpose.
If the base model card doesn't add any TB3 ports by the time I buy (need to move internationally before that, I don't want to imaging shipping that beast) I may upgrade it for the additional TB3 ports, but the extra GPU power is completely unnecessary for my work.
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I dunno... Memory? PCIe cards for external I/O? PCIe cards for M2, U2, or even SATA SSDs? Other, PCIe GPUs? If you want to use Nvidia via Bootcamp Apple specifically gives advice on how to do so.
If you knew anything about the IPC improvements of the current ThreadRipper and it’s overall performance when compared to Xeon, you wouldn’t be making a comment like this. You’re probably not informed about the current CPU technology!
Meanwhile Apple is also using the mother of absolutely all cheapest ECC-RAM available in the market, and charging you %40 more....
I guess some Apple fans will always be Apple fans:
Just out of curiosity: did you buy the Mac Pro to keep it or just to make this video and send it back within the return period ?
Apple last week finally launched its long awaited 2019 Mac Pro, providing its professional user base with the high-end high-throughput modular machine they've always hoped for.
We picked up a base model Mac Pro and in our latest YouTube video, we unbox it and share some initial first impressions.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
The Mac Pro arrives in an absolutely massive box weighing over 85 pounds, so getting it out of the packaging is no simple task. There are tabs, lids, velcro straps, and more to contend with, ensuring the machine is secure in its packaging.
Even out of the packaging, the Mac Pro is a heavy duty machine made from quality components, and that "cheese grater" design looks great in person. In reality, the lattice look is functional and meant to maximize airflow for quiet performance.
We have the base model Mac Pro, priced at $5,999, with an 8-core 3.5GHz Xeon W processor from Intel, 32GB RAM, a Radeon Pro 580X GPU, and 256GB of SSD storage. We didn't opt for upgrades, but you can add everything from a 28-core processor to 1.5TB of RAM to 4TB of storage (soon to be 8TB), with a maxed out machine costing upwards of $52,000.
Luckily, this is a machine designed to be highly upgradeable, so most of the components can be swapped out later. iFixit gave the Mac Pro a repairability score of 9/10, and said it was a "masterclass in repairability," which is definitely a first for an Apple product.
We can swap out the GPU, add RAM, and take advantage of the eight PCIe slots, though upgrading the SSD will require Apple's assistance because they're tied to the machine's T2 security chip. We're going to be upgrading the RAM in our machine quite soon, so make sure to keep an eye out for that video.
Taking the casing off of the Mac Pro is a bit difficult because it's a tight fit and again, it's heavy, but once the casing has been removed, all of the internal components are easily accessible.
There are both single wide and double wide PCIe slots, with the half-length slot preconfigured with Apple's I/O card. The I/O card features a 3.5mm headphone jack, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and two USB-A ports. There are also two HDMI ports, a spot for the power supply, and two 10GB Ethernet ports. You'll find two additional Thunderbolt 3 ports at the top of the tower near the power button.
Going back to that lattice design, the Mac Pro is indeed as quiet as Apple promised. There are three fans on one side to optimize airflow, and the housing has been designed to act as a tight seal with internal ducts to maximize the thermal capacity.
The Mac Pro comes with a nice braided power cable, a Lightning to USB cable with the same braided design, nifty black Apple stickers, and a high-quality instruction manual. It also ships with a silver and space gray aluminum Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard, which is a design unique to the new Mac Pro.
The Mac Pro is an impressively built machine, and we're excited to put it through its paces and see what it can do. Stay tuned to MacRumors for more Mac Pro coverage, and let us know what you think of Apple's new machine.
Article Link: Hands-On With Apple's New 2019 Mac Pro
And if you are going to keep it, what will be its purpose?
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Do you know what I found to be embarrassing here ? comments like these...
My suggestion is to go buy that midrange gaming PC. It clearly is more tailored to you.
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Are you really arguing with someone comparing a Mac Pro to an iPad Pro? 😆
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You nailed it.
The issue is gaming guys speaking about gaming PC to be compared with professional workstations.
Support and reliability aren’t in their vocabulary.
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You do realise that they are using AR to view a cross-section of the monitor on their devices, right?
So now it is not “better”, but it is “better FOR YOUR SPECIFIC TASK”, right ?
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You are absolutely right.
I don’t know why on forums like this people want to “classify” professionals according to their standards, without considering quite a lot of other options.
The issue is that a midrange gaming PC wipes the floor with a 6K Mac Pro. If you keep claiming "a gaming PC is not a workstation" then keep it mind that a workstation should enable a professional to do his work.
If a gaming PC lets you achieve this goal better and faster than a full blown "workstation" every professional would use a gaming PC.
If you need ECC and server grade CPU just go for an AMD EPYC. Take you gaming PC, install a new motherboard and a EPYC CPU and there you go.
The Mac Pro is a Video editing machine and it might be an awesome video editing machine. But I wouldn't call it a workstation. The price is ridiculous and if you argue that this is due to support and pro level than please look at the price of the old Mac Pro (5,1) which was a true workstation and came at a reasonable price.
You started speaking about “uninformed people” and ending up with a clear insult to Apple customers.
lol this thread amd vs intel ..
I used dual monitor setup and it pretty big for me. I have try sidekick and big odd for my testing purpose because the touch sometimes work sometimes not even using apple pencil. I'm not sure diff compare luna display.
** i do bought amd laptop and returning back because overheat. For me , i wouldn't buy laptop more.
Long time ago upon microsoft windows server 2008 , i put graphic card on the server. It do improve a bit upon loading while these day they default to vga only. GPU do have effect upon login, rendering the operating system for just a base. For me, i don't play/rarely anymore games on my imac. I more play on ipad mini 2019 as my testing device ios 13 .
I used dual monitor setup and it pretty big for me. I have try sidekick and big odd for my testing purpose because the touch sometimes work sometimes not even using apple pencil. I'm not sure diff compare luna display.
** i do bought amd laptop and returning back because overheat. For me , i wouldn't buy laptop more.
Yes - it always was. If your work can scale to use an arbitrary number of cores, a Threadripper is just much better value.
However you square it, the base model Mac Pro is poor value. At the base it is so slow that users really should upgrade it, at which point the price balloons to astronomical levels. If you use lighter workloads you are better served with a different Mac, such as an iMac. If you have heavier workloads, you are in Mac Pro territory, but you'll get very low performance per dollar. For many tasks it makes more sense to get some Linux servers.
So this leaves the Mac Pro as an extremely niche product, as if the pro workstation market wasn't niche enough as it is. I can see a Final Cut Pro outfit getting one with an Afterburner. Or very high end composers who rely on Logic. You'll have to be doing very specific tasks involving Mac-only software for this to seem like a reasonable buy.
That's probably precisely the market Apple is aiming this machine towards.
Personally, running a business as I do, I prefer the security of having a system that runs straight out of the box. That's without having the need to rely on specific drivers for the myriad options available that fit whichever case they are crammed into, be they from NVidia, AMD or whoever. And that's not taking into account forced or otherwise update issues which may or may not break the system! I will lease my machines over a 3 year period, with AppleCare, for a monthly sum that I can recover in a couple of days, tops. Then swap it out for a newer one end of term. And also claim the tax back. Cost is not an issue and maintenance will be minimal, if at all - either way I'm covered. In my experience, Microsoft and HP have let me down in shorter periods of time than that. Downtime isn't an option. I'm running a familiar, STABLE OS, optimised for the hardware on which it runs, as well as for the likes of Logic and Final Cut. Plus all of the connections I need, such as Thunderbolt 3 locked into the hardware, once again without the need for haphazard, third-party software which may or may not bottleneck the system. In all my time using Macs, and certainly within the last 10 years or so, I've been impressed with the 'it just works' thing. I have iMacs that have been left on 24/7 for the past 8 years, still in daily use, that work as if they came out of the box yesterday. I expect that stability from a Mac Pro. The subject hasn't been brought up yet as far as I can tell, but I at least expected to see comments by now about how this cheaper hardware can be used to create the ultimate 'Hackintosh' to further compound the notion that the Apple-built hardware isn't up to the job. Ilegal, of course, and I wouldn't have one of those anywhere near my business - that's just asking for trouble, especially without support!
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A $6000 machine and not suitable for actual work.
Way to go.
btw who is the person inside Apple that decided to sell this machine with 256GB SSD ???
No it is not.
A gaming PC is a joke, even if a benchmark would say it is faster, when you are speaking about reliability.
And I don’t understand all the worshipping at AMD going on the web. In the professional field, AMD still is a minor player. High end workstations by other companies are using Xeon processors.
This is a workstation, and Apple’s biggest mistake is not to have called it Mac Workstation, so people like you wouldn’t have compared to the old Mac Pro.
$3000 Mac Pro in the past, used lower priced components,
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They could have sold it without RAM and SSD for the purpose.
The base model is meant to be upgraded by the user with third party components like internal storage (or just external storage) and RAM.
The 256 Gb SSD in that case would only be dedicated to the system.
This simply isn't true - $6K is due to Apple tax and Tim Cook tax on top. The base model Mac Pro is nothing more but a bad joke.
Maybe it is made for the YouTube kiddies that say "uh, oh - a Mac Pro, it is so expensive and beautiful it's gotta be fast". But hey, it is not - it is just expensive, but not fast.
Do you mean the I/O card they ship it with?So there is now an officially supported PCIe card with 2 TB3 ports? Waiting for the first reports of people buying this as spare part and successfully getting it to work on an old cMP ...
Suggesting anyone comparing intel to AMD reads this: https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/intel-xeon-w-3175x-vs-amd-threadripper-2990wx,38557.html
“Mac Final Cut/Logic Workstation” then, because this machine does not make any economics vs performance sense for other workflows.
As far as I can see the comparison is done with 2nd generation Threadripper not the current 3rd generation.
Following Anandtech, the 3rd generation Threadripper beats the Xeon by far ("I have never used the word ‘bloodbath’ in a review before. It seems messy, violent, and a little bit gruesome. But when we look at the results from the new AMD Threadripper processors, it seems more than appropriate."):
AnandTech Forums: Technology, Hardware, Software, and Deals
Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
www.anandtech.com
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is still faster then my imac 2017 base line.
. Worthy roi.nill*roi -return on investment
The gaming PC doesn't run macOS and neither does the iPad.
You also can't upgrade the iPad Pro.
And a comparison of computing power between the Mac Pro and iPad Pro is just.....silly, unless you think single core performance benchmarks are equivalent to real world usage...
It's cool and sexy, and that's been the Apple way from day one. I suppose if you have the bucks and embrace the now tarnished macOS, 'damn the torpedos and full speed ahead.'