iMac Pro may be competitively priced

[MiniReplacement]

Look at this work up I did.

The entry level iMac Pro would be 8 cores with a 1TB SSD (assume PCIe)

http://minireplacement.com/monster-build/

I could only come within $325 under the entry level iMac Pro, and I am sure I am missing something.

The motherboard is a guess. The new X299 motherboards are not out yet, and they may be pricier than I guess-timated.

Plus the iMac Pro promises 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports.

The Speakers on the Monster Build would be better than iMac speakers, but the webcam would have to be external and on the top of the monitor. NOT good.

The Monitor itself is roughly near the quality of the iMac monitor

But I had to guess-timate on the Graphics card, and the motherboard.

And it would lack the Apple esthetic, though it would certainly be upgradeable in a way that Apple Products are not, now.

So the question is: Will Apple still allow self upgrades in RAM in the iMac and iMac Pro as they have in the past?

It looks like the horrific $4999.99 entry price of the iMac Pro is actually reasonable.

 

[William Payne]

I am impressed. Most people when comparing a PC build substitute in different hardware and then rave about how much cheaper it is. Example like Macs with Xeons and ECC, people will spec up a PC but replace the workstation grade hardware apple uses and put in consumer stuff, then go all high and mighty on the money savings.

Even in that link they did not use the same workstation hardware.

Sure not everyone needs or wants Xeons with ECC but if you are going to compare apple to PC on a price per part basses you need to use the same or as close to the same hardware.

 

[PJivan]

A more fair comparison would be with Dell or HP... and they came up costing more without the monitor.

 

[Darajavahus]

And why is nobody saying how
Mac Pro with 8 cores 32GB ECC and 1TB SSD is at the exact same price $4,999.00?
-That's dropped the price a while back (it's been more expensive),
-it's without screen and soo old,
-and also not really that much upgradable,
yet so much people bought it, so I don't get how's everybody saying the iMac Pro is for nobody. It may still be a bit overpriced but at the same time it's the most performance and gear for money from apple ever.

 

[Shivetya]

competitively priced really does not matter. many power users don't want an integrated monitor let alone a system they cannot upgrade internally.

i just see lots of people trying to justify their 5k purchase for space gray chassis and keyboard. boy did Apple do that right... lol

 

[Sirmausalot]

Look at this work up I did.

The entry level iMac Pro would be 8 cores with a 1TB SSD (assume PCIe)

http://minireplacement.com/monster-build/

I could only come within $325 under the entry level iMac Pro, and I am sure I am missing something.

The motherboard is a guess. The new X299 motherboards are not out yet, and they may be pricier than I guess-timated.

Plus the iMac Pro promises 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports.

The Speakers on the Monster Build would be better than iMac speakers, but the webcam would have to be external and on the top of the monitor. NOT good.

The Monitor itself is roughly near the quality of the iMac monitor

But I had to guess-timate on the Graphics card, and the motherboard.

And it would lack the Apple esthetic, though it would certainly be upgradeable in a way that Apple Products are not, now.

So the question is: Will Apple still allow self upgrades in RAM in the iMac and iMac Pro as they have in the past?

It looks like the horrific $4999.99 entry price of the iMac Pro is actually reasonable.

This was also true of the 5K iMac when it came out. When you actually compared it part for part, it was pretty much the same, but a much better user experience -- and without the labor of putting it together. And that depends on how you value your time. But if you value it at all, that's hundreds of dollars worth of time spent shopping, buying, assembling, installing, and troubleshooting.

So add labor costs to your quote and then that would be a great comparison

 

[ctrlzone]

it will be cheaper or on par with the competition initially, but very fast the PC department (+Hackintosh) will catch up and surpass in terms of price and performance.

 

[Fishrrman]

I've got a hunch that Apple may be forced to drop the price of the iMacPro the same way they had to on the LG 5k display to get them out the door!

 

[omenatarhuri]

I'm gonna go ahead and guess you don't get 1080 level performance with entry level pro.

Even if it's fairly priced, still it's bloody expensive in absolute terms. Good for the ones who are willing to invest so much in one.

 

[Jimmdean]

I was certain it was competitively priced from the get-go - Apple always does pretty well in that regard in the high-power sector. It's just so dang powerful that it's not for normal people. We can probably get the color scheme in a year or two though!!!

 

[chfilm]

I'm wondering -- how much do you guys guess will upgrades like the gpu or 10 /18 core CPU be??

 

[Jack Burton]

Apple has always been competitive on pricing when they use Xeons.

The problem is that there are non-Xeon options out there that have the same amount of cores. The bang for the buck prospect on 6-8 core pcs is incredible right now, but one must sacrifice ECC ram.

Given that I've worked on Macs without ECC for years, I think we could be OK.

 

[MiniReplacement]

I'm wondering -- how much do you guys guess will upgrades like the gpu or 10 /18 core CPU be??

Probably a markup of 40% to 60% above retail. The problem is that some of these chips are not out yet. So we cannot give an estimate. Intel is going to release some real monsters over the summer, as a reaction to Ryzen.

But we do not have the specs nor the prices yet.

Here is a current list : https://ark.intel.com/products/series/93797/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E7-v4-Family

But does not include chips that will come out, as this shows:

[MEDIA]

 

[chfilm]

Thanks for the list!

 

[calaverasgrande]

I'm not a fan of the iMac Pro. I'm sure it's going to prevent the Mac Pro from being refreshed.
(but I do want the space grey keyboard and mouse!)
However, comparing retail price gaming computer components to Apple gear is pointless.
First, Apple does not pay retail for it's CPU, GPU and controller chips. It likewise gets a better deal than you can imagine on ram, SSD and other components.
So the cost of making an iMac Pro v whatever you find on Newegg is not comparable.
Second, you are always going to have a very hard time matching the features.
Recall the build alike posts about the cylinder Mac Pro which all had to concede, well yeah, this doesn't have TB2 the same way the Mac Pro does, but...
Then there is always the 'Apple Tax'. This is often cited as some kind of ivory tower fee you pay to feel cool.
I look at is as paying a bit extra so I don't have to sweat drivers, power supplies and software updates.
I've been a sysadmin for companies running wintel boxes and you spend a lot of energy coping with the shortcomings of those cheaper boxes!

 

[Jack Burton]

This was also true of the 5K iMac when it came out. When you actually compared it part for part, it was pretty much the same, but a much better user experience -- and without the labor of putting it together. And that depends on how you value your time. But if you value it at all, that's hundreds of dollars worth of time spent shopping, buying, assembling, installing, and troubleshooting.

So add labor costs to your quote and then that would be a great comparison

This haunts me more than you know. I was driven nuts by my windows issues last week. I want an iMac bad... but...

I need GPU rendering. The future release of Mac OS will support eGPUs and the future release of C4d will have a GPU solution that works with nVidia and AMD simultaneously, so I can use the internal iMac GPU with an external GPU.

I was considering a maxed out iMac. Bump up the processor, bump to 1TB SSD, add apple care, add state tax, and then I'm at $3500 for an iMac (I would add more ram myself, $250 for an extra 32GB on top of the base iMac 8GB).

Then I add in $200-$300 for an external GPU box, and $700 for an nVidia GTX 1080ti. And all of a sudden I've spent over $4500 on a computer. I know you get a 5k display on top of all that, but sheesh.

This is why PCs are still under my consideration.

 

[CWallace]

GamerPC did a BYO comparison (with the LG Ultrafine 5K display and nVidia 1080) and their parts bill clocked in at almost $4700.

 

[calaverasgrande]

This haunts me more than you know. I was driven nuts by my windows issues last week. I want an iMac bad... but...

I need GPU rendering. The future release of Mac OS will support eGPUs and the future release of C4d will have a GPU solution that works with nVidia and AMD simultaneously, so I can use the internal iMac GPU with an external GPU.

I was considering a maxed out iMac. Bump up the processor, bump to 1TB SSD, add apple care, add state tax, and then I'm at $3500 for an iMac (I would add more ram myself, $250 for an extra 32GB on top of the base iMac 8GB).

Then I add in $200-$300 for an external GPU box, and $700 for an nVidia GTX 1080ti. And all of a sudden I've spent over $4500 on a computer. I know you get a 5k display on top of all that, but sheesh.

This is why PCs are still under my consideration.

If you are doing C4D you might spend your money better to set up a small render farm.
It won't help with composition in your desktop environment, but they are great for chugging away at rendering jobs.

 

[jrichards1408]

I am impressed. Most people when comparing a PC build substitute in different hardware and then rave about how much cheaper it is. Example like Macs with Xeons and ECC, people will spec up a PC but replace the workstation grade hardware apple uses and put in consumer stuff, then go all high and mighty on the money savings.

Even in that link they did not use the same workstation hardware.

Sure not everyone needs or wants Xeons with ECC but if you are going to compare apple to PC on a price per part basses you need to use the same or as close to the same hardware.

Can you easily add more ram or more storage on an imac Pro vs a desktop pc? Nope you can't

 

[epca12]

Still not the 7000+ dollar machine Apple said it would be, I would have liked a comparison with a real PC alternative

 

[Nunyabinez]

I am very intrigued with the iMac Pro. However, I want to wait to see how the improved cooling works. I bought the first 5K iMac when it came out and was planning on gaming under Windows on it. But after playing for a few minutes on it, I was afraid I was going to seriously shorten the life of the machine after hearing the fans screaming to keep it cool.

I now have a separate PC with a GTX 1080 just for gaming. It works just fine, but man I would love to game on the display in the iMac. From what I can tell the iMac Pro should perform about as well as my gaming rig and I could sell both that and my current iMac and put that into the iMac Pro.

I'm just afraid that I would end up burning up a $5K machine playing Doom at 4K.

When I look at how much I have invested in the two systems, the iMac Pro is about on par. I guess a lot of the value of the machine depends on your computing habits.

 

[William Payne]

Can you easily add more ram or more storage on an imac Pro vs a desktop pc? Nope you can't

That has nothing to do with cost comparison. That is a user preference comparison.

 

[Kong1971]

I am unimpressed by those dudes who cobble together a similarly specced PC and claim Macs are overpriced. For one thing, I and a lot of people do not like wires all over my desk. I like the all-in-one aesthetic. I like for my desk to be free of wires and speakers. Want to impress, built an all-in-one with similar specs. Maybe you can figure out how to cram all of that into the back of a monitor case. Point two, they are buying the cheapest matching components they can find. And when you buy cheap, you usually get cheap. Heat. Noise. Failure rate. How long before that bluetooth part you bought from China gets all crispy in your build? Lastly, no matter how sophisticated your machine is, it is still running Windows, and Windows is an unintuitive and unstable hodgepodge of an OS. How many frickin menus do I have to go through to adjust a setting? Oh, seven. Oops, it just crashed, and now I have a virus. Nah, keep your PCs (pieces of crap). I'll stick with my "overpriced" and "underpowered" iMac. Rant over.

 

[j2ee]

Apple earns money by selling overpriced hardware, while providing os and update of os for free, cool design, top class support and sales experience. I dont see a problem.
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I am very intrigued with the iMac Pro. However, I want to wait to see how the improved cooling works. I bought the first 5K iMac when it came out and was planning on gaming under Windows on it. But after playing for a few minutes on it, I was afraid I was going to seriously shorten the life of the machine after hearing the fans screaming to keep it cool.

I now have a separate PC with a GTX 1080 just for gaming. It works just fine, but man I would love to game on the display in the iMac. From what I can tell the iMac Pro should perform about as well as my gaming rig and I could sell both that and my current iMac and put that into the iMac Pro.

I'm just afraid that I would end up burning up a $5K machine playing Doom at 4K.

When I look at how much I have invested in the two systems, the iMac Pro is about on par. I guess a lot of the value of the machine depends on your computing habits.

I am impressed that you can spend that much money on gaming.

 

[Jack Burton]

I am unimpressed by those dudes who cobble together a similarly specced PC and claim Macs are overpriced. For one thing, I and a lot of people do not like wires all over my desk. I like the all-in-one aesthetic. I like for my desk to be free of wires and speakers. Want to impress, built an all-in-one with similar specs. Maybe you can figure out how to cram all of that into the back of a monitor case. Point two, they are buying the cheapest matching components they can find. And when you buy cheap, you usually get cheap. Heat. Noise. Failure rate. How long before that bluetooth part you bought from China gets all crispy in your build? Lastly, no matter how sophisticated your machine is, it is still running Windows, and Windows is an unintuitive and unstable hodgepodge of an OS. How many frickin menus do I have to go through to adjust a setting? Oh, seven. Oops, it just crashed, and now I have a virus. Nah, keep your PCs (pieces of crap). I'll stick with my "overpriced" and "underpowered" iMac. Rant over.

This is kind of my frustration. When windows works, it's fine. Not great, just... fine. When it doesn't work (and this can be anything from needing to use a dos prompt to get an external USB hard drive to work or the computer's sound deciding it won't function today), it is maddening.

Windows is a time vampire when things go awry.
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If you are doing C4D you might spend your money better to set up a small render farm.
It won't help with composition in your desktop environment, but they are great for chugging away at rendering jobs.

I think CPU rendering, at least for my work, is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Real time open gl engines and fast GPU rendering are where my interest lies now.