iMac Pro Teardown Highlights Modular RAM, CPU and SSD Along With Redesigned Internals

[tallscot]

Yeah, I still have a 2008 Mac Pro with a metal side door like that. I have upgraded the GPU multiple times, and I put a super fast SSD in one of the PCI slots and it boots up as fast as this $5,000 iMac "Pro". That 2008 Mac Pro is faster than my 2013 iMac that was purchased 5 years after the Mac Pro, because of the upgrades.

My $6,000 2013 Mac Pro (price doesn't include monitors or hard drives outside of the internal 256 gig SSD) is slower than a 2010 Mac Pro that is upgraded with a current GPU.

I'm waiting for a new Mac Pro that has slots. This time next year, I'll buy that or I'll buy a custom PC and switch from Apple Final Cut Pro X to Davinci Resolve for Windows.

 

[zorinlynx]

Really silly to post this. How about post the same ‘90s advert for the iMac and see how they’re touting its upgradability?

There will be a modular Mac Pro coming. This is not the modual machine. This is an iMac Pro. Pro specs, iMac chassis. It can’t be that difficult to grasp.

Can we not defend Apple on this topic until we see what they release for the modular Mac Pro?

They may screw that up too, using proprietary parts like the weird Apple SSDs and making certain parts non-upgradeable anyway. You should know better not to trust Apple on this these days.

I really do hope they redeem themselves, but I don't have too much hope.

 

[The Mercurian]

Agreed but I don’t think this all matters much. iFixIt loves doing this, rolling out upgradability scores for everything. If a pro user isn’t happy with a maxed out iMac Pro (and its $13,000 price tag) a Mac Pro (hopefully) is forthcoming. i.e. if they’re really about user modularity and saving $ on your own components, an iMac Pro is probably not the best bet.

Apple really hit it out of the park with the current iMac design. Pros can now easily drop an all-in-one computer with major horse power anywhere they want to, no cabling, no peripherals, no fuss, and the thing looks just like a monitor.

Well clearly you must be swimming in money. The most useful aspect of buying a computer with upgradability is that you don't have to shell out all the (overcharged) cash at once in case you might need such-and-such capability in two years time. With an upgradeable machine you could buy a low spec now, and only buy the upgrades (for less cash than apple charge) in years to come if and when you need it!

 

[potatis]

But it has Thunderbolt 3, so you're supposed to upgrade via eGPU, eCPU, eRAM etc.

 

[Rogifan]

Really silly to post this. How about post the same ‘90s advert for the iMac and see how they’re touting its upgradability?

There will be a modular Mac Pro coming. This is not the modual machine. This is an iMac Pro. Pro specs, iMac chassis. It can’t be that difficult to grasp.

Nah it’s just being willfully obtuse.
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This looks like an amazing machine, and if I could justify the cost, I would buy one. The one thing that would bother me though is the fact that from the front it looks almost exactly like the iMac I bought in 2009. And 2014. Shame it doesn't have an exciting new design to go with the innovative internals.

What would be an exciting new design besides smaller bezels?

 

[tallscot]

This way, Apple gets to try out a new engineering design without betting the farm on a "bold new design" to go with it.

You mean like an ASUS motherboard with an Intel processor and nVidia GPU? "Bold and new" like that 20-year old spec?

 

[Kabeyun]

Well clearly you must be swimming in money. The most useful aspect of buying a computer with upgradability is that you don't have to shell out all the (overcharged) cash at once in case you might need such-and-such capability in two years time. With an upgradeable machine you could buy a low spec now, and only buy the upgrades (for less cash than apple charge) in years to come if and when you need it!

I’m not. And I don’t own one of these. And I don’t plan to.

I only said exactly what you said: if you want modularity and want to save money by upgrading later, these machines are not the answer. You’d need a Mac Pro. These niche machines are for those who want real computing power in a simple and easily deployed form factor.

I love when people say “clearly” when something isn’t really clear.

 

[tallscot]

But it has Thunderbolt 3, so you're supposed to upgrade via eGPU, eCPU, eRAM etc.

And the eGPU boxes out there don't work with it right now, according to Barefeets. Maybe Apple would rather sell you a whole new computer instead of letting you buy a video card from a 3rd party?

 

[cmaier]

wasn't this "Revealed" a week ago?

 

[The Mercurian]

I’m not. And I don’t own one of these. And I don’t plan to.

I only said exactly what you said: if you want modularity and want to save money by upgrading later, these machines are not the answer. You’d need a Mac Pro. These niche machines are for those who want real computing power in a simple and easily deployed form factor.

I love when people say “clearly” when something isn’t really clear.

Why can't they make all their models upgradeable ?

 

[tallscot]

Why can't they make all their models upgradeable ?

They want you to buy a whole new computer. There are people using Mac Pros from 2010 to this day because they have upgraded. Apple would rather you buy from them in 3-4 years versus upgrading from 3rd parties.

 

[kaneda]

G4 was better commercial

 

[The Mercurian]

They want you to buy a whole new computer. There are people using Mac Pros from 2010 to this day because they have upgraded. Apple would rather you buy from them in 3-4 years versus upgrading from 3rd parties.

And its stunts like that is driving people back to windows!

 

[Breaking Good]

OK I'm really asking a serious question here. Is it really that difficult to build a Hackintosh?

I just thinking that if I needed a powerful computer that ran OS X I would build it to my own specs and obtain a developer license.

Now I understand that what I'm proposing may not be feasible because Apple controls the drivers and may only make drivers for parts they use in their own computers. So the numbers of possible Hackintosh variations may be very limited.

It seems to me that these iMac Pros have very limited use cases.

 

[cicalinarrot]

Does it have a battery? It’s ok to use sarcasm but at least do it on the right threads...

I think that was the point of the joke, it can even if there's no battery...

 

[deanthedev]

Well clearly you must be swimming in money. The most useful aspect of buying a computer with upgradability is that you don't have to shell out all the (overcharged) cash at once in case you might need such-and-such capability in two years time. With an upgradeable machine you could buy a low spec now, and only buy the upgrades (for less cash than apple charge) in years to come if and when you need it!

Pros don’t need to upgrade. They can buy what they need and throw it out after 2 years to get another one if they wish.

Since when did the word “Pro” get tied to “upgradeability”? The two have nothing to do with each other.

 

[Martyimac]

Pros don’t need to upgrade. They can buy what they need and throw it out after 2 years to get another one if they wish.

Since when did the word “Pro” get tied to “upgradeability”? The two have nothing to do with each other.

As far as desktops go, the "Pro" moniker has applied to a LOT of upgradeable Pros, even the nMP was technically upgradeable there just wasn't anything available aftermarket until OWC came up with options.

 

[tallscot]

Pros don’t need to upgrade. They can buy what they need and throw it out after 2 years to get another one if they wish.

Since when did the word “Pro” get tied to “upgradeability”? The two have nothing to do with each other.

And what do you do for a living? I have over a dozen friends who are designers, photographers, editors, 3D animators, special FX artists, color graders with Davinci Resolve...and all of them have switched to Windows PCs because of this issue.

The last friend to do so was last year. He was a Mac user with two Macs. He used Premiere Pro to edit indie movies. He had a guy build him a custom PC tower and he now uses the Adobe Creative Cloud suite on that. It cost him $2K. Unlike my $6K 2013 Mac Pro, his PC does Thunderbolt 3 because he just popped in a card. And, no, I don't want to buy a $5K iMac Pro (minimum) just so I can have Thunderbolt 3, even though Thunderbolt 3 RAID drives are 3X faster than my Thunderbolt 2 RAID.

The idea that content creators are throwing out $6K Macs every 2 years and happy to do so is just simply idiotic. It's the dumbest thing I've read on these forums.

 

[cyberdocwi]

OK I'm really asking a serious question here. Is it really that difficult to build a Hackintosh?

I just thinking that if I needed a powerful computer that ran OS X I would build it to my own specs and obtain a developer license.

Now I understand that what I'm proposing may not be feasible because Apple controls the drivers and may only make drivers for parts they use in their own computers. So the numbers of possible Hackintosh variations may be very limited.

It seems to me that these iMac Pros have very limited use cases.

That depends on what you are looking for, but I have built several for testing purposes. Leaving the licensing discussion aside, they can be built, but then wisely left alone (no patching) unless you have time to repair if Apple changes something your hardware doesn't like.

I would say that my CentOS / Fedora Linux builds are more stable than the Hackintosh ones.

One thing that interests me is the ability to run MacOS in a Virtual Machine, with a CentOS / Fedora host.

Apple has worked hard to disappoint me over the last few years, starting with the removal of the ethernet jack on the MacBook Pro line. I love my 2013 MB Pro, but miss the features and nearly dongle free 17".

 

[Greenmeenie]

Still think it was totally lame of Apple to not make the ram in the imac pro user upgradable. Even the regular 27" imac has an easy access door in the back to upgrade ram. But if you drop $5,000 to $10,000 on an imac pro, you better order it with all the ram you need cause you won't be able to add more ram yourself without taking it back to an authorized dealer.

 

[BornAgainMac]

I wonder if Apple should sell their Mac business and focus on their iOS products at this point. I bet a company that had most of their profits coming from their Macs would really do some great things.

 

[jclo]

I'm not sure 'reveals' is the correct word. The only thing we didn't know out of the 'reveals' after Apples announcement was the socketed SSDs, as they could have been soldered like the MacBook Pros to save space.
Anyway, so this is like the standard iMac in the sense that the best thing to upgrade when ordering is the GPU and possibly SSD.

A good point. I'll change the wording here. Thanks for the suggestion

 

[tallscot]

And its stunts like that is driving people back to windows!

I personally know many of them. It started when Apple really screwed up their Final Cut Pro X launch by putting out Alpha quality software. A huge number of Final Cut Pro 7 users switched to Adobe Premiere Pro, and since the entire Adobe suite is exactly the same on Windows, a huge number of people switched to Windows PCs.

And this company, Apple, that has over $200 billion cash on hand hasn't really wanted to make pro software that the entire industry craves. Whenever I say I use Final Cut Pro X, I get chuckles. That's Apple's fault. They should have a suite that makes Adobe's suite look like stone age software. And I love Final Cut Pro X, and I love Apple Motion 5, except there are some really boneheaded missing features in both. And so they aren't serious.

So you have pro software like Davinci Resolve that now has editing, and world class color grading that makes it the industry standard, and it's on Windows, you got to ask why run the same software on a $5K iMac Pro (minimum)?

Apple is really blowing it in the pro industry. Windows 10 is better than the previous version and it will continue to get better.

People are buying Amazon Echos for smart home tech.

The Apple TV has an idiotic remote and a UI from hell and my PS4 does better at streaming.

The Google phone has a fantastic camera and is the best Android phone.

Apple is Microsoft in the year 2000.

 

[SecuritySteve]

I personally know many of them. It started when Apple really screwed up their Final Cut Pro X launch by putting out Alpha quality software. A huge number of Final Cut Pro 7 users switched to Adobe Premiere Pro, and since the entire Adobe suite is exactly the same on Windows, a huge number of people switched to Windows PCs.

And this company, Apple, that has over $200 billion cash on hand hasn't really wanted to make pro software that the entire industry craves. Whenever I say I use Final Cut Pro X, I get chuckles. That's Apple's fault. They should have a suite that makes Adobe's suite look like stone age software. And I love Final Cut Pro X, and I love Apple Motion 5, except there are some really boneheaded missing features in both. And so they aren't serious.

So you have pro software like Davinci Resolve that now has editing, and world class color grading that makes it the industry standard, and it's on Windows, you got to ask why run the same software on a $5K iMac Pro (minimum)?

Apple is really blowing it in the pro industry. Windows 10 is better than the previous version and it will continue to get better.

People are buying Amazon Echos for smart home tech.

The Apple TV has an idiotic remote and a UI from hell and my PS4 does better at streaming.

The Google phone has a fantastic camera and is the best Android phone.

Apple is Microsoft in the year 2000.

You seem pretty angry. If you don't like the direction Apple is going, then don't buy their products. Some folks do, and they will keep buying them because of it. There is a huge community of 'Pros' that do far more than video editing and music creation.

I hope you enjoy your Windows machine.

 

[Tubamajuba]

I would never buy a computer that's this expensive while also being difficult to upgrade. But I also recognize that my opinion is in the minority, and plenty of people will be completely fine with the tradeoffs necessary to have this form factor. I wish more people around here realized that their point of view isn't the only one.