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Intel Debuts New Xeon-W Chips Possibly Destined for iMac Pro

I paid a little over £5000 for a top spec PC with 3x 980ti GPUs for Octane rendering but at least I can upgrade it. There's no way I'd spend this much on a bloody iMac. Apple have missed a trick because I don't know any pros in my industry (animation/motion graphics) that would shell out this much for a computer that can't be upgraded. I'll wait for the Mac Pro.
 
Gudi said:
Except it is.
Click to expand...

then my Mistake! Sorry, maybe I should do more fact checking before posting! :( I checked only 9to5mac and misread the title... the RAM is not 'user' accessible (there's no panel in the back for the user to get at the RAM)

... which i guess means that it can be taken into Apple for upgrade (??)
 
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CerebralX said:
I'm just waiting for that guy who thinks they can build a better PC for the same price.
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An AMD Threadripper would make a good run at it. Those new Xeons are going to be REALLY expensive. Samsung M.2 SSDs are a fair bit cheaper than Apple OEM ones as well. But The Vega Pros will then hose any DIY price because they're not for sale at any reasonable price right now.

I suppose you've already saved up your money.. I mean it's been almost FOUR years since the last Pro Mac anything. A Quad-Core chip seems to be the max performance for gaming because they clock higher. Regular folk don't really need one of these, even regular programmers or engineers don't need one.

These massive boxes are really only useful if you want to do 3D rendering, while editing the 4K footage, and editing the 96 kHz soundtrack, while developing the website in a VM, while live-streaming your process on the internet. You might get a few cores to 50%.
 
bollman said:
The 3.7GHz 8 core is 39.6 "total GHz" and the 18 core 2.3GHz is 41.4 "total GHz".
Assuming the cores are equally performing per GHz, it's a pretty hefty premium to be paid for a 5% increase in performance, assuming your work is appropriate for parallelization. If not, the 18 core will be a huge disappointment at an insane price.
Sure, the Turbo Boost puts them at almost the same speed (4.5 vs 4.3) but usually the number of cores available decrease with speed and since both CPUs are rated TDP 140W, I'm assuming they have equal number of cores available at Turbo Boost speed.
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[doublepost=1504045989][/doublepost]It depends on how parallelizable your work is. And if you have something that can use 18 cores, that might go faster even at a lower speed.
 
CerebralX said:
I'm just waiting for that guy who thinks they can build a better PC

Try finding all equivalent components for a price lower than $4999.

Rules:
SSD speeds and sizes must match or be bigger/faster
Screen must be equal size, resolution, colour gamut support and brightness or better
CPU and GPU must perform equally as well or better for the same type of tasks
RAM must be as fast or faster and match or be bigger in size
You must include everything from equivalently performing WiFi, bluetooth and sound cards.
A mother board with thunderbolt 3 support and equally as many or more number of TB3 ports.
Motherboard must support 10Gbp ethernet.
Motherboard must support equally as fast USB ports or better and have as many or more USB ports.
Similar keyboard & mouse


I probably left some things out of that list, but I can almost guarantee that you will not be able to match the iMac Pro.
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The iMac Pro price is tight at first glance. But if you consider Apple expects the user will buy a new box in about 3 years (by making it unserviceable), then the price is no longer tight. On the other hand, traditional modular Mac Pros and PCs can last for a decade while being upgraded with newer components. What benefit does the user get from this unserviceable form factor? None (it's a desktop, you don't want to move it from room to room).
 
BaltimoreMediaBlog said:
What are YOU smoking? Apple is in the disposable tech business. This is why they've let their PRO business languish.
Providing long lasting high powered computers is no longer they're concern.

HELLO! THEY'RE MAINLY A DISPOSABLE PHONE MANUFACTURER NOW! The Mac was afterthought since Mavericks!
Click to expand...
By that dim logic, tv makers are in the disposable tv business, home audio receivers in the disposable receiver business, etc...

Meanwhile, these devices actually can be serviced. My desktop imac is a 2011 and needed a replacement graphics board last year. Repairing it spared me the expense of an entire replacement, so there goes your hairbrained conspiracy theory.
 
A 1.87X increase in performance over the old 8-core Mac Pro would give a multi-core Geekbench score of 41,138. That's a hell of an iMac! What I want to know is how much the 64GB RAM upgrade will be because apparently it's not user upgrade-able, which makes even less sense in a Pro machine. Although looking at the see-through photos of the device on their site, it looks like it has desktop sized RAM?

I'm really torn on this one. On the one hand, it's freaking expensive. On the other hand, it's freaking fast and would probably last me 8-10 years if I get the 64GB of RAM and upgrade storage with external Thunderbolt SSDs down the road when they become cheaper along with an external GPU. Heck, if it lasts long enough I might crack it open and install new RAM myself to go up to 128GB since the warranty would be long gone. On the site it looks like they snap in with clips but they just don't have a door to get to them. Removing the back of the display is easier than soldering RAM, so I'll take that as a win.

I think for now I'll take a wait and see approach and decide after their modular Mac Pro comes out so that I can make a better decision. Steve Jobs said desktops were like trucks and I want a big, fancy truck that has parts I can replace over the coming decade. I also worry about longevity of the iMac Pro due to possible heat issues. My new 5K iMac at work already seems louder under load than my old 2012 27". Can't imagine the heat and fan noise from this iMac Pro. I also worry about the display going out over the long term, but I suppose one could always connect an external display just like a Mac Pro.
 
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paul4339 said:
Then my Mistake! Sorry, maybe I should do more fact checking before posting! :( I checked only 9to5mac and misread the title... the RAM is not 'user' accessible... which i guess means that it can be taken into Apple for upgrade (?)
Click to expand...
Well, if Apple has confirmed it to 9to5mac, then you're probably right. It might even be soldered on the motherboard. We must wait for the ifixit teardown. There's a picture on the promo page showing four standard memory slots, but you will need to unglue the screen to replace the RAM.

d970582182b3861b0a8c3d03f65da81e
 
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"Rumors based on firmware findings suggest the iMac Pro could also include a Secure Enclave with an ARM coprocessor like the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, but it’s unclear at this time what that functionality will be used for as Apple has made no mention of Touch ID support"

Well, I'm sure the Secure Enclave will be used for something
 
Gudi said:
Well, if Apple has confirmed it to 9to5mac, then you're probably right. It might even be soldered on the motherboard. We must wait for the ifixit teardown. There's a picture on the promo page showing four standard memory slots, but you will need to unglue the screen to replace the RAM.

d970582182b3861b0a8c3d03f65da81e
Click to expand...

Unglue the screen AND disassemble the whole logic board as the memory is on the back.
 
CerebralX said:
I'm just waiting for that guy who thinks they can build a better PC for the same price.
Click to expand...

I can build a Hackintosh i7-7700K / GTX 1080 that will score around 7000 / 25000 in Geekbench 4 (8 core nMP is around 3200 / 22000) that for many use cases would crush the Mac Pro and comes in at half the cost $2000 vs $4000.

Yes I realize we're talking about a iMac Pro.

I'm hoping the next modular Mac Pro is very modular. I don't need / want ECC RAM / 8-core Xeon. Give me the baddest core i7 for max single core speed and a GTX 1080 and I'd gladly pay $2500 - $3000 to avoid dealing with Hackintosh issues.
 
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BGarza said:
Does anyone else find it silly that they aren't marketing the Mac Pro to include a touchbar keyboard?

Also, for that amount of money, they should include 2 hdmi inputs on the back of the monitor. I can't be the only one who finds it crazy redundant to buy another monitor to occasionally play a PS3, when a perfectly good screen is already in the room. Just saying...
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Anyone find it silly to include HDMI on a computer for professionals? Professionals aren't playing on their PS3 in the bedroom. DisplayPort is superior to HDMI in every way. HDMI needs to be killed off with fire.
 
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