Mac Pro CPU and GPU Upgrades See Significant Price Drop

[Fall Under Cerulean Kites]

I'm a pro video editor and use a hackintosh at home, i also have a MBP, but at work, we've moved to windows for our Avid Media compaoser systems, that's what real pros do, adapt and move on...hackintosh has been nothing short of pain free and costs half amount and has more power than the now three year old macpro

You just reinforced my point. You use a hackintosh at home. Your employer does not have a farm of hackintoshes churning away doing stuff that pays the bills. At home, we are all free to do what we want. But no legitimate, normal-sized company is going to invest in hackintoshes for their bread and butter. Your employer moved to Windows, not a hackintosh.

Not a dig at you - you may very well do real work at home on your hackintosh. However, legitimate businesses do not invest in grey market, black market, unsupported, or unlicensed infrastructure. Period.

 

[Fall Under Cerulean Kites]

That's true. But it's ALSO true there are NO "Pros" left on the Mac PERIOD. PERIOD! (and don't embarrass yourself by claiming to be a pro yourself; no true Pro on Earth would use this POS)

<angry diatribe redacted>

Call me crazy, but I’m going to side with Apple on this one. Apple’s statistics, unlike your conjecture, is backed by actual research, data, and sales figures.

Better than nothing, but couldn't something this minor have been done earlier?

Can't help but notice the looming quarterly earnings report...

Interesting correlation, however I can’t imagine the typical investor places much stock in vague product forecasts, especially for products which make up such an insignificant portion of the bottom line. Financial forecasts are entirely different. Granted, Apple likely has a large number of “non-typical” investors, however, the big daddies (think: “institutional") don’t care about a new Mac Pro coming out.

 

[Thunderbird]

No price drop in Canada.

 

[ekwipt]

You just reinforced my point. You use a hackintosh at home. Your employer does not have a farm of hackintoshes churning away doing stuff that pays the bills. At home, we are all free to do what we want. But no legitimate, normal-sized company is going to invest in hackintoshes for their bread and butter. Your employer moved to Windows, not a hackintosh.

Not a dig at you - you may very well do real work at home on your hackintosh. However, legitimate businesses do not invest in grey market, black market, unsupported, or unlicensed infrastructure. Period.

I knew what you meant from your first post and you're right, any company doing professional work wouldn't run suites of hackintoshes, but for the right Professional, to save money AND get the most firepower for your buck a hackintosh can work, but i take your point.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Call me crazy, but I’m going to side with Apple on this one. Apple’s statistics, unlike your conjecture, is backed by actual research, data, and sales figures.

What figures are those? The ones that caused them to do something Apple NEVER does, admit they released a turd and that they're going to go back to an expandable platform next year? Yeah, Apple has shown REAL interest in the actual needs of professionals since Cook took over.

 

[Greymacuser]

Because no one is buying a 2012 computer in 2017.

 

[KAZphoto]

nah, I've got a i5-4690k. The 5k screen tipped the balance.

Still they are not shabby at all considering what you get for the price point though. Unless a lot of rendering is done a lot of apps don't even take advantage of all the cores and the graphics cards. I was also in the market of needing a new monitor though when I bought mine which is why I went with the 5k. The price point just for a comparable monitor was extreme and I didn't want to use a new Mac Pro with my 24" ACD. The next round of Mac Pros will have me intrigued to see what route they ultimately go.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Because no one is buying a 2012 computer in 2017.

That's not what I've been told countless times from Mac users that update their computer every year or every other year. They claim there's a darn nice used market that pays far more for a year or two old Mac than any used PC. I've been waiting to upgrade my 2012 Mac Mini but Apple doesn't seem to want to actually update the thing to 2017 specs (or even 2015 specs based on the overall DOWNGRADE that was the last Mac Mini).

 

[MTBCAM88]

Thank God for the iron grip of illiteracy which the Millennials have bestowed upon themselves; otherwise this would have been an offensive comment.

Nice blanket statement. Some Millennials like me have their **** together...

 

[Floris]

This really isn't a fair comment, as much as I agree the new Mac Pro wound up a non-starter of an option for a lot of potential buyers.

DDR5 RAM is so new, you barely have anyone using it yet. So suddenly whining that the machine doesn't include it? Just complaining to complain.... There's a real good chance the new one in 2018 will utilize it.

If the nMP doesn't make financial sense for you, even at reduced prices? Don't buy one! But it makes more sense than either A) Apple discontinuing it with nothing at all to offer in its place right now, or B) keeping it at the same price it sold for back in late 2013 when it launched!

If I wanted to complain for the sake of complaining, I would not bother with this website.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

The GPU is the gamble Apple lost. The CPU isn't really that much behind newer ones. Intel has been treading water. In hindsight, CUDA cards would have been better choices. Still, if we could upgrade the graphics cards a lot of us would be happy (or happier).

All they had to do was use a STANDARD graphics connector in the Mac Pro and you could have put almost anything you wanted in there, assuming there was a graphics driver for it. It's sad when NVidia releases a newer graphics card/driver for the OLD Mac Pro while the new one is stuck with nothing because it's a custom connection and they're not going to build a bunch of custom hardware for one machine that sells hardly any units.

I'd like to see a nice TB3 compatible hub with a graphics card slot in it. That would solve a lot of "desktop" issues with newer Macs having crappy mobile GPUs, etc. (not this Mac Pro since it's TB2, but even it could get SOME benefit for an external card in some uses). It wouldn't be hard for Apple to get behind something like that. It would make a good case for the new Macbook Pros since you could buy one machine and have a two-in-one setup. But it can't cost as much as a separate extra computer or you might as well just go buy a new Windows only machine for gaming.