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Mac Pro Launch Nears as Apple Business Staff Begin Offering Price Quotes

For the "gotta have a square box" crowd I have found several box enclosures at Fry's that you could easily modify to slip over the nMP and run all the cables out the back just like your Daddy's big old square box!!! Wow:p
 
michaeljk said:
The lower end configurations are within the "prosumer" price range. How do I know this? I am a "prosumer," and I will be buying one. There are sure to be plenty of other people like me: people who don't need all the power this machine has to offer (especially dual GPUs), but who don't want to sacrifice options and get a mini or a 27" iMac. I dabble in photography using Aperture and music stuff using Logic. I may purchase FCP when I buy the nMP. Do I wish it were $1,999 or even $2,499? Sure. Will the extra $500 turn me away? No. I am not wealthy. I just want to have a fast machine that won't need to be replaced (for my purposes) for 5 years. No matter what happens with GPU/CPU technology in the next five years, with Thunderbolt, I can't see this being a problem (for my purposes).

Take a look at how many people are buying DSLR's in the $2-3K range. Do you think all those people need the capabilities of these cameras? No. Many are not "professionals" but they want something close to professional (they might be the Nikon D610 or the D800 instead of the D4) because they can afford to avoid the sacrifices of something more consumer oriented.

Another way to think about this (which is what I have concluded) is that it would cost me nearly as much to get a fully loaded iMac. I don't need or want the monitor of an iMac. For me, it's a waste of money, desktop space and natural resources. I have a much better (for my purposes) NEC monitor. I will buy a second 4K monitor when they drop in price a few years from now. Then, I will have a dual monitor set up with a Mac Pro that doesn't actually cost much more than an iMac, is much more expandable (with TB 2) and will have the monitors I want. And it will have true desktop/workstation technology that is cutting edge, not laptop tech from a year or two ago.

The very wide spread in price point is also great for those of us who are in this situation. I cannot justify (or afford) the top end at $9000 to $12,000. I can afford something close to $3,000. That's what makes me a "prosumer." I strongly suspect I am not alone, not nearly alone, in this category.
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Yes! (are you watching me? :)

Allthough I'm considering the $4k one, as the D500s are a lot better, and you get 6 cores and the extra memory.
 
cdmoore74 said:
That's what I mean by "less than 1% of the world population"; Apple's target audience. Only large companies and the elite can afford such a computer by paying the full price with cash.
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Assuming a 9K computer that is used for 3 years, 1800 hrs/year each the price comes down to 1.67 USD/hr or 13.33 USD/day. Assuming a pro using this computer has rates starting at 75 USD/hr, and assuming 1/3rd of his hours are productive (edit: being paid for), (s)he makes 45,000 USD/year, of which the 3000K is 6.7%. I don't think that's bad, especially not when one works at home.

And I guess a 9K computer can be sold for 1500-2000 USD after 3 years.

edit: to illustrate this further: I can probably do a majority of my work on 2 desktop computers that are 10 years old. But I am afraid that the loss in productivity will be somewhat more than 13.33 USD/day.
 
phrehdd said:
I hope Apple come through with a new Mac Mini with better video and of course newer CPU. Apple has set me on this path since they couldn't figure out that if they had made a Mac (mini) Pro with single video card, and dropped the price to say 2500 they might have increased the market for these new machines.
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Mini could have HDMI 2.0 before the Pro. To have 4K at 60Hz requires wasting a TB port, and that's assuming they get Mavericks to handle it.
 
deconstruct60 said:
Yes, it should be in that ballpark range. [ The SSDs are faster than the those in other Macs so the price gap may not be $500 but that is probably close also since it too has a healthy margin built in. ]




Apple adding a around 30-35% ( like other processor upgrade prices in online store for other Mac models ) would amount to a $1158-1,202 "cost" which rounded up to an even 1,400 or 1,500 wouldn't be surprising. Apple is going to add some "nice to look at" number on top of whatever basic margin they attach (rounded to nearest 100 or perhaps nearest even/odd hundred). Most folks paying $2,000-3,000 for a processor probably aren't going to be scared off by another one or two hundred dollars. The 12 core processor by itself is going to cost more than a whole entry config Mac Pro.




Again yes. ( 1.3 * 1743) - 300 = 1965 which rounded to a nice even $2000 is a nice even number Apple upgrade price. 35% would push it to $2100.




Apple's targeted corporate margins are in the 30-35% range. The processors upgrades aren't outside of that objective. There is a bigger impact here because this is on top of Intel's pricing, which is also step for this high core count / high clock rate product. The 12 core is waaaaaay out there.

Next generation, Xeon E5 v3, these will probably be much more reasonably priced from Intel, but those may not come until 2015.
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Thanks for the reply! Knowing that Apple likely doesn't pay anywhere near full retail on the Xeon chips, that fact that they're marking them up another 30-35% over retail pricing is disappointing, but not surprising.
 
John Bokma said:
Assuming a 9K computer that is used for 3 years, 1800 hrs/year each the price comes down to 1.67 USD/hr or 13.33 USD/day. Assuming a pro using this computer has rates starting at 75 USD/hr, and assuming 1/3rd of his hours are productive, (s)he makes 45,000 USD/year, of which the 3000K is 6.7%. I don't think that's bad, especially not when one works at home.....
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You forget to include the effect of taxes. The 9K computer would allow a 3K per year reduction of taxable income. Of course no one in the US is paying 100% tax rate so not all of the $3K per year is recoverable. But maybe as much os $1K is.

So your $1.67 is more like $1.25 when you look at cost after tax.

The capital equipment cost for a film editor is small compared to other professions. Even a taxi driver spends more on his equipment.
 
I could buy a mac pro tomorrow (if it was out) but I suspect whist it's going to be great at content creation it's going to lag behind a high end (half it's price) PC for entertainment performance.

I'm sure we shall see some $6000 Mac pro vs $3000 PC gaming comparisons, type of results before long.

Shame Apple refuses to cater for this market.

It's Laptop on a stand behind a big screen iMac or a mac pro and that's it.
 
Cory Bauer said:
Thanks for the reply! Knowing that Apple likely doesn't pay anywhere near full retail on the Xeon chips, that fact that they're marking them up another 30-35% over retail pricing is disappointing, but not surprising.
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You have to remember that Apple has maybe 1,500 employees who work at the factory and distribution and all of these people get paychecks, vacation pay, health care and retirement contributions. And then there are thousands of engineers who make 6 figures that need to be paid too.

Don't forget the cost of building the factory and all the specialized machine tools and the cost to train workers and so on. All this has to be paid for. Apple is not selling a chip in a box.

Typically with Apple, the retail prices is about double the price of the parts.
 
ChrisA said:
You forget to include the effect of taxes. The 9K computer would allow a 3K per year reduction of taxable income. Of course no one in the US is paying 100% tax rate so not all of the $3K per year is recoverable. But maybe as much os $1K is.
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You're correct, all numbers given were without taking tax into account. I also assumed that the 9K is without VAT (value added tax). If not, the cost/hr will drop even closer to $1/hr.
 
Wintel might not copy the machine 100% but I see a trend to smaller machine. This is simply due to physical reality, to get faster electronics will become smaller and more compact.

As for people being excited what do you expect. It has been a very long time!!! As for doubt I see this as a make it or break it machine for Apple. If it doesn't sell it will be the last pro machine from Apple.

MacOG728893 said:
It's so weird how people are excited for this now that it's about to be released. June time, everyone was in a fritz! I never had doubt in Apple to push things forward.

I think we'll see a shift in Wintel OEMs choosing to take a very similar stance on their next workstations.
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What do you figure the upgrade cycle will be once this finally gets released? Every 2 years?
 
Piggie said:
I could buy a mac pro tomorrow (if it was out) but I suspect whist it's going to be great at content creation it's going to lag behind a high end (half it's price) PC for entertainment performance.

I'm sure we shall see some $6000 Mac pro vs $3000 PC gaming comparisons, type of results before long.

Shame Apple refuses to cater for this market.
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The brand Apple would lose a lot of value if Apple was to compete with $3000 gaming PCs. Same reason why Apple doesn't compete with the low end phones and tablets.
 
Shaun said:
Yet another soft launch due to component shortages????

I thought Tim Cook was supposed to be a logistics expert. Maybe he needs more training in supply chain management.

What a shambles!
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One doesn't really follow the other. With something like the mac pro, they are unlikely to push some feature to the next refresh due to a potentially very long refresh cycle. The next EP generation would be Haswell. It's unlikely that we'll see it within 12 months. It might be 18 months or more before anything changes. This means that available components on any recently released parts pretty much are what they are. If they weren't trying to buy time, they wouldn't have said anything until the machine was almost ready to ship

wizard said:
Wintel might not copy the machine 100% but I see a trend to smaller machine. This is simply due to physical reality, to get faster electronics will become smaller and more compact.

As for people being excited what do you expect. It has been a very long time!!! As for doubt I see this as a make it or break it machine for Apple. If it doesn't sell it will be the last pro machine from Apple.
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They aren't really the first to try for compactness. In some ways the Windows oems (where a subset also runs Linux) are a little more conservative. They are less likely to toss certain features due to the array of ways something might be implemented and the various machine options without completely changing the OS and software licenses on new purchases.
 
Piggie said:
I could buy a mac pro tomorrow (if it was out) but I suspect whist it's going to be great at content creation it's going to lag behind a high end (half it's price) PC for entertainment performance.

I'm sure we shall see some $6000 Mac pro vs $3000 PC gaming comparisons, type of results before long.

Shame Apple refuses to cater for this market.

It's Laptop on a stand behind a big screen iMac or a mac pro and that's it.
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Oh please... it is FOR content creation.

And unless you are playing Blizzard games, you are already gaming on a PC anyway, if you are a "real" gamer.

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aaronvan said:
The first unveiling with be wondrous to behold. I will probably poke it with a stick and hoot like an excited ape.
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Win!
 
You do realize that rack mount tech has been around for decades now. It was developed to support systems put together with hardware from multiple vendors. Installation of such hardware is not a mass production solution.

Piggie said:
I wondered as you see Server farms, Super computers by IBM, all sorts of professional tools to "get a job done" and they are generally oblong box's of some dimensions.
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ChrisA said:
You have to remember that Apple has maybe 1,500 employees who work at the factory and distribution and all of these people get paychecks, vacation pay, health care and retirement contributions. And then there are thousands of engineers who make 6 figures that need to be paid too.

Don't forget the cost of building the factory and all the specialized machine tools and the cost to train workers and so on. All this has to be paid for. Apple is not selling a chip in a box.
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I would assume all of those expenses are factored into the base product price already.
 
cdmoore74 said:
A computer priced for less than 1% of the entire world population. Where do I sign out?
$2 fake poop will sale more than this.
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Really.. trolling that hard? or is it just your jealously?

Since a loaded iMac or a loaded MBP are within $300 of the base model, I suspect you don't do much math.
 
Cory Bauer said:
Thanks for the reply! Knowing that Apple likely doesn't pay anywhere near full retail on the Xeon chips, that fact that they're marking them up another 30-35% over retail pricing is disappointing, but not surprising.
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For standard configs they probably don't. However for BTO components Apple's fanatical dedication to lowest possible inventory levels means they may not be buying those parts on large bulk, "long term" contracts. Buying 10K 12 cores if only need 6.5K of them is just not how Apple does things.

The flux between the varying inventory costs ( they aren't going to get the count exactly right all the time) and likely lower volume discounts means the ark.intel.com quoted costs (cost in lots of 1000's ) price is likely much closer to what they are going to use.
 
wizard said:
You do realize that rack mount tech has been around for decades now. It was developed to support systems put together with hardware from multiple vendors. Installation of such hardware is not a mass production solution.
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Also, when you are rack-mounting server farms, you are chilling the whole room as well to keep things cool... ;)

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Piggie said:
Wonder why high end computers are not all built as a tube shape then?

Perhaps if you look at the Servers Apple uses in their server farms, they will be round ones?

One announced today 4000 times the speed of a typical desktop computer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25367825

Strange they are not using this tube design isn't it.
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Hint: That room is refrigerated to a nice 65 F.
 
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