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New Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR Now Available to Order

dmylrea said:
Let me get this straight -- stick with your 2008 Mac Pro, get a Mac Mini, or spend a minimum of $6000 for a Mac Pro?

No need to wait for benchmarks...the new Mac Pro is magnitudes faster than your 2008 Mac Pro. BUY NOW! :)
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Oh, no, I'm getting a new machine, my old one has been reliable but it's obviously time. It's just a question of if I do the Mini or go all the way to the Pro. I actually went through this the last time...I upgraded from a G4 tower to a Mini, then the Mac Pro. The Mini is fine unless you're doing bigger stuff, which I may do again in the future, so it's a question of if it's good enough for now or if I just dive in with another Pro. The Mini vs Pro benchmarks will decide it...the Pro will obviously be faster, it's just a matter of how much, and in what ways. Money's not really an issue now, I can do either way...but there's always the chance that the next iteration of the Pro drops in price enough to make waiting a year or two justified.

It's the usual calculus of buying a new machine, I'll figure it out soon enough. :)
 
I switched to PC earlier this year out of frustration with Apple. After seeing these prices, I have no regrets. Apple is really screwing over a good sized portion of their professional market with these.

Pretty overpriced for what you get.
 
I was pleasantly surprised that the UK base wasn’t £6k (albeit only slightly under). And quite happy with the first couple of core and SSD upgrade costs.


Just ordered the 16 core, 2TB SSD, kept the base ram (will upgrade myself) and the base card (again will look at swapping over in the future).

Can’t wait to swap from an iMac to the pro.
 
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MacRumors said:



More than two years after Apple promised a new modular high-end desktop machine for its professional users, the new Mac Pro is now available for purchase, as is its companion display, the Pro Display XDR.

Apple is accepting orders for the Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR, with Mac Pro delivery estimates at one to two weeks after an order is placed.

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First unveiled in June, the 2019 Mac Pro is the first new Mac Pro that Apple has released since the 2013 "trash can" Mac Pro that ultimately failed due to its focus on dual GPUs and thermal limitations.

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The updated Mac Pro is a high-end high-throughput machine designed for professional users, and this new model has a heavy focus on upgradeability and expansion. The Mac Pro has a traditional PC shape, but with an Apple-esque stainless steel frame that features a lattice design to maximize airflow and allow for quiet performance.

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Priced starting at $5,999, the Mac Pro is equipped with workstation-class Xeon processors with up to 28 cores with 64 PCI Express lanes, up to 1.5TB RAM, eight PCIe expansion slots, and an option for dual Radeon Pro Vega II Duo GPUs housed in two Apple MPX modules.

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The Mac Pro supports up to 4TB of SSD storage, has multiple ports, features Apple's T2 security chip, and is equipped with an Apple-designed ProRes and ProRes RAW accelerator card called the Apple Afterburner.

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Apple is selling the Mac Pro alongside the Apple Pro Display XDR, a 6K 32-inch display with a resolution of 6016 x 3384. The Pro Display XDR shares design elements with the Mac Pro, featuring a lattice pattern that doubles as a thermal system and edge-to-edge glass with a 9mm border.

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Apple is selling the Pro Display XDR for $4,999, with a stand for the display priced at $999.

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The new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR can be ordered from Apple's website starting now.

Article Link: New Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR Now Available to Order
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The grill pattern looks like Mercedes logo. Now the price makes sense 😂
 
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archimacpro said:
$77 / week over 5 years. New Zealand. for an average setup. $20,000 NZD - I thought it would be bad, but this is unjustifiable. End of story. Trashcan will do until next threadripper.
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3x faster than the iMac Pro, probably 10 times faster than the 2013 Mac Pro for some workflows. If it helps one person accomplish 5% more work in a week, it’s probably justifiable.
 
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Analog Kid said:
3x faster than the iMac Pro, probably 10 times faster than the 2013 Mac Pro for some workflows. If it helps one person accomplish 5% more work in a week, it’s probably justifiable.
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Definitely justifiable. Even just assuming a 5-year life—and zero value afterwards—that’s less $350 a month. Before any tax savings.

Taking resale value and tax deductibility into account, it’s well under $200 a month. Even at the unbelievably low billing rate if $50/hour, if you only save one hour—just one hour—per week, the machine more than pays for itself. It is essentially free.

And if it saves you two hours a week, take that extra $200/month and buy a second machine. That one is also free. For every extra billable hour per week this machine provides, you can afford to buy another machine—and that’s if you only bill $50/hour.

If you bill $200/hour, that $20,000 NZD computer pays for itself if it provides only one extra billable hour per month. If it lets you bill an extra 10 billable hours a month, that’s an extra $2,000/ month in revenue. Or that can cover the purchase of 10 more computers.

This is something the consumer/hobbyist/ tinkerer never seems to understand. These machines are productivity-increasing, revenue-generating tools. They don’t cost money, they make money.
 
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Analog Kid said:
3x faster than the iMac Pro, probably 10 times faster than the 2013 Mac Pro for some workflows. If it helps one person accomplish 5% more work in a week, it’s probably justifiable.
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It's only gonna be "3x faster" at very specific workflows, and almost certainly not "10x faster" at much of anything.

Most people are kidding themselves if they think they need anything more than an iMac.
 
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Samuelsan2001 said:
Samsung 128gb eec ram modules are currently £1246 in the UK with a 35% discount apples pricing is not horrendous.
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I'm sure the price is legitimate. As someone who operates a small business in a market where we can have a dozen people who combined between all of their computers have less than 10% of that 1.5TB spec it's crazy enough to see that even being offered as an option. $25k for a BTO upgrade is just comically outrageous from my perspective. Again though, I'm not someone in the target market for this computer.

Still would love to see someone with a maxed out version of this do something to make use of every drop it's full capability.
 
ugahairydawgs said:
I'm sure the price is legitimate. As someone who operates a small business in a market where we can have a dozen people who combined between all of their computers have less than 10% of that 1.5TB spec it's crazy enough to see that even being offered as an option. $25k for a BTO upgrade is just comically outrageous from my perspective. Again though, I'm not someone in the target market for this computer.

Still would love to see someone with a maxed out version of this do something to make use of every drop it's full capability.
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Yeah I would have no use for this monster, but would love to have a play with one. I do love tech though so I keep on top of the advances out of interest. The complaints about the cost make me laugh though if you spec out a professional workstation from dell or HP with even close specs to this you are looking at 50-80 grand it’s actually a bit of a bargain for a workstation class computer.
 
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CJM said:
Just seen the rack version 'coming soon'. That's interesting.
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That's what caught my interest as well. That handle design would seem to make it a natural for a rack system. But why is it so much more expensive than the tower, when it appears to have less hardware?
 
Now we'll finally get to see if the XDR display really can, as Apple claims, replace those >=$30K studio reference monitors. Based on this quote I suspect the answer may be 'not fully, but it will work in certain applications' (source: https://www.jigsaw24.com/articles/a...ent/top-tips-for-building-your-dolby-workflow):

"While your SDR monitors will be fine for checking your Rec. 709 output, you will obviously need a colour accurate HDR monitor to do your actual grading on. Sony’s X300 [$35k] and EIZO’s CG3145 [$30k] have proved popular with our customers, and Apple’s incoming XDR monitor is Dolby Vision compatible.

While that monitor [the XDR] may cost less, it’s worth pointing out that it currently only supports the Dolby PQ standard, and so if you’re asked to produce content for another HDR format you’ll need to buy a separate monitor, and it won’t be able to properly display Slog2 or Slog3 footage if you’re using it on-set. We’d recommend the XDR more as a high-quality GUI monitor for creatives – a role in which it excels – rather than as your main reference monitor for ... [grading]."


For more background, see:
https://www.jigsaw24.com/articles/articles-media-and-entertainment/hdr-monitors-a-buyers-guide
 
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chucker23n1 said:
It's only gonna be "3x faster" at very specific workflows, and almost certainly not "10x faster" at much of anything.

Most people are kidding themselves if they think they need anything more than an iMac.
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"Very specific workflows” is the whole point of the new Mac Pro. One of the few early tests showed it exporting video 3 times faster than the iMac Pro without using the Afterburner card and without the 4 GPU config. If you’re working with formats the Afterburner card supports, then 10x vs a 2013 machine doesn't seem unreasonable-- for some workflows. The 2013 MP doesn't even have H.265 acceleration.

Most people don't need anything more than an iMac, but if it costs you $77NZ a week and it saves someone making the median wage of $32.71NZ/hr about two hours a week (about 5% productivity increase), then it's justifiable.

I'm not sure where the argument is. If it saves you more than it costs, it's a good investment.
 
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djcerla said:
Whoever needs a maxed out pro can also easily shell out $50,000.
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what a shame that even the maxed out version for professional 3D work is still pretty meh. With a Cinebench score of 9000 it's pretty rubbish for the cost. until of course Maxon maybe make a new version for Mac support of Metal. I think the pro's who would maybe use it are edit facilities, maybe. That's if afterburner works over network configurations. If not, not sure where it fits in the market.
 
Of course, all this talk about a maxed-out Mac Pro being $50K is a bit misleading. We only get to that $50K because half of that ($25K) is very expensive (12 x 128 GB ECC) RAM. Even at non-Apple (OWC) prices, it's $20K. It's thus more meaningful to say that a maxed-out Mac Pro is ~$25K + whatever you spend on RAM. If you don't think you'll need more than 768 GB, you can go with the 64 GB sticks, which are half the cost per GB ($<5K total from OWC). Thus an otherwise maxed-out machine with 768 GB OWC RAM (12 x 64 GB) is ~$30K.
 
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There's been a lot of . . . ahem . . . uniformed speculation and assertions on this thread about how well the Mac Pro will (or will not) perform for creative pro workflows (by "creative" pro I mean those doing video and audio, as opposed other pro uses, e.g., engineers and scientists doing modeling). If you really want to see see what the pros themselves are finding, I'd recommend checking the creativecow.net forums (https://forums.creativecow.net), where you will see creative pros discussing how well it does or does not work for their use cases and budgets. It's a diverse group over there, both with regard to finances [ranging from those for whom the cost is an issue, to those who say the hardware cost is not sigificant (one remarked that he spends more in a day on craft service than the cost of this machine)] and work requirements. Right now there are relatively few that can speak to the machine hands-on (https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/105333#105387), but that will change significantly over the next month or so.

Here are some very positive initial hands-on reports -- BUT: Note they are from pros who were loaned pre-release review samples by Apple, so there's potential for postive bias here:

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/art...eal-world-projects-by-james-tonkin-at-hangman

https://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2019/12/10/macpro/

And for those who have the patience, here's a 95 min podcast:
https://www.relay.fm/mpu/514

I'm looking forward to hearing what those who actually purchase the machines with their own funds report....
 
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PickUrPoison said:
Definitely justifiable. Even just assuming a 5-year life—and zero value afterwards—that’s less $350 a month. Before any tax savings.

Taking resale value and tax deductibility into account, it’s well under $200 a month. Even at the unbelievably low billing rate if $50/hour, if you only save one hour—just one hour—per week, the machine more than pays for itself. It is essentially free.

And if it saves you two hours a week, take that extra $200/month and buy a second machine. That one is also free. For every extra billable hour per week this machine provides, you can afford to buy another machine—and that’s if you only bill $50/hour.

If you bill $200/hour, that $20,000 NZD computer pays for itself if it provides only one extra billable hour per month. If it lets you bill an extra 10 billable hours a month, that’s an extra $2,000/ month in revenue. Or that can cover the purchase of 10 more computers.

This is something the consumer/hobbyist/ tinkerer never seems to understand. These machines are productivity-increasing, revenue-generating tools. They don’t cost money, they make money.
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Show me how I can bill $200 an hour, I will give you $50 for an agreed amount of time. I'll even move to NZ. :)
 
gabicava83 said:
Show me how I can bill $200 an hour, I will give you $50 for an agreed amount of time. I'll even move to NZ. :)
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I liked the extra 2k part myself. I’m max billing as it is. If I got done a few hours early? More time for nonbillable work. A good thing. But doesn’t mean more revenue.

Or wait. Since I can do a clients work in less time with a Mac Pro I charge them less? Well. No.
 
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