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The problem here is that there are actually no Z4s for $500, the lowest priced one is $895 and so completely under-spec'd that it's useless (4GB ram, 500GB HD (no SSD), Core i3 CPU). Please don't make me laugh... Heck, the entry level Mac mini is twice the machine, and at a lower price.
Well, term "workstation" is not well defined and Apple does not call Mac Pro a workstation anyways. HP sells desktop computers in various form factors and some models cost around $500. Unlike Mac Mini they are modular and can be configured the way you want (which includes discrete graphics). Nobody is expecting $500 computer to be as powerfull as Mac Pro. Mac Pro price is not my issue. My point was the lack of any modular Macs for less than $6K.
 
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I love the fact Apple made this Mac Pro. I just wish they had a cheaper entry level option at $3/4K price with 1TB/64GB RAM.
The prices are just too insane high.
The display is incredible, but $7k with stand and nano tech is ridiculous. They could have an option @ 5K display at $2500 with stand/nano.

Around $13k to get a MP/Display combo is not a feasible option for most Pro's.

Yes, I agree I think there are many levels of Pro...where the definition is you make your income from some variant of video production, but come on that is more on the level of hollywood or youtube star money. What gets me is that its the chip that really drives up the cost, with Intel charging tens of thousands for Xeon's... I really wish they'd give us an intermediate "prosumer" machine based on i9's and AMD Threadrippers. And no the iMac overheats etc, we need a real intermediate desktop case. Anyway, this may be my motivation to switch to Davinci 100%, because yes, if you use the same components Apple uses in its pro machines...they are a little cheaper than if you built it yourself...but that's the problem we have no choice in the matter...other than to spend our money elsewhere or build a hackintosh.
 
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Should I buy a Mac Pro or put a downpayment for a house...?

No one but the studios and rich people are going to buy these.

A little perspective: In 1993 I paid $10k for a Mac Quadra 700, 15" monitor, a scanner, an ink jet printer, and a couple software apps. I was just finishing design school and got a loan. My first iPhone (3S) was more powerful than the Quadra. People forget what they're really getting for their tech money these days.
 
After subjecting myself to Linus for almost ten minutes, he never did say anything about the Ryzen being better than the Xeon W, just mentioned ram limits.

My point was that just because the Xeon-W is in a far more expensive system, and thus costs a lot more than the Ryzen, doesn't mean that the Xeon-W is much better. Specs wise, the Ryzen and the Xeon-W are rather comparable. The Core is a much cheaper processor than the Xeon-W, and still manages to outperform the Xeon-W in a lot of areas.
 
All the haters have finally exposed themselves as....haters. Apple did exactly what you wanted and you braindead **** have nothing more to say than "cheese grater"? Yes. It looks like a cheese grater. Intentionally. It's called skeuomorphic design. Moreover, it's an example for function over form. Something you have been bitching about as well.
 
All the haters have finally exposed themselves as....haters. Apple did exactly what you wanted and you braindead **** have nothing more to say than "cheese grater"? Yes. It looks like a cheese grater. Intentionally. It's called skeuomorphic design. Moreover, it's an example for function over form. Something you have been bitching about as well.
hating on the haters....way to separate yourself from them. :p
 
I won't be buying one these any time soon since I can't justify the need for that much power for the price. I do hope they offer a lower priced modular MacPro at some point. My only beef is that Apple overshot the entry price point for average professionals with this Mac Pro and the display. Folks who used to buy Mac Pros and Apple displays are priced out and stuck with non-upgradable iMacs. But people also forget what they're really getting for their tech money these days. In '93 I paid $10k for a Mac Quadra 700 (the second from TOL Mac), 17" NEC CRT monitor, a scanner, an ink jet printer, and a couple software apps. I was just finishing design school and got a loan. My first iPhone (3S) was far more powerful than the Quadra. This was what is cost to get into "desktop publishing" back then. And walking to school was uphill both ways.
 
At this point in Apple, I'll take any kind of function over form decision as an absolute win for the customer.

There is no way in hell a system this overly complicated to look at is function over form. I personally don’t like the curves of this, or the holes. Sure it lets air flow, but so did the old Mac Pro (not trash can). I don’t think basically copying your old design is innovative. Also how is dust gonna build up on these holes. I also can’t wait to see these being wheeled into the apple store when they need repairing. As someone who has been riddled with problems with two trash cans since 2014 I can say it was an easier system to take in but still a pain.

All these folk saying “it’s not a bad price for the people who need it” I say to you poppycock. I am, a professional. I need a powerful system. The price of this blows all competition out of the water. It’s ridiculously unnecessarily expensive. It’s greed, they have made another product with $$$$ symbols engraved. It’s priced high because they have put the customer back in control of what they can do with it. Expandability comes at a premium. It’s a good spec system, but professionals needing CUDA will not move until there is Nvidia support. A system with all of that expansion capability, and no support for third party GPUs.
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Are you planning to buy one?

As mentioned several times already, the price of the baseline machine is comparable to what pro workstations go for. Have you been complaining about Dell and HP also?

Cheers,
Bernard
Not true, sure if you go to Dell or HP. but if you go a custom pc builder a fraction. More bang for you buck. A base model with 256gb of storage is laughable.
 
Does it support PCIe4.0? If not, it would't really be much future proof and would already be somewhat outdated by the time of it's release. Maybe Apple will quietly update it with PCIe 4.0 some time next year and burn early adopters.
 
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A little perspective: In 1993 I paid $10k for a Mac Quadra 700, 15" monitor, a scanner, an ink jet printer, and a couple software apps. I was just finishing design school and got a loan. My first iPhone (3S) was more powerful than the Quadra. People forget what they're really getting for their tech money these days.

Yeah when I paid 7k for a fully specd 2013 trash can, I realised I’d made a mistake. 12 cores and two GPUs which adobe don’t even use. Or pro 3D software which doesn’t utilise metal. Totes great value for money system.
 
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Nice machine for professionals who need the ultimate Mac.

The retro look takes me back to the days when even I could afford such a box. In 2002 the entry level Mac tower was $1599. In 2003 the entry level price went up to $1999. By 2006 you needed $2499 and the 2013 "trash can" took the entry level up to $2999 despite it being little more than a Xeon Mac Mini. Surely Apple can't be surprised that tech savvy consumers and prosumers abandoned the Mac tower with inflation like that. But even knowing all that I wasn't remotely prepared for an entry level price of $5999.

After writing the above I decided to check out iMac pricing through the ages and found that the large screen iMac has hovered around $1799 ever since it debuted with a G4 processor. Interesting.
 
Not true, sure if you go to Dell or HP. but if you go a custom pc builder a fraction. More bang for you buck. A base model with 256gb of storage is laughable.

So True then, right? Because I was explicitly speaking about Dell and HP.

People in the Windows world don't compare prices of pro class WS with own made PCs. I guess some do, but don't know what they are talking about.

I did my own share of custom PC builds and I would never trust them a mission critical application on a deadline with tons of money at stake. But they are great value for less demanding applications, no doubt.

But less demanding applications simply isn't the market Apple was aiming for with this design.

So it is fair to complain to Apple that they haven't released a product for the segment your are in, but IMHO it doesn't make sense to compare the Mac Pro to something totally different.

Cheers,
Bernard
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Yeah when I paid 7k for a fully specd 2013 trash can, I realised I’d made a mistake. 12 cores and two GPUs which adobe don’t even use. Or pro 3D software which doesn’t utilise metal. Totes great value for money system.

Your mistake is to use Adobe products... :) C1 Pro makes a great use of the GPUs of the 2013 Pro and literally runs circles around Lightroom. So much faster it isn't even funny. And yes, I use both.

But yes... apologies... I have no idea whether you are into photography or something else. Sorry. It's always fun to poke some fun at Adobe. :D

Cheers,
Bernard
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That looks great and all, I wonder though, THAT is what took them 7 years to produce?

Indeed! :)

cheers,
Bernard
 
Yeah, it would've taken 'courage' to include off-the-shelf CUDA support.

"Oh, but your favourite product "x's" (underlying rendering architecture) will be ported to Metal real soon.
 
Also how is dust gonna build up on these holes. I also can’t wait to see these being wheeled into the apple store when they need repairing.

It’s a good spec system, but professionals needing CUDA will not move until there is Nvidia support. A system with all of that expansion capability, and no support for third party GPUs.
My cheesegraters have been fine wrt dust. The only way you can have noticeable buildup is if you keep it on the floor, and even then it doesn't cause issues. I've never heard of overheating being a problem except with the northbridge chip, and that's a separate issue with the heatsink that people have figured out how to fix. Trashcan was form over function, the rest were pretty good about being the other way around.

It just sounds like you need CUDA. I'll bet it'll run regular AMD GPUs fine, as my MacPro4,1 does. You use whatever your software supports; CUDA isn't any holier than Metal, both being proprietary.
 
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THe problem is that Apple made a mistake of confusing the Mac Pro with the workstation/server customers.
Apple used to have the Mac Pro and the servers.
They never made that mistake, Mac Pros were always professional workstations with Xeons, professional GPUs and ECC RAM. It's some of the customers that made the mistake of thinking that Apple will release a Mac-branded consumer PC. They have iMacs for that.
 
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Yeah, it would've taken 'courage' to include off-the-shelf CUDA support.

"Oh, but your favourite product "x's" (underlying rendering architecture) will be ported to Metal real soon.
We all know Apple is in the GPU wars, so nobody should've expected this. So is Nvidia with their proprietary stuff. I'm not rooting for anyone with a closed standard.
 
Very impressive. About the only limitation I saw (and probably the reason it appears a little smaller than the old cheese grater) is it doesn't have support / space for Hard Drives (4TB in SSD's is the largest internal configurable option it looks like - gotta guess that would be an eye watering price).

I do like that they obviously embraced the cheese grater nickname of the old towers.

I'm with you ElectriPotato, if this started at $3k or $4k I'd be able to lift it. Will make my last version of the original cheese grater last a a year or two more then probably land in an iMac - which I've waited to avoid.

This was my plan for a while. Then I bought iMac Pro and had to return it as my 2010 cheese grater is actually faster than the iMac Pro for actual real world jobs I tested, like exporting ae projects, and just general use in illustrator was choppy when panning a doc which seems like an easy task, i think the 5k display uses so much of the available horse power that it struggles to ‘do’ much with what’s left over. I’m sure in final cut the iMac would scream but in after effects the old Mac Pro was faster for me. Also the old acd 30inch shows/fits more content (albeit a little fuzzier) than the 5k display. Was a bit disappointed after splurging on the iMac Pro. I think really I’d have to go for the full new Mac Pro to see decent gains over my 12 core 3.46ghz, 128gb, 1080Ti /RX580 system. The low end iMac Pro didn’t do enough of anything better to justify its price. This new Mac Pro seems awesome and I guess if you have the work, it will pay for itself easy enough.
 
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