Roundup: First-Look Impressions of the New Mac Pro

[Khedron]

It’s almost as though would-be buyers aren’t allowed to customise the specs to get the ideal configuration for their own use cases.

So long as your use case includes wanting to be overcharged by 30-40%

 

[ValO]

Guess it's time to switch to Windows.

Daily Mac user since 1986, but a $4k tax is laughable. Apple's hardware quality hasn't been good in decades, so it's not even on par with the rest of the industry especially with their **** laptops.

I've said it before and I've said it again: Apple should have split into multiple divisions to deal with consumer, professional, and enterprise. It's a schizophrenic company that can't see the forest from the trees. They almost exclusively made low order goods and since that market is now drying up they're trying to flip back into higher order professional goods after abandoning it for decades. Now they have a piece of hardware with no professional software to run on it. Pathetic.

If they try to re-enter enterprise they're going to run up against the problem that A, they haven't made server hardware since Xserve and B, who the hell uses a server directly on hardware anymore? It's all virtualized now, which Apple never understood and won't until it's too late.

All this said, I will try to run MacOS on KVM. If it works, I'll keep using MacOS. If Apple wants my money, they can offer me a virtual license. Nobody in their right mind is buying their hardware.

4000 $ tax is too much. I did some digging, and people forget that the motherboard in the MacPro is a very sophisticated motherboard. It is a motherboard of $1500 or more. Add $1000 for the Xeon, about $600 for ddr4 ecc memory, $100 for ssd, $300 for graphics card, and about $800 for a comparable high grade 1400 watt psu, housing and fans, and you are at $4300, without 24h support and Mac OS.

So about $1500 apple tax. Still too much money, but not the $4000 apple tax you are talking about.
I know you can make a faster computer with other parts that is a lot cheaper, but that is not the point here.
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I agree with you, from the Apple CEO to the product design chief, seems that they have gone nuts, or want to destroy the pro computer division, I saw the fall of Silicon Graphics and Apple is taking the same road, computers that only major production studios, oil companies or big research facilities like NASA can get, is the wrong way to go. They're gonna lose millions of dollars on Mac Pro sales. Seriously, they don't know that all audiovisual facilities work on a budget?

Loosing a lot of sales. I guess it will improve sales of macs. This year it will outsell the thrashcan MacPro sales of last year, is my guess. So....
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What every computer engineer knows is that if you try to design something for every kind of uses you get it wrong. You don't need a server motherboard for a workstation. Why to pay for something that you may use someday?, that's a wrong decision from Apple, what CTO decided that? You are gonna lose customers doing that, on a budget I don't pay for servers in my company if I need workstations, I don't pay $3,000 more for a "just in case", seriously Apple...

Yeah, and you and the press would be first to address apple if they included a cheaper motherboard with the cheaper configuration, since you wouldn’ t be able to upgrade your cpu or graphics card. “ Apple promised us an upgradeable and scalable system, but it seems that....” .

 

[Abazigal]

So long as your use case includes wanting to be overcharged by 30-40%

Relative to what? A gaming PC someone slapped together on some online website just to prove a (very misguided) point?

 

[SSDGUY]

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.

I for one don't mind the look, though I'm a little surprised they didn't go space gray …woulda looked better IMO. I do mind the intro price that is a lot more than a better spec'd iMac Pro. Professionals on a budget that simply don't want an all-in-one are still left … wanting.

 

[Babygotfont]

I for one don't mind the look, though I'm a little surprised they didn't go space gray …woulda looked better IMO. I do mind the intro price that is a lot more than than a better spec'd iMac Pro. Professionals on a budget that simply don't want an all-in-one are still left … wanting.

I’ll be saving my money and buying twinkies instead ... they are fat free

 

[ValO]

I think Apple should release a smaller and cheaper modulair Mac, which also can make use of the afterburner card and a single AMD vega 2 card(would love support for one dual vega2 card, but that would be a stretch due to power and heat management).

So a Mac Pro style of tower, only less tall , with less fans, a motherboard with support for cpu’ s from 8 up to 10 cores, less memory slots, less pci slots, in a smaller format. And a psu with less power(800 Watts ?) .

Let’ s call it the Mac mini Pro.

2 base models to choose from:

1. Pro edition: The same base configuration as the base config of the Mac Pro: 8-core Xeon, 32gb ECC , 256GB ssd , Radeon 580x , 10gb Ethernet ,from $4000.

2. Consumer/prosumer edition: support for 6 up to 8 cores i9, 16GB, 256gb ssd, Radeon 580x , 1gb Ethernet from $3200.(for 6 core i9)

And make a consumer display , based on current iMac /iMac pro 27 inch 5k display , in the design language of the XDR display, and some internal watered down techniques borrowed from the xdr. For around $1300.

 

[Sabelonada]

I think Apple should release a smaller and cheaper modulair Mac, which also can make use of the afterburner card and a single AMD vega 2 card(would love support for one dual vega2 card, but that would be a stretch due to power and heat management).

So a Mac Pro style of tower, only less tall , with less fans, a motherboard with support for cpu’ s from 8 up to 10 cores, less memory slots, less pci slots, in a smaller format. And a psu with less power(800 Watts ?) .

Let’ s call it the Mac mini Pro.

2 base models to choose from:

1. Pro edition: The same base configuration as the base config of the Mac Pro: 8-core Xeon, 32gb ECC , 256GB ssd , Radeon 580x , 10gb Ethernet ,from $4000.

2. Consumer/prosumer edition: support for 6 up to 8 cores i9, 16GB, 256gb ssd, Radeon 580x , 1gb Ethernet from $3200.(for 6 core i9)

And make a consumer display , based on current iMac /iMac pro 27 inch 5k display , in the design language of the XDR display, and some internal watered down techniques borrowed from the xdr. For around $1300.

This makes no sense to Apple.

I agree, there should be a Mac offering with SSD and memory which can be upgraded and the ability to slot in 1 maybe 2 PCI cards.

What you suggest in 1 is absurd. If you want the Xeon, get the Mac Pro. A consumer oriented version would offer the consumer grade CPUs. Granting access to the Afterburner or dual GPU cards would cannibalize the Mac Pro market and is not happening.

I also think Apple should figure out a way to make target display mode work on recent iMacs. I might consider one if that were available. I think any Apple consumer display would mimic the iMac design. Granted, adding target display mode means that any iMac can be an Apple Thunderbolt display. But somehow that doesn't work anymore.

 

[aliensporebomb]

You can make a Threadripper 2950 (16 cores) system with ECC. Combine whatever GPU you want (unless you have a specialized need, gaming GPU will kill the 7100), and you have a monster that kills the base Mac Pro for ~$3000 easy. Even if you didn't want it to build it yourself, you could probably find something close to this through Alienware for only a few hundred more.

Not $3000. My friend's threadripper system which he specced and we built together was around $5000. On paper some of these things look to be in the 3k area but they're really quite a bit more
once you figure in ram, video card(s) and suitable displays.

 

[ValO]

This makes no sense to Apple.

I agree, there should be a Mac offering with SSD and memory which can be upgraded and the ability to slot in 1 maybe 2 PCI cards.

What you suggest in 1 is absurd. If you want the Xeon, get the Mac Pro. A consumer oriented version would offer the consumer grade CPUs. Granting access to the Afterburner or dual GPU cards would cannibalize the Mac Pro market and is not happening.

I also think Apple should figure out a way to make target display mode work on recent iMacs. I might consider one if that were available. I think any Apple consumer display would mimic the iMac design. Granted, adding target display mode means that any iMac can be an Apple Thunderbolt display. But somehow that doesn't work anymore.

I stated that it would only be possible to have access to a single vega2 card because it would have a standard pci slot instead of the dual pci slots on the big Mac pro , and that it would only work with 8 to 10-core xeons. It would be for the pro’ s that need less and don’ t need the very large expendability and massive psu and motherboard and ram slots of the MacPro . I know it probably won’ t happen, but it would be the perfect tweener and kind of upgradeable Mac for the smaller business /prosumer.

 

[Sabelonada]

I stated that it would only be possible to have access to a single vega2 card because it would have a standard pci slot instead of the dual pci slots on the big Mac pro , and that it would only work with 8 to 10-core xeons. It would be for the pro’ s that need less and don’ t need the very large expendability and massive psu and motherboard and ram slots of the MacPro . I know it probably won’ t happen, but it would be the perfect tweener and kind of upgradeable Mac for the smaller business /prosumer.

Anything with Xeons would cannibalize sales of the Mac Pro. That won't happen.

Perhaps if they had updated the last generation Mac Pro to use TB3 and have video cards which could be upgraded.

 

[ValO]

Anything with Xeons would cannibalize sales of the Mac Pro. That won't happen.

Perhaps if they had updated the last generation Mac Pro to use TB3 and have video cards which could be upgraded.

In my opinion it won’ t. The starting price of a MacPro with an 8-core is too steep, because of the psu, motherboard and case are build for higher end setups than the base set-up,
And that will negatively impact sales to smaller companies.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I'm just glad Apple didn't overthink the 7,1 too much and built what people have been saying they need - a machine that can be internally expanded and updated as time goes on.

As for looks - who, really, cares? It's a tool to get work done.

And for those who want to try to build one on their own to save a few bucks - good luck with that.

 

[jmassa]

I have and it's excruciating.

On the other hand, I am not a photographer or videographer, unlike the person you are replying to.
I'm guessing that having roughly matching displays -- color and otherwise -- is important for that sort of user...
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I'm sorry, but that's a lot of bull.
The demise of SGI was due to a lot of factors, including but not limited to:

1. Bad management and lavish expenses, no cash flow
   
2. The dot-com crash
   
3. IRIX being an absolute ******** in its last years
4. The company's lack of committment to IRIX and move to Windows NT which only exacerbated the problems
   
5. The company's refusal to accept that commodity parts that benefit from economies of scale could do the same as their custom machines -- that Dell could just buy Intel and ATI parts and assemble a workstation that was sort of in the same league as the Tezro.

This is not at all the situation at Apple.

1. Cash flow? They have a license to print their own money.
2. Dot com crash? Nope.
3. macOS is in great health
   
4. The company is certainly not trying to sell Windows NT workstations...
5. Apple is buying chips from ATI and Intel; I'm sure Tim Cook does not need any lesson on how to run the supply chain. There is some custom silicon being developed, but that's added value that you can't buy from competitors, they're not reinventing what AMD can sell them for realatively cheap thanks to scale.

You've seen the demo, guys.
As it stands, if the marketing is not lying, Apple sells the only machine (or at least the only Final Cut/Logic machine, e.g. Pro Tools has been using custom silicon for ages) that can render three 8k ProRes streams in real time, probably thanks to its acquisition of that-silicon-startup-I-can't-remember-the-name-of.
That, alone, if true, means that Apple has already broke even just with the preorders from major Logic and Final Cut users.


Or you are just transitioning to a higher-end segment.
E.g. FIAT seems to be doing pretty good, despite axing real-socialist models like the Ritmo in favour of high-margin lines like the 500 or the 124 Spider...



Yes, the famous XServe RAID, for the people.
Or the Lisa, for the people.

What is that even supposed to mean, really.

Can we stop with the cult of Steve Jobs?
Great enterpreneur, keen eye for detail, anal on ergonomics, effective manager - I am told - but he was not Jesus, he did not start a religion.
He sold hardware.

By the way, the new Mac Pro might just be a driver in selling products for the people to the people.
You know concept cars and high-end road models?
They serve in part to establish prestige around a brand.
How many 2003 iBook G3s do you think the introduction of the G5 cheese grater helped sell to engineering students?
I'm willing to bet: quite a few.

Well, you are right about Silicon Graphics, but Apple are committing some errors, if they are gonna compete in the high computing niche there are competitors with too much years of experience and the only features that differss the Mac Pro from the others are the T2 chip and the OS, not impressed at all.

Seriously, do you know how it works an audiovisual facility? For the price of the Mac Pro I can get 3 workstations with same performance, I don't need a 28 core mother board for a colorist workstation, even I don't need the 28 core at all (more that 16 cores is not worthy in price/performance), software like Davinci Resolve an others rely on the gpu power over the number of cpu cores. So why I'm goona triplicate the costs of may facility for nothing?

Let's talk about the monitor, working in this sector for so many years I know how is a color grading monitor, they say it's comparable with a $24000 monitor to jusify a $6000 price tag, but that's not true. Where are all the additional inputs an SYNC signals for a broadcast/film reference monitor, aspect ratio crop features, etc? NOTHING. And the monitor stand? I can get a nano ips 98% P3 ganut monitor for around $1200, that is the price for just the monitor stand on Apple's monitor. That's a joke. I like OSX, it was created for NEXT computers the other Job's adventure, but that's not enough to pay the bill.

They got wrong with the Mac Pro, the need to add another base configuration for about half the price or they're out for me and other postproduction facilities, and forget about the monitor.

 

[jmassa]

No comments... No studio on a budget are gonna pay this for a stand, maybe a major studio...