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Long discussed, accountably use to be most profitable to sell old hardware and update with an entirely new machine than those periodic upgrades (you have to pay the technician, and deal with the obsolete parts, account user down time too, an working computer uses to sell as whole better than in parts, unless its a laptop, where rare to find logic boards use to sell at higer price than the laptop from it where taken).

I just 'assembly' a virtual iMac Pro, with parts sourced from Amazon, and the BOM topped 5150$ with E5v4, dell 5K, 512gb ssd, 64gb ddr4, 10gbe, c612 MB, heatpipes cpu cooler, 4 hipothetic TB3 controlllers at 30$ ea, and a 1000$ gpu, 600W platinum PSU and 100$ case, do not include labour neither OS licenses.


Which Xeon processors do you think the iMac Pro will eventually have? I've never seen an E5 with a turbo boost of 4.5GHz, so not really sure. Maybe the new gold, silver, bronze, platinum series? Also I suppose the only one with turbo boost up to 4.5GHz will be the 8 core.
 
Which Xeon processors do you think the iMac Pro will eventually have? I've never seen an E5 with a turbo boost of 4.5GHz, so not really sure. Maybe the new gold, silver, bronze, platinum series? Also I suppose the only one with turbo boost up to 4.5GHz will be the 8 core.
if the 8core can turbo to 4.5Ghz.. and hold that speed for ~20secs every 3-4 minutes or so.. i'm sold
 
i think that many people simply prefer the form factor of an AIO.

putting upgradeability/tinkering factors aside, you're faced with owning a computer and a display... or just a display.
a lot of people think the display only is better..

i would guess many more people think AIO is a more practical form factor than those who would think a separate housing is better.

for example-- look how many people around here are against external expansion and insist expansion should be happening inside the computer housing.. aside from display, this is also an all-in-one preference.. i think at this forum in particular you'll find a large group of people who are against an AIO form factor while at the same time, not realizing they're actually arguing for an AIO form factor --- aside from display..

this is (possibly) one of the reasons nMP didn't catch on. it relied too heavily upon external expansion for customizations.. people wanted it to be all-in-one instead.

I've got a slightly different perspective on this one.

For me an AIO is an appliance. It's neat and tidy and provides the computing needs for the many. However once you start increasing the spec of say the 27" iMac and max it out, it's over £5k. For me there is a tipping point (probably around £1500) where I think if I'm spending that much on a computer I want to be able to swap parts out to increase the life span of the machine - GPU, storage, etc. It feels that I'm spending way too much on something that is ultimately compromised in terms of performance and expandability. For £5k, I can get a very, very powerful PC and a 5K monitor that will easily out perform an iMac and be a much more flexible hardware platform. My apps run on both Windows and Mac OS, to the point where the only thing I miss from Mac OS is icloud integration and messages.

I went back to a PC for this reason. Apple's hardware simply isn't flexible enough. It's pretty, but compromised. Now I could wait for the next Mac Pro, but I guess the starting price is going to be higher than the iMac Pro - £6k+. This is too much for my needs. I'm one of the many 'workstation' users who doesn't really need a high-end workstation, but a high spec PC (x99 based). Apple will release this and probably still have a monumental gap between the mini and the Pro which can never be filled by the iMac it's an all in one. If the next Mac Pro had a starting point of say £2000-3000 then that would be a game changer, but I can't see it happening with the price of the iMac Pro.
 
I've got a slightly different perspective on this one.

For me an AIO is an appliance. It's neat and tidy and provides the computing needs for the many. However once you start increasing the spec of say the 27" iMac and max it out, it's over £5k. For me there is a tipping point (probably around £1500) where I think if I'm spending that much on a computer I want to be able to swap parts out to increase the life span of the machine - GPU, storage, etc.

I find the resale value of the iMac after two years is strong enough that I just replace mine at that point, taking advantage of Barclay's zero interest financing for that term to get the latest tech without having to deal with piecemeal upgrades (which has not appealed to me for a decade - why I stopped building my own).
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Is there a chance that this iMac Pro is only a temporary-special edition, and after the release of the Mac Pro will disappear after some time?

Well it sounds like the iMac Pro was going to be the replacement for the Mac Pro before they had their "come to Jesus" moment and decided to move forward with an all-new model. I personally believe the iMac Pro is going to sell well and therefore I believe it will stay in the lineup.
 
If people think Apple stuff is expensive, they should see some of the stuff in high end pro photography. Not hard to spend tens of thousands of dollars on bugga all in that world.


Would you say this is high end photography?

http://davidejackson.com/advertising

http://davidejackson.com/product

...it is.

And you don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do it. David has used cheap-o Alien Bees and 21MP Canon 5DmkII for so much of his work.

So yeah, a LOT of pros do pro work without having to spend thousands of dollars - even on a computer - not out of want, but necessity. They just don't have the budget for it.

I was entirely happy with my base 2009 Mac Pro when it was $2,500. The 2013 entry level Mac Pro was $3,000, and a six core was $4,000. Now a new entry level pro Apple machine starts at $5,000 - twice the cost. Apple is alienating a HUGE portion of their users.

Not all of us pro Apple users can afford the insane pricing Apple has thrown out there as of late, and I believe we have every right to voice our frustration.

Sorry if that doesn't sit well with your sensibilities.
 
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Lemme guess. He is going to tell you he shot all those with a 10 year old Nikon D90 with a few made in China speedlights, edited the pictures on a second hand 7 year old Mac Pro 4,1 running 10.6.8 with whatever 32bit Photoshop version. And he makes thousands on a monthly basis with that rig.

Okay jokes aside, the pro-photography world is a wide spectrum, do not generalize skill and experience on the same plane as gear worth.
 
I find the resale value of the iMac after two years is strong enough that I just replace mine at that point, taking advantage of Barclay's zero interest financing for that term to get the latest tech without having to deal with piecemeal upgrades (which has not appealed to me for a decade - why I stopped building my own)..

That's one way of doing it. Agreed, if you really aren't into 'tinkering' then it's a good strategy. :)
 
By the way, for the ten trillionth time, do we really have to remind some of you that you can't compare your i7 Hackintosh to workstation-grade parts? This machine is using a very expensive CPU. A very expensive GPU. Expensive RAM. Very expensive SSDs. The display is pretty much as good as it gets period, if it was a standalone it would be half as much as this entire machine. As far as I can tell it will be a screaming deal.

If the Hackintosh can perform the same exact tasks as the far more expensive "workstation-grade parts" system, then yes. You can most certainly compare them. Just saying.
 
I think that the lower the price of an AIO machine, the easier to be justified for purchase. IMHO there is a price threshold beyond which, no matter the specs, an AIO is a bad investment, due to the following 2 facts:

1. Most of the times, any piece that dies in it, takes down the whole machine (even if it is serviceable). Not to mention that if the screen starts to go bad, you are stuck with it.
2. It's specs are condemned to be relevant only as far as the worst of its internal component go, since nothing can be upgraded. E.g. you make a choice now with current conditions and you carry this choice until the machine dies.
 
Would you say this is high end photography?

http://davidejackson.com/advertising

http://davidejackson.com/product

...it is.

And you don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do it. David has used cheap-o Alien Bees and 21MP Canon 5DmkII for so much of his work.

So yeah, a LOT of pros do pro work without having to spend thousands of dollars - even on a computer - not out of want, but necessity. They just don't have the budget for it.

I was entirely happy with my base 2009 Mac Pro when it was $2,500. The 2013 entry level Mac Pro was $3,000, and a six core was $4,000. Now a new entry level pro Apple machine starts at $5,000 - twice the cost. Apple is alienating a HUGE portion of their users.

Not all of us pro Apple users can afford the insane pricing Apple has thrown out there as of late, and I believe we have every right to voice our frustration.

Sorry if that doesn't sit well with your sensibilities.

Exactly. Many want a modular computer as they prefer the platform, but either won't or can't pay for a high-end workstation. Apple clearly don't understand small businesses very well or the enthusiast market either.
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If the Hackintosh can perform the same exact tasks as the far more expensive "workstation-grade parts" system, then yes. You can most certainly compare them. Just saying.

This is why I went back to PC. An x99-based i7 give me the extra RAM I need (128GB) without loading the cost, and in most workloads a high-end gaming card is faster than a workstation card anyway, it's only when you are producing content that needs more than the 6GB available in gaming cards that workstation cards become of real benefit. Yes I get the whole point of ISV, but most of us can accept the small amount of downtime that comes with not having ISV certified hardware because the costs is so much lower.

Wasn't too fussed about a Hackintosh myself, but I understand why you would do it.

Apple do need to wake up and realise not everyone wants a £6K+ workstation for photo/video editing and nor do we want an iMac.
 
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Lets do this!

My take:

8-core E5-1600 v5 - likely around $600
price of the new Skylake X 8 core - that can overclock to near 5GHz. Granted you won't get over 28 PCIe lanes, but with a singular GPU and Flash Drive, you don't need much more. This could also be $400 if you want to go with the 6-core. I'm staying with the 8-core.

Motherboard - $300...gotta put that CPU, RAM and GPU somewhere.


32 GB ECC DDR4 - lets go with $500 (2666 MHz doesn't seem to be available yet in ECC, but 2400 MHz is $400)
Does this need to be ECC to be a professional workstation? A lot of pros are making due with the 5K iMac because it's less expensive than the previous Mac Pro. You can get 32GB of 3000MHz DDR4 Ram for $470 - so yeah - say $500.

1TB SSD - Lets say $700?
The 1TB Samsung M.2 EVO 960 is $480

Vega GPU - Prices haven't been announced (to my knowledge), but how about $500?
I'd gather the 8GB version of the Vega would be at least $600, but who knows. AMD seems prefer undercutting the competition, so $400-500 might be accurate.


PSU - $200
A good 1000w PS is $125.

Case - $500
A top good case with good airflow? $150

Peripherals - $200
Just leaving it here...

Screen - $1000
A fantastic color accurate NEC can easily be had for $1,000 - so I'd leave this here as well.


$3,855 (if you need a display). $2,800 if you don't - and if you don't, which is whom the mMP will be targeted - will certainly come in far over the $2,800 price point. And really - this is for "entry level" pro users to knock out work.

These specs aren't for those who need dual CPUs, 48 PCIe lanes, 4 GPUs, and string of M.2 drives in a raid array for rip through animations. That's a whole different level of pro.

Which brings me to, yes....there are different levels of Pro users. Not sure why that's so hard for some to understand.
 
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My take:

8-core E5-1600 v5 - likely around $600
price of the new Skylake X 8 core - that can overclock to near 5GHz. Granted you won't get over 28 PCIe lanes, but with a singular GPU and Flash Drive, you don't need much more. This could also be $400 if you want to go with the 6-core. I'm staying with the 8-core.
Xeon version of the CPU will have 44 PCIe lanes, and more than 1000$ price tag. Xeon will be more expensive than HEDT CPU lineup.
 
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My take:

8-core E5-1600 v5 - likely around $600
price of the new Skylake X 8 core - that can overclock to near 5GHz. Granted you won't get over 28 PCIe lanes, but with a singular GPU and Flash Drive, you don't need much more. This could also be $400 if you want to go with the 6-core. I'm staying with the 8-core.

Considering the iMac Pro will scale to 18 processors, we're likely looking at whatever replaces the current E5 2600 v4 series and the 8-core unit in that series lists for $2000. Apple will of course see a discount, but I expect they will be paying a fair bit more than $600 for it. :)
 
Is there a chance that this iMac Pro is only a temporary-special edition, and after the release of the Mac Pro will disappear after some time?

I get the feeling Apple is testing the waters here. They know a lot of lower end pro users vacated the nMP, and when to a decked out 5K iMac for $3,500 or so. Apple also knows there's a boatload of cMP users (like me) who are/were waiting for the nMP replacement because we want the expansion ability.

So the test comes in the form of, if we give the cMP users a beefed up iMac Pro with great specs and performance, will they be tempted to buy? And will the pro 5K iMac buyers who want more OOMPH! buy up to a higher spec'd and performing machine for the a premium price. ...also...to those who bought the nMP, and are used to the external expansion - will this fill their needs as well? ...even though it's at a highly premium price for the entry level machine.

Or...will those cMP, nMP and few of the those pro 5K iMac users gravitate towards to mMP? Maybe the pro 5K iMac users will be content with just the 5K iMac as they have been (essentially) since 2014, and skip the iMac Pro - which I figure will happen - they're chose the 5K iMac for budget reasons.

If pro users gravitate heavily towards one or the other, I can see Apple ditching the lower selling machine - even if it ends up being the mMP they axe. I have my doubts the mMP would be axed if they do it right.

If Apple does the mMP correctly, me thinks the pro 5K iMac users will stay where they're at, and the cMP and nMP users will gravitate to the mMP if it's priced right - as that's what we've been wanting. In that case, the iMac Pro goes away in a few years - how many pro users want a completely closed system you can't upgrade as your needs and requirements change?
 
We could also see the iMac Pro and new Mac Pro coexist in many companies depending on the specific workloads tasked to individual users. They don't have to be mutually exclusive anymore than the iMac and Mac Pro were.
 
My take:

8-core E5-1600 v5 - likely around $600
price of the new Skylake X 8 core - that can overclock to near 5GHz. Granted you won't get over 28 PCIe lanes, but with a singular GPU and Flash Drive, you don't need much more. This could also be $400 if you want to go with the 6-core. I'm staying with the 8-core.

Motherboard - $300...gotta put that CPU, RAM and GPU somewhere.


32 GB ECC DDR4 - lets go with $500 (2666 MHz doesn't seem to be available yet in ECC, but 2400 MHz is $400)
Does this need to be ECC to be a professional workstation? A lot of pros are making due with the 5K iMac because it's less expensive than the previous Mac Pro. You can get 32GB of 3000MHz DDR4 Ram for $470 - so yeah - say $500.

1TB SSD - Lets say $700?
The 1TB Samsung M.2 EVO 960 is $480

Vega GPU - Prices haven't been announced (to my knowledge), but how about $500?
I'd gather the 8GB version of the Vega would be at least $600, but who knows. AMD seems prefer undercutting the competition, so $400-500 might be accurate.


PSU - $200
A good 1000w PS is $125.

Case - $500
A top good case with good airflow? $150

Peripherals - $200
Just leaving it here...

Screen - $1000
A fantastic color accurate NEC can easily be had for $1,000 - so I'd leave this here as well.


$3,855 (if you need a display). $2,800 if you don't - and if you don't, which is whom the mMP will be targeted - will certainly come in far over the $2,800 price point. And really - this is for "entry level" pro users to knock out work.

These specs aren't for those who need dual CPUs, 48 PCIe lanes, 4 GPUs, and string of M.2 drives in a raid array for rip through animations. That's a whole different level of pro.

Which brings me to, yes....there are different levels of Pro users. Not sure why that's so hard for some to understand.
i think you might have added up your estimate incorrectly?
 
Xeon version of the CPU will have 44 PCIe lanes, and more than 1000$ price tag. Xeon will be more expensive than HEDT CPU lineup.

Agreed. Not all pro users need a Xeon processor - and the Skylake X is targeted directly at those people - it's still a "pro chip". Apple ignored EVERY version of the i7 6 and 8 core chips for the iMac for the burgeoning pro iMac users.

A friend and I have been talking about this over the past few years, and started it up again when Apple first announced they're making an iMac Pro. We believed Apple's biggest mistake would be to use Xeon chips in this particular system, especially when they're going to be using the Xeons in the Modular system. That's a massive point of differentiation.

It seems Apple doesn't want to acknowledge, much less believe, such pro users exist.

To me, that's the crux of the backlash against this iMac Pro. Yes, I know some people are loving it. I know a LOT of people are pjssed because it's overkill.

I would have been fantastically excited had Apple skipped the Xeons, ECC memory, and Vega GPU (maybe make that upgrade option), and started with a 6-core, 16GB RAM, Radeon Pro 580, and dropped the price by $1,800. Then I could have talked myself into wanting that 5K display, even though I don't technically need it. :)

Look at the ram pricing difference between Apple and OWC.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/imac-2017-27-inch

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac?product=MNED2LL/A&step=config#

:eek:
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i think you might have added up your estimate incorrectly?


No - not really. I still come up with around $3,855 - depending on the price of video card. I was looking across a bunch of different numbers. LOL

CPU - $600
Mobo - $300
RAM - $500
SSD - $480
GPU - $500
PSU - $125
Case - $150
Perifs - $200
Display - $1000
 
Agreed. Not all pro users need a Xeon processor - and the Skylake X is targeted directly at those people - it's still a "pro chip". Apple ignored EVERY version of the i7 6 and 8 core chips for the iMac for the burgeoning pro iMac users.

A friend and I have been talking about this over the past few years, and started it up again when Apple first announced they're making an iMac Pro. We believed Apple's biggest mistake would be to use Xeon chips in this particular system, especially when they're going to be using the Xeons in the Modular system. That's a massive point of differentiation.

It seems Apple doesn't want to acknowledge, much less believe, such pro users exist.

The iMac Pro was probably going to replace the Mac Pro in the Macintosh line-up. So they designed it to use high-core Xeons, ECC memory and workstation-class GPUs.

Then Apple had their "come to Jesus" moment in April where they agreed to make a new Mac Pro. But they had already engineered the iMac Pro so they were not going to throw that away - especially because they (and I) believe there is a six-figure quarterly market for it.

And considering the TDP of the high core-count Skylake-X CPUs, Apple would need similar cooling for them as used in the iMac Pro which would mean that the iMac case would need to be redesigned internally to accommodate that cooling. And that probably would have meant no more (easily) user-upgradeable RAM, so you'd have expensive CPUs and expensive RAM upgrades and we'd still be north of $4000.

The howling in this forum would have been deafening.

The Foxconn leak says Apple is doing a new iMac physical design for the mid-2018 model so it is quite possible that one will offer 6 and 8 core Skylake-X CPUs - especially if AMD's Ryzen sees strong market penetration in this area.
 
No - not really. I still come up with around $3,855 - depending on the price of video card. I was looking across a bunch of different numbers. LOL

CPU - $600
Mobo - $300
RAM - $500
SSD - $480
GPU - $500
PSU - $125
Case - $150
Perifs - $200
Display - $1000
oh ok. i probably was misinterpreting some of your numbers.
(for example - the $500 & $150 re:case)
 
Agreed. Not all pro users need a Xeon processor - and the Skylake X is targeted directly at those people - it's still a "pro chip". Apple ignored EVERY version of the i7 6 and 8 core chips for the iMac for the burgeoning pro iMac users.

A friend and I have been talking about this over the past few years, and started it up again when Apple first announced they're making an iMac Pro. We believed Apple's biggest mistake would be to use Xeon chips in this particular system, especially when they're going to be using the Xeons in the Modular system. That's a massive point of differentiation.

It seems Apple doesn't want to acknowledge, much less believe, such pro users exist.

To me, that's the crux of the backlash against this iMac Pro. Yes, I know some people are loving it. I know a LOT of people are pjssed because it's overkill.

I would have been fantastically excited had Apple skipped the Xeons, ECC memory, and Vega GPU (maybe make that upgrade option), and started with a 6-core, 16GB RAM, Radeon Pro 580, and dropped the price by $1,800. Then I could have talked myself into wanting that 5K display, even though I don't technically need it. :)

Look at the ram pricing difference between Apple and OWC.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/imac-2017-27-inch

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac?product=MNED2LL/A&step=config#

:eek:
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No - not really. I still come up with around $3,855 - depending on the price of video card. I was looking across a bunch of different numbers. LOL

CPU - $600
Mobo - $300
RAM - $500
SSD - $480
GPU - $500
PSU - $125
Case - $150
Perifs - $200
Display - $1000
You missed the 10GbE Adapter ~ 350$
Also i dont believe Apple will put a low power 8core cpu but the speedier 8 core Skylake-W which should be more expensive.
Also Account 60$ for the CPU cooler, and about 30$ for each TB3 ports, and the Display, Dell unit its the cheaper w 10bit at 1700$
 
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