This overpriced Prosumer device is an IQ test just like the $1,000 iPhone. Call it the Burberry fashion Mac. Thanks Angela.
Were I in the market for an all in one, I would wait for the Pizza Tray attachment. As the owner of a Cheesegrater Mac Pro, the heat from a Xeon CPU is considerable and I wonder if these will be self cooking computers like the Apple III back in the day. They ran so hot that chips would pop out of the board.
One can buy a far better BTO workstation for less and buy the monitor of your choice and get a 3 year on site warranty. Or would you rather schlep your ProSumer iMac “Pro” to the local Apple Emporium to sit and wait a couple of hours with the sheeple.
One can buy a far better BTO workstation for less and buy the monitor of your choice and get a 3 year on site warranty. Or would you rather schlep your ProSumer iMac “Pro” to the local Apple Emporium to sit and wait a couple of hours with the sheeple.
BTO with OSX? You are just a troll. Negative about Apple in every single post. Lots of pros are gonna buy this machine and i am one of them.
Oh, and a “professional” is going build a DYI with off the self parts? How productive and cost effective would that be? As for your claim that you can ‘easily’ build a better one for less, that tripe has been debunked many times by people who have tried and failed to do it. There is no Apple ‘tax’ on this machine at this level.
You assume everyone with hpc requirements is a high paid “professional”. There is a large number of graduate students in engineering and scientific computing that conduct important research in their fields that don’t make a lot of money or have big work budgets. This research requires far more computing power than is required by many high paid “professionals” in other fields. I was under the impression that at one time Apple had a strong interest in supporting and being involved in university research but maybe I was wrong.
This sounds more like Xeon-SP territory -- actual high-performance, data-science computing. The iMac Pro isn't that. Xeon-W is a compromise, and lacks the Purley platform. The new Mac Pro should be, we'll see.
The point of his comment and his tone is that nobody else is going to make an all-in-one to compete with this that is significantly cheaper. This isn't a low-margin market. This is Apple's wheelhouse. There is software that the iMac Pro is going to run very well, and people will buy it because of that. But it's not meant to be all things to all people, and that includes graduate students in engineering and the sciences.
The total yearly compensation cost (including all employer subsidies and benefits) for a senior software developer is conservatively in the $150K-$200K range. If I’m investing in a team with that kind of talent and depreciating the cost of necessary equipment, like engineering workstations, the $5000 cost of a workstation that will deliver the performance that even the base model iMac Pro delivers for at least 2-3 years, while requiring very little IT support, it’s a very easy purchase decision. It’s not at a level of being in the noise, but it’s close.
Customers who can afford its $4,999 pricetag may now be able to find the 8-core base model of the iMac Pro in some U.S. Apple stores, ready for pickup.
Why do we keep with the narrative that this machine might be purchased by common users? Why do we keep mentioning the price? The real professional who makes a living with a machine like this one will pay the price. And it’s not too expensive when you consider what’s inside the beast. I’m surprised AI or someone else hasn’t priced out a PC with the exact same specs and 5K monitor, if such an animal even exists.
You can't price out the exact same specs. The CPU and GPU are down clocked versions of their off the shelf counterparts.
For example, the Vega 64 iMac Pro is outputting about the same TFLOPS as the off the shelf Vega 56. So it's not going to be a tit-for-tat comparison.
If you want to price out a DIY desktop, you can easily build a better one for less than the iMac Pro.
Pre-built computers become a bit more complicated, again, because of the availability of parts and the fact the iMac Pro is using weaker components.
Oh, and a “professional” is going build a DYI with off the self parts? How productive and cost effective would that be? As for your claim that you can ‘easily’ build a better one for less, that tripe has been debunked many times by people who have tried and failed to do it. There is no Apple ‘tax’ on this machine at this level.
The DIY route is more for the prosumer, or at home computers. For that matter, a professional probably won't buy a prosumer all-in-one computer like the iMac Pro. They'll likely buy an ISV certified workstation with a 3 year on-site warranty, potentially purchased through an IT department from HP, Lenovo or Dell.
As for easily building a better computer, well, here's a prebuilt to compare:
iMac Pro - $7999
Intel Xeon W-2150B (10 core) <-- Downclocked from regular W-2155 AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 16 GB HBM2 (up to 4 displays) <-- Downclocked from regular Vega 64 64 GB DDR4-2666 ECC 2 TB PCIe M.2 SSD 10 Gb Ethernet macOS 1 year warranty
Intel Xeon W-2155 (10 core) AMD Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB HBM2 (up to 6 displays) 64 GB DDR4-2666 ECC 2 TB PCIe M.2 SSD 2x 10 Gb Ethernet Windows 10 Pro 1 year warranty
That leaves $2,360 for a monitor, keyboard and mouse. As for the display, something like the new 2018 5K LG Nano IPS display would be better than the iMac Pro's display (same as the LG UltraFine 5K). Or you can drop the resolution and go for a Dell UP2718K with local dimming (not edge-lit).
The end result is a desktop that's more powerful and won't suffer from throttling like the iMac Pro. It also has a better display (or options for different display configurations depending on the work required).
The DIY route would go with something like Threadripper which is even more powerful than the Xeon W-2155 and offers 64 PCIe lanes.
I also want to note, if ECC RAM is not needed, an i9-7900X is identical to the W-2155. So the cost savings and options grow considerably.
If the Professional needs the fastest Mac available right now, the iMac Pro appears to be the Mac to get.
You'll get no argument from me, a faster PC can certainly be configured (maybe even cheaper?), but I'm not really interested in that configuration being more or less expensive.
What I need is a high performance Mac. Mac is my platform and no amount of configurable upgrades or cheaper prices is going to sway me. I'm not going to Hackintosh. And neither is any other professional I can think of.
I'm sure all the Mac users in need of high-end computing power are eagerly awaiting the New New MacPro, but in the meantime, this iMa Pro is the reigning Mac champ.
Customers who can afford its $4,999 pricetag may now be able to find the 8-core base model of the iMac Pro in some U.S. Apple stores, ready for pickup.
Why do we keep with the narrative that this machine might be purchased by common users? Why do we keep mentioning the price? The real professional who makes a living with a machine like this one will pay the price. And it’s not too expensive when you consider what’s inside the beast. I’m surprised AI or someone else hasn’t priced out a PC with the exact same specs and 5K monitor, if such an animal even exists.
You can't price out the exact same specs. The CPU and GPU are down clocked versions of their off the shelf counterparts.
For example, the Vega 64 iMac Pro is outputting about the same TFLOPS as the off the shelf Vega 56. So it's not going to be a tit-for-tat comparison.
If you want to price out a DIY desktop, you can easily build a better one for less than the iMac Pro.
Pre-built computers become a bit more complicated, again, because of the availability of parts and the fact the iMac Pro is using weaker components.
Oh, and a “professional” is going build a DYI with off the self parts? How productive and cost effective would that be? As for your claim that you can ‘easily’ build a better one for less, that tripe has been debunked many times by people who have tried and failed to do it. There is no Apple ‘tax’ on this machine at this level.
You assume everyone with hpc requirements is a high paid “professional”. There is a large number of graduate students in engineering and scientific computing that conduct important research in their fields that don’t make a lot of money or have big work budgets. This research requires far more computing power than is required by many high paid “professionals” in other fields. I was under the impression that at one time Apple had a strong interest in supporting and being involved in university research but maybe I was wrong.
Are you honestly making the argument that computing power is too expensive to conduct science? The graduate student of today has computing power in his/her iPhone that wasn't available in supercomputers their parents may have used in college. There are lots of problems these days, economic & otherwise, but the price of computing power is not one of them. The delta between the Hackintosh & the real deal iMac Pro price is insignificant to what this kind of performance cost in ANY form 5 years ago versus today.
Anyone 5 years ago would have (and did) pay much more than $5k for the power available in an iMac Pro. And graduate students did their computer science work.
Apple is certainly interested in supplying computing to students doing research, but I don't think they are interested in being the low cost solution. They also aren't trying to be the bleeding edge performance solution. They are doing roughly what they've always done. They are above-average priced machines using proven (and presumably reliable) technology that can be manufactured at scale and supported at a high level. It's been working for 30 years. The same arguments against it have been floated that whole time.
If you think about it, the tired arguments about Macs being too expensive and not cutting edge enough are old enough that they are probably beginning to go gray around the temples.
Apple will sell a number of these to vanity buyers who can afford it. I live in Connecticut, and the only place around here today you can drive to buy one is Greenwich, one of the wealthiest towns in the U.S. Apple picked that store for a reason. I'll admit I'm tempted (20 minutes away), but there's other things I'd rather use that money for.
What are you talking about? Are you completely unable to comprehend what this machine is? Are you really that ignorant? Vanity buyers? Really? You actually think this machine is for general use and is targeted at the general public? Come back when you have actually found out who this machine is for. Otherwise just keep quiet so you don;t come off as a clueless fool.
Apparently, I can't curse (apologies to the moderator) in response to this post, so I'll just say that you're wrong. These will be on display in every Apple Store. $5000 is well within the reach of plenty of people with more money than they need. Greenwich, Connecticut is full of people like that. Do you really think everyone who buys this is going to actually need it? That it won't become a status symbol? The fact it has a better sound system than the regular iMac is probably reason enough for most of these people to spend an extra $2000.
Your point is taken with regard to custom orders through the Apple site, which is what will ultimately make or break the great iMac Pro experiment. But for off-the-shelf units, especially the base configuration, I think you are just wrong. It may be gravy, but it's not insignificant, and directly relevant to this particular article.
Customers who can afford its $4,999 pricetag may now be able to find the 8-core base model of the iMac Pro in some U.S. Apple stores, ready for pickup.
Why do we keep with the narrative that this machine might be purchased by common users? Why do we keep mentioning the price? The real professional who makes a living with a machine like this one will pay the price. And it’s not too expensive when you consider what’s inside the beast. I’m surprised AI or someone else hasn’t priced out a PC with the exact same specs and 5K monitor, if such an animal even exists.
You can't price out the exact same specs. The CPU and GPU are down clocked versions of their off the shelf counterparts.
For example, the Vega 64 iMac Pro is outputting about the same TFLOPS as the off the shelf Vega 56. So it's not going to be a tit-for-tat comparison.
If you want to price out a DIY desktop, you can easily build a better one for less than the iMac Pro.
Pre-built computers become a bit more complicated, again, because of the availability of parts and the fact the iMac Pro is using weaker components.
Oh, and a “professional” is going build a DYI with off the self parts? How productive and cost effective would that be? As for your claim that you can ‘easily’ build a better one for less, that tripe has been debunked many times by people who have tried and failed to do it. There is no Apple ‘tax’ on this machine at this level.
The DIY route is more for the prosumer, or at home computers. For that matter, a professional probably won't buy a prosumer all-in-one computer like the iMac Pro. They'll likely buy an ISV certified workstation with a 3 year on-site warranty, potentially purchased through an IT department from HP, Lenovo or Dell.
As for easily building a better computer, well, here's a prebuilt to compare:
iMac Pro - $7999
Intel Xeon W-2150B (10 core) <-- Downclocked from regular W-2155 AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 16 GB HBM2 (up to 4 displays) <-- Downclocked from regular Vega 64 64 GB DDR4-2666 ECC 2 TB PCIe M.2 SSD 10 Gb Ethernet macOS 1 year warranty
Intel Xeon W-2155 (10 core) AMD Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB HBM2 (up to 6 displays) 64 GB DDR4-2666 ECC 2 TB PCIe M.2 SSD 2x 10 Gb Ethernet Windows 10 Pro 1 year warranty
That leaves $2,360 for a monitor, keyboard and mouse. As for the display, something like the new 2018 5K LG Nano IPS display would be better than the iMac Pro's display (same as the LG UltraFine 5K). Or you can drop the resolution and go for a Dell UP2718K with local dimming (not edge-lit).
The end result is a desktop that's more powerful and won't suffer from throttling like the iMac Pro. It also has a better display (or options for different display configurations depending on the work required).
The DIY route would go with something like Threadripper which is even more powerful than the Xeon W-2155 and offers 64 PCIe lanes.
I also want to note, if ECC RAM is not needed, an i9-7900X is identical to the W-2155. So the cost savings and options grow considerably.
The end result is a machine that will burn out in half the time.
Customers who can afford its $4,999 pricetag may now be able to find the 8-core base model of the iMac Pro in some U.S. Apple stores, ready for pickup.
Why do we keep with the narrative that this machine might be purchased by common users? Why do we keep mentioning the price? The real professional who makes a living with a machine like this one will pay the price. And it’s not too expensive when you consider what’s inside the beast. I’m surprised AI or someone else hasn’t priced out a PC with the exact same specs and 5K monitor, if such an animal even exists.
You can't price out the exact same specs. The CPU and GPU are down clocked versions of their off the shelf counterparts.
For example, the Vega 64 iMac Pro is outputting about the same TFLOPS as the off the shelf Vega 56. So it's not going to be a tit-for-tat comparison.
If you want to price out a DIY desktop, you can easily build a better one for less than the iMac Pro.
Pre-built computers become a bit more complicated, again, because of the availability of parts and the fact the iMac Pro is using weaker components.
Oh, and a “professional” is going build a DYI with off the self parts? How productive and cost effective would that be? As for your claim that you can ‘easily’ build a better one for less, that tripe has been debunked many times by people who have tried and failed to do it. There is no Apple ‘tax’ on this machine at this level.
The DIY route is more for the prosumer, or at home computers. For that matter, a professional probably won't buy a prosumer all-in-one computer like the iMac Pro. They'll likely buy an ISV certified workstation with a 3 year on-site warranty, potentially purchased through an IT department from HP, Lenovo or Dell.
As for easily building a better computer, well, here's a prebuilt to compare:
iMac Pro - $7999
Intel Xeon W-2150B (10 core) <-- Downclocked from regular W-2155 AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 16 GB HBM2 (up to 4 displays) <-- Downclocked from regular Vega 64 64 GB DDR4-2666 ECC 2 TB PCIe M.2 SSD 10 Gb Ethernet macOS 1 year warranty
Intel Xeon W-2155 (10 core) AMD Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB HBM2 (up to 6 displays) 64 GB DDR4-2666 ECC 2 TB PCIe M.2 SSD 2x 10 Gb Ethernet Windows 10 Pro 1 year warranty
That leaves $2,360 for a monitor, keyboard and mouse. As for the display, something like the new 2018 5K LG Nano IPS display would be better than the iMac Pro's display (same as the LG UltraFine 5K). Or you can drop the resolution and go for a Dell UP2718K with local dimming (not edge-lit).
The end result is a desktop that's more powerful and won't suffer from throttling like the iMac Pro. It also has a better display (or options for different display configurations depending on the work required).
The DIY route would go with something like Threadripper which is even more powerful than the Xeon W-2155 and offers 64 PCIe lanes.
I also want to note, if ECC RAM is not needed, an i9-7900X is identical to the W-2155. So the cost savings and options grow considerably.
Are you really trying to compare this:
to this
seriously?
Is looks what’s important? Is the purpose of a hpc machine to do work or to take out on a date?
Looks are a factor, fan noise is another factor. People throw these comparisons out there and don't factor in the work it takes to make the whole computer fit in a small space behind the monitor and run under heavy loads in near silence. I wouldn't want to work in the same room as the first computer.
People also completely discount the value of macOS when making these comparisons. Having this kind of performance running macOS has great value.
I saw iMac Pro today when I was getting my MacBook Pro fixed. That is a beautiful piece of machine. Love the color but the mouse color doesn't match the keyboard nor the case which is unusual. The keyboard definitely feels different despite looking identical to the white one. I cannot explain the tactile feedback.
Comments
Were I in the market for an all in one, I would wait for the Pizza Tray attachment.
As the owner of a Cheesegrater Mac Pro, the heat from a Xeon CPU is considerable and I wonder if these will be self cooking computers like the Apple III back in the day. They ran so hot that chips would pop out of the board.
One can buy a far better BTO workstation for less and buy the monitor of your choice and get a 3 year on site warranty. Or would you rather schlep your ProSumer iMac “Pro” to the local Apple Emporium to sit and wait a couple of hours with the sheeple.
Can we have a real workstation now?
BTO with OSX? You are just a troll. Negative about Apple in every single post. Lots of pros are gonna buy this machine and i am one of them.
The point of his comment and his tone is that nobody else is going to make an all-in-one to compete with this that is significantly cheaper. This isn't a low-margin market. This is Apple's wheelhouse. There is software that the iMac Pro is going to run very well, and people will buy it because of that. But it's not meant to be all things to all people, and that includes graduate students in engineering and the sciences.
You'll get no argument from me, a faster PC can certainly be configured (maybe even cheaper?), but I'm not really interested in that configuration being more or less expensive.
What I need is a high performance Mac. Mac is my platform and no amount of configurable upgrades or cheaper prices is going to sway me. I'm not going to Hackintosh. And neither is any other professional I can think of.
I'm sure all the Mac users in need of high-end computing power are eagerly awaiting the New New MacPro, but in the meantime, this iMa Pro is the reigning Mac champ.
Anyone 5 years ago would have (and did) pay much more than $5k for the power available in an iMac Pro. And graduate students did their computer science work.
Apple is certainly interested in supplying computing to students doing research, but I don't think they are interested in being the low cost solution. They also aren't trying to be the bleeding edge performance solution. They are doing roughly what they've always done. They are above-average priced machines using proven (and presumably reliable) technology that can be manufactured at scale and supported at a high level. It's been working for 30 years. The same arguments against it have been floated that whole time.
If you think about it, the tired arguments about Macs being too expensive and not cutting edge enough are old enough that they are probably beginning to go gray around the temples.
Your point is taken with regard to custom orders through the Apple site, which is what will ultimately make or break the great iMac Pro experiment. But for off-the-shelf units, especially the base configuration, I think you are just wrong. It may be gravy, but it's not insignificant, and directly relevant to this particular article.
Looks are a factor, fan noise is another factor. People throw these comparisons out there and don't factor in the work it takes to make the whole computer fit in a small space behind the monitor and run under heavy loads in near silence. I wouldn't want to work in the same room as the first computer.
People also completely discount the value of macOS when making these comparisons. Having this kind of performance running macOS has great value.