Just for context, my first Mac was a 33mHz Quadra 950 with a 400 MB hard drive, 16 Mb ram and 1Mb vram for $7500 ($9600 when it first came out)
The IIfx maxed at $10,970 which is almost $22,000 in today's dollars, started at half that which is still twice as much as this box.
lols at people freaking out over $5K computers. My Mac Plus with external floppy, ImageWriter II and accessories was almost $4K in 1987 dollars. Almost $700 for a 40mb (megabyte!) external SCSI hard drive... yeah, people are spoiled!
Wonderful! I like the design, but that is not important. To me this announcement is important mainly for two reasons:
1. It shows that Apple care about people who want a traditional tower design with PCIe slots.
2. It will make it much easier to revise the design with a new motherboard once Intel releases a new series of CPUs.
That does however not mean that the CPU on these machines can be upgraded to a newer generation. Intel has a terrible history of not making any socket forward-compatible. But it means that new Mac Pro releases should be a lot more frequent from now on. (Though beating every 6 years isn’t hard.)
Then there are some interesting things to note (with my estimates in parentheses):
- T2 chip encrypts boot drive. (Additional NVMe SSDs should be possible to use via regular PCIe adaptors.)
- The MPX solution for passing power and Thunderbolt 3 through the GPU, while also making the cards run cooler and quieter. (Hopefully Navi-based cards should be available in the late autumn/early winter.)
- There are aux PCIe power cables available (can possibly be used for off-the-shelf GPUs if MPX cards turn out expensive or not the GPU model you want).
- The Afterburner accelerator card for ProRes.
- The Intel CPU options are most likely the following (from Intel ARK, with Intel recommended prices below):
28-core: Xeon W-3275M, Intel recommended price $7453 (compared to $4449 for the non-M version with max 1 TB RAM)
Apple will naturally charge a premium on top of these prices.
With the choices of 24 and 28-core models, Apple is assuming people who need the higher CPU performance also need more than 1 TB of RAM (models ending in M support 2 TB). This is a bit strange. There are extremely few use cases that need more than 128 GB of RAM, so I think there should be options for non-M versions too, in order to save those $3000.
(And I also agree with numerous posts above that 8-core for $4999/$5999 is way too expensive, but at least part of that is the $749 CPU. There is still space for a Mac without built-in screen, but with more expandability than the Mac mini. All in all, for many users this makes it less and less justifiable to have a workflow that depends on macOS. I love this OS but it’s harder and harder to defend it.)
Love how amateurs complain about the costs of Mac Pro... it's for Professionals making lots of money... not for amateurs living on a few hundreds. iMac Pro is for prosumers. Mac Pro is for professionals. iMac is for consumers (but they can do all the things that pros do but at a much slower speed).
It is whacky the idea people get in their heads about "pro" this "prosumer that" and "consumer over there. I know many "pros" (as in people making 300K+/year) using an Mac Book Air. What a shack idea.
Who can even afford this beast? Was so hoping to replace my 2003 Mac Pro but need to go with a zero-upgradable iMac now. Seriously Tim, what were you thinking??
People that can afford it will. Obviously, that's not you.
A current low-end iMac will smoke your 2003 Mac Pro, and here you are implying that only Apple's latest Mac Pro is the clear replacement for your current one?
Get an iMac Pro. Heck, get a regular iMac. Thunderbolt3 provides an easy upgrade path for lots of things. You're just making excuses.
The starting price for this machine is quite reasonable. Wait a year and many components will be cheaper and you can "upgrade" the box.
I’ve been critical of Apple recently but that was a good WWDC. The Mac Pro is, and always will be, for top level video editors, designers and music editors, maybe some scientists .
Some richer people will buy them, because they can.
Developers will stick to laptops these days because they can travel with them and bring them into meetings.
canukstorm said: You seriously think that a stand is worth $999?
Luckily it's optional and every monitor comes with a standard VESA mount.
But yeah, for $1K it better do a whole lot more than hold the monitor up
I wonder how much this beast will weigh and what a good desk or wall mount arm will cost? I suspect the Apple stand at $1K may be a bargain (that screen is HUGE and probably pretty hefty).
And is this the introduction of the third or fourth Apple proprietary connector to combine video and power? The more things change the more....
The enthusiasts complaining about this machine are justified. The people pointing out that this machine is for an extremely niche and specific market are also correct.
IMO Apple messed up here, and they're going to get a lot of crap for it. This is a form factor that could, and should, have scaled to make multiple market segments happy. Instead Apple went as far to the extreme end as they could, to the exclusion of the middle road, and completely priced out individuals.The enthusiasts just wanted an expandable i7 with like 16-64GB of RAM and a good GPU they could upgrade. That should have been possible with this design.
Feels like a swing and a miss to me. Apple is either completely out of touch with the enthusiast market, or it might be time for the enthusiast market to give up on Apple. I think they probably sold a fair amount of PCs today.
Also, I know it's personal preference but man is that thing ugly. Can Ive stop trying to make every Apple product look like a Braun appliance from the 60s and 70s?
I will trust Apple's opinion of what's more in demand that any tech blog. I remember an article - on AI - about Apple approaching the professional community for their input on what the next Mac Pro should be like. Well... that community has asked, and Apple responded. That community does NOT represent the vocal minority that believe Apple should invest millions of dollars to develop a middle-tier, expandable i7 or i9-based Mac Pro. Not going to happen.
I suspect (i.e. "guess") that this machine will sell well, and even then - folks here will still be whining about why Apple isn't listening to these so-called self-titled evangelists.
I think the starting price is competitively priced for what one gets, except for the haters that think an i7/i9 is in the same class as a Xeon processor.
The enthusiasts complaining about this machine are justified. The people pointing out that this machine is for an extremely niche and specific market are also correct.
IMO Apple messed up here, and they're going to get a lot of crap for it. This is a form factor that could, and should, have scaled to make multiple market segments happy. Instead Apple went as far to the extreme end as they could, to the exclusion of the middle road, and completely priced out individuals.The enthusiasts just wanted an expandable i7 with like 16-64GB of RAM and a good GPU they could upgrade. That should have been possible with this design.
Feels like a swing and a miss to me. Apple is either completely out of touch with the enthusiast market, or it might be time for the enthusiast market to give up on Apple. I think they probably sold a fair amount of PCs today.
Also, I know it's personal preference but man is that thing ugly. Can Ive stop trying to make every Apple product look like a Braun appliance from the 60s and 70s?
Or maybe there's a Mac tower in the future that will slot in below this device. If they want to sell as many Mac Pros as they can right out of the gate, it would probably unwise to roll out an "economy" version at the same time. Just looking at the naming convention of the current line-up of MacOS devices, there's one missing where a "Mac" would be.
While I'm fairly certain that Apple doesn't develop product lines in response to internet chatter, it's nonetheless true that some people have been, for the last few years, fostering a narrative that Apple has "abandoned" real "Pros" in favor of offering sleek, slim, underpowered, non-upgradable, non-modular hardware. This new Mac Pro kind of destroys that narrative, doesn't it? So this device is aimed squarely at the Pro market, not the "enthusiast" market. In six months or a year, they'll offer some upgrades to the Mac Pro, making it even more spectacular, and maybe at that time, hit the 'enthusiast' market with a Mac tower that emulates some of the aesthetics of the Mac Pro, but smaller, with less power under the hood, and a lower price to go with it.
When the next upgrade hits*, the previous version might be available either in used/refurb channels or as discounts to make way for newer product. Or maybe earlier product are kept in the lineup at some discount, like what Apple does with iPhones. That said, I don't see the main box being upgraded all that often. Now that it is modular, there should be a much longer lifespan.
*OK, I get it, we're being crazy already talking about upgrades...
That does however not mean that the CPU on these machines can be upgraded to a newer generation. Intel has a terrible history of not making any socket forward-compatible.
This has been way overblown for over a decade now. No one upgrades a CPU without upgrading the motherboard - because memory marches on, ports like NVMe SSDs, ports, availability of PCI Express Lanes, etc.
Which also means things like the iMac Pro aren't as bad a deal as we tend to tell ourselves it is. Screens don't last forever either.
I'm still using a Mac Pro from 2007 - partly because I've been able to upgrade things in it like the video card (not easy, no plug and play and definitely for the uber geeky) but also I don't really need the full power of a Mac Pro. It was more a nice to have/lux item for me. For people that need the power, had I been one of them, I would have gritted my teeth and just got a trashcan - people needing max or high end performance just bake into the equation 3 year or less replacement cycle. That's why the trashcan laying stagnant for so long was more a problem than the design of the trashcan itself. The trashcan wasn't optimal, but it was OK for the first year - but starting from a sub-optimal position as it did, the longer it didn't get updated the dramatically worse the value proposition was that much more worse and so on.
Really the worst complaint about this Mac Pro is the entry price is a bit steep. But everything else is a pure knock out of the park. And then some - like the new interconnect for video cards I think are going to bring capabilities we can't even fathom. I suspect 3 8K streams at once wouldn't even be possible without it; time will tell.
This looks great, like they hit a home run with this. But, I noticed the trashcan Mac Pro is no longer on the Apple main website. So just that fast they have removed the product from sale ? If true, it would have been nice if they announced a window of a few months of being able to get the trashcan version - for other people who would be okay with the $3000 old version. Is the "trashcan" gone officially ?
Looks amazing though I would like to see how the likely crippled $5999 version compares to similar PC workstations. I can't help thinking that the Apple Tax is back with a bang. The stuff looks like it's fantastically engineered (probably over the top for 90%). Anyone want to guess how much RAM the $5999 version will ship with? We're talking a base version that's DOUBLE the price of the current base. That's a big jump in anyone's book.
An HP Z4 with the last-generation (=Skylake) 8 Core Xeon-W (i.e., W-2145) with 1000W chassis, 2x10Gb Ethernet, 32 GB (4x8) of RAM, 256 GB NVMe SSD, and AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 with 8 GB is $6965.
This thread has really, more than any previous thread, shown me who the mindless/worthless haters are, and who the thoughtful people (who may or may not be quite critical) are. Those of you who really had something meaningful to say (good or bad), I appreciate you! Those who didn't -- buh-bye!
I still can't believe people are complaining about the price. I swear not one of you has ever worked in a business that relies on computers to get work done (specifically creative work). Especially if you've got a deadline to meet for a client or they want to see a demo in person.
This Mac Pro is a Formula 1 car. Designed for 1 purpose.
What the usual cultists here don’t understand is that most of the market want a vehicle that can go on the Hwy, run on regular fuel, and have winter tires put on.
Doesn’t mean we aren’t professionals just because we aren’t Formula 1 drivers.
The great thing about this machine is that it's adaptable for many purposes, including the most taxing that I can envisage in my world (multiple temporal noise reduction nodes at 8K in Resolve, and rapid 4K DCP encryption). Like the 4,1 and 5,1s we still use, very tweakable.
No one's saying you're not a Pro, bitmod - just that there are many people and use cases where the 2013 Mac Pro just doesn't cut it. I still don't own one - and my 4,1s are starting to die. I'd rather not spend money and time cannibalising power supplies to keep 8-year-old machines going. So just in time for us, and the rack options are perfect. Well done Apple.
This thread has really, more than any previous thread, shown me who the mindless/worthless haters are, and who the thoughtful people (who may or may not be quite critical) are. Those of you who really had something meaningful to say (good or bad), I appreciate you! Those who didn't -- buh-bye!
I hope I'm not the mindless one.
Though as much as I like it, I was hoping for a two-CPU solution in the past, so you know, having 56 cores, but 28 of them are fast enough.
Comments
lols at people freaking out over $5K computers. My Mac Plus with external floppy, ImageWriter II and accessories was almost $4K in 1987 dollars. Almost $700 for a 40mb (megabyte!) external SCSI hard drive... yeah, people are spoiled!
(And I also agree with numerous posts above that 8-core for $4999/$5999 is way too expensive, but at least part of that is the $749 CPU. There is still space for a Mac without built-in screen, but with more expandability than the Mac mini. All in all, for many users this makes it less and less justifiable to have a workflow that depends on macOS. I love this OS but it’s harder and harder to defend it.)
The starting price for this machine is quite reasonable. Wait a year and many components will be cheaper and you can "upgrade" the box.
Some richer people will buy them, because they can.
Developers will stick to laptops these days because they can travel with them and bring them into meetings.
This is serious workstation power.
But yeah, for $1K it better do a whole lot more than hold the monitor up
I wonder how much this beast will weigh and what a good desk or wall mount arm will cost? I suspect the Apple stand at $1K may be a bargain (that screen is HUGE and probably pretty hefty).
And is this the introduction of the third or fourth Apple proprietary connector to combine video and power? The more things change the more....
I think the starting price is competitively priced for what one gets, except for the haters that think an i7/i9 is in the same class as a Xeon processor.
*OK, I get it, we're being crazy already talking about upgrades...
Which also means things like the iMac Pro aren't as bad a deal as we tend to tell ourselves it is. Screens don't last forever either.
Really the worst complaint about this Mac Pro is the entry price is a bit steep. But everything else is a pure knock out of the park. And then some - like the new interconnect for video cards I think are going to bring capabilities we can't even fathom. I suspect 3 8K streams at once wouldn't even be possible without it; time will tell.
So that thinking is wrong.
No one's saying you're not a Pro, bitmod - just that there are many people and use cases where the 2013 Mac Pro just doesn't cut it. I still don't own one - and my 4,1s are starting to die. I'd rather not spend money and time cannibalising power supplies to keep 8-year-old machines going. So just in time for us, and the rack options are perfect. Well done Apple.
Though as much as I like it, I was hoping for a two-CPU solution in the past, so you know, having 56 cores, but 28 of them are fast enough.