I've been a consistent Mac Pro buyer over the last decade and a half, I have two of them, iMacs and various laptops, phones and iPads in my studio because as a small studio I've already started moving to Windows. I hung on long enough that 18 months ago I built a custom PC workstation and haven't looked back.
I always left the door open for Apple if they were going to give me the Mac Pro I really needed effectively a reboot of the classic Cheese grater. I'm afraid this new Mac Pro is not it even if it might look like it from an aesthetic point of view, the absurd cost does not make financial sense any way you look at. $6k base price for a low end workstation is ridiculous, a teenager would laugh at those specs, a $6k workstation shipping with a 3 year old GPU! It's embarrassing. The Vega II GPUs if you go by the similar mass produced Radeon7 GPUs for the PC are likely going to be minimum $800 for a single GPU and $1600 for the DUO version plus a huge slice of Apple tax. The SSDs in the Mac Pro are proprietary so you're going to get shafted on SSD upgrades to the pathetic 256GB base. I'd be surprised if the 28 core BTO wasn't >$4-5k given the iMac Pro 18 core BTO is $2.5k.
As a 3D artist I've always had high end Mac Pro requirement, I've always needed as much CPU and GPU power that you can throw at the problem but I there's no way I could justify a Mac Pro built to suit my workflow needs. The Xeon 28 core is already matched by the 32 core Threadripper at half the price and in a few short months AMD are announcing 48 core and maybe even 64 core Threadrippers that will annihilate the very top spec Mac Pro. nVidia's 20 series is already working with the GPU based renderer I use, Redshift who knows if the Vega II GPUs will offer anything like the performance.
For 3D, compositing and video editing the traditional bread and butter for Mac Pro buyers you'd be insane to consider the new Mac Pro over a vastly higher spec PC at probably a third to half of the cost.
I find it strange that a professional user in the article would say they'd buy the Mac Pro and use it for 10 years, we've only been able to stretch out the lives of our classic Mac Pros because there was absolutely zero competition in the CPU market. Intel was happy to keep tick tocking 4 cores for the mainstream and did nothing in the HEDT space so our 12 core MPs lasted forever. AMD have kicked down the doors with Ryzen, Threadripper and EPYC and there's going to be an almighty CPU war again. You throw $15k at the Mac Pro in the Fall and by Spring 2020 you're going to feel an epic case of buyers remorse. By this time next year this shiny new cheese grater is going to look unbelievably dated when workstations costing a fraction are running PCIe4, nVidia's 7nm GPUs, much faster SSDs and 200 GigE networking.
I know Windows isn't as nice as MacOS but when push comes to shove I prefer more powerful hardware over a slightly better OS. All my software is cross platform and works the same on MacOS and Win it just works a heck of a lot faster. Of the artists I converse with on forums and on social media none is impressed with this Mac Pro so for a more balanced view I'd check out the Mac forums of the 3D community and see what less handpicked professionals think of Apple's latest white elephant.
I have that 32 core threadripper, and I would not advise anyone to get it. Half of the cores lack a direct path to memory, and that really hurts performance. In some cases, you’re better off getting two 16 core systems. In other cases, you’re better off getting Intel.
Another reason Intel might be better for MacPro workloads is AVX512, which is a modern day AltiVec.
Virtually every auto maker has traditionally put out a high-end, high-performance car -- not to sell and profit from -- but as a way to stretch and push their engineering and design teams as well as a bright, shining star to enhance the image of their product lines.
I suspect that that is exactly what this newest Mac is.
Actually, I think it may have been more for benefit of Apple's Mac Team than the Apple's customers. It gave those geeks the opportunity to "Think Different" -- without constraint. It pushed them to reach for the stars and create an "insanely great" Mac.
Weirdly, for Apple, this crazy powerful machine maybe more about getting back to basics.
I just want to say something about the price, and maybe bring back some memories for those who’ve been around a while. I remember the day, as clear as if it were yesterday, when John Jurewicz (author of UltraVision) showed up at work one morning with his new Compaq 386 portable. A cool $12k+.
There's one problem with that. This is a portable computer for $12,000. NOT a desktop. There is a difference. And yes I do remember the high prices back in the 80s and 90s.
The point is - high-end computers are never 'cheap'. No matter the year. The newest, fastest tech, never the cheapest. I don't think the new MacPro is out of the price range for what people will do with it. I've often had the highest end Macs, but when I'm ready to buy again (I seem to upgrade every 5 or 6 years) in a year or so I think a high-end iMac Pro will be fine for my work. But if I was in animation/video/heavy duty computations - I'd easily see the value in the new MacPro.
I get what you're saying. But for some reason, the price for that portable seems to be very expensive at the time for such specs that are top of the line which today would be mega obsolete. The desktop computers of that time, I'm sure, probably had similar or better specs than that. The only reason the price would be so sky high is due to the portable and expandable nature of the product that came out in 1987 while Apple's first laptop portable was in 1989 ( at $6,500 ) leading to the PowerBook line starting in the early 90s. These machines were novelties at the time until prices started dropping later on. The desktops, however, weren't novelties and became standard.
The funny thing is that my first G4 tower ( Mirror Drive Doors ) was about $2,000 around 2002 to replace an old G3 tower that was refurbished and died out eventually. I needed it for my creative work ( graphic design/illustration ). The G4 I had was top of the line but had about 1 GB of RAM,upgradeable to 2 GB ( I maxed that out over the years with the 4 slots which was so easy to access ) and close to 200 GB of HDD storage; it might be more but I have to check.
At the time, it was THE machine to go to for graphic designers and illustrators like me. Or photographers as well. Hell, I had a Titanium PowerMac G4 and it was built like a tank which still works to this day despite the obsolete OS. And I loved the G4 tower that I kept over the years because it did the job so well when using Photoshop, Illustrator, and so on. Then I finally upgraded to a mid-2010 iMac which I still use in my home studio which cost me close to $1,500 so I can migrate my files and continue using the Adobe apps, Clip Studio Paint, etc. It's still working to this day and is my main machine while the G4 sits in storage in my room as a legacy back up, just in case. When I worked at a small local print shop several years ago as a production designer, we had a 27 inch iMac from that same year but I left the business two years later and went independent. The owner had to use the iMac so to use Adobe CS5 but mainly InDesign for a lot of layout and production work to set things up.
I upgrade almost every 10 years so eventually I will replace my iMac with probably a 24 inch 4K model, in case a client requires that kind of resolution output and still be able to go with CMYK print on high res. A Windows 10 machine is still the last resort to switch to, however. And I think a 5K iMac is overkill for my case scenario. I currently use a first gen 12.9 iPad Pro to work along with my iMac along with my Wacom Intuos tablet for practical reasons.
But I find that the PowerMac I had owned was reasonably priced especially as an upgradeable machine over the years, building out from low end specs to the highest. It was the BEST computer I've had until the iMac. The iMac was out of necessity in order to use the new screen resolution, new apps, and specs.
Now I get it if people want to do animation, game design, VR, heavy duty lifting, 3D CGI, etc, then the Mac Pro will likely do the job fine and if the their own company can foot the bill. But for a singular entity as an independent contractor or freelancer, that's a tough price to deal with. I would've liked to see Apple bring out a mini tower version of Mac Pro but with mid to high range specs that can be added on and allow the freedom to use an external monitor. Almost like a mid to high end Mac Mini but with better specs. Would I have liked that new Apple monitor? Maybe but it's extremely overkill for my line of work due to size resolution but something of a 27 inch matte wide monitor with high color gamut and in 4K would've been easy on the eyes without the stupid reflective glare from the sun or environment. This is why I'm seriously thinking about buying a monitor hood to cover the next iMac model so that the outside light doesn't interfere with the CMYK or RGB process on screen ( I used to have a LaCie 19 inch CRT with the hood on. It was AWESOME until I got a new matte LCD from Formac that made things a lot easier ).
As for the iMac Pro, I don't think it's practical for my case scenario based on the price alone and the lack of user upgradability on this machine. I still don't think a 5K iMac would do much either. The Mac Mini is an insult since I don't trust the graphics card it has in it. I still find the lack of Nvidia for the 2019 Mac Pro to be very disturbing, however. For that price alone, I would expect Apple's new machine to go all out and accept any graphics card. I don't care where the fault lies between Apple and Nvidia, but they both need to work it out fast and bury the hatchet. It's my understanding that and from what I've hearing in the last few years in the creative field, many video editors, designers, architects, 3D model artists and what not have gone over to Windows due to the cost and efficient use of software, especially because it's more open to any graphics card including NVIDIA which is usually required for some of the functions needed for the work.
Especially Apple because if professionals buy the new machine and start catching on what's wrong with the big picture, then problems are going to arise.
It makes one wonder why people weren't allowed to touch the Mac Pro at the WWDC.
I was reading that the lack of Nvidia support is a deal breaker for some when it comes to the Mac Pro. I can't imagine that you couldn't build a comparable PC with Nvidia cards for less than the price of a Mac Pro. But then there's the OS. That matters for some. For others, it's the tools that matter.
Seems to me the operating system is a rather integral part of those "tools." Windows is still hot garbage. Undissmissamble auto-updates, orders of magnitudes more viruses (that are easier to contract), and just plain terrible (and inconsistent!) interface decisions all over the place force people that are just trying to get work done to deal with the OS. Tools matter indeed. I'll give you the Nvidia thing though, that's a major bummer.
I disagree. Plenty of pros have switched to Windows because of Nvidia support and that they felt Apple was ignoring the pro market. If Mac OS is superior, why didn't they stay? How many of them do you think will go back with the introduction of this new machine, still without Nvidia support? The OS matters least to them.
The reason they didn’t stay is that the superiority of macOS wasn’t enough to overcome the inferiority of outdated Mac Pro hardware.
But at least for me, macOS is superior to Windows, and it’s not just about aesthetics. A few examples: * macOS task scheduler utterly dominates windows. At least for my work, which saturates all cores for hours at a time, Windows becomes sluggish to the point of being unusable while those jobs are running. macOS remains delightfully responsive.
* process forking — under macOS you can spin off a new process that can directly access the contents in memory of the original process without cloning those contents in the new process. This saves on memory in some situations.
* magnification — the combination of macOS magnification software and apples excellent trackpad make for an experience that is impossible to replicate with Windows (I’ve tried and so have my Windows IT people at work — it can’t be done)
I find it strange that a professional user in the article would say they'd buy the Mac Pro and use it for 10 years, we've only been able to stretch out the lives of our classic Mac Pros because there was absolutely zero competition in the CPU market. Intel was happy to keep tick tocking 4 cores for the mainstream and did nothing in the HEDT space so our 12 core MPs lasted forever. AMD have kicked down the doors with Ryzen, Threadripper and EPYC and there's going to be an almighty CPU war again. You throw $15k at the Mac Pro in the Fall and by Spring 2020 you're going to feel an epic case of buyers remorse. By this time next year this shiny new cheese grater is going to look unbelievably dated when workstations costing a fraction are running PCIe4, nVidia's 7nm GPUs, much faster SSDs and 200 GigE networking.
I know Windows isn't as nice as MacOS but when push comes to shove I prefer more powerful hardware over a slightly better OS. All my software is cross platform and works the same on MacOS and Win it just works a heck of a lot faster. Of the artists I converse with on forums and on social media none is impressed with this Mac Pro so for a more balanced view I'd check out the Mac forums of the 3D community and see what less handpicked professionals think of Apple's latest white elephant.
Thank you! I've been hearing a similar thing within the creative community online, mostly digital artists/illustrators. But you're right. the 3D community was mentioned having the need to migrate to Windows for their reasons to do the job without any constraints. A lot of the 2D digital artists I've seen on YouTube usually have their own PC workstations rigs of at least two monitors and a Cintiq. I've seen one where a guy had 3 monitors, an iPad, a Wacom Cintiq all hooked to a PC. There was one rig by a japanese manga artist who works digitally and had the craziest setup I've ever seen: 7 monitors, drafting table with the Cintiq, 6 styluses, a keyboard, and 6 keypads attached along with a Belkin Nostromo keypad and Kensington Trackball ( I still have both of these ). All PC, no Mac.
Of course there are some who use the iMac which seems to be the most common among 2D artists from what I've seen and Mac Mini as less common. Sometimes laptops but it's rare.
But what you said confirms what I've been hearing over the years. Although, I think this Mac Pro's hardware design was a step in the right direction but the price/specs seem a bit off kilter to me. I can understand if the employee's company or agency can foot the bill and buy them for the work. But when it comes to a one man operation or a small business, that's a big expense to deal and invest in.
We deal with PHI data that can't go on AWS or any outside servers. Some of our machines are 768GB RAM, the previous workstation limit, as virtualized instances as mentioned will take a heck of a lot of memory relative to their need for CPU. That bit seems to be throwing off a lot of people online who can't imagine needing 1.5TB in a single workstation. We were already maxing out older platforms.
AWS is HIPPA compliant and will sign a BAA. There’s no reason you can’t put PHI in the Amazon Cloud. You’re incorrectly limiting your organization’s IT options if you aren’t evaluating cloud options. There may be other reasons not to use AWS, but HIPPA and PHI is not one of them.
What verification or validation do you have that the data is secure from unauthorized access, loss or tampering, uncorrupted in any way, you have knowledge of the geographic location of the data at any one time, and it's recoverable promptly if regulators request it?
Maybe you have that assurance, but it's no slam dunk. Data integrity is an evolving regulatory field and what's acceptable today may not be tomorrow.
In essence your organization is not responsible if the "business associate" fails to fully safeguard PHI data you've entrusted them with.
Quote: It’s not your fault if a vendor breaches the BAA and violates HIPAA in some way. When the vendor signs the document, the take on the liability for safeguarding the PHI. No company can be held responsible for policing another when it comes to HIPAA and a BAA
So there's your assurance.
That's an assurance that you can't be sued, which certainly is important.
But it's not an assurance about winning your next contract with that client. I think that might be part of why some people are still hesitant to go to the cloud. They believe (probably, but not definitely, incorrectly) that the data are safer if housed on internal servers.
"yes Windows updates are garbage but malware is more prevalent only because so many people use Windows, and the Windows interface hasn't been terrible/inconstant (this is subjective I know) since Windows 8."
1. If you're a pro and can't be sure when you'll be without your main tool because Windows decided to take over for three hours, that seems pretty disqualifying to me.
2. It doesn't matter why there are more viruses that are far easier to be infected with, it matters that there are.
3. This.... Hot. Garbage.
Really? How often do you modify your network parameters? This is a ridiculous example. Very few reasons for most people to be messing with this anyway. And if you need to, you should know what you're doing.
I have to do it often and that is only one example of where Apple looks at work flows to make their apps function in a way that benefits users. You can keep your "everything has been great since Windows 8" mantra because you clearly don't need to do anything but the most superficial actions with that OS.
You can setup multiple Ethernet configs with Windows and save them, so switching isn't that bad.
I guess my question is: what kind of networks are you on where the admins have never heard of DHCP or are otherwise unable to provide a stable network for their users? I'd expect to have to tinker with network settings all the time in the late 1980s, but this is 2019.
I have that 32 core threadripper, and I would not advise anyone to get it. Half of the cores lack a direct path to memory, and that really hurts performance. In some cases, you’re better off getting two 16 core systems. In other cases, you’re better off getting Intel.
Another reason Intel might be better for MacPro workloads is AVX512, which is a modern day AltiVec.
The Zen 2 architecture overcomes many of the limitations of previous generation of Threadripper and comes with massive core increases and IPC gains.
I've lost count of the number of colleagues in the 3D community who have bought 1st and 2nd Threadrippers and have anything other than deep praise for them. We're all looking forward to the next Threadripper release and anyone who'd rather have a 28 core Xeon that will have to have its multithreading turned off for security over a 48 core or 64 Threadripper is nuts.
Apple's own advice to mitigate against ZombieLoad is to turn off multithreading. AMD processor unaffected!
I have that 32 core threadripper, and I would not advise anyone to get it. Half of the cores lack a direct path to memory, and that really hurts performance. In some cases, you’re better off getting two 16 core systems. In other cases, you’re better off getting Intel.
Another reason Intel might be better for MacPro workloads is AVX512, which is a modern day AltiVec.
The Zen 2 architecture overcomes many of the limitations of previous generation of Threadripper and comes with massive core increases and IPC gains.
I've lost count of the number of colleagues in the 3D community who have bought 1st and 2nd Threadrippers and have anything other than deep praise for them. We're all looking forward to the next Threadripper release and anyone who'd rather have a 28 core Xeon that will have to have its multithreading turned off for security over a 48 core or 64 Threadripper is nuts.
Apple's own advice to mitigate against ZombieLoad is to turn off multithreading. AMD processor unaffected!
Apple's own advice to mitigate against ZombieLoad is to use Safari. You can turn off multithreading to maximum protection (and the advice is the same on Windows, and Linux), but unless you're Mr. Secret Agent Man or specifically targeted by a nation-state, you don't need to do so.
But what you said confirms what I've been hearing over the years. Although, I think this Mac Pro's hardware design was a step in the right direction but the price/specs seem a bit off kilter to me. I can understand if the employee's company or agency can foot the bill and buy them for the work. But when it comes to a one man operation or a small business, that's a big expense to deal and invest in.
AMD's 16 core Ryzen will be out in the Fall at $750 which will out perform all Mac Pros up to 16 core. You could build two 16 core Ryzen workstations for a similar price to the base Mac Pro. What computer systems will freelancers and small studios buy? Yeah, not the Mac Pro. Big studios don't buy Mac Pros anyway, they'll continue buying PCs.
I know someone is going to say yeah but that PC can't take 1.5TB RAM and it doesn't have 7 PCIe slots. I don't need more than 64GB for my 3D scenes and I only need space for 2-3 GPUs, the new x570 Motherboards have everything including Thunderbolt 3 so to me there's nothing compelling from an expansion point of view with the Mac Pro.
I've never minded spending a bit more to get the Mac Pros in the past but this new one is being released into a world where price/performance has never been better andd the pricing looks horribly wrong, it's off by a country mile.
Apparently Nvidia write the drivers for their cards on Macs, whereas Apple writes the AMD drivers. And in general I have found the Nvidia drivers to be way better than the AMD ones. For example when adjusting the volume in games and other full-screen GPU intensive programs, 3D CAD for example, the translucent volume bezel appears. On my 2019 iMac with the Vega 48 the game stutters and drops to 10fps as the volume bezel fades, and it was the same years ago on an ATI-powered Mac Pro. I switched to a Nvidia card in the Mac Pro and the issue went away, and on my old 2012 iMac with a Geforce GTX680MX, there is no frame dropping. It's odd that this is an issue (and proves it's a driver thing) as the Windowserver is apparently Metal now rather than OpenGL.
Similarly when alt/option-tabbed, the dock and application windows move at 15fps with the AMD card, no such issue with the Nvidia card. The frame dropping doesn't happen with the Intel graphics on my MacBook either, only AMD.
Also, Nvidia keeps their drivers up to date for years afterward - my old iMac had regular driver updates until Mojave. The AMD cards presumably get updates with the OS, but I'm not sure how long Apple actually updates them for. I doubt it's anywhere near as long as the Nvidia drivers.
It annoys me that Apple has stuck their middle finger up at Nvidia considering they've historically been really good to Apple users. Also as there is a duopoly in the GPU business, it'd do Apple well to keep on good terms with both companies, since there's not exactly a wide breadth of manufacturers to choose from.
so much FUD in here, this whole " a threadripper..." stuff, how about we wait for benchmarks? seems pretty speculative to me. As far as Nvidia, doesn't seem like they should have the stranglehold on tech as much as they do and people should welcome other means to an end. Major software developers are committed to Apple's Metal, so lack of CUDA support isn't as important as some are making it out to be. AMD seems more willing to work with developers like Apple to fully optimize their hardware, as seen by them being the choice of consoles now and in the future as well. The new MacPro is a definitive workstation, while the past MacPros and PowerMacs were nice, they simply weren't at this caliber. As for a mid level Q840/PM8100/8500/8600 style, who knows, keep those requests going at apple.com/feedback, that's the best way to get your point accross.
$6k base price for a low end workstation is ridiculous, a teenager would laugh at those specs, a $6k workstation shipping with a 3 year old GPU! It's embarrassing. The Vega II GPUs if you go by the similar mass produced Radeon7 GPUs for the PC are likely going to be minimum $800 for a single GPU and $1600 for the DUO version plus a huge slice of Apple tax.
It's not meant to be a powerful GPU in the stock config, because people who don't need it to be a GPU powerhouse would be wasting money (and energy) if it were more powerful. Someone doing software dev, or running a high-performance database, or maybe scientific calculations of certain types don't need a more powerful GPU. If you want a more powerful GPU, just drop one in from the store (just check if it has macOS driver support).
The SSDs in the Mac Pro are proprietary so you're going to get shafted on SSD upgrades to the pathetic 256GB base. I'd be surprised if the 28 core BTO wasn't >$4-5k given the iMac Pro 18 core BTO is $2.5k.
So, throw some spinning discs in a chassis and put it in there, or some SSDs, etc. Again, why make the base config bigger than 256 GB when that's plenty to put the OS, some apps, and 'scratch space'. If you need more storage, you can pick a solution that fits your needs and add it in, or pick it from Apple as a BTO.
UrbaneLegend said: As a 3D artist I've always had high end Mac Pro requirement, I've always needed as much CPU and GPU power that you can throw at the problem but I there's no way I could justify a Mac Pro built to suit my workflow needs. The Xeon 28 core is already matched by the 32 core Threadripper ...
One would think as a 3D artist, you would understand the machine you're critiquing a bit better. But, I'm curious... do most 3D pros consider/use AMD CPUs these days? (Honest question, as I've been a bit out of that loop, but was under the impression AMD CPUs were more for the tweaker/gamer types.) But, I'd spend a bit more time studying up on the new Mac Pro, at least to better understand what it is.
UrbaneLegend said: nVidia's 20 series is already working with the GPU based renderer I use, Redshift who knows if the Vega II GPUs will offer anything like the performance.
“Tapping into the amazing performance of the new Mac Pro, we’re excited to develop Redshift for Metal, and we’re working with Apple to bring an optimized version to the Mac Pro for the first time by the end of the year. We’re also actively developing Metal support for Cinema 4D, which will provide our Mac users with accelerated workflows for the most complex content creation. The new Mac Pro graphics architecture is incredibly powerful and is the best system to run Cinema 4D.” — David McGavran, CEO, Maxon https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/pro-app-developers-react-to-the-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr/
Go read the rest of the quotes on that page, too. It caught me off guard. I don't really think the CUDA debate is relevant any longer.
UrbaneLegend said: Of the artists I converse with on forums and on social media none is impressed with this Mac Pro so for a more balanced view I'd check out the Mac forums of the 3D community and see what less handpicked professionals think of Apple's latest white elephant.
Then you need a new community, as that's just silliness. Or, maybe just sour-grapes.
Sanctum1972 said: Thank you! I've been hearing a similar thing within the creative community online, mostly digital artists/illustrators. But you're right. the 3D community was mentioned having the need to migrate to Windows for their reasons to do the job without any constraints. A lot of the 2D digital artists I've seen on YouTube usually have their own PC workstations rigs of at least two monitors and a Cintiq. I've seen one where a guy had 3 monitors, an iPad, a Wacom Cintiq all hooked to a PC. There was one rig by a japanese manga artist who works digitally and had the craziest setup I've ever seen: 7 monitors, drafting table with the Cintiq, 6 styluses, a keyboard, and 6 keypads attached along with a Belkin Nostromo keypad and Kensington Trackball ( I still have both of these ). All PC, no Mac.
Oh yeah, there are some impressive PC setups, and a lot of people did switch to Windows (as well as those who have always been Windows), etc. But, if you're in some groups of people who aren't impressed with the new Mac Pro, they are either ignorant, or jealous. It's one heck of an impressive machine if you actually understand it.
UrbaneLegend said: ... anyone who'd rather have a 28 core Xeon that will have to have its multithreading turned off for security over a 48 core or 64 Threadripper is nuts.
I guess Mike already covered this, but why would I turn off my multithreading? (Again, are these this sound-bites, are do you understand it?)
UrbaneLegend said: I know someone is going to say yeah but that PC can't take 1.5TB RAM and it doesn't have 7 PCIe slots. I don't need more than 64GB for my 3D scenes and I only need space for 2-3 GPUs, the new x570 Motherboards have everything including Thunderbolt 3 so to me there's nothing compelling from an expansion point of view with the Mac Pro.
Ok, that's a fair point. I don't need that either, but that doesn't make it unimpressive. I've been arguing in many other threads that Apple needs a more mid-tier pro system for people like us. But, there are people who do need that stuff.
Read the article and the comments. Apple did not deliver on market expectations and enterprise value dropped. I predict the MacPro will be a poster child of FTC tying. A claim at modularity in a market where modularity is defined by third party options. Big tech is being reviewed actively in terms of anti-trust. Modularity was promised but special connections limit off the shelf additions of memory, storage, graphics. MacPro will be heralded as a complete mess, exactly what you should not do on product release. Meanwhile Microsoft catapulted in enterprise value by insisting they will work with all people and open proprietary systems to the general market.
I rather doubt you have the necessary chops for the level of condescension that was flowing through every paragraph of your reply. I have over 20 years working in animation at all budget levels and have the temerity to run my own motion graphics studio. I speak from experience.
You are justifying that Apple's brand new not even released yet top of the Mac range should ship with a 3 year old GPU and 256GB SSD. I am embarrassed for you. Apple requires people like you to maintain their reality distortion and repeat their cliched marketing talking points.
I love the fact that you quoted Dave McGavran marketing quote, because the Redshift developers themselves are altogether far more circumspect about Redshift and Metal. They make no promises about performance and only 'hope' to be as fully featured as the current CUDA version. I've been a Redshift user for nearly 2 years and I'm well up to speed on what the actual developers themselves have said constantly about Metal support but that wouldn't make great copy for Apple marketing quotes.
From the C4D plugin developers at Greyscale Gorilla who have all switch to PC from Mac in recent years. "From a hardware perspective, it’s exactly what I feared it would be. Underwhelming and overpriced. With no NVIDIA support, which everyone feared, it is not really going to win over anyone in the professional 3D space. But hey, it comes with wheels."
Maxon have ProRender running on Metal and it is ridiculously slow, if Redshift ends up as bad as this then no one will be interested and it will have been a complete waste of developers' time.
I rather think the sour grapes are all yours pal, I get that you've bought into the Apple bubble and it must be tough to find out that actuality is vastly different, every single one of my close work colleagues has ditched the Mac over the last 5 years, yeah every single one of us were Mac Pro users. Some jumped soon after the Trashcan was released others like me hung on and hung on but couldn't wait any longer. Not a single one of my colleagues is the slightest bit interested in the Mac Pro, it misses every single mark, it's not fit for purpose.
The people who will care about ZombieLoad and the rest of the Intel microcode security issues are the people you claim won't need a half decent GPU because they're running a 'high-performance database' your words.. In the real world Hyperthreading is being turned off in exactly these workloads. Get a clue.
But what you said confirms what I've been hearing over the years. Although, I think this Mac Pro's hardware design was a step in the right direction but the price/specs seem a bit off kilter to me. I can understand if the employee's company or agency can foot the bill and buy them for the work. But when it comes to a one man operation or a small business, that's a big expense to deal and invest in.
AMD's 16 core Ryzen will be out in the Fall at $750 which will out perform all Mac Pros up to 16 core. You could build two 16 core Ryzen workstations for a similar price to the base Mac Pro. What computer systems will freelancers and small studios buy? Yeah, not the Mac Pro. Big studios don't buy Mac Pros anyway, they'll continue buying PCs.
I know someone is going to say yeah but that PC can't take 1.5TB RAM and it doesn't have 7 PCIe slots. I don't need more than 64GB for my 3D scenes and I only need space for 2-3 GPUs, the new x570 Motherboards have everything including Thunderbolt 3 so to me there's nothing compelling from an expansion point of view with the Mac Pro.
I've never minded spending a bit more to get the Mac Pros in the past but this new one is being released into a world where price/performance has never been better andd the pricing looks horribly wrong, it's off by a country mile.
Agreed. The interesting thing is that it has been going on for almost a decade now, even years when it comes to creatives working with PCs as their main tool of choice. For example, I've a very old friend of mine that I grew up with in Ohio who went to art school in the 1990s ( I attended the same place a couple years after ) and he majored in Industrial Design although he dropped out. In our school, they had Silicon Graphics workstations in a basement lab for this kind of work relating to industrial design and animation if I recall right. The other lab down the hall were mostly Macs focused on 2D work on Photoshop, Director ( siimilar to Flash ), Website creation using HTML, and so on with the use of Wacom tablets ( the originals with white color tones ) as this room was for the Computer 101 and 102 courses which I remember well. And then there's a third lab in another building for graphic design and other functions which were all Macs.
This was at the time when Photoshop was becoming a huge paradigm shift in our school and digital art was becoming a thing. The Graphic Design majors had access to QuarkXPress and had some Photoshop experience leaving the Illustration students ( my major ) out in the cold. Fortunately, the school recognized the problem and allowed us to get a free class on Photoshop and Illustrator with the help of an older student who volunteered his time. We got lucky.
My old friend dropped out of the school and moved to Michigan to get some 3D modelling experience. When he came back, staying at his mom's new house they moved to, I noticed he was working on 3D models using Lightwave ( It might've been that or Maya ) with a Windows PC. This surprised me at the time. Then, some time later I lost track of him as he went on to move out of the country to NZ to eventually work at WETA doing CGI work for the LOTR film doing some sequences and the Shelob scene in particular. I'm going to believe this was all done on a high end Windows PC hooked to a server.
Then he moved on to another gig in South Korea and then eventually co-found the Mudbox app for 3D artists as a alternative to ZBrush and the like. He was more of a 3D artist than me but his work process was fascinating. When he finally sold Mudbox to Autodesk, he worked under them for a while and then moved on to do AR/VR work currently. I lost track of him between those years of him at LOTR and when he moved to Toronto which he finally submerged and contacted me out of the blue to catch up. We did a little iOS game project, where I did some storyboarding for him at the time, which never came to that platform and went to Steam. I don't think it's there anymore. It was right there that when we did some Skype calls, I could literally see his studio workstation filled with a couple of Windows machines and at least one Power Mac. He showed me everything through the video calls on how Mudbox, Maya, ZBrush and all that worked. It was very enlightening and especially on his reasons why he used a PC for this line of work.
That's why I knew what you said was true. For his work, he would rely on a PC for that but I don't know if he would use the new Mac Pro, however he might just to build out an experiment to test out AR/VR service offerings. He had been a bit vocal about Apple's AR offerings and was hoping to see more traction in the glasses department but that's another story .
When I begin in 3D it was on the Amiga with Lightwave and quickly went from there to PC and a DEC Alpha. Early on the big budget guys has SGIs the rest of us were building custom PCs. I dropped out of 3D and went into compositing which where I bought my first Mac. The first Intel based MBP as Apple were offering a really good deal for Shake and everyone in high end compositing was using Shake (on Linux PCs not Macs) and I needed to learn it. All the VFX studios were PC based by then save for the finishing departments who were use turnkey Autodesk systems and Davincis. No Macs anywhere other than audio post production.
I started my own company and then bought an 8 core MP then a couple of years later bought a second 2010 model. While slightly more expensive than a PC the costs were not crazy and for the build quality they were excellent value for money, the best desktops ever built. I got back into 3D again with motion graphic work and with Cinema 4D where at the time was a 50/50 split between Mac/PC users. But in my professional circle literally everyone was Mac based and running C4D AE FCS etc etc. As I said everyone now is PC based.
I have noticed a change happening in Audio Postproduction studios. At one time it was absolutely guaranteed that Macs would be in every studio across the land in the UK. I never saw anything else. But the more I get out and visit studios I'm seeing PCs take their place. This would be absolutely unheard of a decade ago. I've also seen a move to the PC in editing suites too, the bungled release of FCPX has had a profound effect on Mac usage in TV editing bays gone is Final Cut and replaced by Premiere Pro and PCs. Amazingly Prem Pro is more popular than Avid now.
This is only anecdotal evidence of what I'm seeing in the places I go but in my own bubble there has been a huge move away from Macs in parts of the industry that were once, if not dominated, very well represented with Macs. The clowns at Cupertino who thought innovation was the Trashcan with zero upgrades for nearly 7 years have a lot to answer for.
When I begin in 3D it was on the Amiga with Lightwave and quickly went from there to PC and a DEC Alpha. Early on the big budget guys has SGIs the rest of us were building custom PCs. I dropped out of 3D and went into compositing which where I bought my first Mac. The first Intel based MBP as Apple were offering a really good deal for Shake and everyone in high end compositing was using Shake (on Linux PCs not Macs) and I needed to learn it. All the VFX studios were PC based by then save for the finishing departments who were use turnkey Autodesk systems and Davincis. No Macs anywhere other than audio post production.
I started my own company and then bought an 8 core MP then a couple of years later bought a second 2010 model. While slightly more expensive than a PC the costs were not crazy and for the build quality they were excellent value for money, the best desktops ever built. I got back into 3D again with motion graphic work and with Cinema 4D where at the time was a 50/50 split between Mac/PC users. But in my professional circle literally everyone was Mac based and running C4D AE FCS etc etc. As I said everyone now is PC based.
I have noticed a change happening in Audio Postproduction studios. At one time it was absolutely guaranteed that Macs would be in every studio across the land in the UK. I never saw anything else. But the more I get out and visit studios I'm seeing PCs take their place. This would be absolutely unheard of a decade ago. I've also seen a move to the PC in editing suites too, the bungled release of FCPX has had a profound effect on Mac usage in TV editing bays gone is Final Cut and replaced by Premiere Pro and PCs. Amazingly Prem Pro is more popular than Avid now.
This is only anecdotal evidence of what I'm seeing in the places I go but in my own bubble there has been a huge move away from Macs in parts of the industry that were once, if not dominated, very well represented with Macs. The clowns at Cupertino who thought innovation was the Trashcan with zero upgrades for nearly 7 years have a lot to answer for.
Ah, the Amiga. Classic machine! I've noticed the level of migration as well so it's not surprising. And you're right. Macs used to be dominant in the creative space, although it's still there and being used, otherwise for the most serious heavy lifting, it's done on the PC end of things. Right now, I'm still using the mid 2010 iMac with 10 GB RAM and 500 GB HDD with Mac OS High Sierra which is the most I can upgrade to at this point. I'm still debating whether to switch to a 4K iMac or stay on HD aka 1080p on a new machine for most 2D art and design work in print and screen. I think 4K might be a better upgrade path to ensure that I can still do high res print work and be able to output to 4K if needed down the road. I was advised to go with an SSD, although my hard drive has done pretty well over the years despite it feeling a bit slow. I use mostly Clip Studio Paint, Sketchbook Pro, Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and such. Sometimes Pixelmator but it hasn't wowed me lately so Affinity has been getting my attention. I might go with a DELL tower to migrate to although having a 4K iMac may keep things consistent on my end. And because my iPad Pro is a 2K device, the images exported from that to a 1080p screen will look a bit off by a bit. That's why I think 4K makes sense to keep things on an even keel. A lot of digital artists I've seen are using PC and Macs both so it's pretty much 50/50.
And I don't think the iPad Pro is the replacement for desktops/laptops at all despite what Cook says. Although I like the portability of it for using Procreate and other apps and export to the desktop to see the big picture and flesh it out. It needs to do a LOT more than an OS update to prove its ability to replace a PC and have a larger screen which I think 11 x 17 tabloid size makes sense, considering one wouldn't have to keep pinch/zooming to 'push pixels' and just illustrate images at 100 % actual scale with expressive line or paint strokes. Especially for comic book illustrators who work at 11 x 17 dimensions which is the professional standard. 12.9 inches is NOT it.
As for the Cupertino folks, the fact it took them this long to update the Mac Pro is disturbing. And the lack of NVIDIA concerns me regarding Mac Pro. If this is a Johnny Sjrouji issue, that's a problem.
Comments
Another reason Intel might be better for MacPro workloads is AVX512, which is a modern day AltiVec.
I suspect that that is exactly what this newest Mac is.
Actually, I think it may have been more for benefit of Apple's Mac Team than the Apple's customers.
It gave those geeks the opportunity to "Think Different" -- without constraint. It pushed them to reach for the stars and create an "insanely great" Mac.
Weirdly, for Apple, this crazy powerful machine maybe more about getting back to basics.
The funny thing is that my first G4 tower ( Mirror Drive Doors ) was about $2,000 around 2002 to replace an old G3 tower that was refurbished and died out eventually. I needed it for my creative work ( graphic design/illustration ). The G4 I had was top of the line but had about 1 GB of RAM,upgradeable to 2 GB ( I maxed that out over the years with the 4 slots which was so easy to access ) and close to 200 GB of HDD storage; it might be more but I have to check.
At the time, it was THE machine to go to for graphic designers and illustrators like me. Or photographers as well. Hell, I had a Titanium PowerMac G4 and it was built like a tank which still works to this day despite the obsolete OS. And I loved the G4 tower that I kept over the years because it did the job so well when using Photoshop, Illustrator, and so on. Then I finally upgraded to a mid-2010 iMac which I still use in my home studio which cost me close to $1,500 so I can migrate my files and continue using the Adobe apps, Clip Studio Paint, etc. It's still working to this day and is my main machine while the G4 sits in storage in my room as a legacy back up, just in case. When I worked at a small local print shop several years ago as a production designer, we had a 27 inch iMac from that same year but I left the business two years later and went independent. The owner had to use the iMac so to use Adobe CS5 but mainly InDesign for a lot of layout and production work to set things up.
I upgrade almost every 10 years so eventually I will replace my iMac with probably a 24 inch 4K model, in case a client requires that kind of resolution output and still be able to go with CMYK print on high res. A Windows 10 machine is still the last resort to switch to, however. And I think a 5K iMac is overkill for my case scenario. I currently use a first gen 12.9 iPad Pro to work along with my iMac along with my Wacom Intuos tablet for practical reasons.
But I find that the PowerMac I had owned was reasonably priced especially as an upgradeable machine over the years, building out from low end specs to the highest. It was the BEST computer I've had until the iMac. The iMac was out of necessity in order to use the new screen resolution, new apps, and specs.
Now I get it if people want to do animation, game design, VR, heavy duty lifting, 3D CGI, etc, then the Mac Pro will likely do the job fine and if the their own company can foot the bill. But for a singular entity as an independent contractor or freelancer, that's a tough price to deal with. I would've liked to see Apple bring out a mini tower version of Mac Pro but with mid to high range specs that can be added on and allow the freedom to use an external monitor. Almost like a mid to high end Mac Mini but with better specs. Would I have liked that new Apple monitor? Maybe but it's extremely overkill for my line of work due to size resolution but something of a 27 inch matte wide monitor with high color gamut and in 4K would've been easy on the eyes without the stupid reflective glare from the sun or environment. This is why I'm seriously thinking about buying a monitor hood to cover the next iMac model so that the outside light doesn't interfere with the CMYK or RGB process on screen ( I used to have a LaCie 19 inch CRT with the hood on. It was AWESOME until I got a new matte LCD from Formac that made things a lot easier ).
As for the iMac Pro, I don't think it's practical for my case scenario based on the price alone and the lack of user upgradability on this machine. I still don't think a 5K iMac would do much either. The Mac Mini is an insult since I don't trust the graphics card it has in it. I still find the lack of Nvidia for the 2019 Mac Pro to be very disturbing, however. For that price alone, I would expect Apple's new machine to go all out and accept any graphics card. I don't care where the fault lies between Apple and Nvidia, but they both need to work it out fast and bury the hatchet. It's my understanding that and from what I've hearing in the last few years in the creative field, many video editors, designers, architects, 3D model artists and what not have gone over to Windows due to the cost and efficient use of software, especially because it's more open to any graphics card including NVIDIA which is usually required for some of the functions needed for the work.
Especially Apple because if professionals buy the new machine and start catching on what's wrong with the big picture, then problems are going to arise.
It makes one wonder why people weren't allowed to touch the Mac Pro at the WWDC.
But at least for me, macOS is superior to Windows, and it’s not just about aesthetics. A few examples:
* macOS task scheduler utterly dominates windows. At least for my work, which saturates all cores for hours at a time, Windows becomes sluggish to the point of being unusable while those jobs are running. macOS remains delightfully responsive.
* process forking — under macOS you can spin off a new process that can directly access the contents in memory of the original process without cloning those contents in the new process. This saves on memory in some situations.
* magnification — the combination of macOS magnification software and apples excellent trackpad make for an experience that is impossible to replicate with Windows (I’ve tried and so have my Windows IT people at work — it can’t be done)
Of course there are some who use the iMac which seems to be the most common among 2D artists from what I've seen and Mac Mini as less common. Sometimes laptops but it's rare.
But what you said confirms what I've been hearing over the years. Although, I think this Mac Pro's hardware design was a step in the right direction but the price/specs seem a bit off kilter to me. I can understand if the employee's company or agency can foot the bill and buy them for the work. But when it comes to a one man operation or a small business, that's a big expense to deal and invest in.
But it's not an assurance about winning your next contract with that client. I think that might be part of why some people are still hesitant to go to the cloud. They believe (probably, but not definitely, incorrectly) that the data are safer if housed on internal servers.
I guess my question is: what kind of networks are you on where the admins have never heard of DHCP or are otherwise unable to provide a stable network for their users? I'd expect to have to tinker with network settings all the time in the late 1980s, but this is 2019.
I've lost count of the number of colleagues in the 3D community who have bought 1st and 2nd Threadrippers and have anything other than deep praise for them. We're all looking forward to the next Threadripper release and anyone who'd rather have a 28 core Xeon that will have to have its multithreading turned off for security over a 48 core or 64 Threadripper is nuts.
Apple's own advice to mitigate against ZombieLoad is to turn off multithreading. AMD processor unaffected!
AMD's 16 core Ryzen will be out in the Fall at $750 which will out perform all Mac Pros up to 16 core. You could build two 16 core Ryzen workstations for a similar price to the base Mac Pro. What computer systems will freelancers and small studios buy? Yeah, not the Mac Pro. Big studios don't buy Mac Pros anyway, they'll continue buying PCs.
I know someone is going to say yeah but that PC can't take 1.5TB RAM and it doesn't have 7 PCIe slots. I don't need more than 64GB for my 3D scenes and I only need space for 2-3 GPUs, the new x570 Motherboards have everything including Thunderbolt 3 so to me there's nothing compelling from an expansion point of view with the Mac Pro.
I've never minded spending a bit more to get the Mac Pros in the past but this new one is being released into a world where price/performance has never been better andd the pricing looks horribly wrong, it's off by a country mile.
Similarly when alt/option-tabbed, the dock and application windows move at 15fps with the AMD card, no such issue with the Nvidia card. The frame dropping doesn't happen with the Intel graphics on my MacBook either, only AMD.
Also, Nvidia keeps their drivers up to date for years afterward - my old iMac had regular driver updates until Mojave. The AMD cards presumably get updates with the OS, but I'm not sure how long Apple actually updates them for. I doubt it's anywhere near as long as the Nvidia drivers.
It annoys me that Apple has stuck their middle finger up at Nvidia considering they've historically been really good to Apple users. Also as there is a duopoly in the GPU business, it'd do Apple well to keep on good terms with both companies, since there's not exactly a wide breadth of manufacturers to choose from.
So, throw some spinning discs in a chassis and put it in there, or some SSDs, etc. Again, why make the base config bigger than 256 GB when that's plenty to put the OS, some apps, and 'scratch space'. If you need more storage, you can pick a solution that fits your needs and add it in, or pick it from Apple as a BTO.
One would think as a 3D artist, you would understand the machine you're critiquing a bit better.
But, I'm curious... do most 3D pros consider/use AMD CPUs these days? (Honest question, as I've been a bit out of that loop, but was under the impression AMD CPUs were more for the tweaker/gamer types.) But, I'd spend a bit more time studying up on the new Mac Pro, at least to better understand what it is.
“Tapping into the amazing performance of the new Mac Pro, we’re excited to develop Redshift for Metal, and we’re working with Apple to bring an optimized version to the Mac Pro for the first time by the end of the year. We’re also actively developing Metal support for Cinema 4D, which will provide our Mac users with accelerated workflows for the most complex content creation. The new Mac Pro graphics architecture is incredibly powerful and is the best system to run Cinema 4D.” — David McGavran, CEO, Maxon
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/pro-app-developers-react-to-the-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr/
Go read the rest of the quotes on that page, too. It caught me off guard. I don't really think the CUDA debate is relevant any longer.
Then you need a new community, as that's just silliness. Or, maybe just sour-grapes.
Oh yeah, there are some impressive PC setups, and a lot of people did switch to Windows (as well as those who have always been Windows), etc. But, if you're in some groups of people who aren't impressed with the new Mac Pro, they are either ignorant, or jealous. It's one heck of an impressive machine if you actually understand it.
I guess Mike already covered this, but why would I turn off my multithreading? (Again, are these this sound-bites, are do you understand it?)
Ok, that's a fair point. I don't need that either, but that doesn't make it unimpressive. I've been arguing in many other threads that Apple needs a more mid-tier pro system for people like us. But, there are people who do need that stuff.
I rather doubt you have the necessary chops for the level of condescension that was flowing through every paragraph of your reply. I have over 20 years working in animation at all budget levels and have the temerity to run my own motion graphics studio. I speak from experience.
You are justifying that Apple's brand new not even released yet top of the Mac range should ship with a 3 year old GPU and 256GB SSD. I am embarrassed for you. Apple requires people like you to maintain their reality distortion and repeat their cliched marketing talking points.
I love the fact that you quoted Dave McGavran marketing quote, because the Redshift developers themselves are altogether far more circumspect about Redshift and Metal. They make no promises about performance and only 'hope' to be as fully featured as the current CUDA version. I've been a Redshift user for nearly 2 years and I'm well up to speed on what the actual developers themselves have said constantly about Metal support but that wouldn't make great copy for Apple marketing quotes.
From the C4D plugin developers at Greyscale Gorilla who have all switch to PC from Mac in recent years.
"From a hardware perspective, it’s exactly what I feared it would be. Underwhelming and overpriced. With no NVIDIA support, which everyone feared, it is not really going to win over anyone in the professional 3D space. But hey, it comes with wheels."
https://greyscalegorilla.com/2019/06/thoughts-new-mac-pro-3d/
Maxon have ProRender running on Metal and it is ridiculously slow, if Redshift ends up as bad as this then no one will be interested and it will have been a complete waste of developers' time.
I rather think the sour grapes are all yours pal, I get that you've bought into the Apple bubble and it must be tough to find out that actuality is vastly different, every single one of my close work colleagues has ditched the Mac over the last 5 years, yeah every single one of us were Mac Pro users. Some jumped soon after the Trashcan was released others like me hung on and hung on but couldn't wait any longer. Not a single one of my colleagues is the slightest bit interested in the Mac Pro, it misses every single mark, it's not fit for purpose.
The people who will care about ZombieLoad and the rest of the Intel microcode security issues are the people you claim won't need a half decent GPU because they're running a 'high-performance database' your words.. In the real world Hyperthreading is being turned off in exactly these workloads. Get a clue.
This was at the time when Photoshop was becoming a huge paradigm shift in our school and digital art was becoming a thing. The Graphic Design majors had access to QuarkXPress and had some Photoshop experience leaving the Illustration students ( my major ) out in the cold. Fortunately, the school recognized the problem and allowed us to get a free class on Photoshop and Illustrator with the help of an older student who volunteered his time. We got lucky.
My old friend dropped out of the school and moved to Michigan to get some 3D modelling experience. When he came back, staying at his mom's new house they moved to, I noticed he was working on 3D models using Lightwave ( It might've been that or Maya ) with a Windows PC. This surprised me at the time. Then, some time later I lost track of him as he went on to move out of the country to NZ to eventually work at WETA doing CGI work for the LOTR film doing some sequences and the Shelob scene in particular. I'm going to believe this was all done on a high end Windows PC hooked to a server.
Then he moved on to another gig in South Korea and then eventually co-found the Mudbox app for 3D artists as a alternative to ZBrush and the like. He was more of a 3D artist than me but his work process was fascinating. When he finally sold Mudbox to Autodesk, he worked under them for a while and then moved on to do AR/VR work currently. I lost track of him between those years of him at LOTR and when he moved to Toronto which he finally submerged and contacted me out of the blue to catch up. We did a little iOS game project, where I did some storyboarding for him at the time, which never came to that platform and went to Steam. I don't think it's there anymore. It was right there that when we did some Skype calls, I could literally see his studio workstation filled with a couple of Windows machines and at least one Power Mac. He showed me everything through the video calls on how Mudbox, Maya, ZBrush and all that worked. It was very enlightening and especially on his reasons why he used a PC for this line of work.
That's why I knew what you said was true. For his work, he would rely on a PC for that but I don't know if he would use the new Mac Pro, however he might just to build out an experiment to test out AR/VR service offerings. He had been a bit vocal about Apple's AR offerings and was hoping to see more traction in the glasses department but that's another story
When I begin in 3D it was on the Amiga with Lightwave and quickly went from there to PC and a DEC Alpha. Early on the big budget guys has SGIs the rest of us were building custom PCs. I dropped out of 3D and went into compositing which where I bought my first Mac. The first Intel based MBP as Apple were offering a really good deal for Shake and everyone in high end compositing was using Shake (on Linux PCs not Macs) and I needed to learn it. All the VFX studios were PC based by then save for the finishing departments who were use turnkey Autodesk systems and Davincis. No Macs anywhere other than audio post production.
I started my own company and then bought an 8 core MP then a couple of years later bought a second 2010 model. While slightly more expensive than a PC the costs were not crazy and for the build quality they were excellent value for money, the best desktops ever built. I got back into 3D again with motion graphic work and with Cinema 4D where at the time was a 50/50 split between Mac/PC users. But in my professional circle literally everyone was Mac based and running C4D AE FCS etc etc. As I said everyone now is PC based.
I have noticed a change happening in Audio Postproduction studios. At one time it was absolutely guaranteed that Macs would be in every studio across the land in the UK. I never saw anything else. But the more I get out and visit studios I'm seeing PCs take their place. This would be absolutely unheard of a decade ago. I've also seen a move to the PC in editing suites too, the bungled release of FCPX has had a profound effect on Mac usage in TV editing bays gone is Final Cut and replaced by Premiere Pro and PCs. Amazingly Prem Pro is more popular than Avid now.
This is only anecdotal evidence of what I'm seeing in the places I go but in my own bubble there has been a huge move away from Macs in parts of the industry that were once, if not dominated, very well represented with Macs. The clowns at Cupertino who thought innovation was the Trashcan with zero upgrades for nearly 7 years have a lot to answer for.
And I don't think the iPad Pro is the replacement for desktops/laptops at all despite what Cook says. Although I like the portability of it for using Procreate and other apps and export to the desktop to see the big picture and flesh it out. It needs to do a LOT more than an OS update to prove its ability to replace a PC and have a larger screen which I think 11 x 17 tabloid size makes sense, considering one wouldn't have to keep pinch/zooming to 'push pixels' and just illustrate images at 100 % actual scale with expressive line or paint strokes. Especially for comic book illustrators who work at 11 x 17 dimensions which is the professional standard. 12.9 inches is NOT it.
As for the Cupertino folks, the fact it took them this long to update the Mac Pro is disturbing. And the lack of NVIDIA concerns me regarding Mac Pro. If this is a Johnny Sjrouji issue, that's a problem.