High-end users on 'Why I'm buying the new Mac Pro'

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Comments

  • Reply 121 of 175
    nsummy2nsummy2 Posts: 11member
    s.metcalf said:
    The new Mac Pro was an important move for Apple.  Hopefully it hasn’t come too late.  It still baffles me why they never bothered to update the previous Mac Pro to Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C, which a form-factor like that desperately needed, considering its reliance (by design) on external expansion.  Perhaps they knew it had failed and already given up on it by the time TB3 rolled around.  But that doesn’t explain why they kept the price on it so high for so long despite its significantly outdated hardware either, so go figure.

    My only concern about the new Mac Pro (apart from its price, or more specifically: that I’ll never be able to afford one) is, like the previous version, its limitation to a single CPU socket.  Granted they’re up to 28 cores now, but my understanding is there are still many applications (particularly in science) for which traditional CPU power is used and required as opposed to graphics architectures.  Wouldn’t 2 x 28 cores be even better for this segment of pros?  You could do some crazily advanced fluid dynamics modelling and research with that kind of horsepower sitting on your desk.

    So I feel like Apple mainly liaised and targeted graphics and media professionals (like studios) with this update.  Granted there are plenty of scientists using GPU compute, but many of those have CUDA code, so Apple is still shutting the gate on them (for now) also.

    In the end I think it was too difficult to find the space for another CPU with all that PCI and RAM expansion.  I still think it’s an awesome looking machine, and that XDR screen is even more impressive.
    It's not that simple, and it's not that cheap. You can't simply take two of the CPUs Apple's using and slap them into a motherboard. You need a different product line (the Xeon SP), where each CPU costs nearly twice the price of the Xeon W CPUs (~14k vs. ~7.5k for the 28-core unit). The motherboard is also very different.

    That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a dual-core next year. Though what I would really rather see is an EPYC dual-core next year.
    Well it is that simple and cheap.  You are correct that it would require scalable xeons and different motherboards, but you can get dual processors in Dell and HP workstations.  As for price, its one of those things that are as cheap or expensive as you want it to be.  The Bronzes start at $200 and the golds top out at $4000.  They certainly are no more expensive than the Xeon workstation processors.  With all Apple's hubris though, I wouldn't expect them to offer true workstations that cater to multiple applications
  • Reply 122 of 175
    nsummy2 said:
    s.metcalf said:
    The new Mac Pro was an important move for Apple.  Hopefully it hasn’t come too late.  It still baffles me why they never bothered to update the previous Mac Pro to Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C, which a form-factor like that desperately needed, considering its reliance (by design) on external expansion.  Perhaps they knew it had failed and already given up on it by the time TB3 rolled around.  But that doesn’t explain why they kept the price on it so high for so long despite its significantly outdated hardware either, so go figure.

    My only concern about the new Mac Pro (apart from its price, or more specifically: that I’ll never be able to afford one) is, like the previous version, its limitation to a single CPU socket.  Granted they’re up to 28 cores now, but my understanding is there are still many applications (particularly in science) for which traditional CPU power is used and required as opposed to graphics architectures.  Wouldn’t 2 x 28 cores be even better for this segment of pros?  You could do some crazily advanced fluid dynamics modelling and research with that kind of horsepower sitting on your desk.

    So I feel like Apple mainly liaised and targeted graphics and media professionals (like studios) with this update.  Granted there are plenty of scientists using GPU compute, but many of those have CUDA code, so Apple is still shutting the gate on them (for now) also.

    In the end I think it was too difficult to find the space for another CPU with all that PCI and RAM expansion.  I still think it’s an awesome looking machine, and that XDR screen is even more impressive.
    It's not that simple, and it's not that cheap. You can't simply take two of the CPUs Apple's using and slap them into a motherboard. You need a different product line (the Xeon SP), where each CPU costs nearly twice the price of the Xeon W CPUs (~14k vs. ~7.5k for the 28-core unit). The motherboard is also very different.

    That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a dual-core next year. Though what I would really rather see is an EPYC dual-core next year.
    Well it is that simple and cheap.  You are correct that it would require scalable xeons and different motherboards, but you can get dual processors in Dell and HP workstations.  As for price, its one of those things that are as cheap or expensive as you want it to be.  The Bronzes start at $200 and the golds top out at $4000.  They certainly are no more expensive than the Xeon workstation processors.  With all Apple's hubris though, I wouldn't expect them to offer true workstations that cater to multiple applications
    You could not be more wrong. Go look and see for yourself on ark.intel.com. The numbers I quoted are from there. "Top out at $4000"? Lol.
  • Reply 123 of 175
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Soli said:
    Can you explain to me how you perceived iOS apps being made on an iPhone or iPad using Xcode because Macs don't exist because I can't envision such a future.
    People write Mac software on Macs, Windows software on Windows. Is it technically impossible to write iOS software on an iOS device?
  • Reply 124 of 175
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,038member
    cgWerks said:
    Soli said:
    Can you explain to me how you perceived iOS apps being made on an iPhone or iPad using Xcode because Macs don't exist because I can't envision such a future.
    People write Mac software on Macs, Windows software on Windows. Is it technically impossible to write iOS software on an iOS device?
    It's not technically impossible, but writing iOS apps on an iPhone doesn't sound like a great experience. It's like saying you can technically haul manure in a convertible but Biff Tannen didn't seem to find it an ideal solution for his vehicle.

    But you're burying the point of why that would be such an ideal environment for creating iOS and ipadOS apps that Apple would see fit to ditch the Mac altogether. Again, can you explain a single, feasible scenario where Apple would kill off every Mac? I can't. Hell, the notebook has dominated the traditional "PC" market for a coupledecades now and you're on a thread about a traditional desktop "PC".
    edited June 2019 raoulduke42JustSomeGuy1cornchip
  • Reply 125 of 175
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Soli said:
    It's not technically impossible, but writing iOS apps on an iPhone doesn't sound like a great experience. It's like saying you can technically haul manure in a convertible but Biff Tannen didn't seem to find it an ideal solution for his vehicle.
    Developers supposedly use MacBook Pros to do their development of iOS apps, and since the iPad Pro is supposedly a laptop replacement and 'real computer,' all that seems to be missing is Xcode, right?
    muthuk_vanalingamcornchip
  • Reply 126 of 175
    mocsegmocseg Posts: 86member
    welshdog said:
    Let’s be honest for a second, the new Mac Pro and XDR Display is not a good value if someone isn’t working at a Marvel Studio.
    Wrong.

    A freelance creative video editor who has a good reputation and works with big ad agencies and clients can charge hundreds of dollars an hour. 
    How many of those ad "creative" freelancers that charge several hundreds of euros per hour do you personally know? Exaggeration? Definitely yes imho.
    edited June 2019
  • Reply 127 of 175
    mocsegmocseg Posts: 86member
    blastdoor said:
    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.

    Linux is very very fine with Threadripper. It flies at 3D/vfx/post.
    And Microsoft has finally a hotfix for amd's ccx scheduler Windows problems.
    edited June 2019
  • Reply 128 of 175
    s.metcalfs.metcalf Posts: 995member
    In the end I think it was too difficult to find the space for another CPU with all that PCI and RAM expansion.  
    It's not that simple, and it's not that cheap. You can't simply take two of the CPUs Apple's using and slap them into a motherboard. You need a different product line (the Xeon SP), where each CPU costs nearly twice the price of the Xeon W CPUs (~14k vs. ~7.5k for the 28-core unit). The motherboard is also very different.

    That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a dual-core next year. Though what I would really rather see is an EPYC dual-core next year.
    I did imply (if not directly) and was aware that the extra space (and power) required is significant.  So it’s likely something Apple ruled out quite early in favour of its graphical prowess, memory capacity and PCI expandability.  Apple claimed that they consulted pros for the trash can design, but I think they really did this time.

    I wasn’t aware prices for dual socket-compatible Xeon CPUs are so much more however.  I don’t recall it ever being that bad back when Apple had its previous cheese grater.  The dual-socket 8 and 12-core first-generation Mac Pros seemed to scale reasonable well in terms of price.  Certainly nothing like the double per CPU you’ve quoted.  What changed?

    As a fun example, here is a pic of the single and dual-socket boards and heat syncs from that first Mac Pro.  You can see a lot of unused space on the single-socket board, and a heat sync that was probably ridiculous overkill.  I owned that 6-core variant.


    edited June 2019
  • Reply 129 of 175
    s.metcalf said:
    In the end I think it was too difficult to find the space for another CPU with all that PCI and RAM expansion.  
    It's not that simple, and it's not that cheap. You can't simply take two of the CPUs Apple's using and slap them into a motherboard. You need a different product line (the Xeon SP), where each CPU costs nearly twice the price of the Xeon W CPUs (~14k vs. ~7.5k for the 28-core unit). The motherboard is also very different.

    That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a dual-core next year. Though what I would really rather see is an EPYC dual-core next year.
    [...]
    I wasn’t aware prices for dual socket-compatible Xeon CPUs are so much more however.  I don’t recall it ever being that bad back when Apple had its previous cheese grater.  The dual-socket 8 and 12-core first-generation Mac Pros seemed to scale reasonable well in terms of price.  Certainly nothing like the double per CPU you’ve quoted.  What changed?
    AMD became completely uncompetitive in the server market.

    Watch what happens over the next two years though. Demand is so high that Intel will not immediately suffer a price crash, but they are going to take a hit. And the hits will keep coming, at least for the next year or two.
  • Reply 130 of 175
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    mocseg said:
    How many of those ad "creative" freelancers that charge several hundreds of euros per hour do you personally know? Exaggeration? Definitely yes imho.
    I've only personally known one. He dated one of my wife's friends for a bit and invited us over to his house for dinner once. It was up across the Golden Gate bridge in the hills in Mill Valley overlooking SF Bay. He had all the latest Apple 'toys'. We went to the store to get some things for desert in his Porsche. Enough said?

    Of course all creative freelancers aren't like that, only the ones who are fairly (or in that case, quite) successful. But, if you're operating ANY business that is successful and your workflow depends on speed, reliability, etc. ... you'd find a way to afford something like this.

    JustSomeGuy1 said:
    AMD became completely uncompetitive in the server market.

    Watch what happens over the next two years though. Demand is so high that Intel will not immediately suffer a price crash, but they are going to take a hit. And the hits will keep coming, at least for the next year or two.
    Yeah, if I ever get back into having a localized server-farm (ie: rendering) again, I'll certainly look at and consider AMD. My little experience with them in the past (for CPUs) wasn't good, and I haven't really had a need to take another look. They have been kind of off my radar.
  • Reply 131 of 175
    From the List it looks like the 24 core and 28 Mac Pros will use the M variant CPU to give them the 1.5 TB Mem support. M as in MASSIVE dent in your wallet.

    24 core = $4.5k
    28 core = $7.45k

    I don't know if they're even end user prices, they won't be Apple prices.

    The 8 core - 16 core Mac Pro would be handed its arse by a 16 Core Ryzen ($749) let alone a 32 core Threadripper based workstation for creative tasks.

    Again, who the heck is going to buy this? I'm still waiting to hear from someone who is going to spend their own money on this new Mac Pro.

    https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_w


    W-32233 June 2019$ 749.00€ 674.10
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    philboogie
  • Reply 132 of 175
    keithwkeithw Posts: 155member
    I get really amused when people complain about the price. I used to SELL Apollo DOMAIN workstations in the late 80s and they were not cheap. 
    "Monochrome configurations with a disk range from $8,500 to $15,500, while color configurations with a disk range from $12,400 to $23,800."

    That was in 1988 $$$.   In 2019 $$$ that would be $18,490- $33,718 for the monochrome and $26,975- $51,774 for the color.  Folks, for professionals these things are NOT expensive.  They are the cost of doing business.


    StrangeDayscornchippscooter63
  • Reply 133 of 175
    I'm not buying mac pro because i'm hooked with a different machine that is faster and cheaper to own. Click, boom. Almost real time rendering.
    edited December 2019
  • Reply 134 of 175
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,239member
    Apple: where is the price list for various options, so we can plan our purchases in advance?
  • Reply 135 of 175

    From the List it looks like the 24 core and 28 Mac Pros will use the M variant CPU to give them the 1.5 TB Mem support. M as in MASSIVE dent in your wallet.

    24 core = $4.5k
    28 core = $7.45k

    I don't know if they're even end user prices, they won't be Apple prices.

    The 8 core - 16 core Mac Pro would be handed its arse by a 16 Core Ryzen ($749) let alone a 32 core Threadripper based workstation for creative tasks.

    Again, who the heck is going to buy this? I'm still waiting to hear from someone who is going to spend their own money on this new Mac Pro.

    That'll be me then. Freelance writer, hobbyist (occasionally paid) CG artist, lover of Macs and macOS. I'm buying one with my own money. Because I want one and, well, it's my own money.
    philboogiecornchipcgWerks
  • Reply 136 of 175
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,642member
    I don’t get the part about some photographers and editors doing work that’s so sensitive that their names can’t be used to say that they’re buying a Mac Pro. Really? My own company did work for the NY Police Department, the fire department, and the FBI, among others. While the work was sensitive enough that we had to train FBI agents on the basics of operating our Kodachrome machine, we weren’t told that we couldn’t say that we did work for them.
    philboogie
  • Reply 137 of 175
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    I'm not buying mac pro because i'm hooked with a different machine that is faster and cheaper to own. Click, boom. Almost real time rendering.
    Unfortunately for you, no one believes you. Try again.
    SoliStrangeDayscornchippscooter63urahara
  • Reply 138 of 175
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,928administrator
    melgross said:
    I don’t get the part about some photographers and editors doing work that’s so sensitive that their names can’t be used to say that they’re buying a Mac Pro. Really? My own company did work for the NY Police Department, the fire department, and the FBI, among others. While the work was sensitive enough that we had to train FBI agents on the basics of operating our Kodachrome machine, we weren’t told that we couldn’t say that we did work for them.
    Because lawyers enforcing conflict of interest and other contractual clauses can be jerks, mostly.

    While I appreciate your own life experience, there are other sensitive cases. The incidence of these just seems to be escalating as the years tick on, given the prevalence of social media and whatnot.
    edited December 2019 cornchippscooter63
  • Reply 139 of 175
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    melgross said:
    I don’t get the part about some photographers and editors doing work that’s so sensitive that their names can’t be used to say that they’re buying a Mac Pro. Really? My own company did work for the NY Police Department, the fire department, and the FBI, among others. While the work was sensitive enough that we had to train FBI agents on the basics of operating our Kodachrome machine, we weren’t told that we couldn’t say that we did work for them.
    I don't get that either. Photography sensitive? 'kay...

    What I also don't understand is the following: The CPU doesn't outperform the horsepower of the GPU, is that true? With the multi-GPU option, with the Afterburner card, allegedly outperforms the 28-core CPU. But then I read this:

    A photographer who wished to remain anonymous is working on sensitive projects uses some of those Adobe products. He said that the new Mac Pro was appealing because of "raw horsepower" in his workflow. "Not having to wait while rendering [is key]," he said, "especially since Adobe makes minimal use of GPU processing in Lightroom and Photoshop."

    Michael Trauffer, senior video editor for a large post production facility, also hopes to see improvements with software.

    "The Keynote mentioned that Adobe is one of the software providers that is on board with the new Mac Pro," he says. "I'm hoping that their software will finally be able to take advantage of all of that horsepower that is being made available. Premiere Pro doesn't [currently] utilize multiple GPU when playing/editing."

    So, maxing out the GPU option isn't going to help people running Adobe sw much(?)

    Or am I misunderstanding the CPU vs GPU and Adobe software here?

  • Reply 140 of 175
    rain22rain22 Posts: 132member
    It's still no Cray... 
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