No, Apple's new Mac Pro isn't overpriced

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  • Reply 121 of 233
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member

    Q: Would you have been happier if the Mac Pro was called the "Mac Workstation" or a return the the xServe name?
    1. A new “xServe” would’ve been devoid of the media functions and user-facing design I want, so, it would be an irrelevant machine for me. If it were as compact as the prior Xserve, it also would’ve been irrelevant for heavy CPU+GPU workflows.

    2. “Workstation” is maybe a clearer name, and would make better branding...

    ...but the naming issue is STILL bypassing the point: Apple has ditched an entire segment of the Mac Pro (Mac Workstation, whatever) market by making this product START at $6000. That can’t not reflect on this machine. Maybe it would diffuse the anger of previous Mac Pro buyers that are left out here, but it still leaves the issue in place: no workstation for people who used to be served by Apple with prior Mac Pro machines.

    Having a prior article that talks about this issue (in a fairly mild tone, I’ve read it) does not justify another article being so protective of Apple over this machine and the widely held impression of its base model being priced wrongly.
    mobirdwilliamlondon
  • Reply 122 of 233
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    dysamoria said:

    Q: Would you have been happier if the Mac Pro was called the "Mac Workstation" or a return the the xServe name?
    1. A new “xServe” would’ve been devoid of the media functions and user-facing design I want, so, it would be an irrelevant machine for me. If it were as compact as the prior Xserve, it also would’ve been irrelevant for heavy CPU+GPU workflows.

    2. “Workstation” is maybe a clearer name, and would make better branding...

    ...but the naming issue is STILL bypassing the point: Apple has ditched an entire segment of the Mac Pro (Mac Workstation, whatever) market by making this product START at $6000. That can’t not reflect on this machine. Maybe it would diffuse the anger of previous Mac Pro buyers that are left out here, but it still leaves the issue in place: no workstation for people who used to be served by Apple with prior Mac Pro machines.

    Having a prior article that talks about this issue (in a fairly mild tone, I’ve read it) does not justify another article being so protective of Apple over this machine and the widely held impression of its base model being priced wrongly.
    While I respect your opinion and where you come from on this matter, I feel like you're having a different conversation than I am. I think our biggest difference is you think that Apple's abandonment of your market segment has to reflect on this machine. I disagree, as I feel that this machine at its low end is in no way comparable to the lower-end Mac Pro, G5, or G4 towers.

    Have a nice weekend. I've got about a thousand people to talk to out here in meatspace before the week begins.
    lkruppwilliamlondonfastasleep
  • Reply 123 of 233
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    dysamoria said:

    Q: Would you have been happier if the Mac Pro was called the "Mac Workstation" or a return the the xServe name?
    1. A new “xServe” would’ve been devoid of the media functions and user-facing design I want, so, it would be an irrelevant machine for me. If it were as compact as the prior Xserve, it also would’ve been irrelevant for heavy CPU+GPU workflows.

    2. “Workstation” is maybe a clearer name, and would make better branding...

    ...but the naming issue is STILL bypassing the point: Apple has ditched an entire segment of the Mac Pro (Mac Workstation, whatever) market by making this product START at $6000. That can’t not reflect on this machine. Maybe it would diffuse the anger of previous Mac Pro buyers that are left out here, but it still leaves the issue in place: no workstation for people who used to be served by Apple with prior Mac Pro machines.

    Having a prior article that talks about this issue (in a fairly mild tone, I’ve read it) does not justify another article being so protective of Apple over this machine and the widely held impression of its base model being priced wrongly.
    While I respect your opinion and where you come from on this matter, I feel like you're having a different conversation than I am. I think our biggest difference is you think that Apple's abandonment of your market segment has to reflect on this machine. I disagree, as I feel that this machine at its low end is in no way comparable to the lower-end Mac Pro, G5, or G4 towers.

    Have a nice weekend. I've got about a thousand people to talk to out here in meatspace before the week begins.
    I respect that reply. Yes we disagree. Thank you for trying to engage. Have a good weekend, Mike. 
    williamlondon
  • Reply 124 of 233
    It is expensive, but not over priced for that it is.  The people complaining are the people like me who would have liked to see a return of what the Power Mac and Mac Pro used to be where it served a wider audience.  I think Apple determined long ago that making a system that started in the $1500 - $2500 range that had user upgradable memory/storage/video/cpu that people would allow users to stretch out how long they kept machines just wasn't profitable enough for them.
    mobirdfastasleep
  • Reply 125 of 233
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    DuhSesame said:
    mike fix said:
    Cinebench scores:
    https://www.servethehome.com/intel-core-i9-10980xe-review-18-cores-of-pure-intel/intel-core-i9-10980xe-cinebench-r20/

    Most expensive Mac Pro processor, Xeon W-3275: 10,903.

    AMD Threadripper 3970x: 16,660.

    Mac Pro obsolete before it even shipped.
    You can thank Intel for that.  If they don't move, you can do nothing about it.
    That's really the issue, the box is full of parts from 3rd party vendors so the pricing is determined by those 3rd parties. Apple can only adjust the markup.

    According to Apple's own tests, the top-end $13k 28-core Mac Pro CPU is only around 50% faster than the top-end $7400 18-core iMac Pro ( https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ ). This mirrors the core count difference - 28/18 = 1.55x. If it's the following chip, Apple is charging $7k (plus the price of the entry bundled chip) and the price Intel charges is $4449:

    https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193752/intel-xeon-w-3275-processor-38-5m-cache-2-50-ghz.html

    It's Intel saying that a ~50% increase in CPU performance is worth that much. They haven't been delivering good value for a while and didn't need to because they had no competition. The entry 8-core chip could be this one:

    https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193739/intel-xeon-w-3223-processor-16-5m-cache-3-50-ghz.html

    That's bundled into the base price so $749 and if the markup is the same, Apple would be charging $1178 out of the $6k entry price.
    For 32GB RAM, Apple charges around $500.
    Radeon Pro 580X is about $500.
    256GB SSD say $200.
    Lets say the peripherals, box, PSU, motherboard add another $1000.
    This is $3378 of parts in a $6k machine, which is just over 40% gross margin.

    This isn't far off the 2013 8-core ($4999-5499) so they effectively ditched the entry model Mac Pro vs the previous generation:
    https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-eight-core-3.0-xeon-e5-gray-black-cylinder-late-2013-specs.html

    On the GPU side, Radeon Pro workstation GPUs are priced around $2k each and the Mac Pro offers up to 4 of them:

    https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Radeon-Precision-Workstations-Customer/dp/B07JQ98C47

    The reason they all charge so much is the market they are addressing allows for it and is so small that it doesn't make sense to charge less. Some people think if they slashed prices all the way down to $2k that they would get a marketshare to rival Windows PCs. The sales volume would go up but only to a million units at most per year from under 100k units so they potentially sell 1 million low spec machines at $2k = $2b or 50k higher spec at $8k = $0.4b. Sounds better to sell cheaper but they can't sustain 40% margins at $2k (because of the supplier prices), it would barely be 20% margins or they'd be really low spec non-Pro machines. PC manufacturers work on under 5% margins at times.

    The addressable market also affects accessories like the display stand and the wheels. The same happens with manufacturers like RED where they charge hundreds of dollars for handles. It's not that those parts are worth the price, it just doesn't make sense to sell them for any less. They'd be better off not making them at all.

    Apple has made it clear a number of times over the years that this product category is dead in the water. The vast majority of professional workflows are satisfied by Apple's mainstream products, sometimes supported by cloud services or 3rd party hardware. They are only continuing to make products like this because a few people in key industries have asked for them.

    For people looking for a $2-3k machine, they'd have gotten a 4/8-core Mac Pro so instead get a Macbook Pro or iMac. If there's a concern about heat over long periods of time, use a script to throttle tasks or buy a supplementary PC box and sit it somewhere out of sight and drop things onto it from the network. For GPU computing look at getting an eGPU or a GPU in a headless PC.
    philboogiefastasleep
  • Reply 126 of 233
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    DuhSesame said:
    In regards to the xMac concept, we've addressed this several times, and yet again in the last paragraphs of this piece. This Mac Pro is not that, and it was never intended to be so. I want an xMac, but I'm also aware that I'm not going to get it.
    I wonder what was the thing that the xMac could do but not an iMac?  The only one I can think of really is swapping the graphics card.  Intel obsoletes their consumer platforms when they redesign their processors, it won't last long anyway.
    There is a rather high proportion of tech fans on the Internet that want hobbyist machines that can get to near workstation level performance, but not all the way, and allow for flexibility to play around. A high fraction of people on this site would buy an xMac or a Mac Half Pro. The two are actually different and yet again there will be different classes of people who want one of the other. Obviously, Apple doesn’t offer machine for these folks, and a lot of them for whatever reason complain that the Mac Pro isn’t this machine when they full well know what the machine is designed for.

    The dream of xMac, as I recall all the way back 20 years ago, was a machine that was in-between the iMac G3 and the PowerMac. Something in the Quadra, Mac IIci class, PowerMac 7xxx/8xxx series, which were all killed for Apple existential reasons. So a mini tower with a couple of slots and couple of drive bays, costing about $1500 base price.

    My Mac Half Pro idea is to lop off 5 inches off the back of the Mac Pro, so that only 7” long PCIe cards can go in there, go down to 6 PCIe slots instead of 8, go down to 700 W of components, go down to 4 DIMM slots instead of 12, and use the Xeon W-2200 series platform or Core X which are the same chips anyways. Heck, it could Ryzen or Apple ARM, don’t care too much about it. The MPX modules would be half length and 250 W max, The CPU would be about 160 W TDP. This would cost $2500 to $3000 base price.

    Why would I buy them rather than the iMac? As others have said, I want to use a different sized monitor than the 27”. Something like 35” 21:9, or maybe 40” 4K. I’d like to have a large amount of storage, 6, 8, 10 TB, and be able to back it up inside the box and outside the box. It doesn’t have to be fast, as it is storing a couple decades of photos and video. Since it is a family computer, 32 To 64 GB memory for multi-user. I’d like to have a decent GPU for 3D games. I don’t need it, but the boy does. I occasionally transcode videos, so 6 to 8 cores would be nice. I would pay more for Apple’s industrial design (clean lines inside and out, metal, low noise, etc).

    As it stands, I plan on replacing my 2013 iMac 27 with hopefully an Ice Lake Mac mini, an eGPU, an eHDD, a NAS, and a 35 to 40 inch monitor.  Still a long waiting game. This is going to be a crazy cable mess, a mess on the desk, and basically against Apple’s ethos or industrial design.


    muthuk_vanalingammobirdphilboogiemike54
  • Reply 127 of 233
    DuhSesameDuhSesame Posts: 1,278member
    tht said:
    DuhSesame said:
    In regards to the xMac concept, we've addressed this several times, and yet again in the last paragraphs of this piece. This Mac Pro is not that, and it was never intended to be so. I want an xMac, but I'm also aware that I'm not going to get it.
    I wonder what was the thing that the xMac could do but not an iMac?  The only one I can think of really is swapping the graphics card.  Intel obsoletes their consumer platforms when they redesign their processors, it won't last long anyway.
    There is a rather high proportion of tech fans on the Internet that want hobbyist machines that can get to near workstation level performance, but not all the way, and allow for flexibility to play around. A high fraction of people on this site would buy an xMac or a Mac Half Pro. The two are actually different and yet again there will be different classes of people who want one of the other. Obviously, Apple doesn’t offer machine for these folks, and a lot of them for whatever reason complain that the Mac Pro isn’t this machine when they full well know what the machine is designed for.

    The dream of xMac, as I recall all the way back 20 years ago, was a machine that was in-between the iMac G3 and the PowerMac. Something in the Quadra, Mac IIci class, PowerMac 7xxx/8xxx series, which were all killed for Apple existential reasons. So a mini tower with a couple of slots and couple of drive bays, costing about $1500 base price.

    My Mac Half Pro idea is to lop off 5 inches off the back of the Mac Pro, so that only 7” long PCIe cards can go in there, go down to 6 PCIe slots instead of 8, go down to 700 W of components, go down to 4 DIMM slots instead of 12, and use the Xeon W-2200 series platform or Core X which are the same chips anyways. Heck, it could Ryzen or Apple ARM, don’t care too much about it. The MPX modules would be half length and 250 W max, The CPU would be about 160 W TDP. This would cost $2500 to $3000 base price.

    Why would I buy them rather than the iMac? As others have said, I want to use a different sized monitor than the 27”. Something like 35” 21:9, or maybe 40” 4K. I’d like to have a large amount of storage, 6, 8, 10 TB, and be able to back it up inside the box and outside the box. It doesn’t have to be fast, as it is storing a couple decades of photos and video. Since it is a family computer, 32 To 64 GB memory for multi-user. I’d like to have a decent GPU for 3D games. I don’t need it, but the boy does. I occasionally transcode videos, so 6 to 8 cores would be nice. I would pay more for Apple’s industrial design (clean lines inside and out, metal, low noise, etc).

    As it stands, I plan on replacing my 2013 iMac 27 with hopefully an Ice Lake Mac mini, an eGPU, an eHDD, a NAS, and a 35 to 40 inch monitor.  Still a long waiting game. This is going to be a crazy cable mess, a mess on the desk, and basically against Apple’s ethos or industrial design.


    I honestly think most every "spec" requirement could be achieved by the iMac -- just bump the screen, cooling, and specs.

    Consumer platforms only offer a limited amount of lanes by the processor, 16 for Intel and 20 for AMD and your graphics card takes all 16 -- You could put two in x8, that's about it.  All others go through the PCH, which turns out just another 4 lanes -- low-speed peripherals, like the sound or RAID cards, which most people never needed and can easily find alternative solutions (You also have to put your SSD on the PCH lanes on Intel, too).

    Perhaps a better approach is to add slots on the iMac -- back then they had MXM cards on them, maybe something similar will do, or have two of them.  Most builders at this level really just looking for the graphics card, and high-end mobile cards aren't slow.
    fastasleep
  • Reply 128 of 233
    Let me weigh in here with why this is happening: corporate reputation. 

    For decades, Apple has been associated with consumer-oriented and Microsoft with enterprise ones. Yes, people have always used Apple products in business settings, but outside of graphic arts, music, animation and other audiovisual applications nearly all of it has been end user devices: iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, MacBooks ... devices that rarely cost more than $5000 and usually less than half that. Microsoft meanwhile has been making products for VERY EXPENSIVE devices - first mainframes and then servers - since the 1970s. Their first operating system - Xenix - was meant to be run on a microcomputer, which at the time was considered a small mainframe but today is analogous to a (very big) server. Personal/consumer/end user computing didn't even exist yet ... in no small part because Apple hadn't yet come along to (help) invent and define it. 

    So those $50,000 HP and Lenovo (formerly IBM) machines ... everyone figures that they are Windows Server 2019 machines running database, email, collaboration, instant messaging, file sharing and analytics and sitting in some server room or data center somewhere. They EXPECT machines like that to cost that much. But the instant you say "Apple" everyone - even those who might have had some inkling of how 25 years ago Apple hardware dominated the audiovisual arena - is going to assume that people are going to use it for the same thing that they use their iPhones and MacBook Airs for ... and think that it is a cruel joke as a result.

    Part of it is because "tech writers" are often more "writers" than "tech." They have no idea of the depth and breadth of how technology is used in enterprises. Keep in mind: these same people spent years predicting that Windows 8 devices were going to have Android's market share by 2015. In their mind, Google was a search engine/web browser/email company who had no business making operating systems in the first place and as for Samsung ... well they made pretty good washing machines and refrigerators and needed to stick to that. These "tech writers" had no idea that a major reason why Google scaled up so quickly from being smaller than Lycos and AltaVista to surpassing Yahoo was that Google created their own hardware-agnostic platforms for networking and data center equipment, allowing them to build out their infrastructure cheap and fast using the most inexpensive off-the-shelf general purpose hardware they could find instead of paying up to 5 times as much for networking and data center hardware from the likes of Cisco, Juniper and HP (as well as waiting for those suppliers to actually deliver, install and configure it). Similarly, they didn't know that Samsung had actually been making not only Windows PCs but Windows CE-based smartphones for years because Samsung primarily marketed those devices in Asia ... and it was precisely their experiences dealing with Microsoft licensing fees and restrictions that they jumped at the chance to make products with a free OS that they could customize.

    So long story short, you are expecting tech writers to actually know something about tech instead of just relying on their opinions, impressions and biases. And sadly, that is expecting too much. I mean, YOU KNOW that there are tons of professionals in CAD, architecture, data science etc. who CAN'T WAIT to switch from their Windows and/or Linux workstations to an Apple product. Right now you have to choose between the reliability/power of a Linux workstation and a Windows machine that isn't as reliable/powerful but has a much better UX/UI and can actually run your other vital (meaning non CAD/architecture/data science BUT STILL NECESSARY TO DO YOUR JOB) applications. When this Mac Pro drops, folks won't have to make that choice anymore ... they can have both. But why would you expect a tech writer to know that? Remember: most tech writers, sports writers, etc. would rather be on the oped page talking about politics. Because if they actually knew or cared about tech they'd be working in it.
    edited December 2019 philboogiepscooter63fastasleep
  • Reply 129 of 233
    DuhSesameDuhSesame Posts: 1,278member
    Marvin said:
    DuhSesame said:
    mike fix said:
    Cinebench scores:
    https://www.servethehome.com/intel-core-i9-10980xe-review-18-cores-of-pure-intel/intel-core-i9-10980xe-cinebench-r20/

    Most expensive Mac Pro processor, Xeon W-3275: 10,903.

    AMD Threadripper 3970x: 16,660.

    Mac Pro obsolete before it even shipped.
    You can thank Intel for that.  If they don't move, you can do nothing about it.
    That's really the issue, the box is full of parts from 3rd party vendors so the pricing is determined by those 3rd parties. Apple can only adjust the markup.

    According to Apple's own tests, the top-end $13k 28-core Mac Pro CPU is only around 50% faster than the top-end $7400 18-core iMac Pro ( https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ ). This mirrors the core count difference - 28/18 = 1.55x. If it's the following chip, Apple is charging $7k (plus the price of the entry bundled chip) and the price Intel charges is $4449:

    https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193752/intel-xeon-w-3275-processor-38-5m-cache-2-50-ghz.html

    It's Intel saying that a ~50% increase in CPU performance is worth that much. They haven't been delivering good value for a while and didn't need to because they had no competition. The entry 8-core chip could be this one:

    https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193739/intel-xeon-w-3223-processor-16-5m-cache-3-50-ghz.html

    That's bundled into the base price so $749 and if the markup is the same, Apple would be charging $1178 out of the $6k entry price.
    For 32GB RAM, Apple charges around $500.
    Radeon Pro 580X is about $500.
    256GB SSD say $200.
    Lets say the peripherals, box, PSU, motherboard add another $1000.
    This is $3378 of parts in a $6k machine, which is just over 40% gross margin.

    This isn't far off the 2013 8-core ($4999-5499) so they effectively ditched the entry model Mac Pro vs the previous generation:
    https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-eight-core-3.0-xeon-e5-gray-black-cylinder-late-2013-specs.html

    On the GPU side, Radeon Pro workstation GPUs are priced around $2k each and the Mac Pro offers up to 4 of them:

    https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Radeon-Precision-Workstations-Customer/dp/B07JQ98C47

    The reason they all charge so much is the market they are addressing allows for it and is so small that it doesn't make sense to charge less. Some people think if they slashed prices all the way down to $2k that they would get a marketshare to rival Windows PCs. The sales volume would go up but only to a million units at most per year from under 100k units so they potentially sell 1 million low spec machines at $2k = $2b or 50k higher spec at $8k = $0.4b. Sounds better to sell cheaper but they can't sustain 40% margins at $2k (because of the supplier prices), it would barely be 20% margins or they'd be really low spec non-Pro machines. PC manufacturers work on under 5% margins at times.

    The addressable market also affects accessories like the display stand and the wheels. The same happens with manufacturers like RED where they charge hundreds of dollars for handles. It's not that those parts are worth the price, it just doesn't make sense to sell them for any less. They'd be better off not making them at all.

    Apple has made it clear a number of times over the years that this product category is dead in the water. The vast majority of professional workflows are satisfied by Apple's mainstream products, sometimes supported by cloud services or 3rd party hardware. They are only continuing to make products like this because a few people in key industries have asked for them.

    For people looking for a $2-3k machine, they'd have gotten a 4/8-core Mac Pro so instead get a Macbook Pro or iMac. If there's a concern about heat over long periods of time, use a script to throttle tasks or buy a supplementary PC box and sit it somewhere out of sight and drop things onto it from the network. For GPU computing look at getting an eGPU or a GPU in a headless PC.
    Right, as the core count goes up, the performance differences may become less, they used to have a significant difference back when everything is single-core.

    But I've heard that AMD is currently offering a 56-core variant?  I know they already offer 12- and 16-core in their consumer platform (which, to be fair, that 16-core is almost another HEDT).
  • Reply 130 of 233
    dysamoria said:
    LKM said:
    This article is kind of missing the point of much of the criticism of this machine.

    When people said "I want a Mac Pro", some people meant a machine like this, but many meant "I want a 2000$-4000$ tower Mac that I can configure with a lot of flexibility for my specific needs, and upgrade in the future". Clearly, this is not that machine. That's fine for the people who wanted what this machine actually is, but it's not fine for the people who were probably the majority of people asking for a machine like this.

    So saying "it's actually worth 6000$" is a meaningless response to the people who wanted a 2K-4K machine. Which they can get when they get a Windows machine, by the way. Which many of them will, because this is now the second time that Apple promised its pro customers that they understood their needs, and then built something that only works for a small minority of them.
    This is addressed in the article.
    Doesn’t matter when the bulk and headlines of your editorials are all about defending Apple and making straw man arguments for “unreasonable criticism”. The spirit behind your article is to miss the point.
    Because you think something is a straw man, does not make it so. You think we're missing the point, but the gist of this article isn't the same thing that you are talking about, or LKM was. The proof that Apple's workstation pricing is similar and in many cases less, than Windows Workstations is literally in the piece - that's what this article is about.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/13/editorial-new-mac-pro-highlights-the-gap-apple-isnt-filling

    Huh. Look at that. We've already addressed what you're talking about. In June.

    We're critical of Apple when it's warranted. It absolutely isn't about Mac Pro pricing when compared to the market segment that it sits in, and not compared versus a standard that a user has arbitrarily set for the perfect machine for them.

    Q: Would you have been happier if the Mac Pro was called the "Mac Workstation" or a return the the xServe name?
    Mike, give it up. Some people just need to argue, and can never be wrong. Just like our “Dear Leader.”
  • Reply 131 of 233
    Why isn't an xMac a Discussion we ALL need to talk about?? This is what the USERS want and need. The Choices Apple gives us is horrible, over priced, non upgradable and rather lame. All The Prosumers/ media creators want a xMac and their all Long Overdue. It's  Huge market that Apple is ignoring and I don't understand why. Under Tim Cook's leadership Apple has Failed it's users with products that have flaws and Wane from The Core values of apple's past. It's become a Luxury brand, trying to suck money from ever pore with Subscriptions(That people don't want) Lack of User interactivity in development and limited innovation.

    A prosumer xMac with a i7 can basically cost around $3k. Less than $1500 in parts in whole sale, making apple 50% profit. You can pull parts for $1500, a Motherboard, ram, CPU, Vid Card, case, powersupply, ect and make your self a Hackintosh, that's Equivalent to a xMac/MacPro. The PEOPLE are making these because of the Failure of Apple. Why can't they make one?

    I'm running a 2008 mac pro and have skipped upgrading over the years to wait for this years Mac Pro, and have been Extremely Disappointed. Been Let down by the Previous trashcan which no one wanted. and have left little choice in cobbling together a Hackintosh or wait till Apple gets off their ass. Seems like employing thousands of people you'd want to sell as much products that people want. Apparently I'm out of the loop somehow. Think how easy it is for Apple to come up with an xMac? It'll be easy! Come on! and nope. Lame.

    A Chi..(Taiwanese) company should give apple a middle finger and make some wheels for the thing for $20. and a stand for $50.
    dysamoriawilliamlondon
  • Reply 132 of 233

    So now the question becomes — with this huge leap in hardware performance, is the software up to the task?

    I still think there should be a "Pro" Finder option in much the same as there's a "Simple" option. Finder needs a serious makeover.
  • Reply 133 of 233
    M68000M68000 Posts: 719member
    I have to recognize the first comment by LKRUPP, no need to explain.  Those who can afford it and want it will buy it.  It's that simple.  Do you think a Rolls-Royce for $300,000 which is basically handmade is overpriced?   I would likely never buy one if I could afford it, but to somebody who can afford and wants it, more power to them.    I will say it would be nice to see a "mini" version of this design in a $3000 price point to replace the outgoing cylinder model...
    fastasleep
  • Reply 134 of 233
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    rain22 said:
    MacPro said:
    rain22 said:
    It's overpriced. Let me explain...

    100% of professionals are looking for a powerful computer that they can upgrade/expand over time. 
    99.99% of professionals did not ask for this extremely expensive specific video editing computer. 
    99.99% of professionals will not buy this extremely expensive specific video editing computer. 
    Therefore - the Mac Pro is in every way overpriced for the professional market. 

    Pointing to the .02% of professionals who might want this and making an argument in their support while ignoring pretty much the entire market... that's a stretch.
    Have you checked on what major production studios pay for cameras and lenses?  Of course it's too expensive for the smaller guys but it isn't aimed at them.  I suspect Apple probably wanted this for themselves and Apple TV + production too.  Meanwhile, yes it would be nice if there were a mid range tower for the small guys but the iMac i9 5K and iMac Pro  are not too shabby.
    I bought a few of this years maxed out iMac's after they announced this Mac Pro Enterprise. So did my peers in the industry (Branding/Creative). 
    We are also buying a windows box to start looking into migrating as many other agencies already have. 
    After 26 years - it looks like Apple will be shown the door if they don't release a proper Mac for professionals that serves Small/Medium sized businesses in the next 3 years. (After these iMac have been written down). 

    There is no excuse for Apple to cater to .001% of the market and claim "There you go - we love Pro's seeeeee..."
    It's such a massive 'miss' that we are seriously looking at Windows. 



    "After 26 years - it looks like Apple will be shown the door if they don't release a proper Mac for professionals that serves Small/Medium sized businesses in the next 3 years."

    That's called the iMac Pro.  Or if you want, you can get the baseline Mac Pro and upgrade as your needs change / expand.

    I understand it hasn't made business sense to produce and market the MMHM (Mythical Midrange Headless Mac) given an overview of the SKU's they made and of the market in years past, however much a real segment of the most dedicated Mac users would have loved it. 

    However, with the way the lines have matured and the greater degree of segmentation in the Mac market today - including now this amazing new Mac Pro at the top of the line - it may finally be time, business-wise as well as user-wise to profitably fill out the "configurable" headless line with a machine positioned between the Mac Mini and Mac Pro.

    1. Such a machine certainly wouldn't cannibalize sales of MacBooks in any way.

    2. iMacs are not at the heart of the Mac line anymore, although for the less geeky DIY set they now have their own upgrade path (to the iMac Pro).  So they might lose a few iMac sales, but net net at this point with the current lineup I feel this machine would be poised to help grow the overall Mac market, and some of them would probably find jobs as mid-range servers.  

    3. There's now a hole in the lineup between the Mac Mini and the new Pro that didn't exist two weeks ago.  An MMHM would provide a natural growth path for smaller businesses, individual pros and smaller divisions within larger enterprises, from the Mini through this proposed MMHM to the Pro.

    As for the specs - e.g., i9 type hardware vs. something higher, max RAM, video card options I'm not sophisticated enough to be certain, but a machine in the $2-4,000 range (with options to around the starting price of the pro) with performance able to exceed that available in the iMac Pro at the top of the options seems like a good target.

    Or maybe the wait will go on for yet more years.  Schadenfreude abounds.....
  • Reply 135 of 233
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    jmulchino said:
    You bet I don’t like your complaint! You basically called anyone who posts on this subject and disagrees with you as a “whiner”. What gives? This is an easy counter point. “Oh, they’re just whiners!” Dismiss them right away. As an aside I bet this topic will get a lot of miles from intelligent posts. Are you going to label all of them? How do you decide who is whining andu who isn’t. I think I know. 
    I can say without bias that you’re whining.  100% on point with it.  Not sure there’s enough cheese in the world to supply with all that whine you’re giving.
    pscooter63
  • Reply 136 of 233
    dysamoria said:


    dysamoria said:
    rain22 said:
    It's overpriced. Let me explain...

    100% of professionals are looking for a powerful computer that they can upgrade/expand over time. 
    99.99% of professionals did not ask for this extremely expensive specific video editing computer. 
    99.99% of professionals will not buy this extremely expensive specific video editing computer. 
    Therefore - the Mac Pro is in every way overpriced for the professional market. 

    Pointing to the .02% of professionals who might want this and making an argument in their support while ignoring pretty much the entire market... that's a stretch.
    Nope.

    It is overpriced for you, and that's fine. It is not overpriced when compared to equivalent Windows Workstation machines, which is what this article is all about.
    This article is about missing the point in Apple’s PR favor. The upset isn’t about Apple selling a corporate-only monster workstation. The upset is that Apple have abandoned a significant percentage of their own customers by making a machine that is only affordable for big business.

    You’re just creating distraction by finding similar Windows workstations to compare against (while making illogical commentary about wheels vs Windows licensing, and acting like those of us angry at Apple for this aren’t also angry at Microsoft for their insane pricing: creating straw man arguments!).

    In doing that, you’re utterly ignoring the real issue: prosumers, hobbyists, small businesses, etc CAN BUY a NON-Apple machine that is scaled for their needs and their financial situation. Apple has NO SUCH PRODUCT, and has rebranded the “pro” labeling to excise their own customers (and to useless inconsistency, when seeing what else gets the “pro” word thrown on it). Apple has left people with NO OPTION but to either abandon Mac OS or build hackintoshes. THAT IS THE ISSUE.
    Also, you’ve completely missed the point of the wheels vs OS license. The wheels are a $400 optional piece of added hardware, which outrages you. The license is a $300 mandatory add-on, which doesn’t outrage you,
    What are you talking about??? YES that OS licensing price outrages me!! I said as much in other comments!! Instead of trying to find ways of talking down to me, or dismissing me as an irrelevance, maybe you should pay more attention to the content of my comments.
    If both outrage you, then why on earth are you claiming AI made an illogical commentary? It’s not illogical at all — workstations from either side of the aisle have line items for things you need to pay for. For the MP it’s optional wheels, for the Windows workstation it’s a mandatory license. 

    This isn’t difficult.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 137 of 233
    DRBDRB Posts: 34member
    lkrupp said:
    There is absolutely no need to explain the price of the Mac Pro to anyone. The market it was built for knows full well the value of the machine. As usual the tech media is hell bent on spinning this as another example of Apple’s “overpriced” hardware. There’s already a video on YouTube by some complete dimwit claiming the Hackintosh he built outperforms the Mac Pro for a quarter of the price. Stupid is as stupid does. The complaints here in AI are from sub-Pro hobbyists and so-called Prosumers who thought they would get a tower with slots starting at $1999.00.
    This isn't another example of spinning Apple's "overpriced" hardware. They are trying to bust the myth that Apple's "overpriced". Yes, you are correct in that there are different groups of people that like to create myths concerning Apple's pricing for the MacPro, but this article is busting that myth by comparing Apple's pricing for the MacPro to the HP Z Station, which is a close competitor for a high end PC workstation.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 138 of 233
    So if you add up the price of all the components and do enough contortions you can make the claim that the Mac Pro is not overpriced. But that is only if you accept the argument that it is somehow a workstation for professionals and should be compared on that ground. However we all know that real workstations can be configured to the needs of the professional that is using it. What if that professional NEEDS a NVIDIA GPU to do their work? What if there is no possible way to use an AMD GPU to do that work? I guess the professional will have to go buy a real workstation without an Apple logo.
  • Reply 139 of 233
    robjnrobjn Posts: 280member
    If you compare the spec of the $5999 base model Mac Pro with the $4999 base model iMac Pro - the iMac Pro has 4 times the storage, a slightly faster GPU and a built in 5K display. From this point of view the iMac Pro is far better value and the Mac Pro is over-priced.

    However, an iMac Pro cannot easily have parts replaced. Perhaps after 5 years or so the entire computer may need replacing just because a RAM module or graphics card has developed a fault.

    In contrast, the Mac Pro can be upgraded and repaired indefinitely. In 10 years time a Mac Pro purchased today may still be getting the job done, albeit with upgraded or repaired internals. The upgradability factor is certainly worth a premium and may even offer better value over the long term.
  • Reply 140 of 233
    jmulchino said:

    "You reap what you sew.
    Sew what?
    fastasleep
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