toddzrx

VRing said:

macxpress said:

randominternetperson said:

Anyone know the price breakdown for the major components of this?  $5K is huge money, and critics will be all about the "Apple tax."  It would help to know that the processor costs $x, the video card costs $x, the 1TB SSD costs $x, etc.  Presumably Apple is earning a margin of near 30%, so I expect these components are surprisingly expensive (adding up to well over $3000).

Many have tried to build a similar PC and have failed to do a fair comparison. The graphics cards in them are brand new (I think the reason for the Dec availability) as well as the Xeon processors are also new. Those alone are quite expensive. Since people cannot get their hands on these new AMD Vega/Vega Pro graphics they're trying to compare a PC with dual 1080TI graphics cards and thats not really a fair comparison in the end. Same goes for the CPU...many are just comparing the highest end current Core i7 which again, isn't a fair comparison. Even then, they come to about $4500 if I remember correctly. Again, that doesn't count in the design costs, assembly, shipping, sales costs, support costs, etc.

Apple did one during the keynote with an HP Workstation and it was over $7,000. I think we'll have to wait a little bit when the parts become fully available for the public.

What many fail to factor in when calculating a cost is the R&D, engineering, making the software all work efficiently, the OS, and any apps included, assembly, shipping, retail, support costs, etc. These are all factored into the cost of any product, yet people just go on PC Part Picker and price out the parts and think thats a fair comparison when its not.

Apple iMac Pro ($5000)

Intel Xeon (8 core / 16 thread)
32 GB DDR4-2666 ECC
1TB SSD
Radeon Pro Vega 56 - 8 GB HBM2

DIY PC ($3090 - everything except for a monitor, keyboard, mouse and OS)

AMD Threadripper 1950X (16 core / 32 thread)
32 GB DDR4-2133 ECC 
1TB Samsung 960 EVO
Radeon Vega Frontier Edition (Vega 64) - 16 GB HBM2

pcpartpicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NGV9sJ

The DIY build has a better CPU and GPU than the iMac Pro.

By the time the iMac Pro launches, there will be even more price drops and other new products only a month or so away (look to CES).

entropys said:

Just make it the features of an 8 in the SE size. Instant buy.
and by that I mean an A11 chip, camera, force touch, etc. basically an iPhone 8 in a smaller form factor. The only meaningful difference would be size.

cali said:

The real surprise will be the design. hopefully an SE in a 6 shell.

bloggerblog said:

d_2 said:

I truly weep for the generations to come that will have no idea what driving an automobile with a real, gasoline engine feels like... and somehow this is progress

This is phenomenal progress in all its glory. Electric beats gasoline in every category from simplicity to safety to performance to autonomy. The oil industry went through great lengths to silence electric, until Musk slapped that industry across the face.