VRing

bcubed1979 said:

High performance Macs are essential to create hot new games, VR experiences, mobile apps, etc... Developers need good tools. Why should Apple abandon this segment causing it to drift to other platforms?

Workstation market share in Q4 2016:


It's very difficult for Apple to compete with Windows/Linux workstations in terms of variety and versatility. I also think Apple is chose the wrong partner with AMD for graphics, NVIDIA would have been a better option.

An additional excerpt from the Q3 2017 report:

Workstations set another quarterly volume record, up 10.3% in Q3’17

The third quarter of 2017 did not disappoint, on the contrary showing solid year-over-year (YoY) growth that continues to shine among its sibling PC-based client markets. All told, around 1.25 million workstations shipped in Q3'17, marking a 10.2% YoY gain and comparing to a Gartner-reported 3.6% decline in the overall PC market. Sequentially, the quarter's 4.6% gain is in the neighborhood of typical, historical Q3 figures. Both the unit and revenue volume set quarterly records, with revenue at around $2.36 billion.

Bullish numbers provide more evidence of the different characteristics of the workstation market leading to the contrast in the relative markets’ fortunes. Where mainstream PC buyers are increasingly reaching “good enough” levels of computing with current PCs or alternative devices, lengthening replacement cycles, buyers of workstations continue to value generation-to-generation incremental improvements in features and improvements, with expectations of increasing productivity. 

Any chance you guys can try SPEC workstation benchmarks?

https://www.spec.org/benchmarks.html

This would allow for a more realistic work environment, as well, it would provide us with some useful values for comparisons.

Although, based off the initial results of both the CPU and GPU at load, the system definitely throttles.

lkrupp said:

VRing said:

lkrupp said:

AppleInsider said:

Customers who can afford its $4,999 pricetag may now be able to find the 8-core base model of the iMac Pro in some U.S. Apple stores, ready for pickup.

Why do we keep with the narrative that this machine might be purchased by common users? Why do we keep mentioning the price? The real professional who makes a living with a machine like this one will pay the price. And it’s not too expensive when you consider what’s inside the beast. I’m surprised AI or someone else hasn’t priced out a PC with the exact same specs and 5K monitor, if such an animal even exists. 

You can't price out the exact same specs.  The CPU and GPU are down clocked versions of their off the shelf counterparts. 

For example, the Vega 64 iMac Pro is outputting about the same TFLOPS as the off the shelf Vega 56. So it's not going to be a tit-for-tat comparison.

If you want to price out a DIY desktop, you can easily build a better one for less than the iMac Pro.

Pre-built computers become a bit more complicated, again, because of the availability of parts and the fact the iMac Pro is using weaker components.

Oh, and a “professional” is going build a DYI with off the self parts? How productive and cost effective would that be? As for your claim that you can ‘easily’ build a better one for less, that tripe has been debunked many times by people who have tried and failed to do it. There is no Apple ‘tax’ on this machine at this level. 

The DIY route is more for the prosumer, or at home computers. For that matter, a professional probably won't buy a prosumer all-in-one computer like the iMac Pro. They'll likely buy an ISV certified workstation with a 3 year on-site warranty, potentially purchased through an IT department from HP, Lenovo or Dell.

As for easily building a better computer, well, here's a prebuilt to compare:

iMac Pro - $7999

Intel Xeon W-2150B (10 core) <-- Downclocked from regular W-2155
AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 16 GB HBM2 (up to 4 displays) <-- Downclocked from regular Vega 64
64 GB DDR4-2666 ECC
2 TB PCIe M.2 SSD
10 Gb Ethernet
macOS
1 year warranty

GMT-W7/300 (source) - $5,639

Intel Xeon W-2155 (10 core)
AMD Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB HBM2 (up to 6 displays)
64 GB DDR4-2666 ECC
2 TB PCIe M.2 SSD
2x 10 Gb Ethernet
Windows 10 Pro
1 year warranty

That leaves $2,360 for a monitor, keyboard and mouse. As for the display, something like the new 2018 5K LG Nano IPS display would be better than the iMac Pro's display (same as the LG UltraFine 5K). Or you can drop the resolution and go for a Dell UP2718K with local dimming (not edge-lit).

The end result is a desktop that's more powerful and won't suffer from throttling like the iMac Pro. It also has a better display (or options for different display configurations depending on the work required).

The DIY route would go with something like Threadripper which is even more powerful than the Xeon W-2155 and offers 64 PCIe lanes.

I also want to note, if ECC RAM is not needed, an i9-7900X is identical to the W-2155. So the cost savings and options grow considerably.

lkrupp said:

AppleInsider said:

Customers who can afford its $4,999 pricetag may now be able to find the 8-core base model of the iMac Pro in some U.S. Apple stores, ready for pickup.

Why do we keep with the narrative that this machine might be purchased by common users? Why do we keep mentioning the price? The real professional who makes a living with a machine like this one will pay the price. And it’s not too expensive when you consider what’s inside the beast. I’m surprised AI or someone else hasn’t priced out a PC with the exact same specs and 5K monitor, if such an animal even exists. 

You can't price out the exact same specs.  The CPU and GPU are down clocked versions of their off the shelf counterparts. 

For example, the Vega 64 iMac Pro is outputting about the same TFLOPS as the off the shelf Vega 56. So it's not going to be a tit-for-tat comparison.

If you want to price out a DIY desktop, you can easily build a better one for less than the iMac Pro.

Pre-built computers become a bit more complicated, again, because of the availability of parts and the fact the iMac Pro is using weaker components.

knowitall said:

Reminds me of ‘VW defeat device scandal’.

The end result was a performance loss and a certain amount of money back.

Both Apple and VW only acted after getting caught. If not they would have both continued without the consumer's knowledge.