tht

MacPro said:

madan said:

MacPro said:

madan said:

Unfortunately, the Mac Pro has a distinct issue on its value curve.  It's a horrible value system at its base price, that quickly ramps in value as the price becomes astronomical.

At its 6000 USD base price tag, the computer is a joke.  The base Xeon it has was about 1200 bucks (on release).  It was blessed with 240 dollars of ECC RAM (on release).  It had a nice, airflow-centric case to be sure.  Good cases that are solid steel/aluminum are, often, 200-300 USD.  Even if we counted the Mac Pro's case as a 500 dollar case, and counted its M.2 storage in the default model as 240 dollars, we'd still be sitting at 3000 dollars for the system.  The Radeon 580 is a naught 200 dollar card (even on release).  

That means you're paying effectively ~ 3000 dollars for a power supply and motherboard.  Which is kinda nuts.  I mean the power supply itself is about 200 bucks at most (actually less) and the fans can't be more than 100 bucks.  So you're buying a, albeit ultra bleeding edge, motherboard for 2700 USD, which is highway robbery.

Yes, the special component of the Mac Pro isn't the CPU or the GPU (although the Mac Pro can top out with sky-high Xeons and absolutely monstrous Arcturus-precursor dual Vega 2s), it's the motherboard.  The base system doesn't ship with any of that super hardware though.  Yes, the motherboard accommodates 1.5 TB of ECC RAM.  Yes it has the ability to run almost a dozen bus lanes for TB 3.  Yes, it accommodates both power via the port and via adapter for gpus.  Yes the Pro Vega 2 is a beast of a card, dwarfing the Radeon VII's already ludicrous 16 GB of HBM2.  But you get NONE of that with a 6000 dollar base system.

With a 6000 dollar base system, you get an amazing motherboard, that might never be used.  You get a low-end Xeon that is outperformed by most Core i9s (Xeon reliability is worth 800 dollars?!).  You get a gpu that is budget by today's standards (the MacBook Pro's Vega gpu is about as fast as a 565-570 which itself is only 10-15% slower than the Mac Pro's 580...).  And a bunch of super components like psus and the like that may never be used unless you upgrade them yourself down the line.

You could build a DIY computer with pretty much identical performance for less than 1500 dollars.  No, I'm not kidding.  Sure, it's not upgradeable with ECC RAM. Sure, it doesn't have 12 TB 3 lanes or 10 gigabit ether.  No, it doesn't have a ridiculously overpowered psu for a system that draws under 300 Watts.  But still, you're buying a system with such low specs all those upgradeable touches are pointless unless you spend thousands more upgrading the system anyways. 


Sure, you can get a great high end Xeon and push the RAM to 1.5 TB.  Yes, 2 Pro Vega 2s are absolutely nuts, with a max of 128 GB of HBM2 RAM.  But that system costs 50k.  The base system gets you NOTHING.  And it's 6000 USD.  For workflow alone, a computer 1/4 the price will do the job.  

So yes, the Mac Pro may be a great machine at the high end but anyone that buys it in the low end better not convince themselves they're getting a super computer because it's a budget system, at most and they're paying between 4-10x as much for the privilege of the Apple emblem.

I agree the base config is not ideal.  I am hoping it is possible for DIY RAM upgrade as I don't want to may Apple RAM prices and I am used to 64 GB in the trash can so I'd want at least that and the GPU choice is still open in my mind until I see pricing but I suspect even the base is a leap from my dual AMD Firepros.  8 or 12 core would be enough for me for sure.  That all said in five years this machine will still be totally configurable an iMac Pro isn't.

You can totally upgrade the RAM and GPU yourself.  The problem is anything worthy of that motherboard is going to run you thousands of dollars.  Which means you're looking at an 8k system.  Again, that kind of workflow lends itself to mission-critical server work, not prosumer production.  The Radeon 580 is about 20% more than the D700s in the old Mac Pro.  That's it.  Sure, you only have one gpu so the support is probably better but a Radeon 580 is a budget card.  If you move to a Pro Vega 2, you're looking at least a 1000 dollar increase in price.  That's because the card is basically an up-RAMMED Radeon VII which MSRPed at 700 USD.  It's basically an mi60 on steroids.

In 6 years, the system's CPU will be woefully underpowered.  The GPU will be upgradeable.  But you're paying almost 10,000 USD for the privilege if you do it correctly.

Won't the CPU be upgradeable, is it soldered in? That would be a shame of epic proportions.

madan said:

I'm not trying to make it hard on anyone.  But I am trying to clear things up so people know what they're getting into.  Buyers remorse sucks.  It would be a shame to spend 8k on a computer and find out that it competes unfavorably with a 5k iMac Pro.

rwx9901 said:

I don't know that you can get 0-50% charge on an 18W charger. You can with a 45W.

fastasleep said:

You're assuming that most people think the same way as you. They don't, which is why Apple still sells a shit ton of Macs and has the customer sat ratings that it enjoys. My 2018 MBP is my favorite Mac ever, and yes, I've used them since the 9" b&w screen.