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This is Apple's answer to their negligence to the Pro market, and it's hugely disappointing. The iMac was already supposed to be a Pro machine. And then they "

• goodroot 9y ago
  Why do you assume that heat ventilation will be an issue with the iMac Pro?
  • WalterSear 9y ago
    * 8 Core Intel Xeon * Radeon Vega graphics * 500 Watt power supply
  • sp332 9y ago
    They mentioned this during the product announcement. It has completely different cooling, with dual centrifugal fans. http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-wwdc-2017-keynote-liveblog/images/DSC00077.JPG http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-wwdc-2017-keynote-liveblo... (From the Ars liveblog http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-wwdc-2017-keynote-liveblog/ http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-wwdc-2017-keynote-liveblo... )
    • foobarbazetc 9y ago
      Anyone buying a $5000 rev 1 Apple product knows what's going to happen...
      • greedo 9y ago
        The liquid cooled Mac Pro G5 I used to own agrees with you...
  • toufka 9y ago
    Let's take all the heat issues from the traschan pro, strap on a 5k display and put it into a consumer-level shell. Yeah... heat will be a problem.
    • rbanffy 9y ago
      The "consumer-level" shell is a 27" Aluminum heatsink.
      • disconnected 9y ago
        You mistyped "frying pan".
      • masklinn 9y ago
        Flat aluminum is not a heatsink, you need surface to shed heat, which is why heatsinks generally have fins and the like. Flat aluminum sheds heat better than plastic but it's not very good at it.
        • rbanffy 9y ago
          > Flat aluminum sheds heat better than plastic but it's not very good at it. That's why it is a 27" heatsink instead of a 2" one. Most of the heat is going to be moved out by the dual fans anyway. The Aluminum will dissipate what it picks up from the moving air before it leaves the chassis by the side vents.
• rayiner 9y ago
  If it's an 8-core Xeon, it's gotta be an E5. So the CPU alone could run $2,000 (pricing for E5 2667 v4, this probably uses an equivalent Skylake Xeon which isn't out yet).
  • strictnein 9y ago
    Intel is slashing their multicore processor prices in response to AMD. https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i9-Announced-18-core-Skylake-X-Kaby-Lake-X-and-X299 https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i9-Annou... Sure, you'll be looking at non-ECC, but other than that, you'll be crushing the new iMac Pro in price to performance.
    • rayiner 9y ago
      Who would use non-ECC memory in a box designed for content creation?
      • strictnein 9y ago
        A lot (almost all?) of the people who are currently running hackintoshes for content creation. Since that's what the original post was comparing this to. Not a lot of Xeon Hackintoshes out there. Typically just i7s.
    • rgbrenner 9y ago
      I didn't downvote you.. but is Intel really dropping prices? I put a i7 7700k in my pc several months ago (days after Intel released it... before AMDs announcement IIRC), and it's the same price today as it was then.
      • strictnein 9y ago
        I guess it would have been more accurate to say that they're slashing prices on their upcoming multicore i9 line: https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i9-Announced-18-core-Skylake-X-Kaby-Lake-X-and-X299 https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i9-Annou... $599 for an 8 core processor, for instance. Last model, the i7-6900K, would have been over $1k.
• mpweiher 9y ago
  > This is Apple's answer to their negligence to the Pro market, Nah, this is the stopgap they talked about when they had their "Come to Jesus" meeting with bloggers. A real big boxy Mac Pro is supposed to come after 2017. Pre-announced, which Apple never does. See: https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives EDIT: They didn't actually say 2018, just "not in 2017"
  • toufka 9y ago
    Are you sure there will be an actual Mac Pro later? This iMac Pro seems to be their 'Pro' desktop offering.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • mpweiher 9y ago
      "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future". But this is what Apple said: "These next-gen Mac Pros and pro displays “will not ship this year”. (I hope that means “next year”, but all Apple said was “not this year”.) In the meantime, Apple is today releasing meager speed-bump updates to the existing Mac Pros. The $2999 model goes from 4 Xeon CPU cores to 6, and from dual AMD G300 GPUs to dual G500 GPUs. The $3999 model goes from 6 CPU cores to 8, and from dual D500 GPUs to dual D800 D700 GPUs. Nothing else is changing, including the ports. No USB-C, no Thunderbolt 3 (and so no support for the LG UltraFine 5K display). But more good news, too: Apple has “great” new iMacs in the pipeline, slated for release “this year”, including configurations specifically targeted at large segments of the pro market." From the article I linked.
  • mysterydip 9y ago
    Then why release anything now? Who is this for, if pros will wait for the "real" one and consumers already have one? Will the "stopgap" model be around/supported in two years?
    • comex 9y ago
• accountyaccount 9y ago
  You know what pros want? the same inability to upgrade the Mac Pro but also attach the monitor
• kharms 9y ago
  >That description means the new all-in-one machine will rival the current Mac Pro which will be replaced with a modular version in the future.
• rbanffy 9y ago
  > and does not vent heat well enough They made it a point that the heat dissipation capacity is sufficient, 80% more than the non-pro iMac. edit: updated from the press-release.
  • colept 9y ago
    I have used both a thick iMac and a thin one. I had to run the thick iMac's fans at full speed all the time or else my CPU would bottleneck. The thin iMac had underpowered fans and constantly throttled.
  • hocuspocus 9y ago
    Fried GPUs in the Macbook Pro line is a running gag at this point. Many iMac models have shown overheating issues as well. And I'm sure they were all supposed to have "sufficient" heat dissipation :) I'd give Apple the benefit of the doubt here, but not with my own money, and with an AppleCare.
    • floatboth 9y ago
      iMac overheating? idk, when I had a 2013 27" I was able to overclock the GPU a lot and had no heat issues whatsoever
• Volt 9y ago
  >This is Apple's answer to their negligence to the Pro market No it isn't. >The iMac was already supposed to be a Pro machine. Not it wasn't. The iMac was always decidedly the consumer desktop. The pro machine actually had "Pro" in its name.
  • gaius 9y ago
    The pro machine actually had "Pro" in its name. All "pro" means in Apple-marketing-speak is "deluxe" these days. You can clearly see it in the MBP where they have traded off features that professional users wanted, for thinness that noone in that market cares about. Make it 5mm thicker or even 10mm for 32 or 64G RAM and everyone would have been delighted.
    • ericd 9y ago
      Yep, I wanted exactly two things in the MBP on the last refresh: 32+ gigs of RAM, and an nVidia GPU.
• 013a 9y ago
  How about we wait until we know more about it and their future Mac Pro plans before passing judgement, hm?
  • thrill 9y ago
    Once something is announced then criticism of it is fair game.
• drecoe 9y ago
  "In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest-end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display." See: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerful-mac-arrives-december/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerfu...
• Simulacra 9y ago
  Agreed. Another computer I could never afford
• Simulacra 9y ago
  Agreed. Another computer I could never afford
• usaphp 9y ago
  > At $5000 the iMac Pro falls just short of a ~$2000 Hackintosh A 5k Monitor alone costs around $800-1000 and does not compare in quality to Apple displays, 8 core xeon + motherboard are another 800$, it's already around $1600-1800 - and its not taking SSD and Video card and Ram into account...
  • ganoushoreilly 9y ago
    I don't know about quality not being comparative, the LG panels are great, the real difference is they're not in an Apple aluminum package.
    • usaphp 9y ago
      LG's 5K display costs $1299.
      • FireBeyond 9y ago
        This is the standard Apple argument, "You can't get things like this at all". "Well, what about competitors, X, Y and Z?" "Well, you can get things like this, but they might cost more." You're the one that said "5k screens cost $800-$1000 and they're inferior". The retort to that is not to say "Well, that monitor costs $1300". It's like you're only looking to acknowledge cheaper and inferior competitors and stick your fingers in your ears when challenged.
        • Karunamon 9y ago
          This is the standard rebuttal to the standard Apple argument. "Why not just build a machine out of individual parts X Y and Z for $nnn less than Apple's price"? It completely ignores, at a minimum: - Apple vertical integration - All-in-one support/replacement - The OS Yes, you can technically build a machine with equivalent hardware specs for some $dollars less. The target market is probably not interested in doing so, and they wouldn't get OS X anyways without hacking, which is half of the freakin' point. Someone editing 4K+ video on Final Cut professionally wants a machine that runs Final Cut (which eliminates non-Macs), has the hardware to meet that use case, and that they don't have to screw with or have randomly break with updates (which eliminates Hackintoshes). We all agree with this yes? Has Mac hardware carried a premium over equivalent specced individual parts since forever? You know the answer. The target market for the computer does. not. care. Can we please not relitigate tired Mac-vs-PC arguments that are old enough to drink? They've never been relevant or interesting.
• coldtea 9y ago
  >This is Apple's answer to their negligence to the Pro market, and it's hugely disappointing. Of course it is. It's always damned if they do, damned if they don't. >The iMac was already supposed to be a Pro machine. And then they "New Coke"'d it by making it too thin and susceptible to overheating. Performance suffered and now they're compensating with this machine. Actually it was never supposed to be a Pro machine, all the way back to the very star (Bondi blue / flower power personal machines, the ones with the flexible neck, etc.). It's just that at some point it got so powerful, and the pro line was neglected, so it was used as a pro machine too (and was good enough for most use cases, e.g. graphic designers). >The iMac was already supposed to be a Pro machine. And then they "New Coke"'d it by making it too thin and susceptible to overheating. Performance suffered and now they're compensating with this machine. Performance never suffered with the iMac line. It's the most consistently updated line of computers Apple has. The Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, Mini and Air were neglected for years, but not the iMac. And this is not a response to "the iMac's use as a pro suffered because of its thinness". It's a response to "we fucked up the Mac Pro and we're throwing a bone to the Pro market, until 2018 will bring a redesigned Mac Pro". >At $5000 the iMac Pro falls just short of a ~$2000 Hackintosh. Well, this is not a Hackintosh. This is the real thing. Even a sole 27" inch 5K screen like it has would take you back $2K in itself.
• ericd 9y ago
  Does that $2k hackintosh have a Xeon, ECC RAM, and a (presumably based on their history) great 5k monitor? Because a good Xeon E5 can easily cost $2k by itself.
• calibration263 9y ago
  +1TB 960 Pro SSD : $600 +8 core Xeon E5 could go anywhere from $500 to $2000+ depending on clock rate and generation. + Pricing on Vega hasn't been announced yet, but the Apple keynote mentioned 11 Teraflops, which is competitive with a GTX 1080Ti. Say AMD undercuts that, and it's $700. + A X99 motherboard will run you around $300. + A 10G network card is another $200 at least. + 32GB of DDR4 2666 ECC is about $400. A 5k panel off newegg(only one I see) is $2000, but I know you can at a minimum buy the LG one off apples site which is $1300. That brings you up to $4000 as a low estimate(lower end E5, 16GB of RAM, low estimate on GPU). You'll still need to throw in a power supply($150 at least), a case(Say $100), most likely cooling for the CPU and case fans(Another $100), mouse and keyboard(Say $100 for nice but not great). That gets you up to at least $4,450, and it's unlikely you'll have 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports, a card for that likely won't be cheap either. So $5k for this, depending on Vega pricing, and what CPU is actually in there, sounds fairly reasonable. That all said I don't need server hardware, and you probably also don't. $2k on a i7 7700K or i5 7600K, a GTX 1070 - GTX 1080TI, a 512 850 Evo, a 1440p panel, 16GB of non-ECC ram, is what feels like the price/performance sweet spot right now, and Apple isn't in that market. That doesn't mean though this product is overpriced.