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New Mac Pro
- vbezhenar 7y agoThat price is just absurd. I waited for Mac Pro announcement to decide whether I'll stay with Windows or jump to macOS. Macbooks are not for me, but I hoped for a remotely reasonable priced computer, something like $2000 with another $1000 to expand with more memory, etc. But $6000 for 8-core CPU, 256 GB SSD, GPU that is less powerful than my old $200 NVidia 1060? It's just laughable. Otherwise seems like a good machine. But not at this price. Probably configuration that I would like to have will be something around $10k and I'll build this configuration for $3k myself.
- dcow 7y agoBut where are you going to find a quality $1000 stand for your display?
- _bxg1 7y agoThis is the one aspect that was truly ridiculous. When that number was quoted you could hear the crowd pause in disbelief, followed by a rumble of conversation interspersed with laughter. From The Verge: > Still, all hope isn’t lost: we also don’t know how robust the box that the Pro Display XDR comes in is. It’s entirely plausible that you’ll just be able to prop up the $5,999 display with a hunk of cardboard or by leaning it up against a wall. Just be careful not to drop it.
- dllu 7y agoIt's competing against machines such as the Boxx dual-CPU workstations, which start at $8000 [1]. I can see movie studios and such shelling out the big bucks to buy these for their 3D modellers, but only the super rich would buy one for themselves. [1] https://www.boxx.com/systems/workstations/d-class https://www.boxx.com/systems/workstations/d-class
- opencl 7y agoIt's also competing against machines such as their own iMac Pro whose base model is the $1000 cheaper and has 4x the storage and a faster GPU aside from the built in 5K monitor. That $8000 base model Boxx workstation has 20 cores instead of 8, 50% more RAM, and twice the storage.
- shawnz 7y agoCompeting on what, markup? What advantage does this hardware give for movie studios when consumer grade hardware outperforms it?
- PascLeRasc 7y agoIt runs macOS and those consumer grade computers don't. If the best colorist in the area is working on your film, you give them the tools they ask for.
- MagicPropmaker 7y agoThe color graders here run 10-bit/color HDR monitors that have a wide gamut. Apple doesn't have monitors that support this. (The new one _might_ do the trick; we'll see.) Everyone here doing professional color work is on PCs supplied by Thinkmate. This is standard in Hollywood, too.
- PascLeRasc 7y agoInteresting, thanks for the info! It's probably obvious I don't know anything about filmmaking, audio's my domain.
- boopk 7y agoThe new ones aren't great you need a broadcast monitor that will show how things look for broadcast and not a computer.
- bscphil 7y agoWow, is that really true? Given Apple's popularity among creatives I assumed their top end monitors were HDR10 or better. That's really shocking.
- swah 7y agoBut your build doesn't run macOS.... that's all that matters for so many folks. (I aggree - I feel like maybe I will never be able to afford or justify a Mac-based system in my 3rd world country...)
- goda90 7y agoStrides have been made in virtualizing macOS, so that might not be holding people back much anymore.
- StillBored 7y agoLegally, when not run on apple hardware? Its not like people haven't been able to run it illegally in a vm for at least a decade. That was one of the preferred ways of running it if your machine didn't have the exact correct hardware requirements back when I paid attention to such things.
- chaostheory 7y agoMacOS is what keeps me on Apple for now, but this box is not the answer everyone is looking for. People just want an affordable desktop that you can easily expand over time. At $6000 just for the starting model, in my head I'm already planning to move back to Windows. The only major thing I might miss is iCloud. The cheese grater lineup is still the best incarnation of the Mac Pro overall. People don't want to be forced to buy an integrated screen, nor do they want a headless laptop, and not everyone can live with a laptop alone. In other words, I don't want a semi-powerful machine trapped in amber or a larger version of an iPhone / iPad. I just have to figure out a good replacement for iCloud and its related apps.
- rayiner 7y ago> People just want an affordable desktop that you can easily expand over time. Who wants that? You can tell what people want based on what’s selling in the market. Most people want a laptop. Most of the rest want a Word/Excel machine. A small minority want an expandable desktop.
- vesrah 7y agoHow does the Mac Mini not meet what you're asking for?
- vbezhenar 7y agoI want tower case, silent and performant. I want powerful GPU for few games I'm playing. I want ECC memory. I want to put one or two HDDs along with main SSD. Mac mini does not sound like something I would like to use. I don't need small size, I have enough room. I don't need portability, I work from one place.
- fooey 7y agoI don't know why people still keep waiting for Apple to support gaming in any way at all. Worse than just not supporting gaming, they're antagonistically blocking companies like Nvidia who tried to fill in the gap with external GPUs. https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management-doesnt-want-nvidia-support-in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management... If you want to game, you buy Windows, end of story.
- vbezhenar 7y agoBlizzard released a lot of games for macOS. Also I played Rimworld, Factorio recently and those games seems to have Mac version as well. I'm not very involved gamer, I just play sometimes and it seems that Mac supports almost all games I need.
- mcphage 7y ago> Blizzard released a lot of games for macOS. Also I played Rimworld, Factorio recently and those games seems to have Mac version as well. I don't think any of those games are GPU intensive. Blizzard seems to want their games to run on as many machines as possible, and Rimworld and Factorio are both 2D.
- 7y ago
- CoolGuySteve 7y agoSame here, I'm looking to build a machine to process large data sets. So far nothing can beat Linux on an EPYC or ThreadRipper on price/performance. It would cost half as much for a 1TB NVMe SSD, RTX 2080, at least 16 cores, etc. The only reason I'm even waiting is because Zen 2 is right around the corner. The 256GB SSD is so confusing. The price difference between a 970 EVO 256GB and a 970 EVO 512GB for example is only $50 (I couldn't even find a 256GB 970 PRO or 980). Are they really that desperate for margin on a machine this expensive? The lack of NVidia is also strange, do the AMD cards in this config even support Tensorflow?
- vbezhenar 7y agoI think that Nvidia will release cards for this Mac. May be even existing ones will fit. There are PCI-E ports there after all.
- Rebelgecko 7y agoWill they be able to release drivers with the new kext situation? They still don't even have drivers to use their newer cards in Mojave
- mises 7y agoHere's to hoping. Maybe I can finally get my nvidia card working on my hackintosh laptop.
- vbezhenar 7y agoFor me it's win-win situation for Apple. They help Nvidia with drivers, more people buy Mac Pro to use Nvidia GPU. I have no idea why Apple don't want to work with Nvidia. They are not selling desktop GPU after all. May be they have some hidden agreements with AMD.
- penagwin 7y agoWell obviously they have agreements with AMD. Apple gets special treatment from AMD/Intel/Nvidia, they get to see unrevealed roadmaps, custom contracts etc. Whether it's an exclusivity deal or not we may never know. But it does seem strange given Nvidia cards generally have lower TDP/performance (something all macs struggle with)
- thomasjudge 7y agoWhere do you see pricing info? Or did they talk about it in the keynote?
- jakobegger 7y agoThey mentioned it in the key note. Mac Pro will start at USD 5999, Pro Display at 4999 (without stand), matte version will cost 5999, stand for display 999 or 200 for the vesa mount adapter.
- ultrarunner 7y agoI know this can be controversial but I do all my work at home on a computer I built myself for ~900 running macOS. I had a Coffee Lake processor before you could get one straight from Apple. It's fast and with three monitors, plenty of ram, and NVME storage I noticed increased productivity over a laptop with an external display. With the T2 chip this may not be an option forever, and the initial setup means it may not be an option for everyone. But right now it feels like a very stable and viable option for those who were never going to buy a $6000 cheese grater in the first place.
- reaperducer 7y agoI know this can be controversial but I do all my work at home on a computer I built myself for ~900 running macOS Awesome. It's great that you choose to do that. You're also not the target market for this product. This is a product for people and companies for whom increased performance equals increased revenue.
- saagarjha 7y agoI’d like to think that the target market is people who want performance and a computer that is stable.
- ultrarunner 7y agoI know several people who were waiting to see what Apple offered for a pro desktop machine. I replied to a comment that said "I waited for Mac Pro announcement to decide whether I'll stay with Windows or jump to macOS". The whole issue is that there is a segment of the population demanding a product that Apple is, again here, not offering. Had I been able to justify it, I could have also chosen n-core Xeon processors (some people do go this route) and I still wouldn't have been anywhere near $6000, and that's the base model here. That's obscene, and in that light I think that my original comment is relevant.
- Nelson69 7y agoThey just need some sort of minitower, a mac mini with a couple slots, a couple m.2 connectors and room for 64GB of removable memory.. I don't know why but I've thought something like that would almost be an ideal vehicle for xeon-d type parts.
- chaostheory 7y agoPeople have been begging for this for over a decade now. It doesn't take much to see demand if you look at the Hackintosh community or the eBay market for old Mac Pros.
- pfranz 7y agoThey've been purposefully avoiding the mini-tower market for decades. For whatever reason (prestige, cannibalizing other product lines, etc) they're not interested.
- Nelson69 7y agoI know, and I get it. Maybe "mini-tower" is the wrong description. It should be a maxi-cube. I'm not holding my breath for it though, the things they sell huge numbers of aren't terribly configurable or expandable and it gives them an edge that way.
- PascLeRasc 7y agoThe new Mac Pro, like Mac Pros always have been, is for music/TV studios and design agencies that bill their time starting at $500/hour. It's really not for individuals, and that's ok. Apple made a computer "just for the pros", like HN begs for in every butterfly keyboard thread. I'm thrilled about it even though I know I'll never touch one. It's for people who don't know what a CPU core is but know how to produce a platinum album, get an Oscar nomination, or bring a revolutionary industrial design to market. This is really something where the price is superfluous. I personally wish it was higher so that was more obvious.
- _bxg1 7y agoYep. For me personally, it's a reassuring signal that Apple is doubling down on macOS and professionals, and gives me hope that next year's MacBook Pro redesign won't be a disappointment.
- aczerepinski 7y agoI disagree that it’s always been this way. I bought a G4 tower when I was in college and it sure as heck wasn’t $6,000 back then. This is the only traditional desktop computer that Apple sells, so it’s disappointing that everybody outside of movie studio employees has to fall back to an iMac or a Windows/Linux machine.
- rkho 7y agoThe new Mac Minis are really powerful. What doesn't it have that you're hoping for?
- matthewmacleod 7y agoGPU for me. I’d snap one up if it had a GPU in line with that in the MacBook Pro. I don’t particularly want a large external GPU hooked up over Thunderbolt.
- aczerepinski 7y ago
- _bxg1 7y agoYou are not the target market.
- mantap 7y agoAnd who is? Who exactly is buying $13000 workstations with AMD GPUs?
- _bxg1 7y agoPixar.
- hu3 7y agoNot according to electricslpnsld: > I worked at two movie studios (Pixar, Weta Digital) and they were both almost 100% Linux with a smattering of Windows machines here and there. Apple stuff was mainly iPads for story boarding and that kind of stuff. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20088170 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20088170
- _bxg1 7y agoThe point isn't that they use Apple, it's that they would be willing to pay 5 figures for a workstation: https://schuttejoe.github.io/post/disneypostmortem/ https://schuttejoe.github.io/post/disneypostmortem/ > This image was rendered at 2048x858 with 256spp and took 3.5 hours to render. I allowed it access to 28Gb of RAM but had to estimate how much embree would use for BVH data so it occasionally would exceed that number enough that the OS would start paging.
- mantap 7y agoOf course there are people and companies willing to spend 5 figures on a workstation but most of them want Nvidia graphics. When you are paying tens of thousands of dollars you don't want to be stuck in Apple's weird AMD-only walled garden.
- robdachshund 7y agoI mean apple has always been a joke in terms of hardware and value. I wouldn't expect anything less. Look at the most recent imacs. Base model is some absurd price and comes with a 5400rpm drive. I don't get why some developers are still clinging to them as if their ecosystem provides something that linux and windows don't. Being unix based and having Adobe products is not worth the price. At least people are finally figuring this out and moving away from the last few generations of terrible macbook models. Why developers of all people eat their crap up is just plain inexplicable.
- empath75 7y agoWhy is the iMac pro not what you want?
- rogueresearch 7y agoGlossy display.
- throwayEngineer 7y agoMacs are for uninformed consumers, you are willing to shop around. They are prepackaged fashion statements. College kids and middle class mom's, basically when someone else is paying, Apple wants your business. Devs don't use them unless they absolutely must to compile an iOS app.
- yzxku 7y agoWhen I absolutely must compile an iOS app I use a vmware virtual machine I download from the pirate bay :P
- shoo_pl 7y agoWell, I did not even hope it would cost $3k. The moment they released iMac Pro at $5k it was obvious it will cost at least that much. I hoped for the same price point since it comes without a monitor.
- Sophistifunk 7y agoNo, no you won't. Xeons and boards that will run 2TB of ram cost a bloody fortune. Just because it's not for you, doesn't mean it's not a valuable product for others. I'll certainly be getting one (not for a while, but eventually) because I want an upgrade path, and dev tools and Docker can put to good use every GB of ram I can afford.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gigatexal 7y agoComplaining only signals that you are not the market they’re targeting. This is for Hollywood media makers, high end studios, etc. This was never to be a mass market item.
- vbezhenar 7y agoWhat's wrong with making a mass market Mac Pro? I mean, old Mac Pros were much more reasonably priced. It's not like inflation was that huge over recent years or computer components suddenly have much higher costs.
- Analemma_ 7y agoThey want the mass market to buy the iMac Pro instead, which actually is reasonably-priced for what you get.
- ascii_only 7y agoIt looks reasonably priced only compared to this Mac Pro.
- aczerepinski 7y agoHow many Hollywood media makers are there? As an Apple shareholder should I be excited to learn that they made a specialty computer for this demographic?
- joezydeco 7y agoHow many Corvette owners are there? As a GM shareholder should I be excited they made a car just for mid-life crises?
- aczerepinski 7y agoDepends. In this analogy is GM’s only other offering a golf cart that requires an external engine to perform like a car?
- amarshall 7y agoThe price saddens me. The $6K base is twice the base of the 2013 Mac Pro when it was released. Some quick spec-ing for a somewhat-equivalent DIY build gives somewhere around $3K. The build I was already spec-ing for my next workstation has 2x RAM, 16x SSD, SFP+ NIC and is under $5K. I hope at least that the SSDs are standard M.2, but looking at the pictures I’m not sure they are.
- _ph_ 7y agoNo, they seem to be Apple-specific, as they are controlled by their T2 chip. So expect extremely expensive SSD too.
- amarshall 7y agoWhich, of course, if they aren’t able to be user-replaced with commodity parts, kind of throws the whole “user-upgradeable” part out the window.
- jandrese 7y agoDo they have to be special sauce drives? The picture makes it look like standard M.2 drives. It doesn't seem like you should need anything special if the T2 chip is just acting as a bog standard drive controller that happens to send only encrypted data to the drive.
- samcat116 7y agoI believe those drives are just the flash, as the T2 chip actually acts as the controller. That might be wrong but that's what I've gathered from how the iMac Pro works and I assume this is a similar configuration.
- sdan 7y agoWhere did you find the price?
- jandrese 7y ago
- Nursie 7y agoWow that thing is pricey! Proper high-end workstation I guess. Some folks will have a need for one. Personally I was hoping for an updated (whiskey-lake and at least one thunderbolt port) Macbook. Next year maybe...
- FigBug 7y agoI think they took the name cheese grater too literally, it actually looks like one now.
- nenadst 7y agowas expecting to see a "april fools" banner to pop out any second during the segment (for the look, not the specs which seem quite interesting though (very) pricey)
- deckar01 7y agoThis vent is uncharacteristically ugly for an Apple product. I have a hard time believing that this sphere pattern is really optimal for performance. Maybe optimal for minimizing the number of machine operations required to produce it... Those holes are just comically large.
- amiga-workbench 7y agoAesthetically, that's really quite loud. I'm surprised to see them ship something that doesn't fit their signature minimal & reserved look.
- e40 7y agoCan you provide details? I don't see them on the product specs page.
- amiga-workbench 7y agoSorry, I don't mean the machine is loud audibly, I mean its garish visually.
- lostgame 7y agoYeah, I, too, am personally not a fan. It honestly looks like something the Empire from Star Wars would put together. I'm looking at my 'Two Towers' (named after the Lord of the Rings, not the disaster!) - a Quad G5 with a 256GB SSD/1TB HDD, and 16GB of RAM I use for my music production, and a 6-core MacPro5,1, with 32GB of RAM and 2 512GB SSD's I use for video editing. They're just beautiful, and they already do more than I could ever need them to do, as a music label manager. I don't see myself replacing them.
- andreasley 7y agoIt's what people asked for – a work horse, designed to be fast, reliable and reasonably quiet. They've tried the "beauty first" approach on the 2013 version and it was a disaster.
- amiga-workbench 7y agoThey can accomplish all that, just without the tasteless design. The stainless steel frame contrasts with the shell, and not in a good way. The ventilation holes are really weirdly proportioned and still manage to look cramped with that inner baffle. And finally, that apple logo on the side stands out a bit too much, on the old cheesegrater it was a darker gray and a bit smaller. The old G5 chassis was an understated and refined look, each of its elements seamlessly blended into each other well. This thing is just sharp to look at, my eyes do not know where to rest on it.
- bluedino 7y agoThe thing the Mac Pro does is magically make the price of every other computer look that much better. $6000 for a computer? Johnson, that's insane. What about $4999 for an iMac Pro? It comes with a display. Great, order it! What about $2499 for a Mac Mini with 32GB and 1TB SSD? Great, order it! What about $2499 for a Macbook Pro? Great, order it!
- ultrarunner 7y agoInteresting pro tip: psychological anchoring works on spouses (and even oneself) as well.
- fwip 7y agoPro tip: psychological manipulation is not a great strategy for a successful marriage. Just talk to each other like normal adults.
- ultrarunner 7y agoIt's also no strategy for a healthy personal life. Neither is being so uptight about everything. Comment was made toungue-in-cheek to include the name of the phenomenon for posterity and those who would like to research it further :)
- Eric_WVGG 7y agoThe 1987 Mac II released at $5,498, $12,125 adjusted for inflation. Granted, that included a monitor. IMO these things are designed for companies like Pixar, Disney, and aerospace, the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" world.
- nicoburns 7y agoThis is in the context of Apple increasing its prices to ludicrous levels across its product lines though (look at the iPhones!). I'm sure it's great for short-term profitability, but I think they'll come to regret this.
- yurishimo 7y agoReally excited to see the future of this hardware even though I'm not the target demographic. The ability to swap out with newer PCIe components down the line will be nice and it appears Apple is likely using some sort of desktop socket, so mounts and adapters for customizing the CPU will be available from 3rd parties eventually. Hopefully Intel doesn't change the CPU socket out from underneath everyone too soon. I'm also curious if it will support PCIe Gen4 since Apple has obviously worked closely with AMD. I'm not up to speed on the specifics on whether Intel CPUs can take advantage of that hardware yet though or if we'll have to wait a year. Maybe that's why Apple didn't give a hard release date? What I'm really disappointed about is the new display. I would gladly pay another $1-2k similar to the old cinema displays for something that's been updated but without all the HDR features. $5k for a display is insane for anyone except video professionals who need the HDR capabilities. The icing on the cake is getting nickel and dimed for the stand too. $200 I think they could make a good faith argument, but for $1k and it doesn't even come with a vesa mount in the box is really disappointing. You could definitely tell the crowd was bummed on that tidbit in particular. Overall though, still a great showing by Apple and a move in the right direction for power users.
- bluedino 7y ago$3,999 and $1,999 would have been so much more reasonable.
- e40 7y agoYeah, at $4k I would have replaced my 2013 MP, but at $6k... nah. Not unless I hit the lottery.
- horyzen 7y ago> I'm also curious if it will support PCIe Gen4 since Apple has obviously worked closely with AMD Probably not. In order to have PCIe 4 working, you have to have CPU support as well as mobo chipset support, neither is there in this machine.
- josteink 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Shivetya 7y agoI know being expandable is important here but I am stunned by the fact that an iMac Pro actually comes with better SSD and Video Card for less money and you get a screen to boot! 256g SSD is shameful, I don't care what they were thinking. No Nvidia support mentioned so I know a few that just wrote it off for that oversight alone. They will probably hold out just to be sure but that was the hope for them and others. While I was never in the market for a Mac Pro, though the iMac Pro is not out of the question jump over the iMac top tier, I never expected such low starting specs for SSD and Video at this price point. 580X is old, 2017 old. If this is what they are struck with by not using Nvidia they have done everyone a disservice. * did the spec this out in 2017 when they announced it and just locked it in? * edit : Wrong on price, iMac Pro is 1,000 less than base Mac Pro
- duskwuff 7y agoThe first step up from 256GB is 2x512GB, and there's configurations up to 2x2TB. My guess is that the 256GB configuration is meant for users that work primarily with data that's kept on network storage.
- kstrauser 7y agoRight. If you're working with multi-terabyte files that live on a NAS or an external directly-attached storage, the local drive is basically a cache of the OS plus whatever you're physically working on at that moment.
- justinsaccount 7y ago> The starting point for Mac Pro, the stainless steel space frame Only apple could manage to call a bent piece of metal pipe a "space frame". edit: getting downvoted because a "space frame" is a real thing. However, those are very specifically designed to be a "Three-dimensional truss based on the rigidity of the triangle" and this is absolutely not that. This apple co-opting an existing term for something and applying it where it doesn't make any sense.
- reaperducer 7y agoOnly apple could manage to call a bent piece of metal pipe a "space frame". Or every architect and engineer in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_frame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_frame
- h3throw 7y agoOnly Apple could get shat on for using appropriate but obscure terminology.
- justinsaccount 7y agoBut is it appropriate here? from that wikipedia page: > The simplest form of space frame is a horizontal slab of interlocking square pyramids and tetrahedra built from aluminium or tubular steel struts Do you see anything that looks like that?
- reaperducer 7y agoSimplest form ≠ only form.
- pryce 7y agoSure. Looking at each of the external sphere holes, each seems to be associated with a triangle of connected internal sphere holes. The central point of each sphere is therefore associated with the central points of three others in an adjacent plane. It is easily possible to conceptualise the 'grate' of this mac-pro as a set of interlocking tetrahedra of origins of the spherical spaces, instead of interlocking tetrahedra of the joints; a little like a photo-negative. I dislike the appearance myself, it provokes a mild feeling of trypophobia, but I don't see anything dishonest about their term.
- reaperducer 7y agoHopefully this will stop people from moaning that "Apple has abandoned the pro market!" Or probably not. They'll just redefine "pro" to meet their complaining needs.
- slantyyz 7y agoWell, if the baseline for the Pro market was made up of people who could afford the last version, then one can make the argument that Apple is the one that has redefined "Pro".
- reaperducer 7y agoIt seems evident that Apple views the "pro" market as movie studios, large corporations, and media entities that need serious computing power. On HN "pro" is three guys at a co-working space using coupons to buy coffee. It's these people who will complain the loudest about the new Mac Pro.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- JeremyBanks 7y agoWatch every keynote that Steve Jobs ever presented, and you'll find his idea of "pro" is a lot closer to Hacker News' than Tim Cook's.
- slantyyz 7y ago>> It seems evident that Apple views the "pro" market as movie studios, large corporations, and media entities that need serious computing power. If Apple is going to price out people who had purchased Mac Pros in the past (the lowest point of entry for the new model is -double- the price of the lowest late 2013 model), I don't really have a problem with that group complaining about the price. For that particular group, this new Mac Pro wasn't worth the long wait at all.
- 7y ago
- KVFinn 7y agoCan people really use all this power with the GPUs offered? The base is a 580X. The original AMD 7870 was a great gaming card in 2012... but boy the latest attempts to keep that thing going with the 480 and 580 are really pushing it. It's still a good budget gaming card but an embarrassment to offer with a Pro computer at that price. I love that Vega 2 can come with so much RAM, but until the world moves away from CUDA, are there a lot of uses for this? Even if I got this desktop for free I'd have to use my old Windows PC for anything using the GPU because it has nvidia.
- endorphone 7y agoThe 580X is an extremely capable GPU for normal usage scenarios. If you're doing compute, they offer the Vega 2 which is very competitive with anything on the market. People doing CUDA work are not using Macs. And for Mac apps that do use compute they'll take advantage of it. I wish Apple wasn't so anti-nvidia, but at the same time an awful lot of the comments in here are basically saying "People who would never have bought this now won't buy it because..."
- KVFinn 7y ago>People doing CUDA work are not using Macs. The important question is are the people who want $6,000 workstations using CUDA? For me personally, I would LOVE a monster workstation, but if I found a Mac Pro under my Christmas tree I'm not sure I would actually use it much. I would have to keep switching back to my old Nvidia desktop to do the things I specifically want a monster workstation for.
- jandrese 7y agoAudio engineers for example don't need stupendous graphics, but do appreciate most everything else.
- lordpankake 7y agoWhat an ugly box
- w4rh4wk5 7y agoI was thinking the same thing. Seems like taste is subjective after all. ^^
- KoenDG 7y agoSeems like they're not announcing the CPU just yet?
- duskwuff 7y agoThere's CPU specs at: https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ Most of the specs sound like Cascade Lake parts, but the cache sizes don't quite match. It's possible that Apple's using a custom part, or one which Intel hasn't announced yet.
- amarshall 7y agoIt’s most likely the leaked [1] but not yet announced Xeon W-3xxx. [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-xeon-cascade-lake-w-3000-series-specs,39278.html https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-xeon-cascade-lake-w-...
- ofrzeta 7y agoDesign-wise it's not great. The quite minimal case with the huge handles looks a bit amateurish and cheap. Although they try to inflate every feature in the typical Apple manner, like the "spherical array" that is "onto the internal and external surfaces of the aluminum", the front panel is not sound. Actually a perforated metal plate like in the old macs looks better. Obviously it's question of taste but it's not great Apple design that used to impress me in the past.
- wjakob 7y agoLack of NVIDIA support is a deal-breaker. The AMD ecosystem is just so far behind when it comes to frameworks like CUDA, OptiX, cuDNN, etc.. Why can't Apple open up kernel-level support by cooperating more with NVIDIA? This state of things seems completely bizarre to me.
- roboyoshi 7y agoMaybe it's NVIDIA blocking the way? If Linus is correct, then they are not a nice company to work with.
- fjarlq 7y agoA member of NVIDIA's CUDA Product Management wrote in October 2018: "Apple fully control drivers for Mac OS. But if Apple allows, our engineers are ready and eager to help Apple deliver great drivers for Mac OS 10.14 (Mojave)." -- https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1042279/cuda-setup-and-installation/cuda-10-and-macos-10-14/ https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1042279/cuda-setup-...
- roboyoshi 7y agowell that is sad then.. Maybe they want to push the Metal platform? idk.
- george_perez 7y agomacOS Catalina (10.15) is entirely built on-top of Metal. So, yes.
- pwinnski 7y agoTo hear Nvidia tell it, it's Apple fault. Weird how everybody who works with Nvidia has issues, though.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoThe AMD ecosystem will always remain behind if application developers continue to choose single-vendor proprietary frameworks rather than standard APIs.
- _ph_ 7y agoVery sad day. In the first moments, I thought everyones wishes had come true, and they bring back the old style Mac Pro back, with a redesigned housing. But the old Mac Pro had started around 2-3k, so while never cheap, not out of reach of an enthusiast user. While the specs of the new Mac Pro are certainly impressive, the price is just out of the range of all private and most professional users. Not sure why Apple refuses to sell a machine which just allows to put in a normal desktop graphics card. Also: they are selling a "Pro" desktop Mac without real mass storage? Just 4T of SSD? (Of course only available at Apple prices). The old Mac Pro had a lot of storage slots, both for 3.5 and 5.25 inch drives, but the new one couln't house at least a couple of 2.5 inch slots as well as NVMe slots?
- jakobegger 7y agoYou can probably load it up with a lot of PCIe SSD cards. There's really no need to add bays for magnetic drives anymore (if you want magnetic drives, you probably want them in a NAS)
- _ph_ 7y agoMagnetic drives perhaps not, but I was mostly thinking of SSDs. But indeed, if you can use some of the PCIe slots for storage, it would probably be ok. Still a too large gap between the Mini and the Pro.
- matthewmacleod 7y agoYou have to bear in mind the target market - notice that it has dual 10Gb Ethernet, and that many users will be using a NAS. There are a shedload of PCIe slots there too for more storage.
- tus87 7y agoWell it's better than the trashcan....but still not as good as the original alumINium box.
- diehunde 7y agoThis one looks like a different type of trash can
- minimaxir 7y agoFor developers, there's another constraint in investing in the Mac Pro: the increasingly high likelihood Apple will move to ARM: > Mac Pro + display coming in at $11,000 a year or so before a switch to ARM is a hard nope from me. It's a little freeing, so I can now actually get a Mac mini https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1135632982289653767 https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/11356329822896537...
- aseipp 7y agoWhy on earth would you ever even consider getting a Mac Pro if a Mac Mini will do the job you need? Unless you have $5,000+ just sitting around you want to throw away on street creds? This is a serious question, because I really cannot possibly fathom what scenario would actually put you in that position as a buyer other than, "I have money and I like to spend it". Also the idea that ARM hardware is somehow a threat to your "investment" is just random FUD. First, it's still just speculation. But second, assuming it's 100% true -- you're kidding yourselves if you think Apple is suddenly going to appear with magical Xeon-class 28-core ARM CPUs sometime in the next year that can compete with what they're offering here. Try 5+ years (minimum) after their first desktop-class CPUs are proven rock-solid. This Mac Pro cycle will probably last that long. If they do switch anytime soon, it will likely be only lower end machines like the MacBook Airs and non-Pro models. And even then, if history is anything to go by, they'll offer 5+ years of binary compatibility for newer devices to run old applications and multi-target toolchain support for developers to target all systems. People keep computers, even laptops, for longer and longer now. x86 macOS machines are not going anywhere, anytime soon, and Apple knows not to randomly segment/abandon users like that. I'm not going to buy this machine for a number of reasons (including the astronomical base cost), but FUD about future magical ARM machines doesn't hold up at all, IMO.
- LeoPanthera 7y agoThe is wild, baseless speculation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- amelius 7y agoOnly marginal improvements. And the marginal improvements keep getting smaller.
- technofiend 7y agoWell the hackintosh crowd has to be excited because a Pro hardware refresh adds new hardware kexts!
- mastrsushi 7y agoIt looks traditionally nice, definitely a throwback. Just not too conservative to where it looks like every other boring black PC case these days. But also not cylinder shaped like something out of a Sci-fi movie. I don't really care about the specs because that's not really a concern one should have when buying an Apple product. It's more about being promised a solid experience, without having to be technologically conscious and do your own homework.
- linguae 7y agoI was ecstatic about the 2019 Mac Pro until I heard its price. $5999, which is well above the price range of the entry-level 2013 Mac Pro ($2999) and of other Mac Pro and Power Macintosh models, which have historically had an inflation-adjusted entry level price range of $2500-3000 for the past two decades. In fact, here's a list of prices for entry-level Power Macintosh and Mac Pro models in the last 20 years (all of these prices were found on Low End Mac): Blue and White Power Mac G3 (January 1999) -- $1,599 ($2,453 in 2019 dollars) Graphite Power Mac G4 (December 1999) -- $1,599 ($2,453 in 2019 dollars) 2001 Power Mac G4 (January 2001) -- $1,699 ($2,453) 2001 Quicksilver Power Mac G4 (July 2001) -- $1,699 ($2,453) 2002 Mirrored Drive Door Power Mac G4 (August 2002) -- $1,699 ($2,413) 2003 Power Mac G5 (August 2003) -- $1,999 ($2,776), reduced to $1,799 ($2,499) in November 2003 2006 Mac Pro (August 2006) -- $2,199 ($2,787) 2010 Mac Pro (July 2010) -- $2,499 ($2,929) 2013 Mac Pro (December 2013) -- $2,999 ($3,289.83 in 2019 dollars, but you can still purchase an entry-level 2013 Mac Pro today from Apple for $2,999 in 2019 dollars). I wouldn't have been surprised if Apple had announced a $3,299 or $3,499 entry-level Mac Pro model given how inflation-adjusted prices have crept upwards over the past 20 years, but $5,999 is a gigantic leap from $2,999 or even $3,499. There's no doubt that the 2019 Mac Pro has answered the needs of some classes of pro Mac users. For people in the movie and music industries as well as professionals working in certain engineering and architecture disciplines, they have clamored for user-serviceable, upgradeable Macs that are also very powerful, and are willing to pay top dollar for their equipment since time is money for them. The Mac Pro certainly delivers in these aspects, and I'm glad that Apple has recommitted itself to these users. Unfortunately Apple has disappointed another class of Power Macintosh/Mac Pro user; those who want an affordable machine that is also user-serviceable. Apple used to provide entry-level Power Macintosh and Mac Pro models that catered to this group. Unfortunately the Mac lineup under Tim Cook has largely become unserviceable by users, complete with soldered RAM, soldered storage, and design decisions that make upgrading and repairs difficult to impossible. The 2019 Mac Pro is a tease, a kick in the face for this class of user. We finally have access to an expandable, upgradeable, user-serviceable Mac, but at unattainable prices. It's like being an Acura fan who clamored for the return for the Acura Integra or Acura RSX, which were affordable sports cars that would probably cost $30,000 brand new if they were sold today, but Acura points these fans to the Acura NSX, a $150,000+ supercar. And, so, as a user of a 2013 Mac Pro, I have mixed feelings. I'm glad to see that Apple is committed to its pro users and to the longevity of macOS, but unfortunately Apple has doubled-down on its model of selling non-serviceable, non-upgradeable machines to all but the most wealthy of its customers. Unfortunately I feel trapped as a Mac user. Windows 10 sucks and the Linux desktop is still not ready for prime time, but at least there are a wide variety of PCs out there that are user-serviceable, upgradeable, and affordable. macOS is the best operating system out there and is the only one in my opinion that is truly designed for users in mind, but unfortunately it is largely tied to hardware that is virtually closed off to repairs and upgrades unless you're willing to spend $6000+ on a computer, which is insanely expensive for a computer in 2019 unless you're in a field that absolutely needs the most powerful machine around. Thankfully my 2013 Mac Pro provides ample power for my needs, and so I'll be using that for years to come. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a used 2019 Mac Pro for a more affordable price once my 2013 Mac Pro gets long in the tooth.
- colechristensen 7y agoThe copy about the lattice pattern front being inspired by nature for airflow and rigidity is pretty ridiculous. It looks cool to have little spheres cut in the inside of a metal block but that's it. If you were actually optimizing for airflow or density you would do something entirely different (or you would look at the effects the grill has on airflow and realize the effect is minimal regardless of what you do and then move on to other priorities. On the other hand it looks like it would attract dust and be obnoxious to clean. Apple has lost it's way with design.
- threeseed 7y agoNot sure what you are talking about. They actually were optimising for airflow. If you look at the picture you couldn't design to allow more air to come through whilst maintaining a rigid structure: https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/design/ https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/design/ As for dust/dirt you could just spray it with compressed air.
- colechristensen 7y agoIf your real goal was airflow with rigidity you could just leave the front completely open and be fine with rigidity or perhaps have a small number of bars crossing the front. You also would not pick spherical cutouts. the bowl-shapes are going to add drag. This is only being done to show off manufacturing sophistication, you can say you did something that looks cool without adding nonsense about performance.
- secabeen 7y agoDo they need a rigid structure on the faceplate? It's got the Space Frame bars, and there's a standard grid of holes plate behind the fancy faceplate. Just use the standard grate.
- rock_artist 7y agoAs most of us here are with the developer hat. I think it's worth reminding that the target audience of those machines are Pro creatives. (those who didn't ditch Apple yet ;) ) It's also the second time I remember Apple revert a critical interface removal. (first one was FireWire from the first Unibody MacBook). Apple lost a lot users when they've ditched PCIe. you can buy those Thunderbolt-PCIe cages and have a lot of external media drives outside your machine, but for pro people that meant new Mac Pro isn't well for putting in a machine room or stacking under the table. Back when Apple announced the switch to Intel a lot of studios had to do an expensive upgrade not only replacing their old G5s but also additional DSP/Accelerator cards from PCI-X to PCIe. when Apple showed the trashcan (Mac Pro 2013) it was a hard sale that kept many folks with their Mac Pro 2010-2012. While it's not stylish looking (imho) or ground-breaking modular deisgn as I've assumed, it's the first time in a while Apple is responding to their hard-core users. price? I had macOS running on my AMD Athlon X2 back in the days (Leopard!) and even then Mac Pros were much more expansive if you've compared pure hardware. professional got Mac Pros because they've preferred their peace of mind. and I must admit, with exception of memory & gpus failures, I know many of those machines that are still rockin'. Last thing Apple should do to get pros the freedom is sign Nvidia's drivers...
- atonse 7y agoThis likely is a great machine for creative pros. But as a developer, I wanted a desktop class CPU and just a separate monitor (tired of hearing my laptop fans all the time, and it not being expandable), so I can upgrade them independently. So while developers are pros, we won't appreciate things like XDR because we don't need them, unlike movie studios and photographers. So a $5k monitor is overpriced for editing code. But I honestly would've shelled out even $2k for a good monitor. $5k is too much. The computer seems like a better value if you know you'd keep it for 5-10 years.
- nvahalik 7y agoI’m right here with you. Just built a Win10 machine because of thermal issues. I don’t even mind having a laptop but is it too much to ask to pay iMac prices for mid grade hardware??
- jwr 7y agoThose of us who are slightly older may still remember how much real workstations (as in a Sun SparcStation or an SGI Indigo) cost back in the day, and are less shocked by the pricing :-) Computing has really been democratized over the last 25 years.
- _ph_ 7y agoAnd look how great Sun and SGI are doing with their workstations today :). The list of companies, who are willing to spend 10k or more on the workstation of a single employee is growing short. And some of those still need NVidia graphic cards.
- jwr 7y agoSure, this is not a mass-market product. But I'm actually glad that the concept of a high-end workstation is making a comeback. Not everything needs to be dirt-cheap, we should not necessarily feel entitled to every product on the market being in our price range, and I'd love to see some competition on the high-end.
- _ph_ 7y agoYes, it is great that they have a real high-end product. But in the past, at least the starting price of the Mac Pro was in enthusiast-range. There should be a product between the Mini and the Pro which supports a desktop graphics card.
- jwr 7y agoOn that, we agree. I write code, and I used to own a 2008 "cheese-grater" Mac Pro. That one was affordable enough for developers, came with a low-end video card (which was fine!), supported lots of RAM, and provided a rock-stable machine for development. The new one, not so much, it seems to be mostly good for specialized applications (like video editing). But on the other hand, I don't think I'd want to buy this Mac Pro anyway, because of the display situation. There are no good external 5K displays, and most of the PC world is stuck in 1080p (or thereabouts) because of gamers. So, if I am to get a computer with a fast CPU and a good 5K display, I will be well served by the iMac or iMac Pro.
- mars 7y agopeople complaining about the price and comparing hardware specs tend to forget that the price incorporates running the world's best operating system with a visual ui. although hardware spec's might not always be too impressive, it needs to be considered that the macos can actually max these out as it's purpose-built for the hardware it runs on which is not the case for most of the windows/linux systems. and no, i'm not an apple fanboi, but think that the products are pretty solid.
- ynniv 7y agoI know we all said that we preferred the cheese grater to the trash can, but I don't think anyone meant it that literally.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- skunkworker 7y agoI’m disappointed that the new 6k screen doesn’t support Rec.2020 color space. I wish it would be more future proof, though it’s possible it does support this color space but doesn’t list it on the tech specs.
- exabrial 7y agoI wish they'd make a "pro" Laptop... replaceable ssd, upgradeable ram, thinline 10gb ethernet.
- 781 7y agoDoes it have RGB? For that price it better have one RGB led in each of those holes.
- StillBored 7y agoLots of talk about 8k video/etc, but you have to buy a dell/etc to get a 8k monitor. Really?
- imagetic 7y agoNobody edits AT 8k. Or watches anything at 8k for that matter.
- StillBored 7y ago"Nobody" is obviously the market that RED is targeting with their 8K cameras (shooting raw/lossless for that matter) or various projector manufactures. Sure not everyone in the production pipeline is going to be watching manipulating the edit list in 8k, but you better be sure there are a few people looking at the dailies at full 8k res before the OCD/dictatorial director shows up. Apple obviously thinks there is a market here too, or they wouldn't be talking about how the machine can show three simultaneous 8k streams.
- agnokapathetic 7y agoDo you edit 12 megapixel photos on a 12 megapixel monitor?
- StillBored 7y agoYes I do edit 12M images on a ~15M monitor. Its also the weak point in the system, as your average midrange+ DSLR is 25-50M, and its pretty easy to create a printout where the effective resolution of the page/poster is vastly higher. But that is not really the point, the apple presentation goes on about how the machine can play 3 8k video streams simultaneously, but you have to buy a 3rd party monitor/projector to even be able to view a single stream.
- gitpusher 7y agoAnecdotally, this page takes a very long time to load in Chrome, whereas it loads immediately in Safari. I wonder if they're artificially slowing the response for non-Safari clients? Seems a bit hard to explain otherwise.
- kitchenkarma 7y agoIs this 2016?
- ngcc_hk 7y agoMy mind just asking questions: No nvidia? no AI? Boot to windows? Might as well use mac mini? Starting to learn hacintosh after my two 2010 mp die? Is that thing the ugliest thing I saw in years from apple?
- jandrese 7y agoThis is the first Mac in many years that feels like it earned its "Pro" moniker, especially at that price point. It has a proper power supply. And cooling! And you can swap out/upgrade the hardware. It's not a bunch of thermally throttled laptop parts soldered onto some mini motherboard. That display is in a class of its own as well.
- erdewit 7y ago1.4 kW power supply... the next Apple accessory will be diesel generators.
- imagetic 7y agothat's really just to support multiple GPU's if a user decides to add them. At the base model, it's nowhere near that.
- jedberg 7y agoRegardless of everything else, that AR thing on their web page was cool as shit. I just looked at a new Mac Pro on my couch!
- blhack 7y agoIs the apple marketing through the window of Poe’s law at this point? This page could easily have been a parody, complete with insane price.
- dstaley 7y agoI was really hoping Apple would price the Mac Pro at a reasonable starting point, hopefully stymying the flow of developers from Apple hardware to alternatives. The features are obviously right for extreme creative pros, but I don't think any developer in their right mind should pay this much for such little hardware. I would have loved to have seen support for the LGA 1151 socket, off-the-shelf Nvidia GPUs, and user-replaceable RAM and storage. My company offers a $2500 hardware budget, and I have a refresh coming up this fall. I already have a MacBook Pro, so I want to go with a desktop this time around. With that budget I could get a Mac Mini with an i7-8700, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD; or I could build a PC with an i9-9900K, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and the same GPU as the Mac Pro _and still have $1000 left of my budget_. Too bad that would only get me the Pro Display stand. That would have been a nice display to have.
- shoo_pl 7y agoWhat about Mac Mini + minimum viable ssd (256-512GB) + eGPU + decent SSD like Samsung T5 (budget) or X5 (high end) ? After today's announcements this is what I am looking at. The only problem I see is that current eGPUs do not support the 5k thunderbolt monitor, with exception of Blackmagic (but like most of apple products those are crazy expensive and non-upgradeable). Until that 5k monitor situation is solved, I am stuck with iMac. I tested various 4k monitors, and somehow I find the 5k Retina (1440p) to be sweet spot for daily usage & development. Edit: Funny thing is, if you count the $$ for above set up, you will find out it costs as much - if not more - then similar 2019 iMac. So it probably does down the the question - do you really need that top-of-the-line GPU from AMD (which isn't that fast anyway)? It seems that buying iMac that you can still sell for 50% of original price after 2-3 years and simply getting new one with specs bumped might be the same result as being able to update your ram/gpu/ssd/monitor Seems that iMac truly is the sweat spot for most "pros" that want a desktop.
- eemil 7y agoCompared to a Mac Pro, you'll be giving up * Desktop-grade cooling * Multithreaded CPU performance (4-6 vs 8-28 cores) * PCI-e lanes + expandability (via PCI-e slot) * RAM expandable to 1.5 TB * dual 10 GBit ethernet Not all "pros" have the same requirements. In your case, maybe the Mac Mini is adequate.
- ghobs91 7y ago$1000 for a monitor stand is the pinnacle of arrogance from a brand.
- jccalhoun 7y agoThat is the one that really got me. I expected the Mac Pro to start at a ridiculous price and I wasn't shocked by the monitor but $1000 for a monitor stand is crazy
- askafriend 7y agoHow is it arrogance? Have you ever bought a nice pice of furniture? This stand is a super low volume, custom design. It's solid milled aluminum and likely very hefty since it needs to handle a 32" monitor (which itself is probably pretty hefty). Not to mention the intricate hinge design that they say is rock solid (not an easy feat to achieve). This whole system is built to compete against $25k-50k reference monitors. Here's a page of Table Lamps from Restoration Hardware for a sense of perspective: https://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/category/products.jsp?cellBackground=false&parentCatId=cat1597020&topCatId=cat160075&categoryId=cat3860007&sale=false https://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/category/product... And the whole reason they don't include the stand with the monitor is because it's built for media production houses that already have rigs set up with their own mounts. They're not building this for designers to run Sketch or developers to run Xcode. This is for production servers, processing Pixar movies, and YouTube features. It's a machine that will be expensed as the cost of doing business.
- terandle 7y agoThat link does not help your case $300 for a fashionable lamp you can use for life and is a major fixture of a living space vs a $1,000 monitor stand? Congrats Apple you made restoration hardware look like ikea in terms of pricing.
- askafriend 7y agoDid you see how big that monitor is? It's going to be a permanent fixture on your desk. It's as much a part of your room and your life as anything else. In any case, the only issue here is how they presented the pricing. They should have just said that they're selling a $6k display but if you don't want the stand, they'll sell it separately for $5k. If they framed it like that then no one would complain.
- droithomme 7y agoAll I want is to be able to replace the hard drive when it fails after 18 months, and upgrade the RAM. Also need an optical bay for a tower. It would be nice to have more than 2 USB ports, when I'm paying over $6000, without having to look for a PCIe board that has a compatible driver. Also, audio input would be a cool feature in that price range. Main thing really though is replacing that hard drive when it fails, which they always do before long.
- balls187 7y agoSeems like dust is going to be a problem.
- busymom0 7y agohttps://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ "28 core model has support for up to 2TB 2933MHz memory". 2TB RAM is crazy.
- cfarm 7y agoIs no one going to comment on why a desktop needs wheels?
- busterarm 7y agoUnfortunately this triggers my trypophobia hard.
- imagetic 7y agoThe same specs as the $6000 base level Mac Pro comes out to $1600. Granted, I would use and Intel i9-9900K, non-server motherboard and non-ECC RAM. As a media production professional who has spent most of my career on a Mac, the original "cheese grater" is probably the best hardware platform I've ever worked on. In my experience, macOS as an operating system has been vastly superior in terms of maintenance and support for a lot of post houses. When I install a Mac, I rarely have to come back and touch it until an editor mistakenly updates the OS or Adobe suite and breaks something in the chain. The original Mac Pro cheese graters lasted 5-7 years in facilities I ran. But times have changed. Cameras got bigger and Apple started severely limiting what their computers could do. The Mac Pro "trash can" was drastically under-engineered. It overheated with 4k footage and could barely handle larger productions. You also ended up with a tangled mess of peripherals that used to just live inside the tower. I can't count how many times an editor would say something wasn't working and it was just because they knocked a thunderbolt cable loose. At first glance, the new Mac Pro is nothing short of impressive. The big thing media people want from Apple is upgradable GPUs, which Apple kind of did here. The MXP module for the GPUs looks to be entirely proprietary. I haven't found any mention of potential 3rd party GPU support. And I assume you'll buy the GPUs preinstalled in those modules at the highest market value, despite the rapid drop in video card prices over time. But without nVidia support I fear this feature is going to be a stalemate with the industry. What is most appealing to me is the Mac Pro basically a server motherboard with a lot of room. Building a budget PC is restricting. The gaming motherboards tend to move the fastest with technology and newer / cheaper chips that are capable of hanging with server chips, but are part of the silicon lottery. 1/4 that I receive is DOA or has to be returned for some reason. That and they lack enough PCI slots for big post-house media work. If I have to drop two GPUs in a PC, there is rarely room for I/O cards, 10GbE and other requirements. For a post-house who wants something stable, the price high of the new Mac Pro will be returned fairly easily (maybe not with those new monitors). I don't see the freelance / independent and small-production team market buying >$6000 Mac towers though. The latest offerings from AMD with PCI 4.0 motherboards will weigh in at $3000'ish with a single 2080 ti GPU. That's an extreme bang for your buck. The downside in the PC world is mainly that it has become a build your own adventure with next to no warranty and a ton of technological hurdles and compatibility issues. For example, very few motherboards for Intel chips support TB3 and have 10GbE built in. And if you go AMD you can forget thunderbolt all-together. Overall, I know a lot of places I've done work with are waiting to hit buy on the new Mac Pro. Part of that is because it just works, and they'll deal with the shortcomings later on. But really, it looks cool and the people they attract are impressed by that fancy tower. But everyone who works alone or at smaller companies are probably now waiting to drop their Ryzen 3000 and X570 orders into their shopping carts. Disclaimer: I don't know any professionals who bought an iMac Pro. I haven't seen one in the wild since it was released.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoI get the complaining but hey Apple released a new Mac Pro is pretty cool. They could have just decided quietly leave the market completely. I also appreciate how the display is a thing now. Not everyone remembers the verrrry long period where 1920x1200 was the best you could do even when laptop displays were shooting off into the retina world. A high dpi developer workstation with tools to match could be a beautiful thing.
- bitxbit 7y agoI rather like Windows machines in 2019. I believe Apple fumbled the “Pro” market big time but it’s really not something worth for them to chase in my view. I really see this new iteration more as a goodwill gesture to their pro user base than an attempt to recapture the market.
- secfirstmd 7y agoAm I the only person more concerned about the new "Find my Mac Feature"? Call me a cynic but this feels like it has all kinds of privacy problems. "The new Find My app combines Find My iPhone and Find My Friends into a single, easy-to-use app on Mac, iPadOS, and iOS devices. Find My can help you locate a missing Mac — even if it’s offline and sleeping — by sending out Bluetooth signals that can be detected by Apple devices in use nearby. These devices then relay the detected location of your Mac to iCloud so you can locate it in the Find My app. It’s all anonymous and end-to-end encrypted so no one, including Apple, knows the identity of any reporting device. And because the reporting happens silently using tiny bits of data that piggyback on existing network traffic, there’s no need to worry about your battery life, your data usage, or your privacy."
- busymom0 7y ago> It’s all anonymous and end-to-end encrypted so no one, including Apple, knows the identity of any reporting device. That should answer privacy concerns. They probably have a disable feature too.
- chronogram 7y agoAnd should be a tick during the initial setup, considering find my has always done that
- meerita 7y agoI still do some work on my 2010 iMac. It costed me 3400 EUR. It will be its 10th aniversary soon. That's 28,3 EUR /mo for 10 years in costs for a piece of hardware that helped me to get a lot of money. This new Mac Pro, the base one, will cost me around 57,6 EUR/mo over 10 years. No monitor included, but if we include the new one, it will be around 106,9 EUR /mo over 10 years. I don't know if it is too much but I see this new Mac Pro too expensive and I am not chosing hard upgrades, but if you go a bit crazy yo can easily calculate 200€/mo over 10y.
- mratzloff 7y agoI've been waiting on Apple's Mac Pro announcement to decide if I would be buying their new pro monitor. I have previously owned an Apple Cinema HD Display 30", which was great, but started to show its age over time. I believe it cost me about $2500 at the time. I'm not afraid of spending a lot for a great monitor. This is $5000, or $6000 with the stand. Oof. I wish there were a cheaper 4K version. I guess I'll just spend like 10-20% of that price some other 4K monitor.
- teddyc 7y agoYou almost need a dedicated 15-amp circuit to run this or have 20-amp circuits so you have some overhead for the rest of your electronics (or a cubicle neighbor). The power supply draws 1280W. A 15-amp circuit provides 1800W, but you are really supposed to keep steady loads at no more than 80%, which is 1440W. I bet some circuit breakers are going to start tripping when these go live.
- jjtheblunt 7y agoDoesn't the power supply draw that at max load, rather than consistently? (Honest question)
- npunt 7y agoCorrect, that's just the max draw it can handle. Most configurations will probably draw no more than ~500-600w.
- whywhywhywhy 7y agoAfter the iTunes calendar joke I actually thought when the launch video started it was another joke about the old cheesegrater design and was going to show an actual cheesegrater, until it cut and made it clear it was a real video.
- beenBoutIT 7y agoNo mention of dust filters or keeping out dust.
- blevin 7y agoThe most interesting and least elaborated detail is the Afterburner FPGA. I’m curious what the programming model is (Metal compute kernels?) and how it compares to GPU.
- carlob 7y agoDuring the keynote they used FPGA and ASIC interchangeably, which one is it?
- firefwing24 7y agoNot a strict 1:1 comparison, but I guess as a reference point? (Prices from US Amazon) - Asus Rog Dominus Extreme - 1,677.48 - Intel Xeon W-3175X - 3.1 -> 3.8 boost (28 Core) - 3,078.49 - Decent Case - 200$ (maybe even bump to 400) - 4 x 8 GB DDR4 3000 MHz Corsair C15 - 160$ - 970 EVO m.2 NVMe Drive - 69.99 - Radeon Pro 580X - Around 200$ - Noctua NH-D15 - 90$ - 1000W Titanium Seasonic - 256.92 Total: 5,732.88 Yeah there's some differences like having more cache, or more RAM support... but $5,999 from Apple is for the 8-core base model... Edit: I clearly new to writing lists.
- woranl 7y agoThis new Mac Pro design gives me trypophobia. Do we really need that many holes on the front? Somehow this "industrial design" is really giving me goosebumps. That's a first for Apple product...
- jeffxtreme 7y agoSame here... I honestly can't bear to look at it, and I'm not looking forward to seeing this pop up at work.
- lioeters 7y agoThanks for my new word of the day: "Trypophobia is a proposed phobia of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps." Someone elsewhere on the thread said the design reminded them of something the Empire from Star Wars would make. It seems there may be a physiological reason for this kind of reaction to the design.
- thrower123 7y agoIt's the most expensive cheese grater I've ever seen
- julienreszka 7y agoThe usual cheese graters actually look fine, but this...
- chx 7y agoMy, those machined lattices will cost a tremendous amount of money. That's some Juicero level of madness but of course Apple will get away with it.
- vzaliva 7y agoI want to run Linux on it!
- allthecybers 7y agoIt’s a bit beyond my budget to buy for sentimental reasons because I owned a cheese grater PowerMac G5 and a MacPro back in my video production days. But this looks like exactly what the creative or media production professional of today needs. If you need less grab an iMac Pro or iMac.
- equalarrow 7y agoI've waited for this for a few years.. Until I stopped caring last year. Alas, I'm underwhelmed. Mostly in the form factor. I had an Intel beta machine from yonder. Apple sent everyone an iMac that year we had to send those back. I had that and a MacBook Pro for a few years until I got a 2009 Mac Pro. Had to retire that when OS X upgrades stopped working on it. I loved that machine and put it through its paces for many years. In 2014 I got a trashcan Mac Pro and that's probably been the most beautiful Mac I've ever owned. I know a lot of people don't like it, but it's been quietly humming away on my desk for years. It takes up about a 7" x 7" corner of my desk. It's perfect. I love stuff that doesn't make a sound and gets out of my way. The new form factor, I'm not into at all. It's great that it's expandable and powerful, but it just doesn't do it for me. I've been doing Mac and iOS development for so long now and thrown so much money at them that I think I'm just burned out. I mean, how much 'best ever', 'amazing', 'sensational', every year can you take? I no longer drool every time Ive speaks and the video for it had me yawning. I've seen it before, even though I haven't. Yah, no one else makes that design, I get it. But, I am now asking myself, so what? It seems like they have been less 'pro' the past years and now they're extreme pro. I'm just average pro I guess. They didn't design this machine for me and that's ok. I'm just underwhelmed by everything Apple now.
- Uptrenda 7y agoNot directly relevant but: boy do I love Apples marketing. They put so much passion into conveying their products, its ridiculous. Its almost like their marketing boarders on small art projects and "how its made style docs." I know that's a weird thing to say, but I find them very creative and interesting to watch. Sure beats the average commercial.
- julienreszka 7y agoThose holes trigger my Trypophobia.
- sabujp 7y agoand all the people with trypophobia screamed in horror
- fock 7y agonice to see that Apple still can build a real (UNIX) workstation. just about the right combination of power, standard but exotic IO, price and design (though not my favourite)
- m0zg 7y agoYawn. Wake me up when they start offering NVIDIA GPUs again.
- ksec 7y agoI am wondering what the top config would cost, Intel Cascade Lake 28 Core 1.5 TB DDR4 2933 ECC Memory 2 x 2TB SSD Radeon VEGA II Duo x 2 128GB HMB2 Memory Thunderbolt 3 x 4 Port Two 10Gb Ethernet ports: Apple Afterburner FPGA Card My guess would be $40K+? There also another small question ( or big for some ) , what happen to people with Trypophobia looking at the Mac Pro?
- IloveHN84 7y agoToo expensive
- juhannuspukki 7y agoI wonder if the people who complain about the price here have ever worked with computers. For example, I am a software developer. It costs about 5000€/month or so to hire me after I graduate. Every workplace I have been in has given me a 3500€ MBP to write code with, no questions asked. Why? I need it and it's cheap compared to my wage anyway. Even a 10000€ computer wouldn't be very expensive considering it's estimated lifespan is 5-12 years. For companies the cost of computers next to the cost of people is insignificant, and that is the target customer group for this machine.
- coldtea 7y agoI don't see it mentioned anywhere, but to me it's obvious they intentionally went for an actual "cheese grater" look, as a play on the old "cheese grater" Mac legacy. (They made it functional of course, with the holes used for cooling etc, but the 100% cheese grater look was intended this time).
- thomasjudge 7y agoRe SAN connections: what are the various options with respect to using the 10G ethernet, vs Thunderbolt, vs a PCI slot HBA-type device?
- swozey 7y agoThis is the ugliest computer I have ever seen. The monitor as well. What in the world. It's like someone discovered Trypophobia and wants to terrify people. I can't believe I'm the only person to comment on that here. I loved the original "cheese grater" (which doesn't even seem deserving of that title now).
- swordsmith 7y agoThe lattice gives me the creeps. Much better to just get a Lenovo C730 cube. Similar mechanical design, better specs, and 1/5 of the price.
- SergeAx 7y agoNow that's a nice veggie grater. And inexpensive too!
- bradknowles 7y agoThanks, I hate it. At least, the bizarre horribly bad cheese-grater look.