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>Take an iMac Pro, break it down, put its screen in a box (that’ll revive the Cinema Display we miss), add slots to the motherboard, put it in a vintage Mac Pro

>Take an iMac Pro, break it down, put its screen in a box (that’ll revive the Cinema Display we miss), add slots to the motherboard, put it in a vintage Mac Pro cheese grater case... I think a lot of Mac faithful talked around this line like it would be an acceptable minimum, but they really wanted more than that, like "Oh, it'd be fine if they just made a tower, but what we really want is that trademark Apple Innovation!" But what they really wanted was just white-box parts in a PC case that they could swap out, not this insanely powerful, beautiful, kick-ass machine on wheels that costs more than your car. They just wanted a blessed hackintosh. (edit - just speaking from personal experience and the people I've talked to. I don't know anyone who actually needs this new Mac Pro, but I know a few who want it.)

ajross 7y ago
> insanely powerful I remain amazed at Apple's marketing. There's literally nothing "powerful" in this box that you couldn't plug into a Supermicro motherboard almost two years ago. You can make integration arguments or dither about Apple-specific devices or software all day. But as for "powerful"... this is a 14nm Xeon workstation board.
- elagost 7y ago
  It's got a lot extra proprietary components in it that make it attractive for those that want those capabilities, and it runs MacOS. Often MacOS is the extra $500 or so of any Apple machine you buy. If you don't care for MacOS or the security coprocessor or the extra Apple-specific expansion stuff, you can definitely build a cheaper PC that's more powerful.
  - ajross 7y ago
    > extra proprietary components Exactly. So not "insanely powerful" by any objective measure as used by other folks in the industry. It's just secret magic applesauce[1]. Yet you feel free to throw adjective around anyway because it just "feels" like it must be "powerful" based on the language you're reading about it. To wit, I remain amazed at Apple's marketing. [1] Which, fine. Maybe you really need that applesauce and the 2017 Supermicro board wouldn't have ever worked for you. Great! Still not an argument about "power".
    - elagost 7y ago
      In what world is a 28-core xeon with 1.5 TB of RAM and 2 dual GPUs (effectively 4 GPUs) not a powerful spec for a desktop? Aren't we still in the era of most desktops having 4 cores and a single GPU? I don't bear any love for Apple, but this computer is still pretty cool. Steam hardware survey shows most popular spec these days is 4 cores, 8GB RAM, and a mid-range GPU. I'd argue that most machines running steam are more powerful than average given that they're generally gaming rigs. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey Firefox gets a larger swath of the population. 2 cores is by far the most popular with them. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware For the people who wanted the Mac Pro that I know of (primarily Apple nerds who were waiting for this new updated machine) they wanted to use it ask a desktop computer. For a desktop computer, this thing is pretty insane in every regard - Xeon CPU, ECC RAM, crazy amounts of GPU capabilities, and yes, price too.
      - ajross 7y ago
        > In what world is a 28-core xeon with 1.5 TB of RAM and 2 dual GPUs (effectively 4 GPUs) not a powerful spec for a desktop? Your standard was "insanely powerful", which implies some kind of notability. In fact 28 core 14nm Xeons broadly similar to the ones Apple is using were shipping by Q3 of 2017. You could even buy boards at the time with TWO sockets: TWICE as "powerful" a desktop as Apple's "insane" one from the summer of 2019. Again, this just isn't notable hardware from a "power" perspective. It's the same stuff everyone else has been shipping for two years, just with applesauce.
      - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
        > In what world is a 28-core xeon with 1.5 TB of RAM and 2 dual GPUs (effectively 4 GPUs) not a powerful spec for a desktop? ... I don't bear any love for Apple, but this computer is still pretty cool. Dell's Precision workstations and HP's Z8 workstations could already be configured to match or exceed that, well before Apple's announcement. What's so special about a configuration that is the same as existing workstations and is shaped pretty much the same as existing workstations? It's the same Intel CPU as everyone else uses, it's the same RAM as everyone else uses, etc.
kalleboo 7y ago
I think what people wanted was the pre-2013 Mac Pro. Where the base model cost half of this new one, and it was expandable enough that people are still using it.

ajross 7y ago

> insanely powerful I remain amazed at Apple's marketing. There's literally nothing "powerful" in this box that you couldn't plug into a Supermicro motherboard almost two years ago. You can make integration arguments or dither about Apple-specific devices or software all day. But as for "powerful"... this is a 14nm Xeon workstation board.

elagost 7y ago
It's got a lot extra proprietary components in it that make it attractive for those that want those capabilities, and it runs MacOS. Often MacOS is the extra $500 or so of any Apple machine you buy. If you don't care for MacOS or the security coprocessor or the extra Apple-specific expansion stuff, you can definitely build a cheaper PC that's more powerful.
- ajross 7y ago
  > extra proprietary components Exactly. So not "insanely powerful" by any objective measure as used by other folks in the industry. It's just secret magic applesauce[1]. Yet you feel free to throw adjective around anyway because it just "feels" like it must be "powerful" based on the language you're reading about it. To wit, I remain amazed at Apple's marketing. [1] Which, fine. Maybe you really need that applesauce and the 2017 Supermicro board wouldn't have ever worked for you. Great! Still not an argument about "power".
  - elagost 7y ago
    In what world is a 28-core xeon with 1.5 TB of RAM and 2 dual GPUs (effectively 4 GPUs) not a powerful spec for a desktop? Aren't we still in the era of most desktops having 4 cores and a single GPU? I don't bear any love for Apple, but this computer is still pretty cool. Steam hardware survey shows most popular spec these days is 4 cores, 8GB RAM, and a mid-range GPU. I'd argue that most machines running steam are more powerful than average given that they're generally gaming rigs. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey Firefox gets a larger swath of the population. 2 cores is by far the most popular with them. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware For the people who wanted the Mac Pro that I know of (primarily Apple nerds who were waiting for this new updated machine) they wanted to use it ask a desktop computer. For a desktop computer, this thing is pretty insane in every regard - Xeon CPU, ECC RAM, crazy amounts of GPU capabilities, and yes, price too.
    - ajross 7y ago
      > In what world is a 28-core xeon with 1.5 TB of RAM and 2 dual GPUs (effectively 4 GPUs) not a powerful spec for a desktop? Your standard was "insanely powerful", which implies some kind of notability. In fact 28 core 14nm Xeons broadly similar to the ones Apple is using were shipping by Q3 of 2017. You could even buy boards at the time with TWO sockets: TWICE as "powerful" a desktop as Apple's "insane" one from the summer of 2019. Again, this just isn't notable hardware from a "power" perspective. It's the same stuff everyone else has been shipping for two years, just with applesauce.
    - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
      > In what world is a 28-core xeon with 1.5 TB of RAM and 2 dual GPUs (effectively 4 GPUs) not a powerful spec for a desktop? ... I don't bear any love for Apple, but this computer is still pretty cool. Dell's Precision workstations and HP's Z8 workstations could already be configured to match or exceed that, well before Apple's announcement. What's so special about a configuration that is the same as existing workstations and is shaped pretty much the same as existing workstations? It's the same Intel CPU as everyone else uses, it's the same RAM as everyone else uses, etc.

kalleboo 7y ago

I think what people wanted was the pre-2013 Mac Pro. Where the base model cost half of this new one, and it was expandable enough that people are still using it.