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The base price has more than doubled from the original cheese grater we all fell in love with. I'd be willing to bet the home user MacPro community is much larg

The base price has more than doubled from the original cheese grater we all fell in love with. I'd be willing to bet the home user MacPro community is much larger than Hollywood. People have been clamoring for an updated cheese grater for the better part of a decade. They are STILL actively developing hacks to keep their 2008/2009 models running. Shit, I just retired mine this year in favor of Hackintosh, because I'm not dumping $10,000 in a modular Mac. I think this new MacPro is going to be a huge failure. Professionals are running PCs now, and home users won't spend the money.

wlesieutre 7y ago
Many of the home users who were buying $3000 base model cheese grater Mac Pros could get by now with a 6-core i7 Mac Mini. Price would be around $1300 for the computer, $300 for an eGPU enclosure, and $700ish for a Radeon R7, plus aftermarket RAM. AMD's not in a great spot for high end GPUs right now, but when the Navi 23 cards land next year it will be looking better. This doesn't scale as well for multi GPU machine learning workloads and Apple needs to get over their shit with Nvidia, but as a lower end "modular" Mac than the $6000 cheese grater 2019, it's an option.
- overcast 7y ago
  You could sure, but people buying the MacPros bought them because they wanted modular. A glorified laptop attached to a giant monitor isn't an option.
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    My Windows machine is admittedly more modular than a mini+eGPU would be. I can pull the CPU out and put in a new one whenever I want! But over the course of 12 years and 3 computer builds, I've never done that once. By the time there's a noticeable CPU upgrade available I'd need a new motherboard to go with it. So I think there's a big segment of the "modular" market that only really cares about having GPU options and upgradeable RAM. It's not for everyone, but the people in between the high end Mac Mini (6-core i7 + thunderbolt GPU) and the low end Mac Pro (8-core Xeon W and internal expansion slots) are a small enough slice that Apple doesn't care.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  Missed the edit window but for GPU I meant the Radeon VII not R7. Double checking benchmarks, the RX 5700 XT compares pretty well to that, but 2nd gen Navi will have a new higher end card.
- arvinsim 7y ago
  > Price would be around $1300 for the computer, $300 for an eGPU enclosure, and $700ish for a Radeon R7, plus aftermarket RAM. AMD's not in a great spot for high end GPUs right now, but when the Navi 23 cards land next year it will be looking better. I used to want an eGPU. Then I learned that you need to disable SIP in order to do so... > This doesn't scale as well for multi GPU machine learning workloads and Apple needs to get over their shit with Nvidia, but as a lower end "modular" Mac than the $6000 cheese grater 2019, it's an option. No one is going to wait for that hypothetical future where MacOS supports Nvidia GPUs.
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    > I used to want an eGPU. Then I learned that you need to disable SIP in order to do so... I hadn’t heard that. A quick search suggests it’s only necessary for loading Nvidia kexts or using TB2 https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/8lybin/macos_egpu_without_disabling_sip/ https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/8lybin/macos_egpu_wit... > No one is going to wait for that hypothetical future where MacOS supports Nvidia GPUs. True, but their Navi cards are at least competitive in the price ranges where they exist. Hopefully the high end ones next year continue that. If you’re looking at Titan or whatever the current ML thing is in the $1000+ range, then you might be stuck with Nvidia.
    - arvinsim 7y ago
      > I hadn’t heard that. A quick search suggests it’s only necessary for loading Nvidia kexts or using TB2 https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/8lybin/macos_egpu_wit.. https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/8lybin/macos_egpu_wit.... Interesting. I might ask around to verify this. > True, but their Navi cards are at least competitive in the price ranges where they exist. Hopefully the high end ones next year continue that. If you’re looking at Titan or whatever the current ML thing is in the $1000+ range, then you might be stuck with Nvidia. I am rooting for AMD's Navi cards too. It's just unfortunate that CUDA seems to be more supported than OpenCL.
      - wlesieutre 7y ago

wlesieutre 7y ago

Many of the home users who were buying $3000 base model cheese grater Mac Pros could get by now with a 6-core i7 Mac Mini. Price would be around $1300 for the computer, $300 for an eGPU enclosure, and $700ish for a Radeon R7, plus aftermarket RAM. AMD's not in a great spot for high end GPUs right now, but when the Navi 23 cards land next year it will be looking better. This doesn't scale as well for multi GPU machine learning workloads and Apple needs to get over their shit with Nvidia, but as a lower end "modular" Mac than the $6000 cheese grater 2019, it's an option.

overcast 7y ago
You could sure, but people buying the MacPros bought them because they wanted modular. A glorified laptop attached to a giant monitor isn't an option.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  My Windows machine is admittedly more modular than a mini+eGPU would be. I can pull the CPU out and put in a new one whenever I want! But over the course of 12 years and 3 computer builds, I've never done that once. By the time there's a noticeable CPU upgrade available I'd need a new motherboard to go with it. So I think there's a big segment of the "modular" market that only really cares about having GPU options and upgradeable RAM. It's not for everyone, but the people in between the high end Mac Mini (6-core i7 + thunderbolt GPU) and the low end Mac Pro (8-core Xeon W and internal expansion slots) are a small enough slice that Apple doesn't care.
wlesieutre 7y ago
Missed the edit window but for GPU I meant the Radeon VII not R7. Double checking benchmarks, the RX 5700 XT compares pretty well to that, but 2nd gen Navi will have a new higher end card.
arvinsim 7y ago
> Price would be around $1300 for the computer, $300 for an eGPU enclosure, and $700ish for a Radeon R7, plus aftermarket RAM. AMD's not in a great spot for high end GPUs right now, but when the Navi 23 cards land next year it will be looking better. I used to want an eGPU. Then I learned that you need to disable SIP in order to do so... > This doesn't scale as well for multi GPU machine learning workloads and Apple needs to get over their shit with Nvidia, but as a lower end "modular" Mac than the $6000 cheese grater 2019, it's an option. No one is going to wait for that hypothetical future where MacOS supports Nvidia GPUs.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  > I used to want an eGPU. Then I learned that you need to disable SIP in order to do so... I hadn’t heard that. A quick search suggests it’s only necessary for loading Nvidia kexts or using TB2 https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/8lybin/macos_egpu_without_disabling_sip/ https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/8lybin/macos_egpu_wit... > No one is going to wait for that hypothetical future where MacOS supports Nvidia GPUs. True, but their Navi cards are at least competitive in the price ranges where they exist. Hopefully the high end ones next year continue that. If you’re looking at Titan or whatever the current ML thing is in the $1000+ range, then you might be stuck with Nvidia.
  - arvinsim 7y ago
    > I hadn’t heard that. A quick search suggests it’s only necessary for loading Nvidia kexts or using TB2 https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/8lybin/macos_egpu_wit.. https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/8lybin/macos_egpu_wit.... Interesting. I might ask around to verify this. > True, but their Navi cards are at least competitive in the price ranges where they exist. Hopefully the high end ones next year continue that. If you’re looking at Titan or whatever the current ML thing is in the $1000+ range, then you might be stuck with Nvidia. I am rooting for AMD's Navi cards too. It's just unfortunate that CUDA seems to be more supported than OpenCL.
    - wlesieutre 7y ago