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Apple's completely crazy with the pricing for the new Mac Pro. $6000 for an 8 core Xeon with a Radeon 580x is a mid range machine nowadays thanks to AMD and the

by vondur 7y ago

Apple's completely crazy with the pricing for the new Mac Pro. $6000 for an 8 core Xeon with a Radeon 580x is a mid range machine nowadays thanks to AMD and the Ryzen/Threadripper CPU's. The old towers were far more reasonably priced. Unless you are really tied some Apple specific app, I can't imagine justifying purchasing one of these machines.

Kirby64 7y ago
Ultimately, if you really need something that supports 1.5TB of RAM or a 28 core Xeon, you're going to get in the same realm as Apple's pricing even if you build it yourself. The $6k cost includes a ton of built-in cost for the fancy case, the server grade motherboard, and fancy power supply/cooling system. As far as I'm aware, you're not even capable of building a Threadripper platform with that much RAM... because you're limited to 8 DIMM slots? There's a few things on the horizon that might address that (namely, 256GB DIMMs), but I'm not sure those are released yet... and I bet they cost a lot more than 128GB DIMMs. Not saying it's not overpriced... but Dell et al. probably will gouge you just as much if you try to build a Xeon workstation. Hopefully Threadripper drives down the Intel pricing even on the server side, cause as of right now it's just crazy.
- gizmo686 7y ago
  No one who needs a machine that supports 1.5TB of ram is going to buy one that comes with only 32GB. Same for CPU. Charging someone for support for the high end, even if they only use the low end doesn't seem to make sense. If it is actually an issue of unit cost, sell a lower-end base. If it is to recoup development costs, find a way to price discriminate. Otherwise, you are charging low end users for functionaility that they will literally never use.
  - vondur 7y ago
    That's a great point. I get that there are users who do need this kind of power. Heck, that's why companies like Silicon Graphics existed back in the day. It seems to me that a major part of the people who purchased Mac Pro's were audio producers and graphic artists, who would not need a machine of this caliber. They still want a computer like the old Mac Pro tower, relatively cheap and expandable.
  - Kirby64 7y ago
    Depending on the user base, it wouldn't be farfetched to just buy the lowest end RAM version and upgrade the RAM yourself. When you're spending $30k on RAM... it's probably worth some time to shop around. Whether Apple supports it... well that's another question. Also, if you only NEED 32GB of RAM, then don't buy a Mac Pro. This is just like buying a Xeon motherboard anywhere else and only putting 16GB of RAM into it. Sure, you can do that, but it's a waste of money.
- washadjeffmad 7y ago
  Just buy AMD, the higher performance, less expensive option. Dell will configure TR4 workstations if you ask. Intel is HP in the 2000s. They're not going to right themselves gracefully or intact.
rhinoceraptor 7y ago
If you compare spec for spec with actual server/workstation grade hardware, the price premium is small or non-existant. Once you leave the consumer grade category, the prices go way up. Xeons, server motherboards and ECC are not cheap. This is an actual pro level workstation for video and audio. It's not a consumer or even developer desktop. And relative to those markets, it's priced competitively. For example, a basic RED camera setup will run you at least $20-30k, easily.

by vondur 7y ago

Kirby64 7y ago

Ultimately, if you really need something that supports 1.5TB of RAM or a 28 core Xeon, you're going to get in the same realm as Apple's pricing even if you build it yourself. The $6k cost includes a ton of built-in cost for the fancy case, the server grade motherboard, and fancy power supply/cooling system. As far as I'm aware, you're not even capable of building a Threadripper platform with that much RAM... because you're limited to 8 DIMM slots? There's a few things on the horizon that might address that (namely, 256GB DIMMs), but I'm not sure those are released yet... and I bet they cost a lot more than 128GB DIMMs. Not saying it's not overpriced... but Dell et al. probably will gouge you just as much if you try to build a Xeon workstation. Hopefully Threadripper drives down the Intel pricing even on the server side, cause as of right now it's just crazy.

gizmo686 7y ago
No one who needs a machine that supports 1.5TB of ram is going to buy one that comes with only 32GB. Same for CPU. Charging someone for support for the high end, even if they only use the low end doesn't seem to make sense. If it is actually an issue of unit cost, sell a lower-end base. If it is to recoup development costs, find a way to price discriminate. Otherwise, you are charging low end users for functionaility that they will literally never use.
- vondur 7y ago
  That's a great point. I get that there are users who do need this kind of power. Heck, that's why companies like Silicon Graphics existed back in the day. It seems to me that a major part of the people who purchased Mac Pro's were audio producers and graphic artists, who would not need a machine of this caliber. They still want a computer like the old Mac Pro tower, relatively cheap and expandable.
- Kirby64 7y ago
  Depending on the user base, it wouldn't be farfetched to just buy the lowest end RAM version and upgrade the RAM yourself. When you're spending $30k on RAM... it's probably worth some time to shop around. Whether Apple supports it... well that's another question. Also, if you only NEED 32GB of RAM, then don't buy a Mac Pro. This is just like buying a Xeon motherboard anywhere else and only putting 16GB of RAM into it. Sure, you can do that, but it's a waste of money.
washadjeffmad 7y ago
Just buy AMD, the higher performance, less expensive option. Dell will configure TR4 workstations if you ask. Intel is HP in the 2000s. They're not going to right themselves gracefully or intact.

rhinoceraptor 7y ago

If you compare spec for spec with actual server/workstation grade hardware, the price premium is small or non-existant. Once you leave the consumer grade category, the prices go way up. Xeons, server motherboards and ECC are not cheap. This is an actual pro level workstation for video and audio. It's not a consumer or even developer desktop. And relative to those markets, it's priced competitively. For example, a basic RED camera setup will run you at least $20-30k, easily.