Apple's New Mac Pro Costs $53,000 When You Max Out the Specs

53000?

Really?

An idiot would pay that. An idiot.

You can hand build a machine that would absolutely HAMMER that Apple for half that price.

You could build two for that price and have a backup incase one goes down.

I used to own my own business before it almost destroyed my family life. Rest assured I am well aware of how to save businesses money over buying dumb shit fruity computer brand crap.
 
N4CR said:
In professional industry if downtime is that expensive then you have spare machines... At 10k a minute, waiting a day for Dell to send an often useless tech out is a huge waste of money and time.
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Correct, any business should also have redundancy/spare workstations of this caliber on hand if they are this critical to production (we have this with our Additive simulation workstations for example, we have a spares in the rack for this purpose). The software suites they're running in total costs in the millions, spending another 80k for a couple additional workstations is negligible.

We certainly don't wait for a Dell tech to come either, myself or another infrastructure member will do the replacing of the bad component.

N4CR said:
And yes people do build their own shit at high levels, in many different disciplines, just because you ain't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
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Of course some people do, usually because the HW config they're looking for isn't available through an OEM, or maybe for budget purposes, idk, but given the option, most companies will opt to go with an OEM if possible over a custom build due to support reasons.
 
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tangoseal said:
53000?

Really?

An idiot would pay that. An idiot.

You can hand build a machine that would absolutely HAMMER that Apple for half that price.

You could build two for that price and have a backup incase one goes down.

I used to own my own business before it almost destroyed my family life. Rest assured I am well aware of how to save businesses money over buying dumb shit fruity computer brand crap.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter that better hardware options exist, because you do not understand Apple users. It's like a cult.

Apple is an ecosystem that spent years supporting audio/video/painting/drawing/design professionals, starting in education and all the way up to (but not exclusive to) Hollywood production. Because of that support, students that grew up in that environment were convinced Mac is best for the arts. But now those students are instructors.

Because of that fact, it is extremely difficult for us to find and hire arts instructors that are software agnostic. The majority of the ones we have won't touch anything that isn't Apple. They convince their students the same and the cycle starts again.

I would love to swap out our Mac labs for Surface Studios, Surface Pros and AMD workstations. It would make it SO much easier to manage, because all the other students use PCs. And they may even notice how blazing fast PCs have become running Creative Suite. But I wouldn't have a job the next day.
 
tangoseal said:
53000?

Really?

An idiot would pay that. An idiot.

You can hand build a machine that would absolutely HAMMER that Apple for half that price.

You could build two for that price and have a backup incase one goes down.

I used to own my own business before it almost destroyed my family life. Rest assured I am well aware of how to save businesses money over buying dumb shit fruity computer brand crap.
Click to expand...
Ram is $20k, a pair of 32GB Qaudros is $20k, that's $40k already. how are you building it for half price?
 
Where did I say they don't? Of course some do.

They are a small minority as well, and obviously wouldn't be the target for these highest-end Apple products.
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Fair, thought you were insinuating otherwise by the tone of the post.

I see less diy compute related hardware but diy is definitely rife in other parts of the film and entertainment industry.
Best diy rig I saw was 8x top end quadros with xeons in a large rack setup running
12x 4k projectors for live visuals in unreal, in a 200ft inflatable dome. Weta made the visuals and a U.S company did the projector setup and hardware. Was sick!
 
tangoseal said:
53000?

Really?

An idiot would pay that. An idiot.

You can hand build a machine that would absolutely HAMMER that Apple for half that price.

You could build two for that price and have a backup incase one goes down.

I used to own my own business before it almost destroyed my family life. Rest assured I am well aware of how to save businesses money over buying dumb shit fruity computer brand crap.
Click to expand...

and if you live in Logic Pro X or FCPx workflows?
 
N4CR said:
Fair, thought you were insinuating otherwise by the tone of the post.

I see less diy compute related hardware but diy is definitely rife in other parts of the film and entertainment industry.
Best diy rig I saw was 8x top end quadros with xeons in a large rack setup running
12x 4k projectors for live visuals in unreal, in a 200ft inflatable dome. Weta made the visuals and a U.S company did the projector setup and hardware. Was sick!
Click to expand...
was that the real time 3d background thing they did last year or the one before?
 
N4CR said:
Fair, thought you were insinuating otherwise by the tone of the post.

I see less diy compute related hardware but diy is definitely rife in other parts of the film and entertainment industry.
Best diy rig I saw was 8x top end quadros with xeons in a large rack setup running
12x 4k projectors for live visuals in unreal, in a 200ft inflatable dome. Weta made the visuals and a U.S company did the projector setup and hardware. Was sick!
Click to expand...

No worries! All good, shouldn't have written it to sound so black and white, exceptions can always be found.

My goodness... sounds sick!
 
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Zepher said:
Ram is $20k, a pair of 32GB Qaudros is $20k, that's $40k already. how are you building it for half price?
Click to expand...
ram shouldnt be that much. you can get 1.5TB for ~$7k and quadros are $8k(x2). apple loves to bend people over.
edit: new rtx quadros are $5500.
 
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tangoseal said:
53000?

Really?

An idiot would pay that. An idiot.

You can hand build a machine that would absolutely HAMMER that Apple for half that price.

You could build two for that price and have a backup incase one goes down.

I used to own my own business before it almost destroyed my family life. Rest assured I am well aware of how to save businesses money over buying dumb shit fruity computer brand crap.
Click to expand...


I'm not so sure. For $53K, they are making an informed decision. Yes, there are a lot of other options. But, if they are specing that out on a Mac and paying that - it's the right tool for the job they are doing.

I could definitely make a better machine for a lot less. But, it wouldn't be a Mac. It wouldn't have the support from Apple. It wouldn't have the same OS. Sometimes, those are what people are paying for, not just the hardware itself.

Enterprise stuff is generally more expensive. You could easily make a better machine than a lot of OEM's when it comes to server grade hardware. But, are you getting the warranty? On site support? Overnight/same day part delivery? SLA? That's what you're paying for. If you buy one or 5 of these, you're getting a custom sales rep that will treat you well and make sure you come back next year for the new model.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I'm not so sure. For $53K, they are making an informed decision. Yes, there are a lot of other options. But, if they are specing that out on a Mac and paying that - it's the right tool for the job they are doing.

I could definitely make a better machine for a lot less. But, it wouldn't be a Mac. It wouldn't have the support from Apple. It wouldn't have the same OS. Sometimes, those are what people are paying for, not just the hardware itself.

Enterprise stuff is generally more expensive. You could easily make a better machine than a lot of OEM's when it comes to server grade hardware. But, are you getting the warranty? On site support? Overnight/same day part delivery? SLA? That's what you're paying for. If you buy one or 5 of these, you're getting a custom sales rep that will treat you well and make sure you come back next year for the new model.
Click to expand...

Support from Apple is a joke. Seriously, you get better support from HP or Dell. I've had to support Macs and contacting Apple and getting parts is a pain in the ass. It's up there with stapling your scrotum to your leg and going for a jog. It's that much fun.
 
Dan_D said:
Support from Apple is a joke. Seriously, you get better support from HP or Dell. I've had to support Macs and contacting Apple and getting parts is a pain in the ass. It's up there with stapling your scrotum to your leg and going for a jog. It's that much fun.
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:ROFLMAO::sick::giggle:
 
thesmokingman said:
Not to mention those 400w 3175x are 3K yet Apple charge 7K. What's the margin on that markup smh?
Click to expand...

so buy the base model and upgrade it yourself.

the high end is subsiding the low end and all the R&D has to be paid back.
 
aokman said:
so buy the base model and upgrade it yourself.

the high end is subsiding the low end and all the R&D has to be paid back.
Click to expand...

R/D right, its a thinly veiled Intel workstation. This platform is the BS one that Intel cheated with the chiller. Google it to read how embarrassing that fiasco was.
 
thesmokingman said:
R/D right, its a thinly veiled Intel workstation. This platform is the BS one that Intel cheated with the chiller. Google it to read how embarrassing that fiasco was.
Click to expand...

ahuh and the pro display XDR which is market leading just magically appeared with no R&D I guess...
 
aokman said:
so buy the base model and upgrade it yourself.

the high end is subsiding the low end and all the R&D has to be paid back.
Click to expand...

You cant or your warranty is toast. Apple has shit on lockdown. Never mind thier clear violation of the Magnusson Moss act.
 
pendragon1 said:
ram shouldnt be that much. you can get 1.5TB for ~$7k and quadros are $8k(x2). apple loves to bend people over.
edit: new rtx quadros are $5500.
Click to expand...
That was the high end of Ram, I went to a site that sold ECC DDR4 128GB sticks, they ranged from $1200 to $1700/stick.
 
I threw something down on another forum yesterday, fleshed it out when a friend asked me about it, and will regurgitate it here. Apologies for the length, it's practically a blog entry.

You can spec a solid dual socket Epyc for less than what the entry-level Mac Pro costs. It's not even hard - this link can walk you through it. That may not be as elegant as a single chip Threadripper, but the Epycs will be a lot easier to individually cool and a lot of workloads won't care. You could even get a full-bore POWER9 box from Raptor Computing for this kind of money, and that's not price-competitive with x86 anything.

I've heard arguments like, "all the workstation brands charge a truckload for the highest end, and Apple isn't charging much more than they are, so it's fine" and "purchasing departments don't care" and a bunch of gatekeeping crap insinuating that anyone concerned with the price isn't enough of a professional for it anyway. None of those responses address the fundamental problem with the 2019 Mac Pro: its value proposition was calculated when memory prices were multiple times higher, and AMD wasn't delivering competitive enterprise-grade CPUs. I don't deny that the Mac Pro would be a swell solution to the problems facing a lot of multimedia and development professionals. It is going to make some of them very happy. But there are real stumbling blocks that would keep me from investing in one:

* The baseline price is unreasonable for what it offers. It's 2019: a (nice) 8 core CPU with 32 gigs of quad-channel memory, a 256 gig SSD, and a workstation market-targeted version of a midrange graphics card shouldn't set you back six thousand dollars. Yes, the motherboard is super-capable, and if you throw enough money at Apple they'll fill it with hardware to make it sing, but Apple's baseline offering will not push that envelope. For the money a Threadripper 3960x build with a $3000 budget would cheerfully walk away from it in every aspect save that it doesn't run macOS. Speaking of which...

* The Mac platform is subordinate to iOS. There's no sense denying it. Its meaningful advances over time are mostly backported from the platform that makes up the bulk of Apple's revenue. The net effect to Apple's shift in priorities means that Windows and Linux are leading the charge for non-mobile OS development while macOS, previously the darling of this ecosystem, increasingly finds itself reliant on its little brother's hand-me-downs.

* Apple has a tiff with Nvidia and won't make nice. Consequently their products - which comprise 66% of discrete graphics solutions sold, and closer to 80% of the compute-driven GPU market - are shut out of the Mac platform. AMD makes good stuff and they're working to close the gap, but Nvidia's dominant for very good reasons. Pretending that they're a non-factor out of hubris is stupid.

* Intel is planning to unveil a new platform with PCI Express 4.0 and Skylake's successor next year. Well-meaning as the refresh may be, I have a bad feeling this Mac Pro's gonna feel quaint and I/O-bound sooner than I'd like. And the last thing anybody wants is for the Mac Pro to feel stale after the long wait for the Trash Can's successor.
 
Halon said:
I threw something down on another forum yesterday, fleshed it out when a friend asked me about it, and will regurgitate it here. Apologies for the length, it's practically a blog entry.

You can spec a solid dual socket Epyc for less than what the entry-level Mac Pro costs. It's not even hard - this link can walk you through it. That may not be as elegant as a single chip Threadripper, but the Epycs will be a lot easier to individually cool and a lot of workloads won't care. You could even get a full-bore POWER9 box from Raptor Computing for this kind of money, and that's not price-competitive with x86 anything.

I've heard arguments like, "all the workstation brands charge a truckload for the highest end, and Apple isn't charging much more than they are, so it's fine" and "purchasing departments don't care" and a bunch of gatekeeping crap insinuating that anyone concerned with the price isn't enough of a professional for it anyway. None of those responses address the fundamental problem with the 2019 Mac Pro: its value proposition was calculated when memory prices were multiple times higher, and AMD wasn't delivering competitive enterprise-grade CPUs. I don't deny that the Mac Pro would be a swell solution to the problems facing a lot of multimedia and development professionals. It is going to make some of them very happy. But there are real stumbling blocks that would keep me from investing in one:

* The baseline price is unreasonable for what it offers. It's 2019: a (nice) 8 core CPU with 32 gigs of quad-channel memory, a 256 gig SSD, and a workstation market-targeted version of a midrange graphics card shouldn't set you back six thousand dollars. Yes, the motherboard is super-capable, and if you throw enough money at Apple they'll fill it with hardware to make it sing, but Apple's baseline offering will not push that envelope. For the money a Threadripper 3960x build with a $3000 budget would cheerfully walk away from it in every aspect save that it doesn't run macOS. Speaking of which...

* The Mac platform is subordinate to iOS. There's no sense denying it. Its meaningful advances over time are mostly backported from the platform that makes up the bulk of Apple's revenue. The net effect to Apple's shift in priorities means that Windows and Linux are leading the charge for non-mobile OS development while macOS, previously the darling of this ecosystem, increasingly finds itself reliant on its little brother's hand-me-downs.

* Apple has a tiff with Nvidia and won't make nice. Consequently their products - which comprise 66% of discrete graphics solutions sold, and closer to 80% of the compute-driven GPU market - are shut out of the Mac platform. AMD makes good stuff and they're working to close the gap, but Nvidia's dominant for very good reasons. Pretending that they're a non-factor out of hubris is stupid.

* Intel is planning to unveil a new platform with PCI Express 4.0 and Skylake's successor next year. Well-meaning as the refresh may be, I have a bad feeling this Mac Pro's gonna feel quaint and I/O-bound sooner than I'd like. And the last thing anybody wants is for the Mac Pro to feel stale after the long wait for the Trash Can's successor.
Click to expand...

Apple didn’t have a tiff with NVIDIA, they simply moved to METAL to align all their devices under one framework. NVIDIA don’t support it and its as simple as that. Apple are doing fine with AMD and Intel supporting it anyway.

In regards to AMD CPU, it was never an option because Apple heavily rely on Thunderbolt which is all Intel.
 
These are enterprise boxes for professional teams. Apples "cost matters" for professionals is the iMacpro, the Macpro is a cost does not matter issue.

When you buy like this you have a solid software and team (director on down to creatives) that mandate what OS you are going to use, cost be damned. And apple can charge whatever the hell they want for upgrades as well because you cannot stick nonvalidated or certified stuff into the machine. The price is stupid, sure, but there are plenty of stupidly expensive things at this level and software costs going into six figures is not uncommon either.

Furthermore at the large enterprise level things work a bit differently. I've worked at a big four firm that clears billions in profit a year and buys stupid stuff and it doesn't go down like you think. Some of your stuff is bought directly through specific budget branches and other items where the director or partner picks whatever the fuck they want and IT never has to deal with the mess or support the stuff outside of security compliance. The majority of other stuff at that level is leased, and if there is ever a problem with it during the leasing period you simply wipe and pull a cross shipping. The leasing means you can spin up and spin down units based on staff so you don't have to sit on wasted expensive inventory.

Creative departments are stocked with six figure salaries and if all of them use OSX for their workflows and some software requirements those salaries and software costs make the lease of something like this a drop in the water.

Vast amounts of stuff is already locked based off stuff like that, it is what it is. Complaining about it is a sign it's time to look at outsourcing your tech department.
 
I enjoy hammering my Mac friends in every task with a system 1/3rd of the price.

Even convinced a production studio to switch to PC last year after I complied some projects for him faster than he thought possible.
 
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pendragon1 said:
was that the real time 3d background thing they did last year or the one before?
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Last year! Basically a one-off, didn't make money. You're right there was a test a few years back elsewhere, if you're lucky enough to see it then hats off. Coolest thing I've seen in a decade in the scene.
 
Apparently apple is using the cheapest of ram also and over charging for ram upgrades - https://wccftech.com/apple-mac-pro-ddr4-ecc-memory-cheapest/ $300 ram for $1200 :facepalm:

"I found the CAS latency of Apple’s DDR4 ECC RAM. How? First I found their upgrade kit, looked at the part number on the memory chips, searched Micron and found the full part number, found their technical doc and found the latency, and whoop… CL22. The cheapest ECC Micron sells."
 
53k...... weak. Dude - you got a Dell! :eek: 1.5TB of ram is for playing solitaire. :LOL:

dude1.jpg
 
thesmokingman said:
Talk about paid advertising dressed up as an unboxing.
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Lol yeap.
And has anyone actually grated cheese with them yet? I'm considering bringing a block of cheese to one of their temples and trying it for the lulz but being charged for damage isn't my idea of fun.
The only redeeming feature I can see with the design is it would make a decent passive cooler for components heatsinked to it. Of course they won't do that though, but they'll look great and be impossible to clean once full of dust.

And those mice, holy fuck what a gimmick. No scroll wheel (I tried using them and they suck ass - RSI-inducing POS when you do scroll) and still a single click AND you can't use it and charge it. So when you have critical work or a meeting and it's time sensitive, you are shit out of luck. And that literally happened to me on my first introduction to them.. this was 4-5 years ago and the design is still the same.
 
pendragon1 said:
ram shouldnt be that much. you can get 1.5TB for ~$7k and quadros are $8k(x2). apple loves to bend people over.
edit: new rtx quadros are $5500.
Click to expand...

RTX Quadros are not the only ones Nvidia sells. The GV100, the only Quadro with 32GB of HBM2 memory, is $9000. That said, the $5500 RTX 8000 is actually $300 more than the Radeon Pro Vega II Duo in the Mac Pro. Buying two 8000s would end up costing almost $700 more once you factor in the NVLink Bridge. Though, buying a Vega II Duo MPX module after that fact would be $100 more than buying a single 8000. Going a step down, the non-Duo Vega II is $1600 cheaper than the RTX 6000 ($1200 is buying the MPX module separately).
 
pendragon1 said:
i know, hence "quadros are $8k(x2)"
Click to expand...

You're off by a grand still and the whole complaint about Apple bending people over in comparison to the Quadros makes exactly zero sense when comparing the Nvidia and AMD offerings here.
 
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