Most Powerful iMac Pro Evar - $5000

[tempertantrum]

It's very obvious that you have never own an Imac.......... They are very repairable. I had an 2012 Imac and used it heavily for gaming. The GPU went bad and I took it to the Apple store. Later that same day, they had replaced the motherboard all in store.

All in one doesn't mean the monitor is physically glued to the motherboard, the memory port is the only user accessible thing but you can take it apart and access the many parts inside. You'd just have to pull off the screen.

Others have addressed the absurdity of the "easily repairable" claim, so I'm just gonna focus in on the "gaming" claim here. Angry Birds isn't what people on here tend to mean when they say gaming. What was the GPU in that system? What was the max GPU available when you got it? And how much more expensive was that (and how much more annoying to install) than you'd have in a self made or more standard form factor system?

 

[TrevorR]

Others have addressed the absurdity of the "easily repairable" claim, so I'm just gonna focus in on the "gaming" claim here. Angry Birds isn't what people on here tend to mean when they say gaming. What was the GPU in that system? What was the max GPU available when you got it? And how much more expensive was that (and how much more annoying to install) than you'd have in a self made or more standard form factor system?

Please quote my post where I said it is "EASILY" repairable? I said VERY REPAIRABLE, because they are in fact repairable. You heat up the edges of the screen with a heat gun and use suctions cups to pull off the screen. I have done that to my macbook pro.

What games have I played on my 202 Imac? I played BF3 pretty much daily, that and Diablo 3. Another game was Crysis 2.

The amount of Apple hate in here is the absurd part.

The other absurd part is assuming that Mac users are gaming nerds like most people here. That is not the case and not who Apple targets. Another absurd part is that a bunch of idiot PC hardware enthusiasts are trying to justify the use of an iMac pro from a hardware enthusiast viewpoint....

Most people who buy these are professionals who's lives don't revolve around computers and focus on other things. All in one is a smaller foot print that a modular system.

Answer this, why are so many people building ITX systems when they are limiting themselves to the type of GPU and motherboard options?

Please go.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Or, you know, you can use what works best for you. I absolutely love my Macbook Pro. Best laptop I've ever used. I run a Windows 10 VM on it to run a few of my design packages that only work on Windows. I also have a couple of Dell laptops, multiple desktops, and an old '09 iMac (large silver one). They all do their own thing. I game on the desktop PCs obviously, do most of my work on the MBP and a little on the desktops, use my Dell laptops for random tasks, etc. etc. I think these new iMacPros look pretty cool actually. They aren't really my target machine for everything that I do, so I probably wouldn't spend that much on one, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with them either. If you have a workload that these facilitate, like the OS and aesthetic, and need that much power within these guidelines, why not? They don't have to cater to me specifically for me to see that there is some value there for somebody. If one landed on my desk I wouldn't be too upset. I can't believe people are still so one sided on this type of thing. I mean, it doesn't surprise me in the least, but one would think that by now we could all use and like the things we do for our own reasons and get on with shit. Sure it's fun to poke a bit of fun at this or that, but honestly, I'm not seeing much here that's worthy of it. Looks like a solid offering for a certain group of users. Better than many of the others in recent years actually.

I know that given comparable base specs, I'd prefer to have the Deus Ex looking office with the iMac Pro than some some ugly Dell box sitting awkwardly by my desk. If the ugly box offered something more though (that I actually needed) that I just plain couldn't do with the prettier option, then sure, I'd use it. Or a full rack full of ugly things if I really needed it.

 

[tempertantrum]

Please quote my post where I said it is "EASILY" repairable? I said VERY REPAIRABLE, because they are in fact repairable. You heat up the edges of the screen with a heat gun and use suctions cups to pull off the screen. I have done that to my macbook pro.

What games have I played on my 202 Imac? I played BF3 pretty much daily, that and Diablo 3. Another game was Crysis 2.

The amount of Apple hate in here is the absurd part.

The other absurd part is assuming that Mac users are gaming nerds like most people here. That is not the case and not who Apple targets. Another absurd part is that a bunch of idiot PC hardware enthusiasts are trying to justify the use of an iMac pro from a hardware enthusiast viewpoint....

Most people who buy these are professionals who's lives don't revolve around computers and focus on other things. All in one is a smaller foot print that a modular system.

Answer this, why are so many people building ITX systems when they are limiting themselves to the type of GPU and motherboard options?

Please go.

By your definition, virtually *anything* is "VERY REPAIRABLE." You just have to a ton of proprietary knowledge, specialized equipment, do some really risky things, void warranties, etc. To quote others on here: "F THAT."

I assume that's supposed to be 2012... You didn't answer any of my questions about the hardware itself, and of course I'd have to ask about gameplay experience (FPS, how does the screen look with quick movement, because I'd get sick with shitty movement on my 2015 Macbook Pro, what the video quality settings are, etc.) This is [H]ard, not [M]ainstream. What do you expect to get here?

Apple does some good things - and most people on here admit that. But we are also critical of things. Again... what do you expect?

You just called almost everyone in here an idiot - virtually all of us like (if not own) enthusiast hardware....

If you're a professional, and you don't have to think about downtime for broken equipment as a profit loss, good for you! Also, if you are a professional and don't have to think about upgrades, good for you!

The space difference (especially considering most people keep their workstations under the desk or already use a SFF case) is minimal.

You're right, you can't find anything google that where people want full sized GPUs with an ITX Mobo...

Just because some of us don't like it, think it's kinda ridiculous, or don't think it makes sense for *us* or *our clients*, doesn't mean it doesn't have an audience. But to ignore the criticisms as "just because it's Apple," is absurd. Try attacking arguments, and not people.

 

[tempertantrum]

As with all Apple products, where form is several rungs higher than function on the ladder of priorities, I bet you this thing will be constantly throttling like a motherf****r. Their Macbook Pros for example include some great hardware, but the thermal design won't actually let you use it, so what's the point?

That new cooling system they show still won't cope, in my opinion.

I'm totally with you on this: dual squirrel cages are loud... I would hate to be stuck at a desk listening to the equivalent of two founders edition graphics cards jets going full throttle. Considering how badly my 2015 Macbook Pro ramps up the fans (and how loud they are) this will be even worse.

 

[tempertantrum]

People do buy these iMacs... I can tell you as a current Student at the University of Maryland with our 40,000+ students on campus daily, every single lab has tons of these iMacs.

In our huge library, there is a floor dedicated to computers and its divided up by windows and Apple computers, guess which section is usually filled up and others not as much?

Living in the DC area, a lot of these companies love all in one computers. But it also helps that we have like 10+ Apple stores around.

Not everyone is computer savvy and people like the simplicity of Apple OS.

All in one computers are the future.

As one of those people who actually *works* in a large, mac heavy 55K student university and sees what goes on with those labs, I also see that student use of labs has dropped off precipitously, this level of computer would *never* make it into a lab, all of them run crazy hot even with the more basic components, and frankly, most of the world will still use PCs. Universities are fucking Mac bubbles, and do not reflect "a lot of people." In fact, I just came back from a pretty big educational conference (about 1000 people attending) and most of the faculty and staff in attendance and presenting were using Windows machines, so even in academia, it's only in wealthier institutions that you see the preference for Macs manifesting. I'm an instructional designer now, but my last job was straight up IT, and of the 300+ companies we servers, maybe 5 of them were mac based. It's a niche. Frankly, I wish our school put equal money into the PCs as they put into the Macs. They buy the shittiest, cheapest (but still corporate level) Dell's and HP's they can while splurging on Macs, with the cheapest TN panel screens they can get. Then they wonder why no one wants to use the Windows machines...

But, lots of people choose macs, because it works for them. Which is totally fair.

 

[Kalabalana]

Every OEM has a premium over self assembly.

I think you just wanted to rant.

I know you are but what am I

 

[Deleted member 243478]

I'm totally with you on this: dual squirrel cages are loud... I would hate to be stuck at a desk listening to the equivalent of two founders edition graphics cards jets going full throttle. Considering how badly my 2015 Macbook Pro ramps up the fans (and how loud they are) this will be even worse.

I can guarantee you that you wont even hear it. Apple are excellent at making quiet cooling solutions, yes the Macbooks can run hot but they still perform better than any other laptop in the same form factor. I didnt even know my Apple cinema display had a Delta blower fan in it for years until I felt radiant heat at the bottom and checked the internals. I have never heard a peep from any iMac and the new Mac Pro.

The fans are buried so far into the chassis that they will be completely muffled. Then they exhaust where the screen hinge is to keep the exhaust quiet.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

My MBP (2012) is definitely audible when the fan is blowing full speed. This happens when I run spice simulations, encode anything, and sometimes just when doing normal tasks. It's not horrible by any means, but it happens fairly often and is definitely noticeable. The good thing though is that it's a fairly air-only white(ish) noise, and not a whining fan noise. I can handle that. I imagine the newer designs only improve on things, but yeah, they're probably not what I'd consider silent. Not bad though.

 

[Iratus]

It's always interesting to me, reading threads that turn like this.

You can so clearly see those that do IT professionally vs those that are enthusiasts. Of the professionals the ones experienced at scale are obvious over the smaller shops.

Your concerns at scale are just different, you don't repair. You just reimage machines rather than fix them, drop new ones on the desk when something is physically wrong and leave the aside for an eventual engineer. Etc etc

On an individual level though, For a lot of people 'just works' is more important. My home PC is just about as good as it can get, or rather is worth getting to (I can afford more but get no value from SLI), I still value a Mac. I turn it on, it works, I work, I turn it off.

PC's have an unfair rap over what they were like under XP, the gap between that and OSX was enormous in terms of 'just works', now it isn't so great but Apple are great at establishing an emotional connection with their users and that's way more powerful than a rational one.

I know I can get a 'better' phone than my iPhone, I'd love something with better sound and a nicer screen etc, but for me just works is more important. So I stick with my iPhone.

Emotional -> Rational. That's why you can never argue it. Can't tell people how to feel

 

[focbde]

It's always interesting to me, reading threads that turn like this.

You can so clearly see those that do IT professionally vs those that are enthusiasts. Of the professionals the ones experienced at scale are obvious over the smaller shops.

Your concerns at scale are just different, you don't repair. You just reimage machines rather than fix them, drop new ones on the desk when something is physically wrong and leave the aside for an eventual engineer. Etc etc

On an individual level though, For a lot of people 'just works' is more important. My home PC is just about as good as it can get, or rather is worth getting to (I can afford more but get no value from SLI), I still value a Mac. I turn it on, it works, I work, I turn it off.

PC's have an unfair rap over what they were like under XP, the gap between that and OSX was enormous in terms of 'just works', now it isn't so great but Apple are great at establishing an emotional connection with their users and that's way more powerful than a rational one.

I know I can get a 'better' phone than my iPhone, I'd love something with better sound and a nicer screen etc, but for me just works is more important. So I stick with my iPhone.

Emotional -> Rational. That's why you can never argue it. Can't tell people how to feel

You're right on many of your points actually, especially the professionals vs. enthusiasts point, however I take issue with the 'it just works' that gets thrown around all the time by the Apple faithful.

Having had multiple iPhones and Macs, and being currently a user of a Macbook Pro 15", it simply isn't the case. I have reasonably regular issues with my Mac - nothing earth-shattering, just crashes every now and then, but definitely not totally problem free and nigh-on miraculous as Apple and their die-hard fans would have you believe. I also lament some lack of functionality which seems to only be there because Apple don't want to do the 'me too' thing and implement something similar to Windows, out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

And let's not talk about technical design - I really do like the aesthetics and build quality etc. but the cooling system is so hamstrung, you can never get the benefit out of all the lovely hardware inside.

 

[Iratus]

That's fair, nothing is perfect, I was talking about people generally, as I've spent an awful long time looking at this, EUC in large orgs being part of my bailiwick for many years.

I've often said that with apple that people's emotional attachment let's them forgive more. Particularly with regards to things like compatability. I generally mock people at work that sit their proudly with their Macs and tell me how problem free they are, generally as they're doing it in the same breath as they are messing with parallels or trying to get a projector working. With me I'm certainly a lot more critical of my MacBook than I am my Iphone, because there is stuff that just pisses me off and should just work but doesn't.

The weird thing for me at the moment is that my least problematic PC is a mint workstation, OSX is all fine as a rule but when it craps it, it doesn't do it in halves and I'm generally pissed off whilst it refuses to let me close stuff. My Windows box probably gets an unfair rap because I use it so much in comparison to the other two, but generally, it does just work. I reckon at least 50% of that perception is hibernate on mac

 

[focbde]

Hahah, have to admit you made me laugh with the hibernate thing... that is an area where they shine.

You're right too, I've seen that before with people ranting about how fantastic their Mac is and then having to find solutions to problems that don't exist in the Windows world.

One thing that drives me nuts in OSX is the maximise behaviour. Obviously they don't want to do it like Windows because, well, then it would be like Windows, but the fact is that the Windows maximise behaviour is the best and most obviously logical way to do it.

 

[tempertantrum]

I can guarantee you that you wont even hear it. Apple are excellent at making quiet cooling solutions, yes the Macbooks can run hot but they still perform better than any other laptop in the same form factor. I didnt even know my Apple cinema display had a Delta blower fan in it for years until I felt radiant heat at the bottom and checked the internals. I have never heard a peep from any iMac and the new Mac Pro.

The fans are buried so far into the chassis that they will be completely muffled. Then they exhaust where the screen hinge is to keep the exhaust quiet.

I'm gonna go ahead and call BS on this - like I mentioned earlier, my office uses Macbook Pros. When you push them (sometimes even just when they are doing updates in the background!) they get hot and they get loud. As in, I often hear my office mate's machines going and think, "is there a big truck passing by outside? No, that's just the fans in their laptops," levels of loud. They are, in fact, the loudest of the many laptops I've worked with that didn't involve a broken/dying fan. And they still run warmer than I'm really comfortable with. Also, my 27" Apple monitor runs hot. Like, when it's cold in the office, I know that I can always just reach back behind the monitor and warm my hands up, levels of hot. Also, the Mac Pro's ran hot - which is why they didn't ever put a serious GPU in them (plus the annoying form factor so they would have had to make a proprietary one... Mac Minis seem to run hot. Everything they make runs hot, except maybe iphones and iPads. Maybe.

 

[focbde]

I can guarantee you that you wont even hear it. Apple are excellent at making quiet cooling solutions, yes the Macbooks can run hot but they still perform better than any other laptop in the same form factor. I didnt even know my Apple cinema display had a Delta blower fan in it for years until I felt radiant heat at the bottom and checked the internals. I have never heard a peep from any iMac and the new Mac Pro.

The fans are buried so far into the chassis that they will be completely muffled. Then they exhaust where the screen hinge is to keep the exhaust quiet.

That is hilarious. If you've never heard either an iMac or a Macbook Pro make noise then either A: You've never really used it for even moderate workloads, or B: You were in another room at the time.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

That is hilarious. If you've never heard either an iMac or a Macbook Pro make noise then either A: You've never really used it for even moderate workloads, or B: You were in another room at the time.

I didn't say they didn't make noise (I was refering to the iMac, I said they are quieter than any other laptop with a similar form factor and grunt. If you expect a thin laptop to be dead silent when working hard, then you are an idiot. Heat has to be dissipated and yes iMacs are quiet.

I'm gonna go ahead and call BS on this - like I mentioned earlier, my office uses Macbook Pros. When you push them (sometimes even just when they are doing updates in the background!) they get hot and they get loud. As in, I often hear my office mate's machines going and think, "is there a big truck passing by outside? No, that's just the fans in their laptops," levels of loud. They are, in fact, the loudest of the many laptops I've worked with that didn't involve a broken/dying fan. And they still run warmer than I'm really comfortable with. Also, my 27" Apple monitor runs hot. Like, when it's cold in the office, I know that I can always just reach back behind the monitor and warm my hands up, levels of hot. Also, the Mac Pro's ran hot - which is why they didn't ever put a serious GPU in them (plus the annoying form factor so they would have had to make a proprietary one... Mac Minis seem to run hot. Everything they make runs hot, except maybe iphones and iPads. Maybe.

Did you ever consider that they are designed to run hot and the chassis being aluminium is excellent at absorbing heat which is why its hot to touch...

My Cinema display runs hot as well but it also has a 40w speaker amp in it and a large power supply for magsafe...

 

[tempertantrum]

I didn't say they didn't make noise (I was refering to the iMac, I said they are quieter than any other laptop with a similar form factor and grunt. If you expect a thin laptop to be dead silent when working hard, then you are an idiot. Heat has to be dissipated and yes iMacs are quiet.



Did you ever consider that they are designed to run hot and the chassis being aluminium is excellent at absorbing heat which is why its hot to touch...

My Cinema display runs hot as well but it also has a 40w speaker amp in it and a large power supply for magsafe...

So you're saying a "lap"top is designed to be hot, while sitting on your lap? The best laid plans of mice and men...

Like focbde said, your idea that they are so quiet is hilarious. Our 2015 Macbook Pros are quite noisy at load - far louder than any desktop machine our University has ever put into the field for users, and far louder than any of the Dell, HP, Acer, or ASUS laptops I've ever seen. (one possible exception - Dell's Gen 1 XPS "desktop replacements, which were a Pentium 4 3.4GHz shit show with a TDP of like 3.4 million degrees.)

You're right though. Something designed to be thin is never going to be quiet, because the cooling capacity is determined by (radiation surface area X air flow). Hence, either you can have large surface area with a slow (ie, quiet) flow of air, or a small surface area with a much higher (and louder) air flow rate. Mind you... this will be the "most powerful imac pro evaaaaaaar." Tell me again how quiet you think it will be...

 

[Deleted member 243478]

I have 2 Macbook Pro's, neither of them run the fans or hot unless they are doing heavy work such as FCPx rendering. The only time I hear them scream is when they are running Windows natively with the incorrect thermal management.

The iMac pro will be quiet, the fans are right up the top and there is a huge path of air flow before they reach them and the 2 blowers will cool a single heatpipe fin array moving plenty of air of needed. Just because they are blower fans doesn't mean they are loud, there is a thick aluminium enclosure and glass display killing the sound and it won't be able to bounce around to the intakes or exhaust.

 

[tempertantrum]

I have 2 Macbook Pro's, neither of them run the fans or hot unless they are doing heavy work such as FCPx rendering. The only time I hear them scream is when they are running Windows natively with the incorrect thermal management.

The iMac pro will be quiet, the fans are right up the top and there is a huge path of air flow before they reach them and the 2 blowers will cool a single heatpipe fin array moving plenty of air of needed. Just because they are blower fans doesn't mean they are loud, there is a thick aluminium enclosure and glass display killing the sound and it won't be able to bounce around to the intakes or exhaust.

Well... I'll agree they are usually quiet (if not silent) most of the time, but then so a most laptops. I guess we can agree to disagree about how loud they get when they ramp up the fans, and we'll see in December what the new design sounds like IRL.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

As one of those people who actually *works* in a large, mac heavy 55K student university and sees what goes on with those labs, I also see that student use of labs has dropped off precipitously, this level of computer would *never* make it into a lab, all of them run crazy hot even with the more basic components, and frankly, most of the world will still use PCs. Universities are fucking Mac bubbles, and do not reflect "a lot of people." In fact, I just came back from a pretty big educational conference (about 1000 people attending) and most of the faculty and staff in attendance and presenting were using Windows machines, so even in academia, it's only in wealthier institutions that you see the preference for Macs manifesting. I'm an instructional designer now, but my last job was straight up IT, and of the 300+ companies we servers, maybe 5 of them were mac based. It's a niche. Frankly, I wish our school put equal money into the PCs as they put into the Macs. They buy the shittiest, cheapest (but still corporate level) Dell's and HP's they can while splurging on Macs, with the cheapest TN panel screens they can get. Then they wonder why no one wants to use the Windows machines...

But, lots of people choose macs, because it works for them. Which is totally fair.

Ahhh yes, the good old WAM labs. (Workstations At Maryland). I used to work tech support. And in the day everybody was flocking to NeXT stations with their black and white displays.

I've got news for you: Even if you took EVERY Apple station in use in a WAM lab, the total number of Apple's being used is far far far less than the PCs in dorm rooms. The kind of people at those stations are using specialty apps which windows don't support, like "Final cut pro" Nobody wants to sit in those labs unless they have to.

 

[tempertantrum]

Ahhh yes, the good old WAM labs. (Workstations At Maryland). I used to work tech support. And in the day everybody was flocking to NeXT stations with their black and white displays.

I've got news for you: Even if you took EVERY Apple station in use in a WAM lab, the total number of Apple's being used is far far far less than the PCs in dorm rooms. The kind of people at those stations are using specialty apps which windows don't support, like "Final cut pro" Nobody wants to sit in those labs unless they have to.

It's UofM for me, too, but Michigan. It's one of the few places I've been where there *might* actually be more students with Macs than with Windows machines. UofMaryland has higher instate tuition, and UM tops the charts for out of state tuition. So I'm surprised there would be such a big difference between the two. Maybe MI has more out of state students? Wealthier people tend toward Apple (as a cool status symbol, I suspect). Here's a breakdown of our biggest computer lab, the Fishbowl:

"...The site contains 72 Mac OS and 178 Windows workstations, including the stations in the classrooms.... 34 email and web-only express stations are located at the front of the computing site along the ramp that leads to the main floor. These stations provide quick access to the Internet and email without having to wait in line for a regular-use station. 16 CAEN workstations are available for Engineering students or others with CAEN computing accounts. These CAEN computers are dual-boot desktops which run both the Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Linux operating systems...."

Most of the other labs have more like a 50/50 split. And if you sit in the back of a lecture hall, you'll see more Macs, in my experience.

 

[focbde]

I didn't say they didn't make noise (I was refering to the iMac, I said they are quieter than any other laptop with a similar form factor and grunt. If you expect a thin laptop to be dead silent when working hard, then you are an idiot. Heat has to be dissipated and yes iMacs are quiet.



Did you ever consider that they are designed to run hot and the chassis being aluminium is excellent at absorbing heat which is why its hot to touch...

My Cinema display runs hot as well but it also has a 40w speaker amp in it and a large power supply for magsafe...

Call me an idiot if it makes you feel better, but equally slim/powerful options from Dell et al. run cooler and quieter. End of.

 

[wizzi01]

It's UofM for me, too, but Michigan. It's one of the few places I've been where there *might* actually be more students with Macs than with Windows machines. UofMaryland has higher instate tuition, and UM tops the charts for out of state tuition. So I'm surprised there would be such a big difference between the two. Maybe MI has more out of state students? Wealthier people tend toward Apple (as a cool status symbol, I suspect). Here's a breakdown of our biggest computer lab, the Fishbowl:

"...The site contains 72 Mac OS and 178 Windows workstations, including the stations in the classrooms.... 34 email and web-only express stations are located at the front of the computing site along the ramp that leads to the main floor. These stations provide quick access to the Internet and email without having to wait in line for a regular-use station. 16 CAEN workstations are available for Engineering students or others with CAEN computing accounts. These CAEN computers are dual-boot desktops which run both the Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Linux operating systems...."

Most of the other labs have more like a 50/50 split. And if you sit in the back of a lecture hall, you'll see more Macs, in my experience.

It's Ann Arbor of course those pretentious snobs are using Apple products. The poor out of state students are just trying to fit in.