NEW Customizable MAC PRO
Fauvist
Posts: 2,276
in The Commons
Announced today: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/technology/wwdc-apple.html
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Well, that's certainly not before it's wanted.
With prices starting at $6,000, this is likely to remain an option only for those with deep pockets
$6k is the starting point for a stripper.. it should be farily easy to configure a $20k version. The monitor is rather impressive - HDR 6k .. that starts at $5k although the desirable version wtih a stand is $2k more.
No Nvidia support, but for people doing serious audio and video as part of their job, this is probably very desirable.
One the one hand they actually made a Pro level workstation. On the other hand, no Nvidia support, so fat lot of good these things do any of us. While you can replace the video cards with Nvidia cards, the power rails are not up to the job. They're using the same underpowered power leads they used on the pre-2013 Mac Pros, which means you're not getting more than one high-end Nvidia card in there without some creative trickery. Maybe OWC will make an adapter to convert the second PCIE rail sets (for the custom AMD cards) to power cables.
Almost washed out the foul taste of the 2013 Mac Pro, but not quite...
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-wwdc-2019-ios-13-dark-mode-mac-pro-macos-10-15-and-everything-apple-just-announced/
...well sort of a step backwards in the right direction.
Wonder what happened with their iMac Pro "all in one system"?
Still there: https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/ This is closer to a prosumer machine... rather than a more specialized IMac Pro for those heavy video editors.
While I'm a Windows boy I had to go have a look and balked at the price. OMG! I could have bought two my current computers for the price of this new one. Of course my new computer has been a pain in my side and is NOT all THAT but it's what I got and it's finally working well! Deep pocket folks enjoy your new toy!
Only if I won the lottery....
Apple has dropped support for Nvidia drivers in the newest Mac OS so don't expect to ever get Nvidia cards working on these.
Just to make a few things clear from someone who builds this type of hardware.
1) Xeon's on the desktop are of doubtful utility. TR is roughly equivalent if not superior at far lower cost. That base Xeon is only 8 cores and 16 threads, the same as AMD's last gen desktop CPU's and present gen Intel. Yes it has support for ECC RAM and, I think, a quad channel memory controller but really that's a huge premium for stuff you only need onservers.
2) A workstation that cost $6k with a single 256Gb SSD? WTF? There are going to be some mighty unhappy people who didn't read the spec sheet closely enough. Even the top end only has 4 TB on 2 SSD, probably RAID 0 from the way its described. The problem that's just nopt going to be adequate for ingesting raw 8k footage and working with it before encoding it to 4k, a fairl standard use case for these machines IMO. I realize these are being marketed as upgradeable but they're not saying how many SATA connectors are free or how many drive bays the case has. Plus for $6k you should get enough raw storage that you don't have to immediately put in extra drives.
3) 6k display? Why? The base model only has a single Radeon Pro 850 which is no where near powerful enough to do 4k video playback in Final Cut or Premiere at a reasonable framerate. So you'll spend a substantial part of the cost of the rig that you can use at the desktp but not for what most of these will be sold for. No idea what it will cost to upgrade to a single Vega II pro but that should have been the base model.
As has become usual for Apple they seem to have gone for flashy specs without ever giving any serious thought to how the machine will be used. Add in that it appears to at least 1/3rd more expensive than a reasonably comparable system built from off the shelf components, no you wouldn't have a 6k display because as far as I can tell there are none in the retail market, and it truly makes me wonder what precisely is going on in Cupertino.
Well it's about time. FINALLY I can get a new machine. Maybe...not in the mood for spending that right now, but my older MacPro is about 9 years old. Still running like a champ though even with being on 24/7 for that long. It was about 6K when I bought it but it's been worth it.
You'd probably be better off with a hackintosh. If you absolutely cannot live without Final Cut that is. If you aren't a Final Cut user get a desktop PC and save $2k.
Hackintosh? Absolutely not. And there's no way in this world or any other I'd EVER get a PC. In fact, in 30 years I've never owned a single PC. Making me use a PC is like a cat with tape on its paws. A WET cat.
I don't use Final Cut and prefer the Adobe Suite. It's the reliability of the hardware and the design of the OS that I prefer vs. PCs, regardless of the specific specs of the internals at any given point.
The Adobe suite is available on Windows and if you're editing video at anything higher than 1080p you will suffer serious productivity losses by sticking to the Macs sold by Apple at a hefty price premium.
You're welcome to spend your money any way you want but really? If you're using a computer for work how can you justify spending more for less performance?
"no way in this world or any other I'd EVER get a PC"
Well, technically if you have been using a Mac produced after 2006/07, you have been using a PC. PC = Personal Computer = shortform for IBM Personal Computer. All PC's since the original have been based on the Intel x86 architecture. It is the latter that determines whether a computer is a PC or not. Since Apple adopted the x86 architexture, they have been making PC's. although they may be loath to admit it. Apple PC's may use a different operating system and use a walled-garden approach to hardware compatibility, but otherwise the claim to be different than PC's hasn't really been true since the PowerPC days. So maybe there is no way that you would use Windows or Linux, but those are just operating systems.
And MacOS is fundamentally just a Linux distro with abstraction layer on top of it to keep most of the implementation away from the end users.
..bah, my numbers didn't come up again.
...13,000$ for what is effectively a notebook in a vertical format with two hot running Vega GPUs, only two hamster wheel fans for cooling, and no user serviceable parts inside. Not a good investment.
,...and Apple continues to shoot themselves in the foot.
To think they once used to be "the" computer for the creative minded user.
Here is one interpretation about why Apple doesn't support Nvidia: https://www.quora.com/Why-exactly-does-Apple-use-AMD-graphic-cards-instead-of-NVIDIA
This sounds like worst Mac workstation ever, other than the G3s, which is when I stopped using Mac. They always under-power their computers. It's like they brainwash people to think they are the "artist" computer. What hogwash. 256GB drive... WHAAAAATTTT??? Seriously... you are going to do 4k on that? let alone 8k? Save your $6000 for a nice fat DAZ gift card and a 2080ti and never look back at the Mac.
Define reliability of hardware and design of the OS. Using Adobe Software either works or it doesnt. Its the same software regardless of what OS you are on. Is there a PC only failure Adobe Software gets that Mac is immune to?
Also, the hardware is the same hardware you use in a PC. So if the hardware is failing, its not because its running on PC vs Mac. Its simply hardware failing, which Mac is not immune to.
How a PC consumer sees Mac specs:
Intel Xeon 8-Core: $2900
AMD 580x: $699
SSD Drive: $125
Power Supply: $150
Motherboard: $200
Ram: $250
Case: $100
Total: $4,424 (Apple wants $5999) Where is that extra $1600 going? Probably the Apple Magic™.
Not to mention..
Intel Xeon 8: might as well take a Threadripper instead.
AMD 580x: Why settle for a 2 year old mediocre card when you've got too much money anyway, and there are some perfectly fine RTX 2080Ti's on the market?
I can't wait to see Linus tear this thing apart. I hope he finds a rich supporter willing to donate him one, just for fun.
I still find the idea of Apple selling something with a Xeon 8 today laughable.The Ryzen 7's and the9900k are all bc/16t parts for at least $2400 less. What do you give up for saving all that cash? Quad channel memory and a fairly obscure instruction set that is only on Xeon, I think AMD could have added it and just never made a lot of noise about it. All Ryzen chips support ECCRAM so if that is really that important to you you can certainly get it way cheaper than nearly $3k.
Yep...I know all that about the interior components being Intel, the OS being a distro and that Adobe works on both platforms. I used to be a trainer for Adobe products and I still teach Photoshop. I've been a professional for over 35 years and my husband actually wrote parts of the Linux core and he runs Windows, Linux, and Mac OS on his Mac machines. He uses PCs for whatever HE likes and moves between them at will. He also wrote more than one version of his own operating system, plus a version of Linux that actually rescues almost any crashed versions of Linux and Windows machines. He switched to Mac years ago but still uses the PCs as needed and loves both. My sons run their big screamer boxes that are PCs and are happy with those.
The software actually isn't always the same. Essentially the same, but there are a few functions within certain programs that are and/or are not available from one OS to the other, such as in Quark, Photoshop and off the top of my head, Camtasia. Yes it runs, but does it have the features and the experience I enjoy using or specifically need? For me personally, no. For him..he uses and is OK with both. I find the Windows OS extremely boxy and annoying. The Mac OS is much more fluid and intuitive for me. Can I get under the hood if needed? Sure...I just don't need to very often, if at all. If I REALLY need a PC program, I can run VMWare and use what I need there or use one of the PCs (which I never do). Or if I need a command line, it's there. If I need to dual boot or single boot into Windows...it's there.
We shoot, edit and distribute anywhere from 4-10 hours of video a week. We also manage multiple offsite servers, including load balancing and cloud setups. We create drag and drop software, themes and plugins for Wordpress, as well as creating SaaS's, eCommerce and focused funnel software and templates. We're not suffering any video productivity issues with machines that are loaded up with the higher end cards and maxed out on ram.
All our ram and drives are purchased outside of Apple because they notoriously overprice those, on top of the already inflated prices, and they take like 5 minutes to switch out. I've honestly never had the need to service any of my macs beyond that because they haven't given me any problems, while the PCs do. That's part of the justification for the price. The most I have to do is blow it out once in awhile and swap out a card, drive or ram, if I choose to. The cooling honestly has never been an issue since they're designed to be giant heat sinks. The side doesn't even get warm to the touch and I never have to deal with watercooling issues or fans really. I maybe reboot every 6 months if I install something that requires it, which is not often, except for an OS upgrade.
I suppose its more the Windows OS I can't abide, more than the hardware, but I have found in my experience that the Macs don't need even a 1/4 of the maintenance that the PCs do, hardware, OS or otherwise. Anything by Microsoft just makes me want to pull my hair out, especially the office suite, although I do have to run it on my Mac. I just choose an OS experience that pleases me better, which makes me more productive overall. YMMV. I find the Mac OS gets out of my way and the Windows one doesn't. I don't really like Linux because I don't use it and I didn't want to invest the time to port things through Wine, etc. to get what I wanted. I want an OS that just gets out of the way.
The extra cost is not really an issue for me, although I do try to mitigate it as much as I can because money IS after all...money. The investment in the productivity at the Pro level of the Macs we own has always paid for itself many times over within just the first year. Since we own the company I only have to justify it to myself and because I spend about 14-16 hours a day on my system, it's worth it to me to have a comfortable ride that I enjoy.
I wouldn't use a Hackintosh because I find them to be a cludged together mess that are more trouble than they are worth. Creating a Hackintosh is a waste of my time and my time is far more valuable than the 2K I might save. With almost a dozen computers in use around the house, everyone can have what they prefer and if something else is needed...it's just steps away. We cross platforms at will. Or not.
Will I be buying a new Pro right away? Not a chance...but at least the timer has started. They won't be out til Nov. and even then, I usually avoid the first run of a new Pro because they tend to change them midrun and they are usually better for it. I always wait about a year in before I switch and usually skip 2-3 versions once I do because I have no need to replace them yet. Like I said...this one is still on the same drives, same ram and same cards that I got it with because I maxed it out when I bought it. It's heading into it's 10th year. It was about 4.5K when I bought it with the Adobe Master Suite bringing that up to about 6.5K. For a yearly cost of about 450 bucks on the hardware, it's actually quite a good investment for the amount of revenue it's produced.
It's just too bad they made it an ugly cheese grater again. The original wasn't TOO bad, but this is just 70's retro and not in a good way. The feet are just stupid looking. I get why they went back to it, but the trash can is pretty sexy to look at and space wise it's fantastic. The new monitor is lovely, but I'm not in the market at that price. Apple's monitors are always ridiculous prices, but they sure are pretty. The stand price is just silly as well. What does the stand actually DO that makes it a $1K stand besides tilt and let you remove it easily? I guess we'll see how stupid the prices are on the Vega Duos and then consider from there. They can't be cheap and I have a feeling they're gonna HURT, especially for 2. I'm bummed about the lack of Nvidia, but I'm used to it and don't especially NEED it, although for Daz stuff it might be nice to have.
Night all...:)
Since this seems to have turned into a platform war it is being locked