Are there really people willing to pay $5,000 for a computer built in to a monitor? If you want to run 2 screens, then they won’t match.
So Vega Pro 64 (Vega FE equivalent) 8 core Xeon-W build from Apple is $5599
If you would build the same PC it would be:
~$1200 for the CPU (Xeon W-2145, not available to the public yet)
~$400 for 32GB ECC 2666mhz RAM from a good vendor
~$500 for a Xeon-W workstation motherboard
~$480 for 1 TB PCIE SSD like the Samsung 960 Pro
~$1000 for VEGA Frontier Edition
~$250 for a good case
~$220 for a good power supply
~$120 for CLC water cooling for the CPU
~$100 for case fans
~$1300 for a professional 4K monitor
This comes out to the total of ~$6870
Sure you can build an almost comparable PC from other parts at a fraction of the price but if you want to replicate the build in the iMac it will cost you much more.
Also AFAIK you can connect a second screen the TB ports do support Thunderbolt displays and DisplayPort.
Except that you don't have to throw it up when you want to upgrade a couple of parts.
Other than storage I haven't upgraded a single PC I've owned in the past decade if not more simply because at the point when upgrade was needed it was pointless.
Don't get me wrong I wouldn't buy this iMac, I don't need it, and I don't want it, and I would buy a PC, but Apple is pretty far from skinning people on prices this time around.
Maybe it's becoming less common to upgrade, but it doesn't mean people don't still do it. I've upgraded several machines in the last decade, for myself and others. Not everyone can afford to just chuck out an upgradeable PC and buy a new one.
Me neither, but for a different reason: I moved over to the Mac ecosystem 6 years ago, and haven't been able to upgrade since then. Except for adding some memory to a mac mini.
I'm holding out for the new Mac Pro. If it's upgradable in a meaningful way, I'll snap one up.
You can keep a screen for example longer than the internals of the PC. Macs are just a waste in general because they are not made to be taken apart and to be serviced. And certainly NOT by the user.
In any case: you'll need to put up $1500 to get this. Either a "better" Pro 4K or the equivalent 5K.
System Requirements Operating System: macOS Sierra 10.12.1 or later
Connection: Thunderbolt 3–enabled Mac
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HKN62LL/A/lg-ultrafine-5k...
Mini-macbook is USB-C without Thunderbolt, Mac Pro and Mac Mini are still Thunderbolt 2.
Smells a bit like Apple has got an exclusivity deal to be the only platform with 5K IPS. Might be paranoid...
So my closest thing would be a 10bit calibrated 4K professional monitor which is well over $1000.
I assume that in theory the graphics drivers should be able to merge the displays and present it to the OS as a single screen. That's how my UP2414Q works, which is two halves driven by multi-stream-transport over a single cable. It was rather unreliable in Windows though.
EDIT - While my experience has been that the screen worked better on a Mac and sucked on Windows, other people have had similar experiences with multi-display problems in Mac land, so I wouldn't write it off as just a Windows problem. Recent discussion thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15881207
So yes, a built-in display that probably works more reliably is definitely a bonus for the iMac Pro. Counterbalance that with the fact that when the computer's obsolete you're dumping the screen along with it.
The GPU doesn't emulate anything, it sees 2 displays so does the OS. Which causes the problem, you effectively have 2 panels which can have difference in color recreation and there are some sync issues which can cause tearing with full screen applications.
For professional use especially video editing the best monitor I can think of is the UP2718Q.
The UP2718Q is a true 10 bit panel. It supports a very wide color spaces: 100% of sRGB/Adobe RGB and Rec.709, 97.7% of DCI-P3 and of 76.9% Rec.2020.
It supports HDR which is becoming important for content creators these days and has a peak brightness of 1000nits which would allow you to produce HDR content and verify the end result in the same workflow without having to push it to a secondary true HDR display.
And since it's a PrimeColor display from Dell each monitor is individually calibrated at the factory and you get a full calibration chart with each PC monitor (they used to do it for each Ultrasharp, but these days it has to be US Primecolor) like this one: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/images/dell_up2718q/img061.jpg
And most importantly it supports full hardware calibration so you can actually go into the OSD start the calibration process and update the hardware LUT table in the monitor itself rather than having to rely on color profiles.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/monitor-reviews/dell-up2715k-r...
I don't know at what level that problem is being solved, but it's getting merged to a single display device somewhere.
FWIW my UP2414Q at 60Hz with left/right driven by multi-stream transport hasn't had any color consistency or sync problems.
As for issues I would assume you don't have color profiles and aren't gaming on that monitor? Because while they aren't super common they do happen on the dual DP displays.
It hasn't been hooked up to my gaming computer for a while, so the tearing problems I can't vouch for.
Some discussion of Linux drivers here https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/982568/-feature-req...
It discusses the TILE property communicated over EDID informing the drivers that the two signals should be merged into one panel, which is apparently being done automatically for 4K displays in Linux but not for 5K.
Since I can't find any similar complaints on the Windows side, I would assume that these are correctly tiling automatically at the GPU level, not using the multi-monitor taskbar.
Again not the same monitor (and 4K instead of 5K), but I can confirm that I had a single taskbar across the bottom of my UP2414Q under Windows 7 before the multi-monitor taskbar support was added in Windows 8. No user configuration was required. Similarly, hitting Maximize will make a window cover the entire screen, not just half of it as if they were separate displays.
You can get a computer with "80-90%" the specs of this, and pay 50% the price. But the point is if you want to match 100% of the spec you'll likely pay 100% if not 110% of this price too.
TBH most of the savings are from the CPU/motherboard once you drop the Xeon.
http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27-4k-hd...
Dell's UP2715K is very comparable and it is $1300 from B&H. So what similarly spec-ed monitor is $500?
what? $250 is really overpriced for a case. it will get you a really good case (see: https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&I...)
>~$220 for a good power supply
that's definitely overkill.
>~$120 for CLC water cooling for the CPU
>~$100 for case fans
that's like, at least 6 really expensive case fans + watercooling. does the mac pro even have that good of a cooling system?
With a Xeon-W and a Vega64 ~200$ for a decent power supply isn't that far fetched, you'll be looking at 850W with preferably 1000W+ PSU so it could stay cool under pressure.
And no the iMac doesn't have a CLC but it has a cooling system you cannot replicate, and if you haven't noticed an air cooler that can keep a socket 2066 CPU sufficiently cool would cost you about as much as a CLC
$100 buys you a few maglev low noise fans nothing too fancy.
I will eat my hat if the iMac Pro comes with a kilowatt PSU.
The Xeon-W has a TDP of 140W and can pull 200W under load.
Add in cooling, most radial fans are 4-6A @ 12V which means they can pull upto 80W.... The Delta radial fan on the Vega 64/56 air pulls 60W on it's own at full speed.
High end motherboards consume 40-80W, memory also will consume about 5W per DIMM.
And you have the built in screen which can easily consume 200W or more at peak brightness.
So I hope you have a tasty hat, because there is no way that the iMac Pro isn't coming with a near 1kW PSU.
It's certainly not the same, but the built in screen definitely does not consume 200W, and though I can't determine the raw number, going from 'dimmest' to 'brightest' increases power draw 70W.
Guess what size PSU all of the above comes with? 310W.
We shall see. I actually really like the iMac Pro, and would enjoy having one, I don't want to see it fail, I'm just struggling to see how you're getting more than three times the heat dissipation load in what they say is the same 'body size'.
Note the memory is 2133. This total comes out to ~$2300. Add a mobo, the cpu, and a monitor, you're looking at a grand total of about $4500.
The cooler won’t be enough, the case is pretty low end and the PSU isn’t something you want to touch the EVGA G2 line is pretty bad.
You can easily do 70% for 50% of the cost but that isn’t the point.
OP meant something different, which I agree with:
> If you want to run 2 screens, then they won’t match.
when working with multiple monitors most prefer having equal sized/looking ones
I think it was the last version before Retina screens and SSDs, and that's why it's really heavy: 30.5 pounds (13.8 kg)! When I moved abroad, it was a massive pain to transport.
The video card gave up last year, and now I can't be bothered to repair it.
A laptop is just so much more convenient. And they're not as expensive and underpowered as their desktop counterparts anymore.
I'll probably never gonna by a desktop PC or Mac ever again.
Not as pretty but I miss PC hardware. I'd leave the case open so I could save a few minutes when I'd add/change memory, hard drive, video card, CPU... For me, a 7 year old PC would be turned into a Linux box.
$5000 is about the right ballpark.
It'd be awesome if Apple pulled off the technically amazing feat of having a Xeon Phi as the only CPU, but I am not sure it could even be done (and with no virtualization support for it, if it's even desirable). Still would be cool to a level only Apple uses to do.
Those users are likely to be disappointed since Apple did not commit to shipping it in 2018. All they said was that the new Mac Pro would not ship in 2017.
27" is a lot of real estate on your desk. Not everyone have the space to have two of these.
In 2014, I paid $3500 for the original iMac 5K. It's the best desktop I've owned. At the time, the display was unbeatable.
I have another monitor on mine and it doesn't bother me that they don't match.