'iHac Pro' vs. iMac Pro | Hacker News Reader

'iHac Pro' vs. iMac Pro

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21 pointsesthor41 comments

They bought hardware that doesn't even compare. There's a reason the iMac Pro went with the actual professional grade hardware, because that's their target. Using consumer grade and saying "look they're similar" is misleading and not a valid comparison.

Yes, the iMac Pro costs a lot of money. But if you buy the same components you're going to end up with a desktop that costs a similar amount of money, and doesn't officially run MacOS.

Of course not everyone needs the power of the iMac Pro, and most people lusting over it would probably be fine with the standard iMac. A better comparison would be with the standard iMac.

Configuring the 27" iMac with as similar specs as I can ends up being $3700. It's more expensive, the graphics card is nowhere near as good, and the CPU is a little faster, but only has 4 cores. CPU with similar speeds is -$200. It's still more expensive, but it comes much closer to the specs you chose to build the "iHac Pro" on, and uses a similar same grade of hardware.

You can also handwave away some of that price difference on the included keyboard and mouse, which your build doesn't include.

Hi, author here.

Thank you for the comments!

I was originally trying to go for benchmark or spec comparison (which unfortunately there isn't much out yet for many of the iMac Pro components) without having to pick the same parts. Clearly I've missed some core components, and features and performance along with those for many workstation use cases.

I will definitely take your points in to the re-write of this article. I think you, and many of the others here have shown me a lot of what I missed in clarifying and in comparing. I really appreciate your passion and criticism!

Also, as far as the iMac (non-pro) goes, since that came out I've thought that has been a steal on pricing, especially for that screen (bought a 5k one last year).

This is ridiculous. You buy hardware that is clearly not as good, and call it a win? So your point is that you can but hardware not as powerful for less? Does anyone not know that.

At least compare like with like, and you will have to wait until you understand what the mac has to do that.

Why post an article so wrong? Why waste everyone's time? Just to be the first?

Harsh, but while reading this I thought something similar. Too many unknowns so it just struck me as too soon for this piece.

How much of a pain was it to install OS X?

I love how he handwaves the difference between Xeon and non-Xeon, and ECC vs non-ECC memory. That and 4K vs 5k accounts for most of the price.

Why not do an apples to apples comparison?

This happens way too often with people who decide that Mac Pro hardware is overpriced.

Yep, you can obviously beat workstation/server grade hardware by building a gaming PC. The (i)Mac Pro is not a gaming PC. And if you're already spending multiple thousands for a production workstation, it seems ridiculous to not get an official machine with a warranty and support.

Yeah I was surprised, Only 1.5K cheaper when the iHac is missing ECC, Xeon, 5K and Thunderbolt 3. Considering Apple likes to make 30-40% margins the Mac Pro seems not unreasonably priced at all

I think it was also very misleading to say, under memory, "you might want to upgrade to ECC if..." without mentioning that the cpu doesn't support ECC memory, so you'd need to get a better cpu + mobo too.

You have $1500 in head room if that matters to you, but the point is that you have that choice if it does.

What do you mean? You've always had a choice whether or not to buy an iMac Pro, so if you did need the features of an iMac Pro (incl.. 5K screen, motherboard, ecc memory, 10gbit ethernet, more cores) you could just get it. It's not like Apple is preventing you from building a PC just because they released the iMac.

Except for most (probably all) uses of an iMac pro "need" ECC memory about as much as they "need" the apple logo the back of the computer. No workstation needs ECC. At least, few enough would benefit from ECC that a comparable system shouldn't need to include it.

You have that choice with the iMac too, you just get the regular iMac instead of the iMac Pro.

And then have a significantly less capable machine. The performance gap between an iMac and an iMac Pro will be large. The performance gap between this iHac and the iMac Pro will be nonexistent, even without the Xeon processor.

Also completely ignores the all-in-one design of the iMac Pro.

Well to be fair he states his preference for expandability. I personally prefer the sleekness, the lack of investment in building it, the warranty, the 5k screen, the ECC, the testing of everything done at the factory, the perfect match of OS and hardware as well as the time I saved by not having to figure out all those weird issues. Makes me actually think the new iMac Pro (at least the base model) is pretty reasonable.

Why do you prefer ecc? I can't think of any uses for it in a Mac that isn't a server.

Which is a negative for many people, not a positive.

That's because the actual difference in ECC and Xeon from alternatives are pretty much just a handwave anyway. So it seems acceptable that the alternative not have them, just as acceptable that the alternative also not have an apple logo.

It feels pretty hard to argue that Apple products aren't overpriced when they are the most profitable company in the world by a wide margin. Sure they excel in supply and pipeline but its not like those cuts are making it to the consumer.

Why is it that nearly every “I can build a better Mac Pro than Apple for less” article just hand-waves away the Xeon part. What, never occurred to anyone that Xeons might cost more for a reason? “I don’t need a Xeon.” Then you don’t a professional version of an Apple desktop.

Xeons are more expensive for partially the same reasons apple is more expensive. Branding. I can't think of any reason to need Xeon or ECC on a workstation. And the legitimate usecase for needing them would have to make up less than 1% of those actually purchasing an iMac pro.

It's unreal that these will move at 5000. Assuming you don't need Xeon (which requires ECC) you can build a machine just as good for half that, easily.

It's more an on-paper iHac Pro, because it hasn't been build yet and it's unclear if MacOS will boot. Looking forward to hear if/when somebody builds it.

I'm currently running a hackintosh with a i7 6700k, 32GB DDR4 RAM, GTX 1080Ti, 4 SSD's. M.2 SSD's are not yet supported on hackintoshes as far as I know, I did not know this upon buying parts and ended up using it for a linux installation.

As for installing a i7 8700k: I'm certain that no kext's are out that support the chipset.

M.2 SSDs are supported since 10.13

Awesome, thanks for letting me know.

Hi, author here.

You're absolutely right that it's an 'on-paper' build. I did make sure to check each component, that they have been used successfully in other Hackintosh community builds, with High Sierra.

This 'on-paper' build should also mention the massive PITA from software updates when an OS update hoses your installation to a point where it won't even boot. Updating macOS on Hackintoshes is like playing with fire.

I'm curious, what were your intentions? To show that Apple is overpriced? Or to encourage people to build their own hackintoshes? Furthermore, people who are considering buying the iMac Pro are not likely to be interested in building their own PC. Also, people who are buying a workstation usually want ECC ram, because bit errors in 3d rendering, or scientific computing can be a show-stopper.

I wasn't intending to be that cliche "Apple is overpriced" guy. I think they make great products, of which I own many. It was more the latter, to encourage people to build custom to their needs and awareness that there is another option out there. I made 3 Hackintosh computers over the years and really enjoyed the experience and the system. Re:ECC - I'm going to definitely revise that part, since a lot of people are bringing that up.

I agree there are some people who may believe that they need the iMac Pro, even though they clearly do not. But these people are not the type of people who are building hackintoshes. If they are ready to spend $5000 on an Apple product, then they are likely going to buy it. It seems like you are targeting those who want the iMac Pro but don't want to spend money, because the other potential target, those who need a workstation, are likely professionals that also don't want to build a hackintosh without a warranty, or without ECC etc. In that case, you need to wonder what it is about the iMac Pro that those who don't want to spend money like about it. Maybe it's the design, or the status symbol, which are things your iHac Pro does not satisfy.

I feel like changing the parts like ECC RAM and the 5K monitor you'll end up with a different conclusion - Apple will win out. The prices will be very similar and the iMac Pro will have better components overall, and of course that nice all-in-one design to boot.

When revising you also need to make sure that the motherboard and CPU support ECC.

bit errors in 3d rendering usually are not that much of a problem. If anything it just effects that one sample out of 100/1000's and gets averaged out.

If it does in the effect the final image, that image just gets a rerender... but its rare that it actually is noticeable.

You can just buy the display though, isn't this the display: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HKN62LL/A/lg-ultrafine-5k...

Why not just include ECC and a Xeon? It'll make the comparison make sense.

Because then it would cost more than the iMac.

The hardware comparison is fun and all but aren’t the hackintoshes an absolute bear to keep working after the initial install?

It's pretty easy these days, mainly thanks to Clover[1] getting so good at pretending to be a real Mac. Even to the point of doing major OS upgrades (e.g. 10.12 -> 10.13) using only the native installer.

[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/

That's always been the kicker unless things have improved, I had a hackintosh for a short period but it borked when it came time for 10.x.x update. I decided Hackintosh life wasn't for me.

Would you get the same development experience using a hackintosh or iHac? From my understanding these types of builds would only be suitable for home use.

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