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Apple Mac Pro Available to Buy

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118 pointsFireBeyond238 comments

Why do people get so angry about Apple products? I wouldn't buy one, but apparently someone does, and I'm guessing they make enough money using them that they can afford to have the best tools. I never see people on here ranting about construction companies who buy Ford F-250's instead of Toyota Tacomas. Seems like a bizarre obsession, blowing blood vessels about things other people buy.

People who use trucks regularly do the same thing. I know when I worked in the oil industry everyone was hoping they wouldn't get stuck with the ford truck.

Just because Apple's got the most expensive tools, doesn't make them the best.

Yeah, when I was in the oil business, I think literally everyone in our sub sea shop had the same model of pickup. Don't remember what it was; it was a long time ago.

What's was the truck that people preferred?

I've always heard it was the Tacoma.

Yep always the Toyotas. We had one in the yard that wasn't street legal any more, the thing was basically a shell of a truck with 700,000 km on it, no hood, whole exterior was just trashed, but it ran beautifully so they kept using it.

If the XDR monitor's specs hold out, it will actually be an order of magnitude cheaper than its existing competitors... which makes the other nickel-and-diming around stuff like the monitor stand and the Mac Pro base storage even weirder.

Goes the other way too. Why do Mac fans descend on Linux threads and comment on the lack of fit and finish and that time they tried Linux in 2003 where it did not work for them?

When has this happened? I have not seen this at all in recent years. Happy to stand corrected.

It only takes a handful of seconds to find multiple occurrences sorting by recency on HN search:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Plenty of examples in this thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18874148

Seems like a pretty normal thing to share experiences using something when it is being discussed. If the people in these threads complaining about Apple workstations had actually bought one and been disappointed, that would be equivalent.

The thing that always confuses me about those threads are the number of people that can work on any operating system. I use Windows at work because I need Visual Studio. It doesn't matter how good Linux or a macOS is, I need VS, SolidWorks, and a handful of other Windows-only pieces of software.

My machine at home is also Windows because I play games on it that aren't available on macOS or Linux.

So I assume that people who buy Macs are running XCode, Omnifocus, and other Mac-only bits of software and likewise people choose Linux because it's the best choice for the software they want to run.

So what's the point of OS arguments in threads like this? Frankly, all the modern operating systems are good enough. What matters are the applications that can run on top of the OS, no?

I use all three, but MacOS is my “daily driver”, but when my 2014 mbp finally dies the death I’ll have some soul searching to do ...

Why the high stakes? If your blender died would you have to do some soul searching before buying another Vitamix?

A blender is a blender. I don't depend on it for my livlihood, organising my life and entertainment.

Also, if somebody makes a good high-end blender, they're unlikely to change it in any substantial way every 5 years.

Actually, in fact, to belabour your trivial example, I suppose if I did have a particular blender I liked. The best blender in the world. That blended my foods like no other blender, was quiet, quick and nice to look at. Now, if it was an ingrained part of my life, like if I enjoyed making smoothies on a daily basis, or some shit, and the manufacturer released one that only plugged into some kind of "brave" new power socket standard, and would crack if I say put nuts in it, then if my blender broke and I had to go through the whole rigmarole of going to find a new one, going to various stores, and trialing various different brands (because rememember I'm very fastidious about my blender), yeah I'd be pretty put out. Maybe this all sounds a bit stupid, but so was your analogy.

I think you've actually made my case. Blenders all do pretty much the same thing. If you need one that can crush nuts or has a special attachment, well then that's what you buy. Especially if that is park of your livelihood.

> going to various stores, and trialing various different brands (because rememember I'm very fastidious about my blender), yeah I'd be pretty put out. Maybe this all sounds a bit stupid

It does sound stupid when you apply it to blenders, computers, or just about anything. Why is it less stupid to be fastidious about your computer than your blender? I get that being a careful consumer is just smart especially when what you are buying is expensive, but soul searching implies a whole other level of involvement.

People tie their identities up in the products they buy. I've been thinking about this a lot since the dustup where Scorcese expressed his opinion about Marvel movies and their production system. Some Marvel superfans got very upset and it makes no sense to me.

No ... you don't understand. It's not about identity. It's about having the best tool for the job.

My 2014 macbook pro is still going strong. That's how good the old macbook pros were. I didn't have to "think" about what computer to get, just get a Mac. It was a risk-free, if significantly more expensive option.

Now I have to go through this whole procurement process, and at the end of it I'll be stuck with either Windows or Linux, neither of which are as good as MacOS.

EDIT - and I am in a position to make this comparative analysis, because I use all three on a daily basis. Which was my original point.

EDIT again - I meant "soul searching" in a fairly hyperbolic sense. It doesn't keep me up at night.

I wish it were true. Two main things bite me everytime I've tried the MacOS to Linux switch:

1. Inability to just plugin any set of monitors and make it work (mind you I've used Linux in various capacities dating back to Slackware in 1998 - I CAN totally do the OS nerd thing, but in 2019, why should I?) 2. The Apple ecosystem (I can login with my watch, receive calls and send texts from my desktop, my Airpods work seamlessly with all my devices, etc)

Interestingly, in the rural area I grew up in strong opinions about automobile brand choice were common.

Maybe there’s something more universal and fundamental about product choice and brand loyalty at work.

I agree 100%. Consumerism has reached such a strange state that people get genuinely offended when a company releases a product that doesn't perfectly fit their needs and price point, even if said company has a different product that does! It's utterly absurd.

I think it's because people are realizing they have sold their entire lives to their jobs and they get emotionally overwrought when they realize a company they have some products from also sells products they will never be able to afford. I think it's the pain involved in realizing they didn't get enough money for the life they sold.

Arguably Apple brought this on themselves; every one of their marketing initiatives over the past two decades and every one of their bids toward user-exclusivity has led to this by design.

I don't really have any opinion on this, but cult-like outrage over a company that markets themselves as a cult isn't something that users can be blamed for, generally.

More like the life they're born into. I agree, I think people find products they daily use from a company, usually interpreted to all of the products should be affordable to them.

The point is, Apple doesn't. They already had a big gap in the area of a "desktop mac". There was a large unoccupied space between the Mini and the Pro - and while they finally refreshed the Mac Pro, they moved it to a new price range, creating an even larger gap.

What about the iMac Pro? Doesn't it fill that space?

I'd actually argue the "non-Pro" iMac fills that space for a lot of people. An 8-core i9 with a 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM is $3600 (or ~$3200 if you buy it with the stock 8GB of RAM and upgrade it yourself, as that's one of the few Macs you can still easily do that with!), and that's a pretty serious computer. For a web developer and writer like me, it's arguably already overkill.

I think there's still a desire for a "midrange" headless Mac between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro, but that's been something people have wanted for many years -- it's pretty clear Apple doesn't think there's enough of an addressable market there to make it worthwhile. (I also think people underestimate how much power you can actually stuff into the current Mac mini as long as your work doesn't require a serious GPU.)

And at that point you're shopping it side by side with a $3799 refurbished iMac Pro

I am using a late 2015 5k iMac, as this was the only alternative back then. And if needed, I probably would get another high end non-Pro iMac. I would be much more excited about the iMac, if Apple had not glued the machine and I could access and exchange the HD in it. Also a big problem with all iMacs is, you are stuck with the graphics card you bought it with - and there was not really much choice back then.

Yeah, I'd like to see the iMac -- and the Mac mini, for that matter -- move back to at least somewhat more user-upgradeable. I'm willing to mostly forgive the Everything Glued Down aspect of the laptops (although even there they take that unnecessarily far), but there's not much reason both the RAM and the HD/SSD couldn't be more readily swappable on all the models, at the least. It'd be nice to have the GPU on a daughter card, too, even if it's something weirdly proprietary.

> An 8-core i9 with a 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM is $3600

Whaaaat.

That's nowhere close to a reasonable price! Playing around on PCPartPicker [0], I can get a 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X, 1TB SSD, 64GB of RAM (expandable to 128GB later) and a RTX 2070 Super all for less than $2k. Sure, the monitor is worth something - but 50 percent?

0: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/92GygJ

The monitor, yes, but also the case, the keyboard and mouse, the OS, and the luxury of you not having to build and image the machine. Depending on how you value your time that could be a huge savings.

There are many reasons to prefer the Mac. But in this comparison, you also have to consider that it probably not only has the better CPU (the iMac is overdue for an update with a more current CPU) and the better Graphics card, but the advantage that you can change grapics card and SSD easily any time you feel like doing so.

I do think that the upper range iMac is one of the best value Macs, but it still suffers from being glued together.

The same panel in standalone 5k monitor form from LG is $1300, and even the non-name-brand versions are still $1k+. There's still a bit of apple markup, but it's in the same ballpark when you include the monitor.

Just FYI, that LG panel has never sold in a sub-$1000 display. Dell used to have it for ~ $1500.

iMac and iMac Pro are at the right price points to fill that space, but I don't think they fill it for everyone. I would love to have a mid-powered desktop computer at home, but also be able to have my choice of monitor setup - dual 4k monitors, or an ultrawide. And I would love to be able to work from home occasionally and plug my laptop into that same monitor at home. Having the ram or video card or hard drive be upgradeable is another nice to have.

The iMac Pro doesn't allow any of those things. There used to be a target display mode which was awesome and solved at least one of those problems, but Apple removed it for technical reasons, and now even though newer display port protocols now exists with enough bandwidth to drive the 5k display from my macbook pro, Apple has made no mention of bringing it back.

Hypothetically Speaking, would an updated Mac Pro Trash Can fit your needs.

I have been wondering why they dont just keep making the Trash Can Mac Pro and call it Mac. Sort of like a Cut down version of Mac Pro and reusing as many component as possible, except swapping the Xeon Processor for an normal Intel Core X or i10.

I mean they invested the whole production lineup for Mac Pro Trash Can, might as well continue doing it.

Only very partially. First of all, you have to buy it with the screen included. Which is a great screen (using a normal 5k iMac myself) but also limited at 27". As mentioned by others, you cannot connect your laptop to the screen, so I had to get (and store) another screen just for the laptop.

My iMac has a good processor but the graphics card is severely lacking. Not sure how far the one of the iMac Pro goes in comparison to a good mid-range desktop card. In general, I consider the Xeons of not a great value for many usages, especially now with all the new AMD processors.

But the biggest catch is, that most parts of the machine are not updateable. To add to the insult, the machines are glued together, so that you cannot easily reach the parts which are. With the iMac Pro you are limited to Apple-provided SSD storage for example. So certainly the iMac Pro is a nice machine, but not really a replacement for a plain desktop.

It’s a desktop computer. You can add external drives. You can also add external GPUs.

You certainly cannot add an external GPU to my TB2 iMac, and also adding external disks has been a very mixed experience for me. At minimum it is ironic, that Apple designs an ultra-sleek machine only to have you connect a lot of hardware externally to. My iMac still has a full 3.5" HD bay inside, unfortunately, not accessible. It would be an entirely different machine, if you could access the interior and find there like 2 2.5" bays or even some NVMe slots.

We weren’t talking about a new iMac and there hasn’t been any widespread performance issues with using external drives on them.

Also, aren’t you “valuing form over function” by complaining about it ruining the “ultra sleek” aesthetic of the computer? Isn’t that a complaint lobbed at Apple?

The iMac Pro clearly fits the needs of 99.9% of people who need some horsepower in their work - video editing, pro photographers and coders who want a ton of VMs or whatever.

I'd be interested to hear of a workload that is unsuitable for the iMac Pro that is suitable for the new Mac Pro, but for which you think a $5k machine should be capable of doing. Then let me know what $5k machine exists on the market you can buy that can do that workload.

Basically any desktop machine with a high end desktop processor and some decent graphics card. With the iMac pro you are even limited to buying RAM with the machine. And with a desktop, you get to choose your graphics card.

> With the iMac pro you are even limited to buying RAM with the machine.

You can upgrade the RAM after purchase by going to an authorized repair store, or by reading a couple of iFixit guides if you're fine with doing it "unofficially".

Well, nice that it isn't soldered, but the machine is glued shut. So any work on the inside is getting expensive. When I bought my iMac, the dealer charged me close to $300 for a disk exchange.

> And with a desktop, you get to choose your graphics card.

MacOS is now stuck to using AMD GPUs only.

That is certainly something else one could critisize, though with the combination with Metal2, the AMD graphic cards seem to be a great alternative. Yet, they offer way more choices than you have when configuring an iMac or even Mac Pro (but with that, probably generic AMD graphic cards would probably work)

I still don't want my computer to be tied to my display

Then spin it around and hook up your own

This is a very valid but downvoted comment, in the context of its parent comments.

>> They already had a big gap in the area of a "desktop mac". There was a large unoccupied space between the Mini and the Pro

> The iMac Pro clearly fits the needs of 99.9% of people who need some horsepower in their work - video editing, pro photographers and coders who want a ton of VMs or whatever.

The entry-level model is $5,000 USD, RAM can't be added later and there's no option for an NVIDIA video card.

Even in rich countries, that's clearly not what 99.9% of people want in a desktop computer with "some horsepower".

Officially, you can take the iMac Pro in to an authorized service center and they can upgrade the RAM.

Unofficially, you can do it yourself.

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac-pro/imac-pro-faq/ima...

The question stands, which service centers are willing to do that (certainly not Apple) and what are they going to charge for it? (I was charged about $300 for switching the HD to an SSD in my iMac, just for the work, the SSD came extra)

Any Apple authorized service center is “willing to do that”?

Also there is a big difference between “it can’t be done” and it “cost more than I’m willing to pay”.

Any Apple authorized service center is “willing to do that”?

That is the question and their mode of business. I am not aware that they are required to perform work on random Macs brought to them and they are pretty scarce. Which brings us to point #2:

Also there is a big difference between “it can’t be done” and it “cost more than I’m willing to pay”.

Yes, it is better than "it can't be done". But it is a strong limitation of a computer, if the pure work price for exchanging a memory module or a SSD is $300. And requires to find a service center which can do the work and probably a longer stay there. Even on most laptops, such actions are a matter of a few minutes, and on most desktop even much faster and normally user-doable.

Why would an Apple Authorize service center not be willing to take your money? Has there ever been widespread reports of Mac service centers refusing to perform supported upgrades?

> The iMac Pro clearly fits the needs of 99.9% of people who need some horsepower in their work - video editing, pro photographers and coders who want a ton of VMs or whatever.

It certainly doesn't meet the needs of people who prefer a headless solution and prefer their own displays.

The 2018 6-core Mac Mini is the cheap Mac Pro you're looking for. Couldn't be happier with mine for photography / music production.

There's a legitimate reasons to be concerned about the product choices that people make. A company putting a 1k price on a stand AND people buy it is a bad sign. We want the price of something to represent something of value, but at this point sentimental value is almost everything.

Wouldn't you agree its a problem if people are spending money on an option that have better alternatives? Call it consumer education, activism, whatever ...

Whats more, Apple is a standard setter. They make decisions that others tend to follow because they have such a huge market that everyone wants to partake in.

Just imagine if we introduce the product under a different name, would people buy them? If not then we are putting such a high price on the brand name.

I personally don't buy anything anymore...

Do you buy the cheapest car that will get you from point A to point B? Do you live in the cheapest house that provides you shelter?

No, like I said, I like to think that I buy the stuff that have the highest value to price ratio. I fully agree that brands have value, if I am Japanese in the Edo era or whatever, I would feel great pleasure from buying an iron made by local electric shops. But imagine if the iron explodes after every 2nd usages, you must wonder if I am making a sound decision or not.

If they put a $1000 price on a stand AND people buy it, then that's what the stand is worth. At the very least, there's a market at that price.

> Just imagine if we introduce the product under a different name, would people buy them?

That monitor and stand are selling because they cost significantly less than what people have been paying. Monitors of that class were being rented for hundreds of dollars per week.

> If they put a $1000 price on a stand AND people buy it, then that's what the stand is worth

I guess, but that doesn't change the fact that its dumb.

Dumb to you, not to them.

I think you’re missing the source of the anger, it’s not the price, it’s the value. Nothing about it is exemplary except the styling, which Apple uses to justify such a high markup.

So many here hate it because it’s form over function.

> it’s not the price, it’s the value

1. People can just choose not to buy one if they think it's poor value.

2. Do we have actual concrete products from other companies that are similar in terms of specs and warranty and software and show the Mac Pro to be substantially overpriced? (NOTE: I have no interest in looking at a home built machine with no warranty. Anyone spending > $10k on a machine needs it to work. All the time.)

Well, there's another comment in this thread that mentioned a machine from Dell that's comparable to the maxed-out Mac Pro comes in at around $49K.

Your parenthetical is also important; the target market for the Mac Pro (and that Dell) is very, very tiny and it's just not going to be comprised of people kit-bashing stuff they're picking up at MicroCenter.

Every single overpriced Mac Pro I've seen sitting on a desk was bought with other people's money.

> So many here hate it because it’s form over function.

I think that is the general point GP is trying to get at. As a consumer, you consider many factors to base your purchase on and if a product doesn't meet your needs, then you don't buy it - that doesn't warrant that you have to "hate" it or tell others how stupid their decision is for buying something, especially when interacting with strangers on the internet.

Hate is a strong emotion that consumes a lot of energy, so why waste it on a product? To me, this is part of the overall cultural landscape of tribalism and in-groups. Just as there are product evangelist, there seems to be a good number of anti-evangelist (I see it among my own peer group). People like to be seen as "knowledgeable" about this tech vs that tech - in their minds, they feel as if they are doing a public service by bashing... sorry "critiquing" products for YOUR benefit so that you make the right purchasing decision.

I've played this game myself when I was younger and always advocating building your own PC, explaining why this is better than that, etc. As I get older, I don't have time to evangelize - I just choose the product I want to use based on my needs and I understand that other people have different needs, so I don't let their choices affect me. I notice that others feel "hurt" and "anger" when you make a decision that they wouldn't have made themselves, with many people getting too emotional about a consumer purchase.

Anyways that's just my 2 cents.

I used to think likewise but now after I started enjoying niche things I really started feeling the pain when there really is only 1 company doing something and then they stop or change. It really is genuine loss happening and it's natural to get angry.

> and I'm guessing they make enough money using them that they can afford to have the best tools.

Or they just have lots of money and like Apple products. As long as Apple isn't bleeding cash to the point of going bankrupt making it... who cares? It's no different than Honda making the NSX or Ford making the GT. It's definitely not moving the needle for their revenue but it sets a statement for the company as a whole.

It's all performative. No one is actually angry, but people think that being mad at Apple online makes you look "smarter than the iSheep" or whatever.

I am certainly not angry about Apple products - I am a large user of them. However I am angry when Apple does not update the previous Mac Pro for 6 years, a machine which already was inferior to its predecessor, the original "cheese grater". And when the update finally arrives, closer to its forefarthers, they double the price of an already expensive machine.

Double the price of what machine? Its price is comparable to the old Mac Pro, isn’t it?

No, that started at 3000, the new machine at 6000.

In old G5 times, the entry level Mac Pro even was ever so slightly cheaper than the iMac with the same processor. You traded no included screen for extensibility.

Because they've gone from being a company where "It just works" to pretty blatantly just disrespecting their customers. They used to be able to defend their profit margin because it did just work. Now they trying to be trusted and relevant again but still charge you $1000 for a monitor stand.

In fairness, they always charges $1,000 for a monitor stand, the difference is now that the monitor stand breaks when it’s out of warranty.

The axiom on programming languages is useful here:

> there are two kinds of things: things people complain about and things they don’t use”[1]

The short answer is that people complain about macs because they use them.

1. https://dev.to/jonasbn/comment/4fmc

I am disappointed that Apple decided to emphasize form over function. Once upon a time, Apple products Just Worked. They were easy to use. You didn't need to read the manual. Updating to the latest version of the OS consistently made things better.

Nowadays the keyboards break. The UI is full of arcane non-discoverable features. Upgrading is a total crap shoot. It might make things better, or it might make things that have been running reliably for years suddenly stop working. And if that happens, it's really hard to go back. (On an iOS device it is usually impossible.)

The competition is even worse. No one makes a computer that Just Works any more. And that makes me sad.

In my experience, their stuff still “just works” and better than ever before (though I am a major version behind on macOS and iOS).

In my experience, the latest Windows 10 build "just works" way better than Catalina.

People said that about whatever the one before Catalina is called but it’s been great for me. Only problem I experienced was drag/drop from Chrome anymore for some reason. Works from other browsers.

Catalina broke some big applications for me. Microsoft has put a lot of work into making things compatible to almost absurd levels (Windows 95 is still an option on running apps)

I’d rather break apps. I’m glad Apple does that. It’s not the platform for backward compatibility. Also, Windows is just a telemetry/Ad platform now. That’s not very appealing.

They still just work. Those arcane non-discoverable features aren't usually needed to do typical things. At least not the things you did back in the day when things just worked. If you liked your iPad from 5 years ago and buy the new one, you can mostly just keep using it the way you always have.

The keyboard fiasco was pretty bad though. Hopefully that's coming to an end.

I think it's mostly frustration when Apple leverages the fact that you can't (legally and without a bunch of extra & ongoing work) run macOS on non-Apple hardware to push changes people don't like to the hardware, or to charge plainly absurd prices for same.

[EDIT] actually I think it's similar to the reason some people get pissed off over over perceived mismanagement of fiction franchises—if anyone could tell a story in a given "universe" they probably wouldn't care much if some of those stories were (from their perspective) terrible or misguided or misunderstood and misrepresented the characters or world or whatever, but when only one entity is allowed to tell those stories and define the direction of the "universe" it bothers certain fans a lot if they get it "wrong", and in fact almost any given piece of related media is likely to make someone unhappy in a way and to a degree they wouldn't be if that were just one of many options, rather than the only option.

[EDIT EDIT] and in both cases the problem is monopoly control over a very particular product. Yes you could watch other movies or use another OS, but you'd much rather that one simply be better (in your opinion) so you could stick with it or so, in sticking with it, you'd be more pleased with the product, because it's your favorite.

In 1991 we would sit around the lunch table at school with our EGMs and GamePros and argue about the SNES vs. Genesis.

Angry online comments about Apple have led me to believe that the people making them are either:

a. tweens sitting around the 2019 equivalent of a cafeteria table, or

b. adults who never grew out of the SNES vs. Genesis phase

One of those is embarrassing, the other is pathetic.

It could also be that they're broke-asses who are jealous of people who can afford Apple products but that doesn't make sense because there are very few similar comments about other luxury products-- though they do exist.

ps. Genesis does what Nintendon't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm in my 30s and spent a good part of my teens arguing about Xbox/360 vs PS2/PS3 on online forums.

I just have to hope others grow of the consumerism faction wars as well. And I like to wonder how many people realize they're arguing online with children.

With Apple products specifically, it can be seen as paying a large premium to preserve ignorance ("I don't want to use Windows because it's too confusing").

There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it can irritate people who see users artificially constraining themselves to the much more limited, much more expensive Mac ecosystem because they don't want to commit to the one-time cost of learning another system.

I think it is because it doesn't meet the sweet spot of price to performance ratio for people's use case.

This is easily mitigated in PC land since you can customize your computer. Not so with Apple's computers.

It doesn't matter much for cross platform people. But for people trapped in the wall garden, I could see how it can be infuriating.

Honestly these prices are better than I thought they would be. Topping out at ~$50k is extremely competitive with the likes of Dell for example.

These are not the kind of machines normal people buy of course but instead studios or a very specific kind of person who knows what they need and why.

Anyone complaining about the markup on memory and storage most likely don't work in industries that buy these kinds of machines so it will be jarring to them but I can quite confidently state that Apple's markups here are not obscene in the slightest, at least compared to alternatives. Honestly I am kind of shocked to see the high end spec under $60k.

I'm no more likely to buy one of these than I am to purchase a McLaren, but it's nice to see the cheese grater back in service.

My G5 Mac Pro tower was my first Mac, and a rock-solid piece of kit, which I would occasionally open just because I could.

My Intel based equivalent no longer powers on but I keep it because it's so nice to look at. Especially inside.

These things have amazing build quality. I bought an 8-core 2008 Mac Pro in 2008, and it's still running 11 years later. I've added SSD's, better video card, and it worked great until apple dropped support for it. In 2008, it was a good value compared to other professional workstations for getting 8 Xeons and 32GB of RAM. Sadly, you can't even install later OSX versions on it because those require AES-NI and AVX instruction,s which these CPU's lack.

Over $50k when maxed out with a 28 core processor and 1.5TB of RAM.

I only want one that's $16K, which includes a monitor. What a deal!

For those interested in "max specs":

2.5GHz 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz

1.5TB (12x128GB) of DDR4 ECC memory

Two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo with 2x32GB of HBM2 memory each

4TB SSD storage

> Starting with the base Mac Pro with a 3.5GHz Xeon W processor, 32GB RAM, a Radeon Pro 580X with 8GB memory, and 256GB SSD, choosing all available internal hardware upgrades will net you a price of $52,199.

> Add to that the $400 wheels, and the price goes up to $52,599. From there, if you tack on the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2 combo, you can get a maximum price of $52,748.

Once you hit $25K or more you should get a complimentary keyboard and mouse.

All Mac Pros include a Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard. You just have to pay more if want a Magic Trackpad.

Consider yourself lucky they still include a power cable in the box.

Yes, but what about the Pro Displays??

It looks as if Apple took a page from a book of medical device manufacturers.

Mine came out to only $40k

Did you actually spend $40k? Why?

I'm also genuinely curious about what kind of application justifies such a beast.

It must be a very satisfying experience to use it. I remember first time that I used a 25'' screen, 100 KB/s Internet at work in the 90's. It was like magic.

I punched in Barrow, Alaska (aka way up north), and the shipping is free. I'm mildly surprised they don't find a way to charge triple for mandatory delivery by reindeer or something.

They already do free 1-2 hour delivery for $500 iPhones.

oh, neat, really?

a month ago i drove 30min to an apple store, said "i want to buy that", and was told i would need to wait 45min for the next available sales representative.

strange to think i could've had it in my hands faster by ordering online.

They seem to use Postmates as their delivery partner, which amuses me a bit.

The subreddit for drivers has all sorts of puzzled and annoyed posts about it, like customers not expecting someone from PM and turning them away or ignoring them

Barrow (Utqiagvik now) has daily jet service. Try Selawik or Angoon if you want to see if free shipping applies to remote villages.

Yup. Free shipping to Selawik & Angoon! Whether those locations can supply enough electricity to run this monster is another conversation :)

A similar (but slower) workstation from Dell (28C Xeon 8180, 2.5 GHz/3.8GHz turbo) tops out at $49k:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certif...

Also note this configuration from Dell uses 24x64GB memory sticks. If configured for equivalency with the Mac Pro (12x128GB) it tops out at $70k. (12 sticks isn't superior to 24; actually, 24 is theoretically better because it is more parallelized, but only if the processors and system bus can handle the full theoretical bandwidth of that much memory...)

So never buy a high end computer, build it yourself.

If you're doing something professionally that actually requires a $50k computer, your hourly rate is so insanely high that there's no way it makes financial sense to build and repair a computer like that on your own.

The markup on these types of PC's is ~100%. If you needed to build even a few of these per year, the savings in buying the components yourself would pay for an employee to maintain them, (not even including the deep discount you could get negotiating prices on high end parts from a vendor). Not that you would even need a full time employee to maintain them...

That was my point, the markup is insane for it to be $50k.

Plus you want the 4-4hr warranty support for bad components.

And with Dell you’re not paying full price as an ENT customer.

I strongly disagree.

1. You're probably not building it yourself anyways (IT is probably doing it).

2. The difference between building A computer and building a $50k computer is trivial.

Not true. We build our own desktop machines for computational work, lately using the 32-core Threadripper 2990wx and 64 GB ECC RAM, a couple 1TB M.2 SSDs and liquid cooling. Even increasing the amount of RAM to 1 TB, the total BOM for that comes to below $9k, and the performance is about the same as the $50k computers listed here.

It takes you at most two days to fully assemble this machine. The breakeven then becomes an hourly rate of $2.5k.

For this much money, i'd rather buy a system than parts.

But with Dell you get professional support. No need to get to a support center. They will fix it next day at your location.

If you're working at a company that needs these, you have a reseller and are getting 20-30% discounts at least, off list.

If your reseller offers an Apple discount, and that's a big if, it's likely to be in the order of 2-3%.

I got 6% on an iMac Pro directly from Apple. So I imagine if you buy the fully maxed out Mac Pro, you can get an even better deal.

Apple has a thing right at the top of the page that mentions business discounts.

>(12 sticks isn't superior to 24; actually, 24 is theoretically better because it is more parallelized, but only if the processors and system bus can handle the full theoretical bandwidth of that much memory...)

The hexa-channel DDR4 used by these systems doesn't improve in bandwidth past 6 channels. The Dell has 4 sticks on each channel to address(through the Register chip which adds additional latency), Apple has 2 sticks on each channel and apparently isn't used registered DIMMs which means it should be faster.

It looks like Apple's marking up the upgrades by a little over 100%. For example the 28-core CPU adds $7k and costs about $3200 retail. The 128GB memory adds $25k and costs about $12k retail.

No, they're using a $7K M SKU (whether you need it or not).

An AMD EPYC workstation with dual 7402 processors (2.8/3.35, 24 core each) and 2TB RAM (16 x 128GB, comes to <$30K) can be had for less than 40K. This insistence on Intel makes for a poor value proposition.

Ps. The RAM actually can be had for 20K https://memory.net/product/m386aag40mmb-cvf-samsung-1x-128gb... if one wants to really save on this.

Which won't run MacOS...

Apple totally could've went with EPYC Rome instead of Xeon W... Google was testing them way, way before the public announcement, surely if Apple wanted a "few" for testing, AMD would've been game.

> This insistence on Intel makes for a poor value proposition.

I agree. Apple should consider providing an AMD option -- and if they decide not to do so, at least write a blog explaining in detail why not.

The motherboard was probably designed around when Ryzen first came out. It would’ve been too costly to switch.

Fair enough but the performance gap is so wide now (and will be for at least a while) that it's hard to recommend this one.

I forgot to check but if you are just buying 1TB of RAM, that'd be 5k! 16 x 64GB: https://memory.net/product/m386a8k40cm2-cvf-samsung-1x-64gb-...

And AMD released the EPYC 7742, 64 Cores for under 7000 USD, which will eat this topped out Intel CPU alive.

More cores isn't necessarily better.

Please.. This CPU has equal/better single thread performance, almost double the cache size, less NUMA domains and yes, if this is what you are referring to, no AVX2, Optane support or any other Intel specifics (not even intel specific vulnerabilities:). Other than that, i cannot see your point in the context of this class of CPUs.

What if you buy your own RAM?

What’s the obsession with maxing out? Anything can be made expensive. It’s just gold-plating.

What about ranking price versus the recommended spec for a given task; this would give a better sense of value.

It’s for the shock value. When the newest iPhones came out, people used the maxed out ~$1500 model as the price for comparison against a bottom line OnePlus.

I wonder if Chrome would be able to eat up all of its resources, the way it does with so many other machines.

FYI - I'm on a 2019 Mac Pro with 32 GB of RAM and Chrome STILL, yes STILL often eats up all of its resources and I get the beach-ball while the fans spin and the machine gets super hot.

FWIW I'm on a 2018 MacBook Pro with 32 GB RAM and while Chrome eats up its share of RAM it doesn't ever cause me any issues. Currently at 17 days system uptime with Chrome running all of that time, currently running 5 windows with at least 10 tabs in each window and Chrome is using 3.8GB RAM. I currently have 19GB RAM free with zero swap use. Can't recall the last time I saw a beach ball or the fans spin up without me doing something I knew would spin the fans up (such as a long ffmpeg encode).

Why aren't you on firefox yet? Chrome has cornered the market and has no reason to be performant.

I'm curious what you're doing in chrome? I've got a 2018 model with 32gb of RAM and I've never seen the beach ball in chrome... I've got 11 chrome windows each with dozens of tabs.

What processor are you using?

If could put nVidia cards in one and knew it would work seamlessly I'd buy one. I have a lot of mental investment in CUDA programming, so I won't use these for development.

Apple and nVidia need to get together and make friends. I mean you could walk from nVidia's headquarters to Apple's spaceship. Come on -- show us how progressive and tolerant you are -- at least have lunch together once.

The wheels are $400? Must be some good wheels.

Clearly you haven't heard about the R&D spending that Apple has been putting into computer case wheels. They are the only computer case wheels to have a rating of 200 miles or 3 years and come with an additional hazard warranty.

Rumor in my office is that a OTA firmware update will bring autopilot to models that are bought with the wheels. God forbid you have to drive the $57k mac pro yourself.

>rating of 200 miles

That's so you can trailer it home from the Apple store. :)

But how resilient against catastrophic failure caused by specks of dust?

I know you're joking, but there's a good reason.

If they only sell 10% as many rack versions as tower versions, but they still have to spread out the cost of separate design, parts, a particularly a whole separate assembly process, separate inventory, etc., that cost will be spread among less units.

Anything that is manufactured in smaller quantities will be more expensive, all else being equal.

More than the tires on my car lol

Gotta have some way to recover that Apple Car R&D: https://jalopnik.com/apple-wanted-to-replace-cars-wheels-wit...

Interesting that when going for 768 GB of RAM, you can choose to spend an additional $4000 to leave half the slots open for possible future expansion:

- 768GB (6x128GB) of DDR4 ECC memory - $14,000

- 768GB (12x64GB) of DDR4 ECC memory - $10,000

Beyond leaving the slots open, there's a slight performance benefit

I’m not very knowledgeable about Dual Channel operations, so maybe you can enlighten me. Intuitively I’d have said that using all slots with sticks of half the size would be the faster configuration, as they could then be used in parallel. Why do you say the configuration with half the slots open would be faster?

Interestingly there will be a rack-mount version... "coming soon" for a $500 premium.

It's weird that $500 feel like really small potatoes compared to the other options. Or that it's only half of the screen stand price.

And it's $400 to get wheels on the tower version. Apparently those stand-offs are expensive to remove no matter the case orientation.

What is the Rac Pro for? Are people using OS X as a server?

It's mainly used for CI build servers. I know of a FANG company that just stacks iMac Pros on a shelf, they will definitely be happy about a powerful rackmount server.

I almost did this for a recent (non-FANG) CI project, but I went for Mac Minis instead (they have more aftermarket rackmount options).

If I need more throughput I’ll probably upgrade to the racked Mac Pros.

It's not uncommon in the Audio production world to rack your machine in another room and use Fiber between the two to control it. If I upgrade the iMac Pro in my studio, i'd probably still grab the rack mount model as well and keep it in the studio. Assuming the noise profiles advertised are accurate.

Are you a Logic shop?

Build servers, render servers, more rugged installation in a mobile video edit studio (e.g. in a rack that's mounted in a vehicle or on a mobile workstation that can be rolled out on a set).

The new AMD Threadripper CPUs really stole the thunder from the the Mac Pro CPUs.

The Intel CPU is a lot less impressive in comparison.

Interesting pricing here, especially if you want to max the system memory out in the future.

128GB ECC DDR4 sticks can be had for about $1000ish a pop, so this is the usual Apple memory markup (to the tune of about double the MSRP)

You need the 24-core CPU to do this, so you're spending an extra $6000. I can't seem to find what exact CPU model they're using, but a close equivalent would appear to be the Xeon W-3265M, which sells for around $6000 and change, so that one's actually at a slight discount assuming that's the right model.

I could see myself purchasing one of these and then using it for a combination workstation/VM server. I find that the main constraint on virtual machines tends to be memory, and even if I stick with the base CPU, I'll have room to expand to up to 768 gigs, and the ability to install bog-standard PCI cards that can do pretty much anything else I'd be interested in doing.

Serious question: what do people use these for?

status

Youtube reviews

Video work, I’ve heard.

Terrible default GPU for any kind of rendering. 580 is basically their 2nd cheapest low-end gaming GPU at the moment and this is a less powerful, more memory version.

I'm pretty sure the default GPU only exists to keep the nominal base price under $6000.

This is the correct answer -- video and 3D. And studios will max them out with their own components however they need.

If you're working on professional films and TV shows, this is obviously worth the price. Studios wouldn't be buying them for their designers and editors if it weren't.

It goes without saying this isn't for consumers or developers.

I believe the main market will be audio processing.

Video, effects, CAD, 3D are mostly done on Windows and Linux.

The Mac Pro is intended for use as a workstation, as opposed to a typical desktop computer. Workstations are used for tasks with high computational intensity, such as video editing and rendering, 3D modeling, graphics development, etc. I expect machines like this would see use at Pixar, Sony, Weta, and so on. For example, if you watch the announcement keynote from WWDC (I think it was), they show its ability to live-render multiple 4K video streams simultaneously — where a high-end desktop would struggle with live-rendering even a single video stream of a lesser quality.

or running a single instance of IntelliJ...

...which is great because IDEs from Jetbrains know everything about your code.

That's indeed why you buy a workstation.

Except Pixar, Sony, Weta, etc. are all Linux houses. MacOS has very little to no presence in the top-tier CG studios for actual CG work (we have a lot of MacBooks around for Keynote and video calls and whatnot though).

Is that new since 2014?

https://www.businessinsider.com/pixar-uses-apples-mac-pro-to...

The lanscape can change a lot in 6 years time.

And Apple just lagged begind.

For example, Nvidia came with super fast GPUs but it was almost impossible to upgrade your Mac Pro with them. So a lot of companies jumped to Windows.

Also the software changed a lot. Nowadays Houdini is very big and 3DsMax and Maya are being replaced with Blender.

Exactly. And in 6 more years they will be back with Apple.

Could be. But I think the lack of Nvidia support won't help Apple at the moment.

But I think they have something with their 'cheap' reference monitor.

Oh! I didn't realize that. Sorry, maybe my original comment wasn't clear, but I just meant that it's people in roles like those who would be using workstations such as the Mac Pro. I didn't mean to say that I had knowledge that those specific people actually used it. Apologies for any lack of clarity on my part there.

That's actually really fascinating. Is there anywhere one can find out the hardware/software specs used at such places?

3d modeling, video editing, compression, etc. these aren't targeted at software developers.

I'd assume ILM and competitors, art schools, etc, are queuing up to buy them as needed.

Slack.

High-end graphics and video editing. For example, the Afterburner card is specifically made to allow real-time editing of multiple streams of 4K or 8K raw footage, which normally requires using 'proxy' compressed versions for real-time work and only cross-applying edits to the raw footage as a background job.

I know an animation/media rendering company that buys every model of Mac Pro in bulk. They'll buy dozens of these things. I assume that many similar companies do the same.

HN really shows a lot of ignorance whenever Mac Pros are discussed. HN readers, for the most part, are not the market for these devices. The market is non-tech companies, with little or no IT staff, that have extremely resource-intensive tasks. They buy Macs because non-IT people can figure out how to use Macs on their own. They buy the top of the line because it makes their jobs easier. They don't care about the price tag because it's still cheaper than staffing an IT department.

The price of a Mac Pro isn't the price of a good computer. It's the price of a good computer that is guaranteed to work, under warranty, and comes with basic IT service from at the local mall. That's useless to someone who knows how to build and administer their own machine, but easily worth $50k to a profitable business.

Oh, I am absolutely sure, the intended audience will be delighted with the Mac Pro and get great value. The problem is, that this audience is a very small one and more generic professionals don't have a real alternative in the Mac universe. A lot of users are looking for and not finding a Mac with a - powerful desktop processor - good desktop graphics card - extensible storage Bonus points for a machine that can be repaired with a reasonable effort.

I feel like Apple has a huge hole in the market here by not having beefier Mac Minis available with matching-form-factor Thunderbolt enclosures (hard drives, eGPU, etc) that are easily stackable. That could get most of the way to a traditional high-end desktop system but with each part of it purchasable separately over time.

Yes, stacking the Mini would be kind of an option, but it lacks a powerful desktop processor. And when you are done, your desk is covered by your Mac cluster :)

>but it lacks a powerful desktop processor

That's what I mean by a more beefy model.

>And when you are done, your desk is covered by your Mac cluster

It seems like it would be straightforward to make it so a bunch of stuff could go in a single stack with the same footprint.

Yes, I don't get why the external enclosures for graphic cards don't have some space for disk space. But I found this link today: https://www.ifun.de/animaionic-desktop-untersatz-fuer-den-ma... If that sees the light, that could be some improvements. If only Apple would offer the Mini in a not so mini enclosure :)

> Yes, I don't get why the external enclosures for graphic cards don't have some space for disk space

eGPUs currently are kind of a wild west of development and are still trying to decide on basic stuff like form factor and how to route USB passthroughs. That concept you linked looks like it sidesteps a lot of that by using multiple Thunderbolt connections at once, though.

Same thing anyone uses a Xeon based workstation for; video editing, rendering, simulations, audio work, etc.

Honestly $50k for the high end model means this will be a middle-of-the-road priced piece of equipment in a lot of studios in the world of £20k microphones and speakers.

For example Calvin Harris has at least one of these new Mac Pros (spec unknown but most likely the highest) in his studio and he has _speakers_ worth more than it.

> audio work

no https://cdm.link/2019/05/apples-latest-macs-still-suffer-fro...

Yes with some specific setups there are issues. However go to literally any major studio in the US, UK, and most of Europe and you will see Macs everywhere used as part of audio production.

Not gonna lie, I thought this was a cheese grater at first glance on mobile.

It looks like you can buy base and add your own memory/cpu/storage.

If so, it’s looks a ~$4k premium over market prices to get base. Might be worth it for some folk.

Yes, I think many people (me included) are frustrated at the base price and take it out on the high end price.

IIRC, the 2009 MacPro base was around $2500, then the 2013 jumped to $3000 for the base and it had fewer cores. This one is $6000, which makes it much more difficult to justify for people who don't work at companies that will buy them.

I have a 2013, but I bought it off eBay for a reasonable price two years ago. I bought a 2009 new but couldn't justify the $3000 base of the 2013.

Upgrade just the CPU to the 28 core -> $12,999.00

Thats just horrendous!

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX 32 cores goes for around $1300

Go Ryzen.

That CPU alone is $7453. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193754/...

I'm waiting for youtubers to explain me the pricing and user value.

Unless they're doing something brilliant with the Afterburner card (since it's a FPGA ASIC), I struggle to see the potential buyers.

You can build a Hackintosh with Intel/Ryzen for a fraction of the price.

Yup it is and it's still a terrible value proposition vs AMD.

A complete rip-off. People like to point out this is for the pro market but the previous cheese grater Mac Pros circa 2008 were powerful AND were relatively affordable.

MKBHD's review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOPswcaSsu8

Not a review. His video is an unboxing and “second” impressions. His first being using it at the reveal.

$6k for 256GB of storage. Brilliant.

No. Innovative.

I think he's being sarcastic?

So is the comment you’re replying to, probably.

No. Courageous!

You get a nice hard drive enclosure around it, though.

It's a M2 NVMe so you get a premium Apple screw?

>a premium Apple screw

Yes, but not the way you're thinking. :)

Price checking top of the class Samsung NVMe SSDs makes me jealous of Apples margins once again.

Honestly a sizeable chunk of the audience for this machine have little to no use for internal storage. Video production houses and the like are going to be working off massive arrays of external/network storage.

Server version! Was that announced previously??

The stand for the LCD costs $999.

I just looked up how much it would cost me to buy a block of aluminum big enough to mill one of these stands... $1400. Of course they can buy cheaper aluminum than I, but to make a profit they must also be using slightly larger blocks so they can mill two (one inverted).

Max out at $52,599. I did not see Applecare. Probably $1,499.

Is anyone going to buy this?

Probably secondary but the case design feels like reductio ad nauseam

I'm going to be an honest one here: I'd love to be able to just max it all out, checkout, and have it no impact on my finances :)

Another Apple product with hilariously-poor specs for 3x what anyone else charges. But hey, that case sure is, uh, made of metal. Yeah.

I believe they are made in America too. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apples-new-mac-pro-to...

This seems insane. I just built a PC for $600 that has an 8 core Ryzen 7, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB EVO 970 and a Radeon 570 8 GB. I just cannot fathom how this can cost literally 10x as much for _marginally_ better specs.

The processor alone here is $7,000+. That's just the processor.

Intel, at least, doesn't think that means, "marginally better specs."

So Apple is selling the base model at a $1000 loss? That doesn't seem right. Plus Intel pricing has nothing to do with performance.

Prove to me an 8-core Xeon W blows an 8-core Ryzen 7 out of the water.

It does blow Ryzen out of the water in PCIe slots and DIMM slots. The Mac Pro is optimized for the high end so you should probably compare against an 8-core Epyc.

That's more a limitation of the motherboard than the Ryzen, no? You would buy a motherboard with however many PCIe and DIMM slots you need for the desired specs.

Yes, instead of designing several different motherboards Apple just has one very expensive, very high-end motherboard. This hurts customers who don't need all those capabilities.

Sure, but your rig doesn't run OS X.

You can't really compare that build to a mac pro. On the low end, you're mostly paying for the platform:

  - Full-sized, machined metal case
  - *Huge*, complex, dual-socket Xeon motherboard
   - 12 memory slots, 6 memory channels
   - "MPX" slots
   - Custom video acceleration card support
   - Dual 10 GBit Ethernet, Thunderbolt
   - A lot more PCI-e lanes
  - 1.4 kW power supply + cooling capacity

Unfortunately, despite of the price, it is a single-socket motherboard. That means, the 28 cores is already the top of the line configuration. Which is not very much in the age of 64-core AMDs, with dual sockets even 128 cores.

My mistake.. maybe I assumed because of that 1.5 TB memory capacity.

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