Mac Pro 2019

Man of Honour
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20 Sep 2006
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33,887
It’s expensive however the specs are good and a workstation would be similar I’d imagine. Agree on the small SSD, but the people who buy these machines most likely have network attached storage for media.

Would be interested to know about the expansion slots.

Complete overkill for a home user mind, an 8 core iMac/6 core Mac Mini would be all the power the majority of home users require.

Also you really can’t compare TR to a Xeon, you need to be looking at Epyc based CPUs and the Zen 2 version is not out yet.
 
Man of Honour
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It's a lovely machine and I am sure it's worth the money to many people. But I am seeing an increasing trend of creative people moving away from macbooks and now possibly the mac pro in favour of cheaper options such as Windows based machines (imac and mini still seem good value?). If Apple aren't careful then they will lose a lot of their core consumers. Once a critical mass is achieved then they will no longer seem the go-to brand for creative people and will lose the 'cool' image with them.

I'd love another Macbook or another of their range but I just can't justify it :(
 
Soldato
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It's a lovely machine and I am sure it's worth the money to many people. But I am seeing an increasing trend of creative people moving away from macbooks and now possibly the mac pro in favour of cheaper options such as Windows based machines (imac and mini still seem good value?). If Apple aren't careful then they will lose a lot of their core consumers. Once a critical mass is achieved then they will no longer seem the go-to brand for creative people and will lose the 'cool' image with them.

I'd love another Macbook or another of their range but I just can't justify it :(

Same here - I would love a new MBP (mine is early 2011). However I can't justify the cost of a new 2019 MBP with the serious issues - my previous one died with a nVidia 6800 and this one's logic board has been replaced already due to GPU failure and one of the RAM slots has died so I have 8GB and single channel bandwidth into a i7. I don't game now.. and the GPUs have all died due to hard core Compute based experimentation for astrophotography image processing. The current design just can't handle it.

Given that I want a GPU with 8-16GB of GPU specific ram (ie discrete) that requires a shadow of 8-16GB of system memory.. it means a system memory of 16-32GB would be required.
Once the data is loaded in the the GPU, along with the kernels (GPU programs), then all the CPU needs todo is coordinate the GPU program calls and sync the rendered output to a window.

The problem with lesser mac laptops is that the memory size isn't there for an eGPU with decent memory.

Options I have looked at are 32GB mac mini with eGPU but I like the form factor. An alternative is Linux but I find the experience of development too focused on solving the Linux dependencies rather than solving the the problem, that focus is what MacOS and Xcode gives me.. although their dropping OpenCL/GL is annoying because Metal is not portable.

Alternative is go buy myself a shotgun instead with the money.. would last longer and is just as expensive (accumulated cost over 10+ years).
 
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Soldato
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London
Surely prices like this just encourage people to build a hackintosh

Mental prices - no matter how nice it looks

They're not really mental prices for the market they're aimed at. I'm sure there will be some nutters who buy one for home use, but they're not looking to consumers, freelance creatives or even smaller businesses for sales - these are firmly aimed at the high end of the market. There are professional grading monitors and workstations that are well over £10k each, for instance. A big post-production house isn't going have the time to make a load of Hackintosh workstations, let alone risk using them in the sort of environment they operate in.
 

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Soldato
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i can see apple introducing a scaled down version a macpro lite so to say in a year or 2,

but right now they've offered up what the industry professionals want and need, a weapons grade system that will actually be cost efficient for a lot of companies,

even if a fully specced system is 20 grand, if that system increases your output 20-30% it pays for itself in no time,
its aimed squarely at the pros this model and isnt competing with your average even high end gaming rig. this is a system designed to be used as a tool and for making money.

ask any mechanic about the different having the right (albeit) expensive tools make as a similar example. design houses especially those doing video content will eat these up.

i did quite fancy one myself but its well beyond the spec i was expecting (and also price point i can afford) so heres hoping for a more budget friendly version down the line.
 
Caporegime
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Dormanstown.
i can see apple introducing a scaled down version a macpro lite so to say in a year or 2,

but right now they've offered up what the industry professionals want and need, a weapons grade system that will actually be cost efficient for a lot of companies,

even if a fully specced system is 20 grand, if that system increases your output 20-30% it pays for itself in no time,
its aimed squarely at the pros this model and isnt competing with your average even high end gaming rig. this is a system designed to be used as a tool and for making money.

ask any mechanic about the different having the right (albeit) expensive tools make as a similar example. design houses especially those doing video content will eat these up.

i did quite fancy one myself but its well beyond the spec i was expecting (and also price point i can afford) so heres hoping for a more budget friendly version down the line.

I understand the logic of work stations and all that
But you can build a more powerful workstation for cheaper.

You can build a 24 Core Epyc workstation at a cheaper price point for example with the Vega frontier edition.

If the need for a powerful workstation was such a major thing then surely they're already running cheaper and more powerful workstations...
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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21,047
These will fly off the shelf for production companies, the cost will be a drop in the ocean.
Exactly this.
This competes with pro studio workstations so isn’t for the average to high end home user :p.

In terms of the monitor - again, it’s a bargain price when you consider the intended market. Who also don’t need a monitor stand, as it will attach to their current setup.
 
Soldato
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UK
No issue with the price really, if its your job/company then the performance is going to be measurable and so you can put a value on it. For your standard consumer of course it is quite expensive!

The monitor is very nice indeed and whilst the cost of the stand seems crazy, the monitor is competing with ones that are 10k+ (they compared it with a $40k one didnt they?) and to be fair, a lot of places I have seen use monitor arms anyway so the stand would just be sat in the basement or chucked away!
 
Associate
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1 Mar 2019
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234
Apple is insane. 6k for 8 core/32gb ram/256ssdLOL, 580 gpu??

I was an Apple buyer and made the complete switch over to PC and couldnt be happier. Gigabyte Aero 15x 4k laptop running better and faster than any of my old Macbook pros (inc the 2018 model) and as soon as Ryzen 3rs Gen hits the shelves, ill be building a monster too.
 
Soldato
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Missing a button for help.. where someone appears to help you in person :)

Serious oomph and as people have said Apple Macs going business market.. leaving the consumer to take the iOS based devices.
 
Associate
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£1000 for a monitor stand.....they must be laughing out loud knowing that the usual fan boys will line up throwing their money at their crap :D

£6k for that machine too....just why? When you can build a PC equivalent for much less why do their fans keep paying it? Stupid? Blind? Ignorance? Or just fan boys?
 
Soldato
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7,303
£1000 for a monitor stand.....they must be laughing out loud knowing that the usual fan boys will line up throwing their money at their crap :D

£6k for that machine too....just why? When you can build a PC equivalent for much less why do their fans keep paying it? Stupid? Blind? Ignorance? Or just fan boys?

:rolleyes:
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Jul 2013
Posts
8,565
£6k for that machine too....just why? When you can build a PC equivalent for much less
Pretty sure this will be similar to the iMac pros where actually the price charged for the hardware isn't that mad.

I'm by no means in the market for one but a lot of the time it's simply not true that the prices are completely unreasonable.

The monitor stand on the other hand is ridiculous :D I hate to think of the margin they're making on that
 
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