Please do post an example. Don’t forget Xeon, the GPU and ECC RAM etc. And the fancy Afterburner card that will have editors wetting themselves with the performance that it gives which you can’t get in a PC.
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Mac Pro 2019
- Thread starter hartgeh3
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Commissario
Production companies who will spec it to the max and pay significantly more than £6k/machine and buy stacks of them. It's not aimed at the man in the street by any stretch of the imagination.£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
£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?
Caporegime
I can spec an Epyc 24 core with AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 for similar price looking around.
That'll blow this out of the water.
Because people are idiots frankly and they love to hate Apple. It’s not cheap, but then neither is a Dell or HP Workstation.
It won’t blow it out of the water. Don’t make absurd statements. Especially when there’s zero benchmarks whatsoever.
Caporegime
Why's it have to be a Xeon? We're talking relative performance from a workstation here.
Why wouldn't a 24 core blow an 8 core out of the water when we're talking professional grade, same goes for the pretty much double specification GPU.
You're also the one who brought up Epyc when you dismissed Threadripper...
I thought you said TR and not Epyc, hence my edit.
Because of the Afterburner card, have a read into it.
Caporegime
It doesn't need reviews.
We're talking an 8 core xeon in professional tasks, these tasks tend to scale core/thread wise. Of course it's going to get blown away by a 24 Core Epyc.
Unless Intels per core performance has suddenly jumped generations ahead it's logical to assume it's not besting a 24 core Epyc.
EDIT : The afterburner card is very specific work case.
So, until there's reviews of that very specific aspect it's an unknown? This is different to comparing CPU's/GPU's, which are both weaker than can be specc'ed at the same price.
For all I care, that afterburner card could make the Mac Pro the best performer in that specific task at its price point. Doesn't change the fact that the rest of the spec can be beaten for a lower price point with workstation grade hardware.
And unless it's coming in at the base spec, it's also moot to the comparison. I've been trying to find this information but haven't been able to.
And by the looks of what Apple had on their presentation they were using the absolute top end setup.
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Back in 1995 Silicon Graphics workstations cost upwards of $20k. Now an average mobile phone costing peanuts has more power but back then it was the best machine to develop and render the Toy Story 1 film. Toy Story grossed about $2bn so a few of those machines wouldn’t have hit the budget too hard 
. It’s the the same for this Mac Pro.
A video of the SGI Octane from 1997 for those interested [weighing 25kg
]
. It’s the the same for this Mac Pro.A video of the SGI Octane from 1997 for those interested [weighing 25kg
]
Soldato
What's a little confusing is the iMac Pro is $5k yet better spec'd and includes a 27" monitor - why does no screen, quarter the storage but a load of PCIe slots add an additional grand? 
But until exact specs (used components) are released then it's difficult to do a direct comparison however you can configure a similar W2145 system from HP for around £3k/$3.8k.
Production 'houses' are only segment though and there's plenty of businesses, enterprise down to SMB that will be alienated because of the pricing. On the plus side, it'll keep companies like Create.pro in business.
But until exact specs (used components) are released then it's difficult to do a direct comparison however you can configure a similar W2145 system from HP for around £3k/$3.8k.
Production 'houses' are only segment though and there's plenty of businesses, enterprise down to SMB that will be alienated because of the pricing. On the plus side, it'll keep companies like Create.pro in business.
Production companies will not be 'speccing this to the max'. This computer is an extremely bad ROI. If anything this segment of the market cares more about this than any other. This is the gucci of computers.
One of the most intense compute task is 3d rendering, in VFX this is dominated by CPU. Xeons are great for threaded tasks, like simulation and rendering, but most ops in 3D DCCs are single threaded. Xeons are not great for workstations. Lower thread regular intel chips often outperform high thread TR/xeon chips in these cases. You could spec a ridiculous render node for 6k. Hell, you could buy two 32 core threadripper machines for nearly the cost of the base spec.
In 3d motion graphics rendering is dominated by GPU rendering (namechecked in the keynote), which is primarily an Nvidia market. GPU rendering is big amongst smaller/indie companies because it's cheaper... For 6k you can have 16 core tr, 3x2080ti and 64gb of ram. Which will smoke this machine.
This is a pretty dumb computer.
One of the most intense compute task is 3d rendering, in VFX this is dominated by CPU. Xeons are great for threaded tasks, like simulation and rendering, but most ops in 3D DCCs are single threaded. Xeons are not great for workstations. Lower thread regular intel chips often outperform high thread TR/xeon chips in these cases. You could spec a ridiculous render node for 6k. Hell, you could buy two 32 core threadripper machines for nearly the cost of the base spec.
In 3d motion graphics rendering is dominated by GPU rendering (namechecked in the keynote), which is primarily an Nvidia market. GPU rendering is big amongst smaller/indie companies because it's cheaper... For 6k you can have 16 core tr, 3x2080ti and 64gb of ram. Which will smoke this machine.
This is a pretty dumb computer.
Soldato
When I think about the Dell Precisions we used to buy in, we got pretty reasonable discounts per machine when buying even a small batch.
For businesses buying this, I presume they have an account manager at Apple and can wangle the same?
I don't really get the complaints at the Mac Pro cost. This machine probably isn't for you... It's definitely not for me.
The complaints at the cost of the monitor stand, I get that.
For businesses buying this, I presume they have an account manager at Apple and can wangle the same?
I don't really get the complaints at the Mac Pro cost. This machine probably isn't for you... It's definitely not for me.
The complaints at the cost of the monitor stand, I get that.
Soldato
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Even though they are overpriced,for the professional photographer,Video editor etc its a very important tool,and im no Mac fan by any means if anyone's wondering,But how they can justify 1K for a damn stand i just dont know,im willing to bet they've not added standard Vesa mount points on the back of the monitor either so you can use a third party stand.
Soldato
Generally, yes. At least with us, if we spend X in the past 12 months, we get X discount and little on quantity too.
However, nothing compared to Dell's discounting.
Soldato
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Won't take long for someone to make a vesa adapter for £25-50, it's inevitable, just need the right bits of metal made to the right shape.
Soldato
We use 5k iMacs for video production. No ones said they're too slow for what we do; editing in 4k, compositing and animating in HD, a bit of 3D work (though the renders get put on our old Mac Pro render farm). Can't see us being able to justify the 2019 Mac Pro.
Soldato
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Oh yeah for sure,The sigh everyone made at the unveiling when they said the stand was $999 was hilarious
But the target market is made up of plenty of people who do exactly that and that is partly why the trashcan was hated and why there is/was a community of people modding/upgrading the old cheese grater Mac Pro.
You can always specify a bigger SSD from apple in the first place if you don't want to replace it.