Mac pro and XDR display orders available now + unboxing

[Bombastinator]

14 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

OK so them Mac Pro wheels cost $400!

 

Here’s another point where I can see third party manufacturers making stuff.

[Bombastinator]

26 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Reviews are coming out now

 

Interesting.  That thing looks completely full.  Those video card coolers are huge.

[jasonvp]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Here’s another point where I can see third party manufacturers making stuff.

Yep.  RAM will be a big money saver for folks.  Storage may, assuming it works properly with the Mac.  I'm not sure how the Xeon is attached; if it's a ZIF-style slot or not.  If so, adventurous modifiers could theoretically buy a lower-spec system and kick the CPU up on their own, later.  I've done that with the previous gen cheese grater Mac Pro.

 

The GPUs are likely not going to be third partied, though.

[jasonvp]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Interesting.  That thing looks completely full.  Those video card coolers are huge.

 

Bear in mind: he (and Justine, and other reviewers) is using a rig that specs out to around $26K, before the two displays.  It's a meaty box, but definitely carries a monster of a price tag.

[NumLock21]

9 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Here’s another point where I can see third party manufacturers making stuff.

It seems apple is selling the entire case with them wheels, not just the wheels themselves.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, jasonvp said:

Yep.  RAM will be a big money saver for folks.  Storage may, assuming it works properly with the Mac.  I'm not sure how the Xeon is attached; if it's a ZIF-style slot or not.  If so, adventurous modifiers could theoretically buy a lower-spec system and kick the CPU up on their own, later.  I've done that with the previous gen cheese grater Mac Pro.

 

The GPUs are likely not going to be third partied, though.

What makes the GPUs hard is the new cooler design.  The cards attached to them are likely fairly standard.  IF a separate cooler compatible with the new design was created by a third party it might be able to be attached to any reference cooler much like water blocks are.

 

it really is a much better cooler design.

 

Theres still the driver issue though.

[jasonvp]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

What makes the GPUs hard is the new cooler design.

Uh... not exactly.  The GPUs are in specific slots that use 2 PCI-E x16 slots in a row.  Not two side-by-side.  And it's done that way for the increased power delivery to the card as well as the bandwidth needed for those 4 Thunderbolt-3 ports on the card.

 

Further, there's no power to be pulled directly from the PS to supply tertiary PCI-E power for after market GPUs.  In other words: no cables anywhere.  So the aftermarket would be forced to make those 2 x PCI-E cards.  For a tiny little market.

 

Don't count on it happening.  Ever.

[Bombastinator]

8 minutes ago, jasonvp said:

 

Bear in mind: he (and Justine, and other reviewers) is using a rig that specs out to around $26K, before the two displays.  It's a meaty box, but definitely carries a monster of a price tag.

Yep.  Way too high for consumers.  That case seems to take up a lot of cost.  It seems to me that the biggest innovation here is the design of the GPU coolers, though I have no idea what an “afterburner” card does.

 

I personally couldn’t get into a desktop Mac that cost more than about 3k ready to go.  It’s just not possible.  The problem is though that all the consumer grade stuff aren’t actually desktops.  They’re basically laptops put into AIO cases along with a monitor.  

Edited December 10, 2019 by Bombastinator
Addendum

[jasonvp]

24 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Yep.  Way too high for consumers.  That case seems to take up a lot of cost.  It seems to me that the biggest innovation here is the design of the GPU coolers, though I have no idea what an “afterburner” card does.

You'll note the reviewers are all video editors who use Final Cut Pro almost exclusively (that's not 100% accurate, but mostly).  The Afterburner card helps with 4K and 8K footage from cameras like Reds, et al.  An editor can work with those files in real time and without first transcoding or creating proxies.  It makes the work flow much faster overall.  For the hobbyist or even professional video game YouTuber: completely useless.

 

And while I agree that one of the innovations is the GPU cooler, I don't agree that it's the "biggest" as you put it.  There's a lot to appreciate about this box from an innovation perspective.  The cooling is just one aspect.

 

[DrMacintosh]

Thank god it's Final week. Otherwise I would have been deep into this thread already and would probably get a few warning points issued to me and the people I would be arguing with  

[Bombastinator]

24 minutes ago, jasonvp said:

You'll note the reviewers are all video editors who use Final Cut Pro almost exclusively (that's not 100% accurate, but mostly).  The Afterburner card helps with 4K and 8K footage from cameras like Reds, et al.  An editor can work with those files in real time and without first transcoding or creating proxies.  It makes the work flow much faster overall.  For the hobbyist or even professional video game YouTuber: completely useless.

 

And while I agree that one of the innovations is the GPU cooler, I don't agree that it's the "biggest" as you put it.  There's a lot to appreciate about this box from an innovation perspective.  The cooling is just one aspect.

 

The aesthetics are great and the latching is cute and there are interesting conveniences.  I was concerned purely with function though.  Imho the thing could be butt ugly made of cheap plastic with giant gaps and bad finishes and crud sticking out the front.  
The cooler system means GPUs could have higher watts though and that seems like a major change to me.

[Belgarathian]

Uh, guys... I think the Apple FX converter is broken. 1 NZD is a fraction less than 1 CAD.

 

Someone should blind order this for Linus and just get him to read out the receipt in rage mode like the RED camera video.

 

Make sure you pay extra for the wheels and Pro stand. 

 

 

 

Thank god the shipping is free.

 

Edit: I really like that we've already got next gen RDNA cards coming soon for the machine.

[TechyBen]

12 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

Uh, guys... I think the Apple FX converter is broken. 

 

1 NZD is a fraction less than 1 CAD

 

 

Nope. Probably actual price. I doubt many could afford the monthly payments on that for their entire WAGE.

[Belgarathian]

33 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Nope. Probably actual price. I doubt many could afford the monthly payments on that for their entire WAGE.

Yeah, uh... I don't know what to say other than it was sarcastic.

[DrMacintosh]

40 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

I doubt many could afford the monthly payments on that for their entire WAGE.

Mac Pro is not for people who are on an hourly wage and buying their own equipment. 

[Curious Pineapple]

16 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Mac Pro is not for people who are on an hourly wage and buying their own equipment. 

It's not for anyone with a USB 2.0 audio desk either

[SenKa]

Damn, the rack mount version isn't coming out at the same time.

 

If I were to buy the tower it would be $30,199. Assuming the rack mount starting at 1k more is just for the case, it'd be $31,199. I would never buy one due to cost alone, simply because I can't afford it. If I could though, i'd do it in a second. Its a beast of a computer I would definitely use to its potential.

[SenKa]

6 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

It's not for anyone with a USB 2.0 audio desk either

That is specifically a T2 mobile device issue from what I understand

[Commodus]

3 hours ago, williamcll said:

Reviews are coming out now

 

Sorry to butt in and clarify, but it's not a review.  It's an unboxing and early hands-on.  A review takes much longer than offering some initial impressions.

[Kilrah]

9 minutes ago, SenKa said:

That is specifically a T2 mobile device issue from what I understand

The T2 isn't exclusive to mobile, the Mac Pro has one as well. 

[Blademaster91]

41 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

It's not for anyone with a USB 2.0 audio desk either

Inb4 someone says "just buy modern audio hardware".

But really the T2 chip should be an optional card in a desktop.

[SenKa]

39 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

The T2 isn't exclusive to mobile, the Mac Pro has one as well. 

I didnt say that. I said the issue quoted was specific to mobile T2 equipped devices. The desktop T2 mac's do not have the issue, per my understanding

[Bombastinator]

My suspicion is those USBC ports are going to see hubs plugged into them.  Apple has always used very minimal I/o.  It’s been a problem for 30 years.  They fixed it briefly with the “black” laptops, then went a bit overboard, then pared it way too far back again.

 

My prediction is some clever soul will build a hub designed to run off one of those internal USBC ports that snakes through the front of that expensive front grill and snaps on to the front of it.  And it will cost 2-3 times what a normal hub does.  That’s the sort of thing that has happened in the past.

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, TechyBen said:

Nope. Probably actual price. I doubt many could afford the monthly payments on that for their entire WAGE.

Canada, maxed out (without buying final cut or logic pro, but adding apple care)

Ye gawds, I could buy one, but I don't have a use case for a maxed out Mac Pro. Where's Mr.Beast when you need him to spend stupid amounts of money on things. That's CAD above

 

As side note to that, I maxed out "the equivalent" on dell's site and it was north of 90K. The issue on the Dell site is that to get 1.5TB of RAM you need a Dual CPU configuration, which means it's an older configuration still. But yeah buying the base 

 

This is an equivalent Dell USD:

However it's not a buildable configuration for reasons I noted above. Can't get a 2X NVMe 2TB or a single 4TB drive, as they're only on a PCIe card,  and have two GPU's. Can't get 1.5TB in a 24 DIMM configuration, so selecting a 12 DIMM configuration results in doubling the RAM price.

 

So to "make a buildable configuration" I have to add boot drive, and switch to dual CPU's, so the result is this, Slightly more than the Mac Pro:

 

 

 

Everything past this point was standard, 1600w redundant PSU.

 

Caveat: There is no accelerator card, and the GPU's used by Apple are not available from Dell on any machine that I'm aware of, so I selected the highest Quadro option, but those are also older models as well. Would I buy that Dell instead? Nope.

[TechyBen]

6 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Mac Pro is not for people who are on an hourly wage and buying their own equipment. 

Apple productivity currently goes:

Laptop

The entire freaking planet.

 

 

Thus all the strange responses. They don't have a middle ground (PC by it's nature has a much more gradual upgrade/market share).