52,600$ fully loaded mac pro

[Letgomyleghoe]

27 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

Scalable Xeons are available that support 2TB, it's not Apple specific.

 

Go here: https://www.thinkmate.com/system/hpx-xs8-24s1

 

That's the workstation market without the Apple tax.

 

I just built a 48 core/96 thread, 2TB RAM, 4TB SSD, 2x RTX 48GB Quadro monstrosity for $53k that would take enormous dumps all over Apple's top spec'd Mac Pro. Or you know, you could spend about half of that and come out to what Apple has on offer.

dang that is crazy i was looking at this and sure the case isnt nice BUT HOLY SHIT THE FUCKING PRICES ARE SO LOW

[Blademaster91]

15 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Yes, but that's not something that's going to be sat in a room beside you. Mind you that's a very niche group.

If you price out a more reasonable system from Dell, the Apple system actually comes out to be cheaper.

If you're focusing on the extreme high end model? Yes, it's stupidly expensive, because the people that need that don't need to worry as much about budget.

If you need something with 1.5TB RAM then there isn't much chance the system is going to be sitting in the same room let alone besides you.

Seems more like this is aimed at those that think more expensive Apple must mean better.

15 minutes ago, dizmo said:

None of those have a 28 core Xeon option.

If you price it with similar parts, there's only about a $1,000 price jump for the Apple product, which is not bad considering it has a much more advanced case, likely better support, includes MacOS (which said individual would need if they're buying the product)...

There is a 28 core option from thinkmate, but the 28 core would be overkill for most studios unless they're rendering video, however most users that need serious power aren't going to care about some fancy custom case. A company needing 1.5TB RAM would more likely use a server with IT staff offering support,what does Apple offer to the professional for support? I would hope it's better than the experience Linus had with his iMac Pro.

[dizmo]

9 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

If you need something with 1.5TB RAM then there isn't much chance the system is going to be sitting in the same room let alone besides you.

Seems more like this is aimed at those that think more expensive Apple must mean better.

 

There is a 28 core option from thinkmate, but the 28 core would be overkill for most studios unless they're rendering video, however most users that need serious power aren't going to care about some fancy custom case. A company needing 1.5TB RAM would more likely use a server with IT staff offering support,what does Apple offer to the professional for support? I would hope it's better than the experience Linus had with his iMac Pro.

More than likely it's for their rack mounted option.

 

Not in the ones with a single CPU.

[Tristerin]

All that professionals need (whether it be a working professional or corporation) do is to justify time vs income.  If there is more work, than time in the day - and the cost will be recouped in XXX (see also, reasonable to the professional) than its just a financial justification at that point.

 

My work laptop is server grade hardware, expensive as crap.  Its overkill, but I also finish calculation in 9 seconds rather than 4 minutes on my previous desktop.  It likely paid for itself in the first month.

 

[atxcyclist]

5 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

All that professionals need (whether it be a working professional or corporation) do is to justify time vs income.  If there is more work, than time in the day - and the cost will be recouped in XXX (see also, reasonable to the professional) than its just a financial justification at that point.

 

My work laptop is server grade hardware, expensive as crap.  Its overkill, but I also finish calculation in 9 seconds rather than 4 minutes on my previous desktop.  It likely paid for itself in the first month.

 

But is there really a situation where the top-spec is necessary at a desk? 1.5 terabytes of RAM is ludicrous. Would that much RAM even be a benefit in a movie production scenario?

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, scuff gang said:

dang that is crazy i was looking at this and sure the case isnt nice BUT HOLY SHIT THE FUCKING PRICES ARE SO LOW

I think it's because of the lack of enterprise level support coming with it which really racks up the prices of stuff from Dell or HP. That said though, lacking that support is fine because Apple definitely isn't providing it either.

[Letgomyleghoe]

12 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

I think it's because of the lack of enterprise level support coming with it which really racks up the prices of stuff from Dell or HP. That said though, lacking that support is fine because Apple definitely isn't providing it either.

we all know the people at the geniuses bar are far from geniuses. it would be interesting to see if they had people who know how this system works to repair it, if apple employes cant fix an imac, good luck with this 50 some odd thousand dollar pc.

[Letgomyleghoe]

1 hour ago, Tristerin said:

All that professionals need (whether it be a working professional or corporation) do is to justify time vs income.  If there is more work, than time in the day - and the cost will be recouped in XXX (see also, reasonable to the professional) than its just a financial justification at that point.

 

My work laptop is server grade hardware, expensive as crap.  Its overkill, but I also finish calculation in 9 seconds rather than 4 minutes on my previous desktop.  It likely paid for itself in the first month.

 

i completely understand this but the price un-justified when there is MUCH cheaper alternatives than this, if 

[Letgomyleghoe]

1 hour ago, Zando Bob said:

Ugh. Go buy enterprise/full on business-class professional hardware and software, get back to me. It's not for individuals. I've purchased $600 6' square plastic label printers for the company I work for and that's just standard accounting office gear. 

Oh look, here's a camera body that costs within margin of error of the highest spec Mac Pro you can currently buy:


Almost like the people who need this hardware are fine with paying that price and they pay it for reasons that mean a lot to them but absolutely nothing to the average consumer because wow maybe they aren't average consumers and a computer or camera the cost of a pretty nice car isn't meant for average people anyways. 

yes but 8k cameras are expensive in any means were talking about something here with cheaper alternatives 

[Zando_]

14 minutes ago, scuff gang said:

yes but 8k cameras are expensive in any means were talking about something here with cheaper alternatives 

Alternatives that no one actually buying a $52K Mac Pro would consider? People who need a Mac Pro will buy one, people who do not will not. Same as the RED cameras, if people need a 54 thousand dollar camera they buy it, if they do not then they don't. 

Consumers sitting around on forums aren't going to impact the choices of businesses with budgets so large that the price of the computer isn't even a consideration. 

Not to mention the fact that uh... not many people actually need the top spec, even the one MKBHD (only review I've seen so far tbf) was around $28K, and that had stuff he wouldn't actually use (he shoots with RED's own files, he said he'd test with the ProRes card but he doesn't actually regularly shoot in that). So a config that's useful for him will probably be much cheaper. Also I don't recall seeing him ever balk at the price, and he's "just" a YouTuber. If he decides a Mac Pro is useful he'll buy one, if it isn't then he won't. Given that he's a Mac user and this renders faster than realtime, he'll probably get one, pay thousands for it, then make thousands more with less worry because it's easier to push content on time because his workflow and time spent editing is now sliced dramatically. 

 

All the people reeing about the price aren't the target market or potential users. Go ree about the pricing of a Pagani, it'll be about as useful. 

[SenKa]

50 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

I think it's because of the lack of enterprise level support coming with it which really racks up the prices of stuff from Dell or HP. That said though, lacking that support is fine because Apple definitely isn't providing it either.

Not at all out of the question. Apple used to make servers, and their enterprise support was actually quite good from what I heard.

[TheWiseGuy]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

Yes, but that's not something that's going to be sat in a room beside you. Mind you that's a very niche group.

If you price out a more reasonable system from Dell, the Apple system actually comes out to be cheaper.

If you're focusing on the extreme high end model? Yes, it's stupidly expensive, because the people that need that don't need to worry as much about budget.

You likely just don't understand how business works. If you're doing video work, a large portion of your income is going to be both your time and a non-physical item. Thus, you don't really have materials in your COGS, meaning you have a greater percentage of your earnings that need to be countered with tax write offs.

Very good points. I didn't even know about the dual 10gb NIC.

That statement alone shows that this product was never marketed towards you

None of those have a 28 core Xeon option.

If you price it with similar parts, there's only about a $1,000 price jump for the Apple product, which is not bad considering it has a much more advanced case, likely better support, includes MacOS (which said individual would need if they're buying the product)...

Man listen, I don't feel like you need to spend a CARs worth of money on a computer little outrageous. What company in their right mind is going to spend that for their editors, not many. And what makes the wheels so special that they need to be 400 dollars.

[PlayStation 2]

3 minutes ago, TheWiseGuy said:

Man listen, I don't feel like you need to spend a CARs worth of money on a computer little outrageous. What company in their right mind is going to spend that for their editors, not many. And what makes the wheels so special that they need to be 400 dollars.

The average individual doesn't need to spend almost a Corvette's worth of money on a computer.

The average corporation, where going for even a ~$25k optioned Mac Pro, most definitely could find a reason to spend that cash. Whether that reason is reliability, specific options, build quality or, what's most likely going to turn into time savings, that shit can pay for itself. Especially CG companies like Pixar could very easily find a reason to blow massive sums on some of these just because it would help save time compared to what they had beforehand.

Just because most individuals, especially on a tech forum that likes to circlejerk Ryzen CPUs for no real reason, don't need a Mac Pro of any configuration doesn't mean that companies who make big money won't need 'em. That's what brings in the dough.

[Zando_]

3 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

Especially CG companies like Pixar could very easily find a reason to blow massive sums on some of these just because it would help save time compared to what they had beforehand.

Yeah so IIRC they actually almost went bankrupt purely because of how expensive the computer they created specifically for 3D animation was, they probably don't have an issue with a measly $50K on a desktop if they need it for something. 

 

Also lmao imma bet hollywood peeps will buy these for editing and such, and even budget films are usually millions if not tens of millions . Even if they needed the max spec one, it'd still be a drop in the bucket. As pointed out before, they buy those $50K camera bodies without batting an eye too, lol. 

 

 

[dizmo]

14 minutes ago, TheWiseGuy said:

Man listen, I don't feel like you need to spend a CARs worth of money on a computer little outrageous. What company in their right mind is going to spend that for their editors, not many. And what makes the wheels so special that they need to be 400 dollars.

The performance gains over what you could get on a Mac before are almost 3x. That's significant. It doesn't matter if it's what you could buy a car for. They're not in the market for a car. However something that can drastically increase productivity? Yup. Well worth a relatively small initial investment, that will help write down the years taxes. You're thinking like a consumer, when really, you should be thinking like a business. In the end they likely end up "paying" nothing for the system. Think about it. YouTubers are getting RED cameras.

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

Yeah so IIRC they actually almost went bankrupt purely because of how expensive the computer they created specifically for 3D animation was, they probably don't have an issue with a measly $50K on a desktop if they need it for something. 

From what I remember, not even accounting for inflation, those fuckers were WAY more than what this Mac Pro costs in its highest tier. Granted, 1986 hardware is different from 2019 hardware, but still, those were massively expensive. Worth more than multiple C4 Corvettes at the time, if memory serves me right, compared to, well, the fully loaded Mac Pro, almost worth a base C7 Corvette's MSRP and the mid-range ones going for the price of a decently equipped Civic. Shit's gotten cheaper while having good muscle, too.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, handymanshandle said:

From what I remember, not even accounting for inflation, those fuckers were WAY more than what this Mac Pro costs in its highest tier. Granted, 1986 hardware is different from 2019 hardware, but still, those were massively expensive. Worth more than multiple C4 Corvettes at the time, if memory serves me right, compared to, well, the fully loaded Mac Pro, almost worth a base C7 Corvette's MSRP and the mid-range ones going for the price of a decently equipped Civic. Shit's gotten cheaper while having good muscle, too.

Slightly more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar_Image_Computer

Cool $390K in last year's dollars, by comparison the Mac Pro is a fuckin steal. 

[Tristerin]

2 hours ago, atxcyclist said:

But is there really a situation where the top-spec is necessary at a desk? 1.5 terabytes of RAM is ludicrous. Would that much RAM even be a benefit in a movie production scenario?

Yes, I assume for those who know what to do to run that hardware to make $$$.  I believe ludicrous if you didn't know how to utilize it, sure - that would be me and many others.  Its hard enough to get 128gb of ram stable on Threadripper, Im sure its even more expensive because they can make 1.5 terabytes work as well.

 

1 hour ago, scuff gang said:

i completely understand this but the price un-justified when there is MUCH cheaper alternatives than this, if 

 

Cheaper, or best.  Im not rich, I couldn't afford this nor could I utilize this - but in the end $50k isn't that much money in business.  And in large corporations its literally a drop in the bucket. 

[Letgomyleghoe]

1 hour ago, SenKa said:

Not at all out of the question. Apple used to make servers, and their enterprise support was actually quite good from what I heard.

yes but will theyre be enterprise support for a mac pro, i can understand server ware

[atxcyclist]

3 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Yes, I assume for those who know what to do to run that hardware to make $$$.  I believe ludicrous if you didn't know how to utilize it, sure - that would be me and many others.  Its hard enough to get 128gb of ram stable on Threadripper, Im sure its even more expensive because they can make 1.5 terabytes work as well.

 

 

Cheaper, or best.  Im not rich, I couldn't afford this nor could I utilize this - but in the end $50k isn't that much money in business.  And in large corporations its literally a drop in the bucket. 

I do architectural building modeling work and have for the better part of twenty years, even working with a fully-modeled hospital with mechanical, electrical, and plumbing equipment doesn't require 32gb of system memory. I'd be interested to see the project a person would work on at a single workstation that required almost 50 times that much RAM; Being 100% serious here. Those high-end Xeon platforms make sense in a server because you might have 20 virtual machines, or gigantic computations being done, but people don't do that on a machine they sit in front of.

 

$50k is a lot for most businesses when you're talking the equipment for one single employee. A company like Chevron or PIXAR can justify this, but most industries have no justification for that type of expense per person. My office couldn't justify anything near this, and we leverage computing power all day every day, on multi-million-dollar projects. In my mind these are an answer to a problem that basically doesn't exist, and are essentially a technological dong-measuring contest.

[TheWiseGuy]

Companies like Pixar actually use multiple server banks to render their animations; Modern cinema-grade computer graphics are sophisticated and detailed enough that a single shot would take forever for a single computer to render otherwise.

[JZStudios]

4 hours ago, scuff gang said:

if you mean normal form factor boards you cant find one that will hold 1.5 terrabytes. but you can find server boards that will. i see why they would charge that much but who really needs 1.5 terrabytes of ram in the firstplace unless you were doing extreme computational multi- threaded work loads such as developing ai i could see the use 

I don't know about 1.5 TB of ram, but for video editing the video is stored in ram for smoother playback. If you're editing raw footage, especially at 4k... (well technically resolution doesn't matter, just bitrate) that shit adds up pretty quick. I went out to take photos with a buddy and we took like 40 gb of photos. Guess how many pictures we took? ...I'd need to get the actual number, but safely under 100.

 

On this particular point, I'd agree, it's not for personal use, it's a professional thing, but outside of video production... Well... I guess you could use the ram with CPU rendering, but that would be an absolutely fucking massive scene to take 1.5tb, and generally you want more CPU cores. So... yeah, I'm not actually sure where else that would come in handy.

4 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

I'm sure you can find some media-related tools that can make use of it and are only available on macOS.

 

Put another way, if you absolutely need macOS (for whatever reason) and you need the most powerful machine you can get, you've essentially got no other choice. A hackintosh simply isn't an alternative in a professional environment, ever. (a) legal concerns, and (b) reliability concerns. If you need the machine to make you money, you can't spend a week fixing it when an update breaks compatibility with your hardware.

Not really. There's Logic Pro for music production, but you don't need this monstrosity to run it. There's Final Cut for video, but anyone doing serious edits is going to be using Premiere, which people are jumping ship on towards Davinci Resolve, both of which are available on PC. Thinking of animation software, it's all available on PC, and I'm pretty sure Pixar and the like have been using PC for it for a very long time. I don't think there's any Apple only product that requires these kinds of stats.

 

4 hours ago, Polyvalent said:

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the claim of it being overpriced.  Certainly this is an exorbitant amount for the hardware contained at face value.  You're paying for way more than the hardware that you get.  That doesn't make it a reasonable buy.  But they have their reasons for how they price their products.  Luckily as a consumer you are not obligated in any way to buy their products, ever.

A large portion of that price GUARANTEED is going directly into the CNC machining of the aluminum blocks that turn into the body. I guess it looks nice, but no one's throwing this thing around, and if they were aluminum is too soft a material.

[tech.guru]

apple always had a luxury tax, for that apple logo and the entitled feeling its buyers feel.

 

all the hardware in the mac is no different than a regular pc except its in a walled garden and locked ecosystem. i personally dont think there software is worth thousands of dollars. but doesnt matter what i think apple will have fan boys that will buy their products no matter the extra "apple luxury tax".

 

if you dont want to pay the price dont, apple will push its customers as far as it can to increase its margins. people laugh at 1000 dollar stand, but guarantee you will see many of those in media studios as they will pay anything.

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, tech.guru said:

apple always had a luxury tax, for that apple logo and the entitled feeling its buyers feel.

Aight, so numbers from a friend, the $20K one "with 28C, 192GB of RAM, a single GPU, an 4TB of storage" is the most common config for people actually buying these. 

Here's a comparable workstation from a different SI:

[JZStudios]

1 hour ago, Zando Bob said:

Alternatives that no one actually buying a $52K Mac Pro would consider? People who need a Mac Pro will buy one, people who do not will not. Same as the RED cameras, if people need a 54 thousand dollar camera they buy it, if they do not then they don't. 

Not to mention the fact that uh... not many people actually need the top spec, even the one MKBHD (only review I've seen so far tbf) was around $28K, and that had stuff he wouldn't actually use (he shoots with RED's own files, he said he'd test with the ProRes card but he doesn't actually regularly shoot in that). So a config that's useful for him will probably be much cheaper. Also I don't recall seeing him ever balk at the price, and he's "just" a YouTuber. If he decides a Mac Pro is useful he'll buy one, if it isn't then he won't. Given that he's a Mac user and this renders faster than realtime, he'll probably get one, pay thousands for it, then make thousands more with less worry because it's easier to push content on time because his workflow and time spent editing is now sliced dramatically. 

 

All the people reeing about the price aren't the target market or potential users. Go ree about the pricing of a Pagani, it'll be about as useful. 

Except they don't have to buy a Red camera.

 

Didn't he also just buy the Cybertruck because he went to the launch event? Seems like a good person to get financial advice from.

 

Pagani is also essentially a Boutique car shop, they only sell a few cars, and I think they're about on par with the competitors. I haven't exactly checked because I'm not in the market for one.

1 hour ago, TheWiseGuy said:

And what makes the wheels so special that they need to be 400 dollars.

CNC machining cost. Also why the stand is $1000.

 

1 hour ago, handymanshandle said:

Especially CG companies like Pixar could very easily find a reason to blow massive sums on some of these just because it would help save time compared to what they had beforehand.

Trust me, Pixar already has PC's capable of doing their job. Disney used a server with 17,000 CPU cores to render Big Hero 6. Most of the desktops,while granted are high end, aren't server level because they don't need to be.