52,600$ fully loaded mac pro

[amdorintel]

12 minutes ago, Kisai said:

cheaper

i dont get why people want to buy a $150 cpu, yet spend $70 on a motherboard, makes absolutely no sense at all. people just want cheap as possible, others want value, others waste money on shit they dont need.

[NineEyeRon]

1 hour ago, amdorintel said:

i dont get why people want to buy a $150 cpu, yet spend $70 on a motherboard, makes absolutely no sense at all. people just want cheap as possible, others want value, others waste money on shit they dont need.

It’s the skill of constructing a balance build, making sure you get what you need for your experience without overspending too much.

 

As for the Apple build there are people out there who see this as a bargain, a consumer grade (so not enterprise pricing) unit to do their work/hobby.

 

No one knows how to spend $10Ks of money like someone with a hobby.

[Kisai]

5 minutes ago, amdorintel said:

i dont get why people want to buy a $150 cpu, yet spend $70 on a motherboard, makes absolutely no sense at all. people just want cheap as possible, others want value, others waste money on shit they dont need.

I'll put it this way.

 

If you are building something to actually use for work, you don't cheap out on stuff. Would I happily buy a $300 motherboard over a $90 one? hell yes. Would I buy the overclockable gaming CPU for a work system? No, absolutely not. What about ECC memory. Oh gawd where do I even begin about random bit flip errors.

 

Would I happily spend $60K on a workstation that dramatically improves productivity, rock stable, and not have to retrain on some crummy windows production pipeline, yes. BUT, as I've mentioned before, I do not currently have a use case for such a Mac Pro, as I'm doing tech work right now, not Video work. Would a such a Mac Pro improve some goober on youtube's videos? Not Likely. It's dramatically overkill if you're not working with 4Kp60/8Kp60 video. 

 

Suffice it to say, that if you spend the money the first time, it will save you from having to spend the money twice or more on rubbish.

 

The golden rule for upgrade or buy new is if if your upgrade parts are more than half the cost of buying an entirely new system, you just buy an entirely new system.

 

Most tech people I know will happily upgrade parts in their own system so long as the hardware vendor (Intel, AMD) doesn't make changes that require throwing the parts out more frequently. Current generations of Intel and AMD CPU's unfortunately result in this. DDR5 is around the corner, PCIe 5.0 is around the corner, when do we turn that corner?

 

That is why people are hesitant to buy, and if Apple decides they're going to sit on this configuration for 10 years again, people are just not going to commit to that. I don't necessarily need to see a new Mac Pro, Mac Mini, iMac every year, but if Apple is not going to bring the new tech to the Mac Pro, Mini or iMac then they would be better off making the entire Mac Pro field replaceable parts so that those who invest in the current Mac Pro can upgrade the GPU's when they inevitably become too slow 3 years from now, or replace the CPU/RAM/MB when the next Intel CPU uses DDR5. And so forth. 

 

I made a suggestion a long time ago (probably on one of the Mac forum sites) that what Apple really should do if they're not going to commit to producing Mac Pro's workstations/servers, is just make a standard "ATX" workstation type of board packaged with the OS X operating system and sell that alone, allowing people to make their own "white box" Mac Pro's. Even then, they wouldn't need to make a standard ATX board, just one that would be more in line with a E-ATX server/workstation board in the first place, eg:

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11SPA-T

 

 

Board pictured is E-ATX and uses an Intel Socket-P processor used for Skylake/Cascade Lake EX/SP. Yes, that's right, that's the kind of board you'd need to make a "hackintosh" clone of the Mac Pro.

 

ASUS also makes an E-ATX board of similar configuration for gaming called ROG Dominus Extreme.

 

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193754/intel-xeon-w-3275m-processor-38-5m-cache-2-50-ghz.html

 

 

And there's the part that is likely in the highest end Mac Pro. Note the CPU alone is $7453.00.  Currently can not be found stand-alone online with a quick search YMMV.

 

So let's manually put those prices together shall we?

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813183686

$577.24

Let's use the recommended chassis.

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/chassis/4U/743/SC743AC-1200B-SQ

https://www.wiredzone.com/shop/product/41112367-supermicro-cse-743ac-1200b-sq-superchassis-4u-full-tower-chassis-1200w-8x-3-5in-sas3-sata3-backplane-for-hot-swappable-drives-whisper-quiet-front-hdd-door-lock-side-panel-intrusion-switch-5195

$484.50

 

And what about RAM. SuperMicro is no help here, only listing 64GB modules.

 

 

NewEgg doesn't quite have a matching spec, so let's pick the 2666 memory. $4000 per 512GB, so that's $12000

 

So if you're keeping track

CPU, about $7500

RAM, about $12000

MB, about $600

(fitting) Chassis, about $500

 

So we're already at $20,600 before getting to the hard drive and GPU's.

 

The board pictured above supports 4 M2 drives, so let's set two of those to M2 SSD's of 2TB. Apple doesn't say if they're TLC or MLC or what, but we can assume they're not the cheap drives. Let's use the Samsung 970 EVO for $563 each and use two

 

So $1126 for 4TB of storage. Next? 

 

No current way to get those GPU's. Let's assume for the sake of argument that each card is $5600, as that's the price difference between one and two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo cards. $11200 total

 

Storage is about $1100 

GPU's about $11200.

 

Now we are at $32900.

 

The afterburner card has no PC equivalent, though RED does make a $7000 card that does the same. So assuming we had that, we're just shy of $40,000. The Mac Pro price is at $52199.

 

So is the chassis, and thunderbolt parts really worth $12199? Is there $10K of pure profit? What part does it come from?

 

Let's jump back and compare each upgrade option in reverse:

4TB storage (Apple) +$1400 vs $1100

GPU's we basically just used Apple's price.

1.5TB RAM (Apple) + $25,000 vs $11200 (2666), or $13500 (2933)

CPU (Apple) + 7000 vs  $7453.00 Intel list price 

 

To be specific with the CPU, Intel's list price is $749 for the 8 core/4Ghz Turbo. So really it's at least $7750 for the CPU.

 

So pretty much everyone can see where the price gouge comes from here. the RAM. The rest of the parts might have some markup.

[mr moose]

45 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

So you think the Mac Pro does the same job as a 2C/4T ultrabook? I assume not, so naturally you now see the absurdity of your claims. 
 

WTF?  I never said anything like that.  Nice attempt and obfuscating the issue though.

45 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

It actually does though. Because these customers are paying a premium to bypass the eliminate the opportunity cost of having to become their own system integrators for large scale deployments. In addition these customers get technical support and warranty support. 
 

Again, none of that has anything to do with your claims,  It really plays no bearing on this.  apple aren't the only system builder.  People can use one of many system builders.

 

45 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Comparing the Mac Pro to other Workstations has shown that it’s a very competitive machine. 
 

As others have shown there are other companies that make competing products cheaper. 

 

 

45 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

 

Yes but production studios aren’t trying to become their own System integrators now are they? They don’t want to pay someone or lose valuable time parting together rigs for their needs when they can just buy a rig that’s been made FOR THEM, recoup the extra price by doing their jobs and keep on working. 
 

Again with this false introduction of irrelevant conditions,  you are literally trying to argue that if you don;t buy apple you have to put the system together yourself. 

45 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I don’t think you grasp how professionals really do work, buy equipment, or value their time. 
 

Because it's easier to tell someone they don't understand than come up with a rational argument as to why they are wrong. 

45 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

You can find more expensive ones with less performance that are more expensive too. What’s your point? That consumers have options and one workstation isn’t inherently better than another for many reasons which can’t practically all be listed individually in a forum reply? 
 

Let’s face it. If you’re on the LTT forum, you’re not a potential Mac Pro or other workstation customer.

What a load of shite, LTT not a potential customer?    Even if you aren't in the market for a workstation doesn't mean you don't understand value and what is fit for purpose.  This is probably closest thing to a strawman argument I have legitimately seen on these forums. 

 

You are simply trying to dismiss anyone who says otherwise by insinuating they don't get it then using a bunch of irrelevant arguments to substantiate that. 

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You are simply trying to dismiss anyone who says otherwise by insinuating they don't get it then using a bunch of irrelevant arguments to substantiate that. 

What alternative am I given when you people don't accept anything as an argument? 

 

What are the main reasons people seem to think the Mac Pro is bad? 

1.) It costs too much

2.) It doesn't have enough performance for its price

 

Neither of these claims are based in reality, but you guys believe them anyway. Explaining reasons why one would choose a Mac Pro are dismissed as not being valid, the suggestion that building a rig yourself is cheaper ignores the reality that bulk customers simply can't afford to do that, and finally direct hardware comparisons often ignore specialty Apple hardware and other features like I/O and don't have comparable GPUs. 

 

I bring all of this stuff up because apparently on the LTT forum what makes a workstation good isn't actually the workstation, its the perception of it's value based on a price tag that you don't understand. 

 

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Even if you aren't in the market for a workstation doesn't mean you don't understand value and what is fit for purpose.

Except it does. To you the Mac Pro does not offer a great value because you are not someone who would benefit from using it. Further you are already setup in a Windows environment on a small scale. A multi-billion dollar production studio likewise already has their setups and their requirements, and for them the Mac Pro simply offers the best compute GPUs on the market. Nothing Nvidia has comes close to the max config of GPUs in the Mac Pro. For those studios, cost doesn't really matter all that much because the hardware is so special. 

 

If you won't acknowledge that the Mac Pro has features and hardware that make it special, then it's impossible for your mind to be convinced. Quite frankly your mind was made up going into this as always, I can tell.

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

What alternative am I given when you people don't accept anything as an argument? 

 

What are the main reasons people seem to think the Mac Pro is bad? 

1.) It costs too much

2.) It doesn't have enough performance for its price

Or you know, like most people, they compare several products at performance intervals and know that one being a higher price is not always a sign of it being better.

 

I just looked on the titan site and found a competing setup for $10K less.   I don't have to do anything other than order it and have it delivered. 

https://www.titancomputers.com/Titan-S599-Dual-Intel-Xeon-Scalable-RackMount-Se-p/s599.htm

 

just upgrade everything to the hilt.

 

 

7 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Neither of these claims are based in reality, but you guys believe them anyway. Explaining reasons why one would choose a Mac Pro are dismissed as not being valid, the suggestion that building a rig yourself is cheaper ignores the reality that bulk customers simply can't afford to do that, and finally direct hardware comparisons often ignore specialty Apple hardware and other features like I/O and don't have comparable GPUs. 

Like I just posted a link to a company that will build you one for $10K less, if that's not based in reality then it's no wonder you keep trying to insinuate apple are the only system builder and that unless you use a workstation you have no idea.

 

7 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I bring all of this stuff up because apparently on the LTT forum what makes a workstation good isn't actually the workstation, its the perception of it's value based on a price tag that you don't understand. 

According to you what makes a good workstation is apple.  You are so convinced this is true that you are dismissing people because you are assuming they don't use workstations which equals not understanding anything about them.  That is the weakest argument anyone could put forward.  It's ad hominum at best and pointless at worst.

7 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Except it does. To you the Mac Pro does not offer a great value because you are not someone who would benefit from using it. Further you are already setup in a Windows environment on a small scale. A multi-billion dollar production studio likewise already has their setups and their requirements, and for them the Mac Pro simply offers the best compute GPUs on the market. Nothing Nvidia has comes close to the max config of GPUs in the Mac Pro. For those studios, cost doesn't really matter all that much because the hardware is so special. 

There you go again, assumptions and dismissal, you know nothing about me.   You are trying to tell me I am wrong because you think I don;t understand.  The reality here is that you have failed to present a actual argument beyond basically calling everyone ignorant.  It's even a hypocritical thing to do given you keep saying people don't care about the cost,  which people?  show me one person who doesn't care about the cost when buying new tools? Saying money is nothing to certain professions is the exact result of the ignorance you keep assuming others are. 

 

7 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

If you won't acknowledge that the Mac Pro has features and hardware that make it special, then it's impossible for your mind to be convinced. Quite frankly your mind was made up going into this as always, I can tell.

 

What on earth are you trying to say now? are you trying to insinuate because the mac has "special" features to you that anyone who doesn't see them as special also is ignorant?   Again you don't know shit about me,  you keep making these assumptions,  I guess it's easier to assume the person you are speaking to is ignorant than to actually counter their claims.

[Akira Shimazu]

The base model Mac Pro starting at $5,999 with 8-core Xeon, 32GB Ram, Radeon Pro 580X and 256GB SSD. and at this point i know that $6K is kinda rip off. especially that storage tho. but what about performance itself? plenty of y'know apple fan is kinda defending the Mac pro and XDR DIsplay being expensive because it was meant for "Pro". and they say it is fast machine along with super color accuracy display. but does it really wort for price? i meant were talking about 6K and another for XDR.

[Spotty]

2 minutes ago, Wolfycapt said:

The base model Mac Pro starting at $5,999 with 8-core Xeon, 32GB Ram, Radeon Pro 580X and 256GB SSD. and at this point i know that $6K is kinda rip off.

Merged with the existing topic discussing the Mac Pro pricing. Also not Tech News, please check to make sure you're posting in the correct forum.

[Akira Shimazu]

Just now, Spotty said:

Merged with the existing topic discussing the Mac Pro pricing. Also not Tech News, please check to make sure you're posting in the correct forum.

aye spotty, thx man

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

14 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Exactly, a single workstation doesn't make any sense if a company needed 1.5TB RAM, a mac pro with that much ram has to be a very small niche.

there is a rack mount version of it. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

16 hours ago, scuff gang said:

I have no idea why even apple fans are defending this price

- machines similar from their main competitors in this market (HP, Dell etc) are the same price approximately that I've seen

- it's not aimed at consumers, if you are a prosumer buy an iMac Pro
- name a consumer machine that can handle 1.5TB of ram in practice
- macOS has a value to pro's that need software that runs on it

- there is a rack mount version, further proving that this is not a consumer machine
 

do I need to go on?

[lewdicrous]

1 minute ago, Twilight said:

do I need to go on?

Can they handle more?

[Zando_]

5 minutes ago, Twilight said:

there is a rack mount version of it. 

^^^ Yos. There's guys (IIRC Linus has done video on them) who have been stacking Mac Minis, trash can Mac Pros, and even iMac Pros with the displays ripped off, trying to find the best setup for their clients, who insist on actual mac hardware (and xserves have been out of date for uh.... a while at this point). They're probably pretty damn hyped for a rackmount Mac Pro, lol. 

[Drak3]

3 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

and xserves have been out of date for uh.... a while at this point

The old OSX Server variant has been replaced by an optional software package that gives 10.8 and up versions of OSX the same utilities.

So, instead of having a different OS, where the only difference is a software package, they just give you the software package.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

The old OSX Server variant has been replaced by an optional software package that gives 10.8 and up versions of OSX the same utilities.

So, instead of having a different OS, where the only difference is a software package, they just give you the software package.

My comment was more on the hardware, lol. Latest Xserve went up to 2x 2.93Ghz 65nm quad cores and came out in 2009. 

[Drak3]

43 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

My comment was more on the hardware, lol. Latest Xserve went up to 2x 2.93Ghz 65nm quad cores and came out in 2009. 

Hardware wise, The Trashcan pro had server grade hardware. It takes a unique rack mount system to use them as rack mount servers, but the hardware was there.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

13 hours ago, scuff gang said:

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

what alternative for a system with 1.5TB of ram?

 

11 hours ago, Zando Bob said:

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:

that has literally one 6th the amount of ram of the top spec Mac Pro. it's not comparable at all. 

[Zando_]

18 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Hardware wise, The Trashcan pro had server grade hardware. It takes a unique rack mount system to use them as rack mount servers, but the hardware was there.

Yeah, that's the point. A rackmount Mac Pro just plops straight in an has newer, faster CPUs and such. Very handy for guys who were running the unique rack mount systems, they don't need to any more, and don't need to have iMac Pros sitting on a shelf with the screens taken off and fans pointed at them. 

17 minutes ago, Twilight said:

that has literally one 6th the amount of ram of the top spec Mac Pro. it's not comparable at all. 

It's $20K, comparable to the $20K config of the Mac Pro. Due to the same price and similar spec they're direct competitors. 

[realpetertdm]

The Mac Pro isn't really looking like the best option even for hardcore professionals. (in terms of specs)

Zen 2 Threadripper came out with the 3970X and its 32 cores, so Apple's already losing with their measly 24 cores. Threadripper's already avaliable on many SIs like Maingear.

Graphics are nice, 4 Vega 2 Duos, but I don't know how they'll compare to NVLinked Quadro RTXs.

1.5 TB RAM yayyy, but TR already supports up to 2 TB and Supermicro and other board makers are probably going to come out with boards that can support 2TB RAM.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

32 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

It's $20K, comparable to the $20K config of the Mac Pro. Due to the same price and similar spec they're direct competitors. 

oooh nvm, i missed that. i'm very tired, my apoligies. 

[Pickles von Brine]

In the grand scheme of things, many companies may be buying not one but 10-20 maybe 30 of these. 1000 bucks is a rounding error. Most systems sold will not be the fully maxed units. I honestly estimate that the average will be between 20-30k machines. 

Either that, or a single pro would by the maxed out unit, write it off and use it for the next 3-5 years. 400 bucks to 52k is a rounding error at the point anyways. 

You think 52k is expensive, then you haven't seen enterprise hardware and services yet. 

Welcome to the big leagues. Big Leagues command Big Prices. 

The people who are buying these things know they command a premium. However, the same people charge a premium. Plus, time is money. So those who are on a mac environment (Prime example Blue Sky Stuidos, the ones behind Ice Age) will gobble these things up. 

[Touch My Hamm]

10 hours ago, amdorintel said:

i dont get why people want to buy a $150 cpu, yet spend $70 on a motherboard, makes absolutely no sense at all. people just want cheap as possible, others want value, others waste money on shit they dont need.

That usually bugs me as well. I used to work in a known computer repair "company". 1 day someone brought in the GAMING computer his son build him on a $3000 budget. He had a i5 non K and a $700 motherboard with a giant eatx case from caselabs where he had 1 tb hdd. I dont understand why alot of people overspend on motherboards with features they will never use. Money that could have been spend on other parts. 

[Pickles von Brine]

8 minutes ago, GodSeph said:

That usually bugs me as well. I used to work in a known computer repair "company". 1 day someone brought in the GAMING computer his son build him on a $3000 budget. He had a i5 non K and a $700 motherboard with a giant eatx case from caselabs where he had 1 tb hdd. I dont understand why alot of people overspend on motherboards with features they will never use. Money that could have been spend on other parts. 

That is true. I use to work at Microcenter and had people come in with budgets. I would maximum performance for what they had, then they would want this MASSIVE case, go with a cheap shitty PSU, etc. 

However, that is neither here nor there for the topic at handle from the OP. 

[Touch My Hamm]

12 minutes ago, Lord Xeb said:

That is true. I use to work at Microcenter and had people come in with budgets. I would maximum performance for what they had, then they would want this MASSIVE case, go with a cheap shitty PSU, etc. 

However, that is neither here nor there for the topic at handle from the OP. 

It plays in with that the mac pro is meant for a "pro" environment where price isnt as big an issue as one would think. It depends on the use case and the budget for the company. For a single user at home for pc use its very overpriced but the computer is not meant for that person. Think of a Lamborghini the car is almost useless in most places as it has very little storage and only allows 2 people and is VERY expensive and the insurance and licensing costs are huge. But the car isnt meant for someone who works 9-5 for 50k a year. The car is meant for specific purpose. like many objects you can purchase they have a specific use. Is the Mac pro expensive... yes but the cost is put so Apple can make money and the engineering that went into it. 

[Letgomyleghoe]

2 minutes ago, GodSeph said:

It plays in with that the mac pro is meant for a "pro" environment where price isnt as big an issue as one would think. It depends on the use case and the budget for the company. For a single user at home for pc use its very overpriced but the computer is not meant for that person. Think of a Lamborghini the car is almost useless in most places as it has very little storage and only allows 2 people and is VERY expensive and the insurance and licensing costs are huge. But the car isnt meant for someone who works 9-5 for 50k a year. The car is meant for specific purpose. like many objects you can purchase they have a specific use. Is the Mac pro expensive... yes but the cost is put so Apple can make money and the engineering that went into it. 

mmm yes lets put the $56000 cheese greater in bobs office