I'm Returning my Mac Pro

[jasonvp]

2 hours ago, baconborn said:

Reason I think this is because of Apple's 1.5TB RAM spec and according to Intel Ark, Xeon W-3275 only supports up to 1TB of RAM, while Xeon W-3275M supports of to 2TB. Not defending apple pricing overall or anything, but on this one point it seems like the pricing is fair unless I'm missing something.

You're not missing anything and are right on the money, so to speak.  Thus my comment in the YouTube vid.  Apple's choice of the "M" CPUs for the high end Macs may not be the best from an affordability perspective.  But they did it so that the machine can access 1.5TB of RAM.  Who needs such a thing?  That's debatable of course.  But that's what Apple decided.  And those "M" chips are silly, stupid expensive.  Not just through Apple, but direct through retail.

 

At this point in time, if you try to upgrade your new Mac Pro's CPU on your own, you won't actually save any money assuming you buy the exact CPUs that Apple is using and do so legitimately.  Their pricing is pretty close to, if not better than retail.

 

[baconborn]

9 minutes ago, jasonvp said:

Apple's choice of the "M" CPUs for the high end Macs may not be the best from an affordability perspective.  But they did it so that the machine can access 1.5TB of RAM.  Who needs such a thing?  That's debatable of course.  But that's what Apple decided.  And those "M" chips are silly, stupid expensive.  Not just through Apple, but direct through retail.

Right, totally agree. Not trying to say that Xeon W-3275M is a good deal for how much it costs, but it is "fair" in that apple's pricing is in line with what Intel charges. I was also just wanting to check if i was wrong in thinking that they compared the mac pro to a different CPU in what was presented as an apples to apple price comparison. I think they should correct that purely in the interest of accuracy.

[Velcade]

One of the cooler things Apple did here was create a rack version of this PC.  I would have liked to see that one.  Can't say I blame you on returning it, although I'm sure the ROI from the video justifies the initial cost.

[Commodus]

Pricing accuracy issues notwithstanding, I'd say Linux pointed out (but didn't stress enough) an important aspect: it's not about performance per dollar, it's about a machine that can slot quickly and easily into a production workflow.

 

There are some instances where custom-building a 64-core Threadripper machine for similar (or less) money, or finding one of the few builders that will make one for you, makes sense.  A movie or music studio that needs numerous systems it can quickly set up, with tight integration and fast turnaround for repairs... isn't one of those instances.  The money they might save could be wasted if they're waiting to complete a project because they had to RMA the graphics card or wait a day for a tech to come in.

 

And even in the cases of some individual users, the hardware value for money won't matter if it doesn't let them run the software they want.  If you can work with Final Cut Pro, the time you save on rendering versus some video suites may easily justify the premium.  If your music or photography workflow is already on a Mac and functions well, there's no point in switching.  And if you're a data scientist who wants a native Unix environment for some heavy lifting without losing access to mainstream apps, this might be exactly what you need.

 

I feel that many people here bristle at the Mac Pro not because there aren't some fair criticisms (RAM pricing, absolute performance potential, lack of NVIDIA cards), but because they want to shoehorn it into the way they'd use it.  Sorry, folks, it's not a gaming rig or even a home business workstation -- unless you're a baller, it really is just for pros.

[Video Beagle]

I should mention, in relation to my comment about @LinusTech saying on te WAN show they missed the window, that that was 2 weeks or so ago, so things might have changed etc, whic is wy I was disapointed the video didn't actually cover the "return" topic in the video.

 

2 hours ago, jasonvp said:

They pretty much announced to the world they had no intentions of keeping it, and were just purchasing it to review it and then send it back.  That's a dick move,

I'd been wondering on that.... Since it's not just trying it, but runing it through stress tests and such...like taking a car for a test drive...but then drag racing wit it.

[hishnash]

Both the `enterprise support` and `IT Department` support tiers offer using the `Express Replacement Service (“ERS”) or Do-It-Yourself (“DIY”) Parts Service` what is in these services i have no idea.

Also you can subscribe to AppleCare+ and pay per month this lets you have apple care for as long as you want, also the `it department` support does not require you to be a massive company basically you need to be a company https://www.apple.com/support/professional/ 

 

additionally for the future when @LinusTech buys apple hardware it should do that through the https://www.apple.com/ca/retail/business/ system you can get better returns dates etc.