Apple quietly ditches AMD

[leadeater]

11 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

You can get the much cheaper VESA mount or get a third party VESA mount, if you wanted. So I dont think you're allowed to hate on it just because you dont refer it. Clearly many people like it and that's enough

You don't even know what you are talking about, Apple sells a VESA mount adapter so you can buy and use a VESA mount from someone not Apple.

 

Also everyone is allowed to comment on things they don't like, but I'm not commenting on likeness or such things. A $999 stand for a professional monitor that does not have the proper adjustments so you can get it positioned correctly is a substandard mount that is also overpriced. You can't even dispute this. You can like the look of the stand, I like the look of the stand, but it's useless in actual usage and like I said if anyone is buying it they are doing it only for the looks.

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Would love to see you running SoTR on just an i3

minimum spec for the game. 

https://www.pcgamer.com/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-system-requirements/

 

 

 

 

[Lord Vile]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

minimum spec for the game. 

https://www.pcgamer.com/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-system-requirements/

 

 

 

 

Miss the GPU portion of that? For some reason I don’t think the iGPU on an i3 is quite at the required level.
 

Also those mean nothing and the MacOS requirements are an i5. 

[leadeater]

11 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

EXACTLY. You;re not the customer for it. Some people need tonnes of RAM. Some need tonnes fo CPU cores. Some need pelnty of expansion slots. FOr those cases, the Mac Pro comes in

Sorry no matter how many times you try and say that I am the customer, I get a say in if it's purchased or not. If I recommend not to buy it the company I work at won't be buying it, I have purchasing decision power. Had the Mac Pro design been cheaper it's most likely we would have gotten some, no idea how many but it wouldn't have been zero.

 

11 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

It is small, I never said it was big. Mac Pro is a niche product with blown out of propotion attention. Peole who want Mac Pros buy Mac Pros. People who want more price/perf can go with any of their other Mac products. Its as simple as that

Which doesn't make it not overpriced, people making bad purchasing decisions is not a counter argument. Literally everything you have been saying is entirely based on personal preferences of the buyers and I've only ever been commenting on critical assessments of the products and considering the market options.

 

And it's only blown out attention because people, like yourself, can't not keep arguing about it. It's overpriced for what it is, end of story. You don't have to like it, people buy the Apple stand, I don't care that people do. Just don't bring aesthetics to a functionality and capability discussion.

[divito]

19 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

the MacOS requirements are an i5. 

Those aren't actual requirements; they just don't want anything lower as to tarnish their product perception in terms of performance. Things would be a lot different if Apple used i3, Gold, or Celeron options, just as it would seem a lot different if PC manufacturers avoided those options.

[GDRRiley]

11 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

And you're not the customer for it. Get that in your head. Nor am I.

 

Yeah but a strong handle doesn't cost $700 dollars to make. If I wanted, i could fabricate an even stronger one for less than $50 dollars. But point being, the market these products are targetting don't really care

 

Does the dell/HP have the same build quality? And the Mac Pro internals are definitely different and a lot of thought has been put into it rather than just slapping together some off the shelf components. Is it necessary, no. But it actually makes a difference in other ways and thats why Apple is where they are right now. Attention to detail, design, overengineering is exactly the kind of things they do.

It's to discourage you from buying it. It exists to upsell. Again we're not the customers so we shouldnt care. Apple themselves have better products for same price and anyone with time for 2 min research can find that out.

EXACTLY. You;re not the customer for it. Some people need tonnes of RAM. Some need tonnes fo CPU cores. Some need pelnty of expansion slots. FOr those cases, the Mac Pro comes in

It is small, I never said it was big. Mac Pro is a niche product with blown out of propotion attention. Peole who want Mac Pros buy Mac Pros. People who want more price/perf can go with any of their other Mac products. Its as simple as that

okay well you go make a handle then tap it with the 100 holes with different threads and tell me it still costs 50$. its it more than it should be yes but you don't have to buy red or arris handle. you can go get most accessories from anyone. don't like smallHD price on monitors go get a blackmagic one.

 

apple missed the mark. the biggest buyers of older mac pros were schools who went with around 3-4k with a monitor. the 7-8k with an LG monitor is just out of their price range. hell my school has 64 2010 mac pros to be replaced and they haven't picked what to replace them with.

 

in their workstations yes. Z420s are running just as well as 2012 mac pros.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

apple missed the mark. the biggest buyers of older mac pros were schools who went with around 3-4k with a monitor. the 7-8k with an LG monitor is just out of their price range. hell my school has 64 2010 mac pros to be replaced and they haven't picked what to replace them with.

Existing customers complain the pricing is too high and the value is bad

Counter argument: You're not a customer

[Zodiark1593]

31 minutes ago, mr moose said:

minimum spec for the game. 

https://www.pcgamer.com/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-system-requirements/

 

 

 

 

Pretty sure the GPU of an Ivy Bridge i3 is nowhere near enough to run the game at even 30 fps, though it will probably launch it I suppose. Unsure why you omitted the GPU bit as SOTTR was shown running on the A12Z which has it’s own GPU. 

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Miss the GPU portion of that? For some reason I don’t think the iGPU on an i3 is quite at the required level.
 

Also those mean nothing and the MacOS requirements are an i5. 

And?   the thing here is that game runs on antiquated hardware, it should not be hard for any CPU designer to create something that can run it well.   

[mr moose]

22 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Pretty sure the GPU of an Ivy Bridge i3 is nowhere near enough to run the game at even 30 fps, though it will probably launch it I suppose. Unsure why you omitted the GPU bit as SOTTR was shown running on the A12Z which has it’s own GPU. 

I didn't omit anything,  I linked to all the minimum specs.

 

The whole point is that it really shouldn't be hard to make a CPU with GPU (although when talking about ARM this goes without saying) that matches low end hardware of 2012. 

[GDRRiley]

39 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Existing customers complain the pricing is too high and the value is bad

Counter argument: You're not a customer

I want to use 2 reactions but I can't

 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

The current model is the Z8

 

 

Slapping parts together, off the shelf. Could you not be so ignorant and actually go look at what you are commenting on before shooting off comments like that?

The office had a few of these that got recycled (the Z440, not the Z8), they're from 2014 or 2015.

they look like this:

 

 

 

 

Though the ones we had had a GPU and a GPU shroud (Quadro K4000, and took the entire length of the machine with the last 6" or so was just a metal plate to meet the front of the chassis ) but otherwise looked the same.

 

Of course everyone who had these replaced, wound up with Dell Precision's with i7's which is really more of a downgrade but whatever decision resulted in that was made before I ever worked there. 

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Of course everyone who had these replaced, wound up with Dell Precision's with i7's which is really more of a downgrade but whatever decision resulted in that was made before I ever worked there. 

That's disappointing, sounds like the almighty dollar won that round. We've mostly got Z240/Z440/Z4 but I don't like the new look Z4/Z6/Z8 chassis compared to the older ones, at least the current generation put back in more ducting in the lower model ranges though.

 

As long as it lasts 5 years easily then it pretty much doesn't matter, beyond that the hardware starts to become a workflow impediment and upgrading becomes a compelling option. It's a pitty that these OEMs go with such custom power supplies and motherboard though as it makes re-purposing them after their service life much harder. Generally when people ask me about getting a PC or a laptop I more often recommend going with an ex-lease refurbished business model because of how great value those are and they are serviceable and you can get parts if required. Not be best option for those wanting to do higher end gaming but most of the people asking aren't those.

[RedRound2]

9 hours ago, Jeppes said:

Thats where Threadripper pro comes in. Apple is for fans who can justify the inferior cpu and gpu somehow.

And when did Threadripper Pro release? A year back? Also, it's a different platform altogether and Apple wouldn't be able to make a switch easily to AMD without making a lot of adjustments

7 hours ago, mr moose said:

Why make this personal? Don't call me a creep because I disagree with you.  I did read your comment, it was wrong and I pointed out that when you compare professional to professional the price difference is much higher for some apple products.  Like it or not that makes them over priced.

And did you read the quote I linked below that comment. I did say it was overpriced. And proceedded to say that everything in the segment is overpriced with examples. You're grabbing straws here and taking all my comments out of contexts.

 

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

Wow have you even bothered to look at HP Z series workstations? That's extremely rude comment to make and shows how little you care about the discussion or are willing to even evaluate anything.

 

100% Tooless design

Engineered airflow

Dual socket support

Discrete cabling channel through the chassis

 

Did I also mention this is actually an older model from 2015? Also that it's not the oldest of that design, there's Z810 & Z800 as well as older.

 

The current model is the Z8

 

Slapping parts together, off the shelf. Could you not be so ignorant and actually go look at what you are commenting on before shooting off comments like that?

Still an ugly plaastic black box, and it doesn't look as nearly as well designed or as elegenat as Apples.

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

You don't even know what you are talking about, Apple sells a VESA mount adapter so you can buy and use a VESA mount from someone not Apple.

I know what im talking about. You can get thrid party versions of the $199 VESA adaptor for cheaper (I used the wrong word I guess). I saw it in the store the other day when I went to get something. I dont remeber the company that makes it

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

Also everyone is allowed to comment on things they don't like, but I'm not commenting on likeness or such things. A $999 stand for a professional monitor that does not have the proper adjustments so you can get it positioned correctly is a substandard mount that is also overpriced. You can't even dispute this. You can like the look of the stand, I like the look of the stand, but it's useless in actual usage and like I said if anyone is buying it they are doing it only for the looks.

People buy it for looks. No one is forced to buy, nor is it necessary to buy it. I've already told you its overpriced, but people who buy it take a concious decision there. And nobody is forced to buy it.

 

Also the stand and the wheels are the prime examples of Apple's halo effect. They position themselves as premium niche brand, even though Apple products can be found pretty much everywhere

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

Sorry no matter how many times you try and say that I am the customer, I get a say in if it's purchased or not. If I recommend not to buy it the company I work at won't be buying it, I have purchasing decision power. Had the Mac Pro design been cheaper it's most likely we would have gotten some, no idea how many but it wouldn't have been zero.

I never said you were the customer. I said you're not. If you dont need many cores, expandability, a lot of RAM, and can get away with iMc Pro, you're not the customer. People who buy Mac Pros should ideally need more than 128GB of RAM, 8+ cores, etc. Otherwise they can do their job on an iMac for much cheaper. And those configs of Mac Pro are much more reasonably priced out than the base

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

Which doesn't make it not overpriced, people making bad purchasing decisions is not a counter argument. Literally everything you have been saying is entirely based on personal preferences of the buyers and I've only ever been commenting on critical assessments of the products and considering the market options.

I did not say it was not overpriced. I said everything in the segment is overpriced. It's marketed towards a certain group of people. If you're a hobbyist and want same specs, its much easier to build it yourself. But these people being targetted, they dont have time for such things and would rather pay premium and wait extra couple of days to pay it off than to build it and trouble shoot things themselves.

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

And it's only blown out attention because people, like yourself, can't not keep arguing about it. It's overpriced for what it is, end of story. You don't have to like it, people buy the Apple stand, I don't care that people do. Just don't bring aesthetics to a functionality and capability discussion.

Aestheics do play important role. And stop misquoting me and claim to say things i never said. Look at my original comment. I did say it was overpriced. But for people it is for, it's not, becasue of macOS, support, build quality design, and the ecosystem. All of them are invaluable to many people and that's why it is as popular as it is in the workstation grade environements

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

 

And did you read the quote I linked below that comment. I did say it was overpriced. And proceedded to say that everything in the segment is overpriced with examples. You're grabbing straws here and taking all my comments out of contexts.

 

...

I did not say it was not overpriced. I said everything in the segment is overpriced. It's marketed towards a certain group of people.

Not everything in that segment is overpriced.  This is why it is clear you do not understand the professional market.  You can't pick and choose some of it to compare then claim the whole market is the same.  It is not the same, there are good and bad prices within the professional market and there are good and bad reasons for those price variations.    Just saying a product is professional does not excuse it's price if it is over priced, and claiming something as being professional does not automatically give it some magical property that justifies the cost.  

 

The mac pro wheels are over priced, the red handle is over priced,  the monitor stand is over priced,  workstations in general are not over priced, castors in general are not over priced and camera handles/monitor stands in general are not overpriced.  All because there is no justification for the price PERIOD.     Unless you understand what makes something a professional product you cannot use it's price to justify something else.

 

 

[leadeater]

32 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Still an ugly plaastic black box, and it doesn't look as nearly as well designed or as elegenat as Apples.

 

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

Just don't bring aesthetics to a functionality and capability discussion.

Did you purposely ignore this? Something looking aesthetically pleasing to you does NOT mean it is better engineered.

 

P.S. It's mostly metal not plastic.

 

32 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

I never said you were the customer. I said you're not. If you dont need many cores

You didn't read that very well, I know what you said and read it again. I am the customer. That is what my reply is saying. You say I am not but I am, or if you want to be exactly correct I am no longer specifically due to the Mac Pro being bad value which is literally the entire point to this.

 

32 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

I did not say it was not overpriced. I said everything in the segment is overpriced

Incorrect.

 

32 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

People who buy Mac Pros should ideally need more than 128GB of RAM, 8+ cores, etc. Otherwise they can do their job on an iMac for much cheaper. And those configs of Mac Pro are much more reasonably priced out than the base

iMac Pro can do this and higher.

 

Maybe you should stop and consider that maybe I might actually work somewhere with a very large IT budget with high thousands of computers, a thousand odd Mac computers and money is not an issue in regards to being able to buy a Mac Pro. We're just not placing looks above value in Apple's own product lineup.

 

32 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

But for people it is for, it's not, becasue of macOS, support, build quality design, and the ecosystem. All of them are invaluable to many people and that's why it is as popular as it is in the workstation grade environements

I am part of "the people it's for". I understand these factors better than you do, there is very good reasons why we buy what we do and go with the brands and models we pick. And no the Mac Pro is not popular in "workstation grade environments", even purely based on time that isn't possible. But no it isn't and it will never be.

 

All the high end workstation industry users primarily work with Windows not Mac OS because if you are doing CAD, Fluid Dynamics, AI/ML, Visual Effects etc these are all dependent on or QVL'd only on Nvidia so AMD isn't an option. So the Mac Pro is really only useful for one thing, very large video editing.

 

Not having Nvidia GPU options is specifically the reason why it is impossible to be highly represented and popular in workstation market because it's excluded from almost every market due to the fact it lacks the required hardware that the software needs to function. What you said is actually not possible.

[Lord Vile]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

And?   the thing here is that game runs on antiquated hardware, it should not be hard for any CPU designer to create something that can run it well.   

Mid range 2012 the i3 was comfortably mid stack in ivy bridge and the 7770 or the 660 were mid tier cards. It looks to perform better than a 2400g while emulated which is kinda impressive with the 2/3400G being the most powerful APU you can currently buy. 

[Lord Vile]

6 hours ago, divito said:

Those aren't actual requirements; they just don't want anything lower as to tarnish their product perception in terms of performance. Things would be a lot different if Apple used i3, Gold, or Celeron options, just as it would seem a lot different if PC manufacturers avoided those options.

You mean they're actual system requirements that represent a decent level of performance vs just being able to launch the game and run at 5FPS at 720p? 

 

Apple did use i3's, Pentiums and M chips. In fact they still sell models with i3's. They also use a different API

[mr moose]

53 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Mid range 2012 the i3 was comfortably mid stack in ivy bridge and the 7770 or the 660 were mid tier cards. It looks to perform better than a 2400g while emulated which is kinda impressive with the 2/3400G being the most powerful APU you can currently buy. 

When I heard apple where making an ARM chip to put in their mac line up,  my expectation is current i5/3300 performance. I'd be impressed with i7/3600 performance but not surprised.  I also expect the GPU to be at least reasonable, but given apple don't general market to gamers ( I know they have but rarely like they do other demographics), I don't expect any GPU component to be anything flash beyond general compute. 

[Jeppes]

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

And when did Threadripper Pro release? A year back? Also, it's a different platform altogether and Apple wouldn't be able to make a switch easily to AMD without making a lot of adjustments

 

 

Still an ugly plaastic black box, and it doesn't look as nearly as well designed or as elegenat as Apples.

 

So inferior hardware in a nice looking box is the choice of professionals? It just works, with -50% performance.

[Lord Vile]

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

When I heard apple where making an ARM chip to put in their mac line up,  my expectation is current i5/3300 performance. I'd be impressed with i7/3600 performance but not surprised.  I also expect the GPU to be at least reasonable, but given apple don't general market to gamers ( I know they have but rarely like they do other demographics), I don't expect any GPU component to be anything flash beyond general compute. 

Depends if they're still gonna use AMD dGPUs in the higher end stuff and Mac Pro. If not it needs to be competitive with at least a vega 56. 

[saltycaramel]

 

[Results45]

14 hours ago, leadeater said:

It's a pitty that these OEMs go with such custom power supplies and motherboard though as it makes re-purposing them after their service life much harder.

 

Generally when people ask me about getting a PC or a laptop I more often recommend going with an ex-lease refurbished business model because of how great value those are and they are serviceable and you can get parts if required. Not be best option for those wanting to do higher end gaming but most of the people asking aren't those.

 

Hence the desperate need for Right-to-Repair, right?

 

I personally wouldn't mind buying a well-loved office PC as long as it has at least an older Core i7 and is price accordingly ($100-$150 for barebones or if many components are in need of replacement and $250-$350 if all it needs is for me to chuck-in an SSD, extra stick of RAM, and a mid-range graphics card).

 

Also, on the note of the Mac Pro, I would say it is not for 99.5% of all desktop users. This includes anyone who can make do with a Linux or Windows machine instead or anyone who doesn't need (or want out of pure novelty -- e.g. MKBHD, Unbox Therapy, & iJustine) the amount of modular serviceability found in the Mac Pro compared to alternative high-spec Mac offerings.

 

It seems this applies for your company as well as those who are comfortable and willing to go with Threadripper/Threadripper Pro.

 

As for the "0.5%", here are the kinds of people who do find measurable value in the Mac Pro:

 

If one must have a easily serviceable Mac desktop, but don't want to be electrocuted, risk breaking the glass display, or pay Apple to service it for them:

Spoiler

.

.

.

.

 

Audio engineers, composers, & music mastering with workflows that revolve around the Mac OS ecosystem (and yes -- for the expandability):

Spoiler

.

.

.

.

 

Mac data centers/VM farms (Xserv replacements)?

Spoiler

.

.

 

There is probably a dozen other edge use cases that I'm not aware of where the Mac Pro brings a ton of value being the best solution compared to alternatives, but hey, if ya need one go get one

 

If anybody else has more ideas of viable use cases and/or established professional workflows I would love to hear what they are!

[RedRound2]

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

Did you purposely ignore this? Something looking aesthetically pleasing to you does NOT mean it is better engineered.

 

P.S. It's mostly metal not plastic.

Never drew the conclusion that aesthetically pleasing means it's better engineered. It's two different point and the Mac Pro excels at both. You may disagree, but enough people agree

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

You didn't read that very well, I know what you said and read it again. I am the customer. That is what my reply is saying. You say I am not but I am, or if you want to be exactly correct I am no longer specifically due to the Mac Pro being bad value which is literally the entire point to this.

You keep talking about you being the customer but then never really proceed onto justifying that. Even I can make up claims. Anyone can.

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

Incorrect.

Everything solely marketted to professionals and not general cosumers are typically priced much higher. Camera equipment, audio equipment, computers, displays, servers (literally everything in servers). There are products intended for both and those may not be overpriced. It's not a completely disjoint set, but I'm talking about products solely not intended for general purpose (doesn't mean you can't buy it for general purpose)

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

iMac Pro can do this and higher.

What? Can the iMac Pro have enough memory to handle super heavy computation? Or the thermal headroom. What? iMac Pro has it's place. Mac Pro has it's place. True that the lowest end config is a joke, but that's not what the Mac Pro should be about.

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

Maybe you should stop and consider that maybe I might actually work somewhere with a very large IT budget with high thousands of computers, a thousand odd Mac computers and money is not an issue in regards to being able to buy a Mac Pro. We're just not placing looks above value in Apple's own product lineup.

Again the same bs. Not everybody cares about looks, I agree. But Apple as a company does, and they will spend the extra money to make things look good. And they also charge for it. And attention to detail is how Apple is where it is. Doesn't matter if ift was necessary or not.

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

I am part of "the people it's for". I understand these factors better than you do, there is very good reasons why we buy what we do and go with the brands and models we pick. And no the Mac Pro is not popular in "workstation grade environments", even purely based on time that isn't possible. But no it isn't and it will never be.

And again. Okay I used the wrong word. Not workstation, but creative side of things, mac are used extensively. Even engineering these days becasue AutoCAD is available and AutoDesk, including Maya users can use a mac.

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

All the high end workstation industry users primarily work with Windows not Mac OS because if you are doing CAD, Fluid Dynamics, AI/ML, Visual Effects etc these are all dependent on or QVL'd only on Nvidia so AMD isn't an option. So the Mac Pro is really only useful for one thing, very large video editing.

AI/ML is mostly done on Unix based systems like Linux or MacOS. Not windows.

Visual effects, video editing, audio, photo, art are mostly done on Mac. CAD too can be done on Mac.

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

Not having Nvidia GPU options is specifically the reason why it is impossible to be highly represented and popular in workstation market because it's excluded from almost every market due to the fact it lacks the required hardware that the software needs to function. What you said is actually not possible.

I know some programs use CUDA acceleration. You could point those out and exclude those rather than making a general remark which isn't true

9 hours ago, Jeppes said:

So inferior hardware in a nice looking box is the choice of professionals? It just works, with -50% performance.

And you focus one aspect of the computer and not as whole? So right, I'll look at the engine of the car and absolutely ignore everything else about the car. Good luck getting a good car.

The Mac operating system, the ecosystem, the apps available, relaibility, support, and some functionality, along with good hardware is why people opt for Mac. It is why there was a huge pent up demand for the Mac Pro

[Jeppes]

3 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

And you focus one aspect of the computer and not as whole? So right, I'll look at the engine of the car and absolutely ignore everything else about the car. Good luck getting a good car.

The Mac operating system, the ecosystem, the apps available, relaibility, support, and some functionality, along with good hardware is why people opt for Mac. It is why there was a huge pent up demand for the Mac Pro

Its not a car though is it? And bringing in the repair side of things does not generally make it better for Apple products, it makes it exponentially worse.