So who’s getting a new Mac Pro?

So who’s getting a new Mac Pro?

Author
Discussion

EmmaJ

Original Poster:

4,525 posts

145 months

Tuesday 10th December 2019
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I’ve just had an email from Apple announcing their new shiny shiny Mac Pro.

Playing max out the spec on the configurator, you can ratchet the cost up to a heady £47,000!




So whose in? I wish I could justify one but this will have to remain firmly on the lust after list.

Trustmeimadoctor

12,525 posts

154 months

Tuesday 10th December 2019
quotequote all
and still slower than a hackentosh at a fraction of the cost

tim0409

4,355 posts

158 months

Tuesday 10th December 2019
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The wheels are a bargain at £360...

funkyrobot

18,789 posts

227 months

Tuesday 10th December 2019
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I'm not.

EmmaJ

Original Poster:

4,525 posts

145 months

Wednesday 11th December 2019
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If you stump up for their new 32” 6k res screen you can bump the cost up by a further £7,000 laugh.

Evolved

3,553 posts

186 months

Wednesday 11th December 2019
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Trustmeimadoctor said:
and still slower than a hackentosh at a fraction of the cost
Obviously. Difference is the Mac will work, for years to come, with no issues. It’s aimed at video encoders now who will use them to earn money, having a machine that does that without issue is more appealing than messing with some some hacked together box.

Not disagreeing that the pricing is nuts though, but this Apple and it’s true for all their products nowadays!

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Wednesday 11th December 2019
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Spec's one to $91,000nzd but it's a very high end Pro workstation for that.

Imo pointless overkill for almost anything.

The wheels and monitor stand are taking the piss

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Wednesday 11th December 2019
quotequote all
Evolved said:
Obviously. Difference is the Mac will work, for years to come, with no issues. It’s aimed at video encoders now who will use them to earn money, having a machine that does that without issue is more appealing than messing with some some hacked together box.

Not disagreeing that the pricing is nuts though, but this Apple and it’s true for all their products nowadays!
Frankly building a pc to that level will work just as well, same fundamental parts.

I've just upgraded my 2011 build that's been running a 50% over clock since day 1 no problem.

OlonMusky

708 posts

53 months

Wednesday 11th December 2019
quotequote all
Evolved said:
Obviously. Difference is the Mac will work, for years to come, with no issues.
Wooah, WOOOOOOOAAAAAAAH, where do I get that kool aid juice from, my Apple "evangelist" hombre?

theboss

6,878 posts

218 months

Wednesday 11th December 2019
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The people who buy these aren’t interested in self-builds. They want workstation class machines with a legitimately licensed OS plus vendor certification and support for the intended apps. There is also no avoiding the fact that the CPU, RAM and GPU components in that £47k Mac are extremely expensive. This isn’t a set of components you can sling in an online basket and save yourself £40k. I just specced an equivalent Dell Precision to £56k and that was before adding a second CPU or more RAM.

Trustmeimadoctor

12,525 posts

154 months

Wednesday 11th December 2019
quotequote all
I like the fact some company has cloned the case already

Evolved

3,553 posts

186 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
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OlonMusky said:
Evolved said:
Obviously. Difference is the Mac will work, for years to come, with no issues.
Wooah, WOOOOOOOAAAAAAAH, where do I get that kool aid juice from, my Apple "evangelist" hombre?
After using macs for 22 years and having staff of 6 all using them, no ‘kool aid’ (wtf is that saying) needed hombre. I’m well placed to know that Macs, although priced high do work, and continue to work for their intended purpose - which is making money in a busy design studio.

As said, no denying their pricing is eye watering. The sum of the parts don’t equal a the user experience.

GnuBee

1,272 posts

214 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
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MKBHD has a video on his recently acquired one -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOPswcaSsu8 He has a short section on render times in comparison to his other recent Apple computers (he's working with 8k video files from RED). You get to see the build quality as well...

Endless, religious debate about doing it cheaper with parts from scan.co.uk and a colander for Tesco will no doubt now occur.




Trustmeimadoctor

12,525 posts

154 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
quotequote all
The issue with macs and mac users is all historical mainly from the days of early photoshop and quarkxpress when it was the only choice for pre press work windows had huge issues with performance and colour reproduction at the time so mac was the only choice but they are like elephants they never forget and now mac is still the "only choice" even though the applications work just as well in the wintel arena.

GnuBee

1,272 posts

214 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
quotequote all
Trustmeimadoctor said:
The issue with macs and mac users is all historical mainly from the days of early photoshop and quarkxpress when it was the only choice for pre press work windows had huge issues with performance and colour reproduction at the time so mac was the only choice but they are like elephants they never forget and now mac is still the "only choice" even though the applications work just as well in the wintel arena.
Not sure how historical the issue is - the video I posted is by someone who is 26...

The issue with macs and mac users is really an issue with people observing them without comprehending the context of the choices those users have made and reducing it to a simple option of "choice is based on cost - cheaper is best".

The kind of user who "drops" 50k on a Mac Pro isn't buying a Mac because it's a Mac, because it's white - they're buying a thing, a tool, a widget to allow them to use the other tools, processes to create whatever their product is. The 50k is, relatively speaking, small beans when measured against the cost of producing a product when you include skills, experience, hardware etc etc.


Trustmeimadoctor

12,525 posts

154 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
quotequote all
Yes but what makes them choose the mac over a pc of the same spec

There used to be a genuine reason what is the genuine reason now to choose either way. Mac have as i have said been the choice of graphics professionals but i think most of it is from inherited knowledge from their peers rather than any need to use a mac rather than pc

sjg

7,444 posts

264 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
quotequote all
The price of these is pretty reasonable in workstation terms. Spec yourself up a HP Z-series, or a Dell Precision 7000 series with 20+ cores, hundreds of Gbs of RAM, Tbs of fast storage plus a chunk of GPU power and the numbers get very big too.

Marques probably spent more on his camera than the Mac Pro to process the 8k footage from it. I suspect an awful lot of Mac Pros will spend their lives as one of the cheapest bits of equipment in a particular workflow. Most of these will have a payoff in terms of time/money saved in months, not years.

I'd love for there to be a middle ground, desktop CPU Apple tower to sit between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. But that's not a market that Apple is after, and building a hackintosh to do it has never been easier.

OlonMusky

708 posts

53 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
quotequote all
Evolved said:
OlonMusky said:
Evolved said:
Obviously. Difference is the Mac will work, for years to come, with no issues.
Wooah, WOOOOOOOAAAAAAAH, where do I get that kool aid juice from, my Apple "evangelist" hombre?
After using macs for 22 years and having staff of 6 all using them, no ‘kool aid’ (wtf is that saying) needed hombre. I’m well placed to know that Macs, although priced high do work, and continue to work for their intended purpose - which is making money in a busy design studio.
Macs of today ain't the same Macs as they used to be. They used to be designed to last. Now they're designed to bring in as much ka$h as possible.

e.g. "What musicians need to know before buying a new Mac."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpVNkglXc84

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
quotequote all
To be fair the new mac pro looks very well built and designed, its an integrated work of art you wouldnt get from rolling your own.

You could still easily build your own to the same spec for less and with as good (well the same) components and make an easily comparable workstation.

or you could buy form many of the boutique high end workstation builders, or mainstream ones.

ajprice

27,317 posts

195 months

Tuesday 5th May 2020
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Those £699 / $699 wheels hehe