[shrek]

I actually like the cheese grater vent holes. That part looks nice and goes well with the monitor. What I don't like is the chrome feet and handles. Does a workstation really need carrying handles? How often do you actually move the thing off the desk? Seems pretty dumb. And if I needed to carry a $6000 workstation up the stairs or to a car, you better believe I would box it up first.

If I had $6000 to spend on a new workstation I would be buying a Talos II, not a Mac Pro. I wouldn't be locked into one OS either with T2 security chip garbage like new Macs have. I would be able to run anything that I'm able to compile for POWER. Honestly, trading in PowerPC for Intel's swiss cheese x86 crap is the biggest mistake Apple ever made.

Anyhow, I'll probably buy one to play with on ebay for $300 in ten years.

[BackPlaner]

How about that new $1,000 monitor stand?

For a $5000 monitor.

Safe to say Apples current target crowd these days are the 1%

[Jacques]

And it has one of those lovely T2 chips. Good luck rolling your own internal boot drive or installing another OS apart from Windows.

Seen enough...moving one!

[spiroyster]

Max spec new MacPro == $35,000

:( 

... probably get equiv system for under $10,000 without Apple-ism attached.

Also grates larger chunks of cheese than the last MacPro by the looks of it (not the ashtray, the other Pro).

[Irinikus]

I know that there are many haters of the previous Mac Pro, but if you take a look at it's ratings, you'll see that it actually was loved by those who reviewed and owned it:



The thing that appealed to me about the machine at first look, was the fact that it was something completely different to anything I'd seen before. And having used it for the past five years, I must say that I've enjoyed it. (It's dead quiet and extremely energy efficient, and hasn't given me the slightest bit of trouble in the past 5 years.)

Looking at their new offering, all I see is an overpriced PC that doesn't even give me the option to use an Nvidia card if I want to! (AND I WANT TO!!!!)

[jan-jaap]

Max spec new MacPro == $35,000

:( 

... probably get equiv system for under $10,000 without Apple-ism attached.

Nope.

Those Xeon W chips alone cost $5K. A 128GB DDR4 DIMM? HP charges $3500 a piece, so I'll let you do the math about the cost of 1.5TB of it.

I think in many ways this new Mac Pro is like the SGI systems we all like. Completely custom. Purpose built. If you're complaining about the cost you are not the target audience, it's as simple as that. This is not a home computer any more than the Tezro or the Onyx2 was. A Tezro was pretty expensive (compared to a beige Pentium 4 tower), but still only a minor part of the cost of the Discreet suite it was usually integrated in. And as long as you can bill time on that Discreet suite for a couple of hundred per hour and write it off over a couple of years it's still going to be profitable.

Personally, I love these no-compromises professional workstations. Just like I loved the DEC Alpha, the SUN workstations and especially the MIPS/IRIX workstations which threw some funky design and colorful cases into the mix. This new Mac Pro has that same DNA and that's why I like it.

I'm simply looking at it from a consumer point of view, as I would only want it for home use. I agree that looks aren't the only design parameter for a case, but if I am to use it at home, it has to fit into my home environment and I still have to look at it when I use it!

But this is the new Mac Pro. It's a tool for professionals who need that kind of power. For people who manipulate 8K video. For years people moan that Apple abandoned the pro user and now they built a new pro system you tell me it sucks because it's no good as a home computer?

The ASUS will definitely be enough of a machine for my purposes, with the looks to match!

It looks like a concept gaming rig that will fail even the most basic EMC test. Unsafe around small kids and pets too. I'd be disappointed if Apple built something like that.

I don't think Apple is trying to push macOS as a serious gaming platform, and for the non-gamers in the Apple audience there's always the iMac or iMac Pro. Gamers don't need the $5K Xeon CPUs or ECC RAM you find in the Mac Pro.

Sadly Apple has dropped the ball here in my opinion! :(

You're clearly not the target audience for this system. That's OK, most people aren't (me neither). That doesn't make it an unprofitable product for Apple.

Maybe in a couple of years, when this generation of Xeon chips hits eBay and the prices drop I'd buy one 2nd hand. That's how I got my HP Z600 years ago: bought a basic system and dropped in a pair of 6-core X5675 Xeons and 48GB of RAM to match because it cost nearly nothing. I transcoded all my DVDs and BluRays to my Plex server and now that's done this system is overkill for just about anything I do. I mostly use my MacBook Pro, carefully chosen maxed-out configuration from just before they f-ed up their keyboards. Will have to hold on to it until they recover from that, I guess. :dodgy:

[Irinikus]

You're 100% correct in everything you've said, I just didn't expect something so generic, with no Nvidia support.

I still have to experience one in the flesh though, so my mind could still change, as not everything is love at first sight.

Let's see.

[spiroyster]

Even at 20 grand... I'm struggluing to think who the target audience is tbh. Literally the only target audience I can think would be high subscriber youtubers who have to decode their own 8K videos who want to show it off and can gain enough revenue to justify it. And then they would be gimped by a 6K screen. Apple will add value and won't be selling at a loss. I predict not many sales... also suprised they are still x86'ing it tbh. It does feel like a return the days of old SGI workstation prices and custom purpose, but there isn't a restriction on platform these days like there was and I feel the market isn't there to require one platform over another.

I presume this is purely for people who edit their own videos, and even then the likes of RED (who are 8K champions) say macs can't offer anywhere near the price to performance ratio that equiv Windows PC's can with FinalCut Pro X. RED custom solutions have recently been ousted by nV RTX for a fraction of the price.

Or maybe some hipster design studios might get one or two for funzzies.

Smoke/Flame and Maya are the only CGI Autodesk products that natively work on macOS. AutoCAD has a macOS native (with slightly fewer features than the windows version), but every other product dealing with AEC, Oil & Gas and BIM/BEM modelling are all Windows. No one in CAD would be able to justify that price, the only ones in CAD who require that would work in the Oil & gas industry where Autodesk have approx 90% market share in AEC don't even support macOS for Revit/BIM etc. Services they use for BEM and Oil & Gas operate on a subscription basis (called perpetual licenscing) and run on the cloud and Windows.

Design wise it is gorgeous as ever, although I do prefer the ashtray.

Shame really, my boss is a Apple fan, he's been waiting for the new Pro for a numbe of years now... that was going to be my opportunity to grab his old ashtray for a decent price :(. He won't be letting go of his for a while now.

[Irinikus]

If they offered this machine in anodised black, it would definitely be far more appealing aesthetically, in my opinion, and the chrome handles and feet wouldn't look so out of place!

[eudatux23]