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New Mac Pro

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Re: New Mac Pro

#581

Post by programd »

thinkmassive wrote: post #507
ianhowson wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of cheap NVMe SSDs that can push 3.5Gbytes/sec (Samsung 970, Adata XPG). Even with dual 10Gbe NICs, you can't match that, nor the low access times of local storage. But I do agree that SAN storage is the norm here.

Thunderbolt 3 can beat that though

A typical product aimed at mid-range video producers, the G-Speed Shuttle SSD, can do up to 2800MB/s. That's 32TB of local Thunderbolt 3 attached SSD storage.

Mind you, you'll pay $15K for it, but if you're in that business you can well afford it even if you're not a top tier Hollywood production shop.

Given that your storage array costs that much, the fully loaded Mac Pro price (somewhere in the $20K range?) is not that outrageous. The people who use Red cameras and G-Tech storage arrays are the Mac Pro demographic Apple is going for here.

Disclaimer: I used to work with G-Tech but no longer there.

Re: New Mac Pro

#583

Post by equalarrow »

I've waited for this for a few years.. Until I stopped caring last year. Alas, I'm underwhelmed. Mostly in the form factor.

I had an Intel beta machine from yonder. Apple sent everyone an iMac that year we had to send those back. I had that and a MacBook Pro for a few years until I got a 2009 Mac Pro. Had to retire that when OS X upgrades stopped working on it. I loved that machine and put it through its paces for many years.

In 2014 I got a trashcan Mac Pro and that's probably been the most beautiful Mac I've ever owned. I know a lot of people don't like it, but it's been quietly humming away on my desk for years. It takes up about a 7" x 7" corner of my desk. It's perfect. I love stuff that doesn't make a sound and gets out of my way.

The new form factor, I'm not into at all. It's great that it's expandable and powerful, but it just doesn't do it for me. I've been doing Mac and iOS development for so long now and thrown so much money at them that I think I'm just burned out. I mean, how much 'best ever', 'amazing', 'sensational', every year can you take? I no longer drool every time Ive speaks and the video for it had me yawning. I've seen it before, even though I haven't. Yah, no one else makes that design, I get it. But, I am now asking myself, so what?

It seems like they have been less 'pro' the past years and now they're extreme pro. I'm just average pro I guess. They didn't design this machine for me and that's ok. I'm just underwhelmed by everything Apple now.

Re: New Mac Pro

#584

Post by [deleted] »

freehunter wrote: post #528
llampx wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no professional that would buy a machine with 256GB of storage. Let's call it what it is - a throwaway configuration meant to hit a price point.

If there's a single truth of Hacker News Apple threads, its that someone will eventually say "no professional would ever..." and then immediately be rebutted by multiple professionals claiming they indeed would "..." and not only would they "...", not doing "..." would be unusual and even undesirable.

[deleted]

Re: New Mac Pro

#585

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chaostheory wrote: post #564
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cheese grater was already pro, not consumer. The last consumer tower was probably the G4 era, afterwards the iMac, mini, and laptops took over consumer completely, leaving towers to the pro market. There is "niche" demand for consumer towers, sure, but I don't think it would be worth Apple's effort. The iMac 5K is really good, and its even the cheapest option to get one of the best displays out there.

Yes the cheese grater was Pro and it was at a reasonable price starting at $2k- 3k depending on the model. Yes that’s adjusted for inflation.

$2400 in 2006 is just over $3k in 2019. Not sure if that is consumer, more like a higher end iMac sans display.

Re: New Mac Pro

#586

Post by [deleted] »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #249
andreasley wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's what people asked for – a work horse, designed to be fast, reliable and reasonably quiet. They've tried the "beauty first" approach on the 2013 version and it was a disaster.

They can accomplish all that, just without the tasteless design. The stainless steel frame contrasts with the shell, and not in a good way. The ventilation holes are really weirdly proportioned and still manage to look cramped with that inner baffle. And finally, that apple logo on the side stands out a bit too much, on the old cheesegrater it was a darker gray and a bit smaller. The old G5 chassis was an understated…

[deleted]

Re: New Mac Pro

#587

Post by snuxoll »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #535
snuxoll wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume this uses ECC DDR4 which would at a minimum explain some of the price tag. That will set you back $500+ retail for 32GB alone, still don’t understand where the rest is going with a 8-core CPU and a RX580X though.

It's an 8 core Xeon, plus a custom motherboard with dual 10gb, I would think that alone is probably about $2000.

I guess a 8-core Xeon W costs a cool $1K by itself, 10Gb networking isn’t tremendously expensive these days so it probably contributes $300 to the cost at MSRP. Still, $6K is too much, $4-5K would be less outrageous and still turn a healthy markup.

Re: New Mac Pro

#588

Post by Uptrenda »

Not directly relevant but: boy do I love Apples marketing. They put so much passion into conveying their products, its ridiculous. Its almost like their marketing boarders on small art projects and "how its made style docs." I know that's a weird thing to say, but I find them very creative and interesting to watch. Sure beats the average commercial.

Re: New Mac Pro

#589

Post by cma »

bayindirh wrote: post #278
llampx wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no professional that would buy a machine with 256GB of storage. Let's call it what it is - a throwaway configuration meant to hit a price point.

Multimedia professionals do not store their data in internal/primary drives. They generally have RAID boxes with either Ethernet or thunderbolt connection. Most video editing/rendering is done on big storage arrays anyway. So 256GB storage is more than enough for most serious multimedia professionals.

The monitor stand costs $1000 so it still seems like they would splurge a bit on the base built in drive.

Re: New Mac Pro

#590

Post by dodobirdlord »

icedchai wrote: post #550
endorphone wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat. My new MacBook Pro has 256GB. I'm using ~133GB. That's XCode and the Xcode Beta, the full Office suite, Logic Pro, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IntelliJ, GoLand, Photoshop, Illustrator, a bunch of other Adobe apps, and on and on. When I'm at the desktop I use an external drive for dumping junk to, and for Time Machine backups. There is a point of diminishing returns, and given that most people don't have a giant St…

You are right. It is sufficient for a large number of users. However, the Mac Pro is a high end workstation used by professionals, targeted for applications like high resolution video editing that require insane amounts of storage. Relatively speaking, storage is cheap. A high performance, 1 TB NVME drive can be had for under $350. This should be the base configuration on a high end workstation...

> targeted for applications like high resolution video editing that require insane amounts of storage

None of which is local. People have RAID boxes for that.

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