Apple Unveils Redesigned Mac Pro Desktop and Pro Display XDR at WWDC

[Adrian B]

In 2009 that price got you...

A computer that is less powerful than a $800 build in 2019. Try using a 2009 computer today...

 

[izo1]

In 2009 that price got you a top of the line Mac Pro with all the bells and whistles, nowadays it gets you the base model with maybe normal size internal drive and some extra RAM. See the difference?

Here's a pre-configured 8 core HP Z8 Workstation with a 8-core Xeon processor. Look at the price and then look at the Mac Pro price. Blame Intel for their expensive Xeon processors.

 

[Midphase]

A computer that is less powerful than a $800 build in 2019. Try using a 2009 computer today...

Yeah....and by that logic a $30k computer in 2029 will make the current Mac Pro seem about as powerful as an Apple Watch...not sure I follow your reasoning....is this about time travel?

My point is that back in 2009 I was an Apple customer, and now I just go with Hackintosh. A $3k entry price point for a new Mac Pro would have been painful, but for the sake of re-entering the proper Apple ecosystem and do away with some of the Hackintosh nonsense, it would have been worth it. A $6k entry point, on top of which I have to add another good $1000 at least to get me up to speed with what I could have with a simple mobo/CPU swap right now? No f---ing way!

So what's the benefit? Apple loses my business, and the business of just about most freelancers out there, so that in a couple of years they can justify why they're no longer supporting the pro market?


The only benefit that I can see is a continued commitment to Intel CPU's and possibly some internal investment into companies like Autodesk, Maxon, SideFX, The Foundry and Octane which should put most hackintoshers' mind to ease for at least a few years.

P.S.

If you think that the likes of WETA,D-Neg, Method Studios, Pixar, etc. will rush out and buy thousands of these machines and give Apple the financial incentive to continue to support the "pro" creative market...you're dreaming.

 

[izo1]

Yeah....and by that logic a $30k computer in 2029 will make the current Mac Pro seem about as powerful as an Apple Watch...not sure I follow your reasoning....is this about time travel?

My point is that back in 2009 I was an Apple customer, and now I just go with Hackintosh. A $3k entry price point for a new Mac Pro would have been painful, but for the sake of re-entering the proper Apple ecosystem and do away with some of the Hackintosh nonsense, it would have been worth it. A $6k entry point, on top of which I have to add another good $1000 at least to get me up to speed with what I could have with a simple mobo/CPU swap right now? No f---ing way!

So what's the benefit? Apple loses my business, and the business of just about most freelancers out there, so that in a couple of years they can justify why they're no longer supporting the pro market?


The only benefit that I can see is a continued commitment to Intel CPU's and possibly some internal investment into companies like Autodesk, Maxon, SideFX, The Foundry and Octane which should put most hackintoshers' mind to ease for at least a few years.

P.S.

If you think that the likes of WETA,D-Neg, Method Studios, Pixar, etc. will rush out and buy thousands of these machines and give Apple the financial incentive to continue to support the "pro" creative market...you're dreaming.

We get it, you can't afford it.

Mid-tier small offices definitely maybe can afford one of these but not multiple.

And working in this industry I can tell you that these studios you mentioned WILL buy this thing, including the monitor. Post-houses, design studios (graphic and otherwise), sound designers, music producers, and so on, WILL buy this. 3d and game developers is another story, they are mostly on the Windows side and have always been.

Just wait for a Mac Mini 8 core + eGPU and you will be good. Why go crazy over something like this? The time that I spent tweaking my Hackintosh, I could have saved some and just gotten this...but it wasn't available a year or two ago.

 

[Midphase]

And working in this industry I can tell you that these studios you mentioned WILL buy this thing, including the monitor. Post-houses, design studios (graphic and otherwise), sound designers, music producers, and so on, WILL buy this.

Nice to meet a fellow entertainment industry professional. Will Jay Z buy one, hell yeah (actually, let's be real, he's getting one for free), but the rest of the so-called middle-class pros and freelancers who make up the vast majority of Apple's potential client base? No way!

We can leave it at that, and circle back in a few years when Apple abruptly EOL's the Mac Pro crying that they're not getting enough love from their artistic users!

P.S.

For the time being I'm fine thank you, no need to wait for a Mac mini 8-Core (which I think is coming due to the reasons outlined in my previous posts). My hackintosh is working great thankfully, and as I said above, I was cheering Apple when they announced the new Mac Pro since it means a longer life for hackintosh users!!!

 

[scottkendall]

Just wait for a Mac Mini 8 core + eGPU and you will be good. Why go crazy over something like this? The time that I spent tweaking my Hackintosh, I could have saved some and just gotten this...but it wasn't available a year or two ago.

I got a 6 core Mini with EGPU, since I upgraded to the BETA "I know we are not to discuss" the EGPU has been preforming much better, in addition I see the apple boot screen threw the eGPU before I just saw black. I am with you on the time spent tweaking my Hackintosh I could have bought @ least 2 base models with the time spent. After 10 months of random crashes I bought a Mac mini and eGPU, few months after that I discovered that for what ever reason I could not get MacOs stable with XMP enabled, turned it off now the Hackntosh is stable. Built a second one with parts that I had bought during the first 10 month it is also stable with XMP off. That 30 sec fix took me untold hours to discover.

 

[izo1]

Nice to meet a fellow entertainment industry professional. Will Jay Z buy one, hell yeah (actually, let's be real, he's getting one for free), but the rest of the so-called middle-class pros and freelancers who make up the vast majority of Apple's potential client base? No way!

We can leave it at that, and circle back in a few years when Apple abruptly EOL's the Mac Pro crying that they're not getting enough love from their artistic users!

P.S.

For the time being I'm fine thank you, no need to wait for a Mac mini 8-Core (which I think is coming due to the reasons outlined in my previous posts). My hackintosh is working great thankfully, and as I said above, I was cheering Apple when they announced the new Mac Pro since it means a longer life for hackintosh users!!!

The lower end freelancers might not be able to afford it, but the ones that I know can easily afford it (They're pretty good)...and I can afford it too, I fit in that category. But I've already spent a lot of time Hackintoshing this thing and it works perfectly fine for me and it's water cooled and runs quiet and is extremely fast for all of Adobe software etc.

Would it be nice not to deal with Hackintosh bugs? Sure. But did I ever NOT have a problem with even real Macs? Nope. Those things broke down on me too in the middle of deadlines, and I had to fix it myself and not rely on IT people.

In the grand scheme of things, all of this is good news. For a long time we thought they are abandoning Mac users (I even had peers move to Windows due to uncertainty), but as always, Macs were never a big money maker for Apple even during the Jobs era. Hence why most likely they wanted to have a better bottom line here since they're buying these Intel chips in bulk. I really doubt they will discontinue this thing like the trash can that quickly, it seems fairly expandable if you look at it.

Apple has a business incentive where you get discounts depending on how large your orders are, so companies will take advantage of it. Even mid-tier production houses will buy at least 5-10 of these at a minimum....and 10x$6k is not a big deal for companies with revenues in millions, especially if they are already Mac friendly. Macs in general have less down time than Windows.

I got a 6 core Mini with EGPU, since I upgraded to the BETA "I know we are not to discuss" the EGPU has been preforming much better, in addition I see the apple boot screen threw the eGPU before I just saw black. I am with you on the time spent tweaking my Hackintosh I could have bought @ least 2 base models with the time spent. After 10 months of random crashes I bought a Mac mini and eGPU, few months after that I discovered that for what ever reason I could not get MacOs stable with XMP enabled, turned it off now the Hackntosh is stable. Built a second one with parts that I had bought during the first 10 month it is also stable with XMP off. That 30 sec fix took me untold hours to discover.

I just upgraded from 10 cores to 18 cores and went from Vega FE to Radeon VII, so I was thinking in the long run this will be my main workstation for now, pending....I just stay away from major updates for a while.

The tweaking is just a nightmare for me, it's so much downtime. I've rebuilt my watercooling at least 3 times and it's a headache every single time, draining, etc...but overall I am happy, it's stable and runs cool and quiet and of course it's fast as heck.

Would I have had spent time in a better way? Sure. Did I have fun? Yeah, but it's getting tiresome.

 

[Adrian B]

A $3000 Mac Pro isn't possible - at this point in the market that would be a really nice consumer gaming build. It wouldn't be a real Mac pro level of hardware and it would be limited to the constraints of the number of PCIe lanes. It wouldn't be a Pro level machine with Pro level hardware at that price.

Building a CustoMac Hackintosh: The Ultimate Buyer's Guide

www.tonymacx86.com

iMac Pro starts at $5000, but it does have a reasonable screen at that price.

Mac

The most powerful Mac laptops and desktops ever. Supercharged by M1 and M2 chips. MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro.

www.apple.com

 

[pastrychef]

10 years ago, even talking about shooting 8K videos would have landed you in a funny farm for a long stretch.

 

[izo1]

10 years ago, even talking about shooting 8K videos would have landed you in a funny farm for a long stretch.

Amazing how far we've come in terms of computing speeds. I started doing post production in the 90s and even DV was hard to edit back then (720x480, 4:2:0 25Mbit)