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2019 Mac Pro is Now Available at Apple.com

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@trs96,

Even if they did give us a Mid Tower, prosumer device with PCIe slots, I think it's clear that Apple would still lock users out of updating some components such as the SDD's with a T2 Chip thus keeping the price (and profit) margins high.

Don't get me wrong I think Apple have done an incredible engineering job with the new Mac Pro, it's probably one of the best designed and engineered computers on the market (in its class) ... although i bet at least half of that 6K is the cost of the case.

Cheers
Jay


The great thing about having lots of PCI-e slots is that we can use stuff like:

M-2-NVMe-SSD-NGFF-TO-PCIE-3-0-X16-X4-Adapter-M-Key-Interface-Expansion.jpg_q50.jpg
sonnetm24x4_pciecard.png
 
The new Mac Pro is only for video and music production on feature films. You buy it because that is the machine Apple is developing their software for and of course the hardware video accelerator. The 6K entry model is insulting I have to say, but much of the blame is on Intel's 10nm for failing to run at high frequencies. Had Apple used the new 24 core Threadripper and a Vega 56 for 6K dollars we would be having a different discussion and Apple would have had a real winner on their hands to the point of even appealing to Windows users. Intel's Icelake was obsolete before Apple ever got it out the door.

Intel really failed and I don't understand why Apple chose Intel. Well, maybe I do. It's probably the fact that Apple know's intel architecture and macOS is optimized for Intel. In the end it's the software that makes a Mac, isn't it?
 
Intel really failed and I don't understand why Apple chose Intel. Well, maybe I do. It's probably the fact that Apple know's intel architecture and macOS is optimized for Intel. In the end it's the software that makes a Mac, isn't it?

It's really easy for Apple to switch Intel to AMD cpu. It only take few modifications to macOS code for it to work. In fact Intel is based on AMD architecture. They do have hackintosh with Threadripper running modified macOS but not gonna discuss that here.
 
One thing no one has talked about yet is whether you'll be able to easily swap out the motherboard for a newer one sometime down the road of your ownership.
Considering that Apple doesn't even offer SSD modules for upgrade and since this isn't something the average user can do, the chance of them offering a M/B for upgrade is almost certainly nil.

Besides, next gen Xeons will sport 8-channel RAM (i.e. 16 DIMMs) which would require redesigned cooling in the back of the M/B. This chassis and M/B were made for each-other, kinda like peas and carrots.
No one seems to be figuring in the cost of the proprietary Swiss Cheese MP case and 1.4 kw PSU when doing the price comparisons. The value of those two components has to be close to $1300 and the motherboard itself at least 7-800 dollars. Roughly one third of the $5999 base price is made up by those three parts.
  • The Corsair AX1600i, which is arguably one of the best (if not the best) PSUs money can buy (1600W, 80 PLUS Titanium, silent, innovative all-digital architecture, GaN transistors, etc), costs <$500. I highly doubt Apple's is better or even as good.
  • The M/B doesn't look like a deluxe $800 M/B to me. The only premium components seem to be the PLX and the dual 10G Aquantia chips
  • There's a good quality copy of the case (Dune Pro) that will sell for ~$280 (Linus did a tear down). It won't be the same of course, but just to get a feel for the cost.
I'd put these 3 Mac Pro components closer to $1000-$1200
Here is the Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme C621 motherboard. Build your own T2 chip free 2019 Mac Pro.
There's also the Dominus Extreme from Asus (similar pricing) and the probably cheaper (~$1,000?) EVGA SR-3 Dark which will be released in the coming weeks.

But to be honest, I wouldn't bother with the X599 platform. It was a hastily put together platform, serving as a knee-jerk reaction to AMD's 32-core Threadripper last year. These M/B monstrosities had a limited production run and there were several reports of bugs/issues.

On the other hand, the X299 platform works well under MacOS and with the recent big price cuts on the CPUs, is a (never thought I'd say it) better value. In multithreaded workloads, an overclocked 10980XE 18-core, would come very close (if not surpass) the low frequency 28-core (W-3275) that Apple uses, and would easily best it in single/lightly-threaded workloads.

Also, ASRock is said to be adding support for up to 2TB of RDIMM/LRDIMM ECC RAM for (some?) X299 motherboards.
I don't understand why motherboard makers have failed to evolve with the times... The vast majority of video cards now take up two and often three slots. Keeping their PCI-e slots in their existing configuration will effectively block two slots (or four with triple wide cards) in a dual video card configuration.
The manufacturers are limited by the standardized M/B sizes and case layouts. They can't make oddly shaped or massive M/Bs, nor can they put the DIMM slots in the backside to save space. They max-out the slots and hope for the best.
there's also currently no way for builders to get an Afterburner card.
The Afterburner card seems like a regular PCIe card (sells for $2,000). Barring any artificial or other limitations, my guess is that it should work with any hackintosh. Cooling it might prove a bit tricky though, but I wouldn't consider it insurmountable.

MW682_AV1.jpg

The overclocking with this board is going to be excellent. 5 GHz plus on all 28 cores is never going to be possible with a Mac Pro.
5GHz is not possible without extreme cooling. Intel infamously used an industrial grade water chiller to achieve 5GHz and they "forgot" to mention it in the presentation. With a top-end watercooling setup the best you could hope for is ~4.4GHz, at which point the CPU would consume a ridiculous ~600W of power.
Don't get me wrong I think Apple have done an incredible engineering job with the new Mac Pro, it's probably one of the best designed and engineered computers on the market (in its class)
Have you seen Nvidia's $50K watercooled DGX Station, with its 4 Tesla V100 GPUs and the metal-foam air filter on the top? Others can design awesome systems as well.
 
The manufacturers are limited by the standardized M/B sizes and case layouts. They can't make oddly shaped or massive M/Bs, nor can they put the DIMM slots in the backside to save space. They max-out the slots and hope for the best.

Yes. I understand this. This constraint is what I was complaining about. Why can't they break from norms? Why must they follow ATX, EATX, etc standards when it no longer makes sense to do so?


The Afterburner card seems like a regular PCIe card (sells for $2,000). Barring any artificial or other limitations, my guess is that it should work with any hackintosh. Cooling it might prove a bit tricky though, but I wouldn't consider it insurmountable.

View attachment 440985

Ah. I didn't know it was available to be purchased separately.



Also, I have my doubts about Corsair power supplies. I was recently at a local Micro Center and saw HUNDREDS of refurbished Corsair power supplies on sale. Not very reassuring at all. Also, Corsair doesn't even make their own power supplies...


The power supplies Apple had in the MacPro1,1s to MacPro5,1s were extremely reliable.
 
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Considering that Apple doesn't even offer SSD modules for upgrade and since this isn't something the average user can do, the chance of them offering a M/B for upgrade is almost certainly nil.
A certain percentage of the motherboards anyone makes will fail. Mac Pro owners who have Apple care will definitely get a new board from Apple to replace one that has failed. Whether Apple certified techs will have to install it for you I don't really know. There's certainly going to be non-Apple Store repair shops that will have access to them. They would likely sell one to any 2019 Mac Pro owner whose warranty has run out, if they put the money down in front of them.

Apple can't control everything even though they would like to. It really wouldn't be fair to any Mac Pro owner who has invested so much into a Pro machine to not let them replace their own motherboard. I know that many people here mod old G5 and cMP cases to put standard mATX and ATX motherboards in them. The way these new MP cases are designed that would be really difficult to accomplish. No way to fit an ATX board into one of these without destroying the look and cooling function of the case.

The iFixit teardown demonstrates how easy it is to take one apart and put it back together. The right to repair movement also has a great deal of support and hopefully laws will be passed that will allow MP owners or other techs to work on these new Macs with T2 chips, even if they are not Apple certified. Imagine if Honda or Toyota could prevent all mechanics that aren't certified by them from working on Hondas and Toyotas. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it ?
 
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People of the target market don’t have time to do trial and error. If they wasted time on it, they would lose more. That is what Mac Pro is aim for.
 
The great thing about having lots of PCI-e slots is that we can use stuff like:

View attachment 440944
View attachment 440945

I have one of these in my Forensics rig at the office. Truly amazing speed when using 4 NVMe's in a RAID 10.
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series-ssd7101a-1-overview.htm. i wasn't sure if these would work with a hackintosh or not but I guess they do?
 
I have one of these in my Forensics rig at the office. Truly amazing speed when using 4 NVMe's in a RAID 10.
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series-ssd7101a-1-overview.htm. i wasn't sure if these would work with a hackintosh or not but I guess they do?

Yes, it looks like it does work with macOS.

Screen Shot 2019-12-18 at 5.02.47 AM.png

The image that I posted is the one from Sonnet. Also macOS compatible...

 
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