Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR
Posted on 12/16/2019 11:34:38 AM PST by Swordmaker
That $53,000 for the Mac Pro on the high-end is a lot of money for a computer, but there will be buyers. There doesn't seem to be a lot of discussion about the lower, more practical, workstation price points -- which are common to Windows workstations too.
When considering the Mac Pro price, context is key. Context is what's lacking in nearly all of these conversations. If the Mac Pro is compared to build-your-own hardware or an iMac, it is indeed more expensive.
But, compared to Windows workstation pricing, the jokes and arguments fall flat.
The Mac Pro isn't a consumer-level machine that is actively competing with Apple's other Macs for the target market. The Mac Pro is a true professional workstation designed for the likes of Pixar, Adobe, and other organizations.
Titles like "Apple's priciest Mac Pro costs $52,599 -- 56% higher than typical U.S. income" from CBS News is comparing the maxed-out configuration against the median family income, as if that was the target audience Apple was trying to sell the Mac Pro to. The headline isn't factually incorrect, but it is a ridiculous compare point.
Why the Mac Pro is expensive
Most of that $53,000 price point is in 8TB of flash memory and 1.5TB of RAM. Apple's RAM price alone is $25,000. Another $10K can go to two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo cards, sold for $5,600 individually. Tack on a massive 8TB SSD, a 28-core processor, and an Afterburner card, and it is easy to see how, when maxed out, this machine surpasses the $50k mark.
The machine has user-accessible RAM. Using non-Apple Storage or third-party AMD video cards aren't a major crisis, as the unit has eight PCI-E slots. There are already options for internally mounting drives in an MPX bay or connected to one of the two SATA-3 ports internal to the machine.
Users have balked, and cracked jokes at the $400 Apple chooses to charge for wheels, yet don't think twice -- or even consider -- the $309 Microsoft charges for the operating system on a Windows workstation. And, when they pick components from Newegg or other PC vendors to compare, that Windows price isn't included.
If you don't want to pay Apple's prices for RAM, storage, and video cards, then don't -- this is a pretty straightforward concept. Big business and others not interested in spending labor and money will pay Apple's prices, though, and they'll pair the machine with an expensive service contract, well above and beyond just the $299 for AppleCare.
Apple's Mac Pro versus Windows workstation prices
Workstations have always been expensive. The Mac Pro is no exception to that rule, and Windows workstations are priced similarly to the Mac Pro.
Looking at HP, we built a comparable tower with an Intel Xeon 6234 3.3GHz 8-core processor, 32GB (4x8GB) RAM, 256GB SATA SSD, and AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 graphics with 8GB of memory. That is up against the Mac Pro base config with an 8-core 2.5GHz Xeon W processor, 32GB RAM, Radeon Pro 580X with 8GB of video RAM. The processors have similar real-world performance, and the WX 7100 and 580X video cards have similar performance with 4,150 gflops for the former and more than 5530 gflops for the latter.
The Mac Pro is effectively $6000. The HP, on the other hand, is a hefty $8,506.40 -- and that is on sale from the full price of $10,633. The HP still lacks features such as Thunderbolt, explicit support for 6K displays like Apple's Pro Display XDR, and more nebulously, Apple's design elements, like a near-silent case.
Lenovo fared a bit better. A Lenovo workstation with Intel Xeon Silver 4110 8-core processor, 32GB of RAM, NVIDIA Quadra P4000 8GB graphics, and one Thunderbolt 3 port will cost $4,964 -- though it too is on sale for the holidays at $3,444. The Lenovo model lacks many features of the Mac Pro, such as more Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, dual 10Gb Ethernet, and, again, Apple's design elements.
A Dell workstation with an Intel Xeon Gold 6234 3.3GHz 8-core processor, 48GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro P4000 with 8GB of memory, and two Thunderbolt 3 ports racked up the cost to $5,851 -- after $2,522 in holiday savings. Nearly the same price, but without many of the Mac Pro's benefits.
Most of that $53,000 in the Mac Pro is RAM and SSD upgrades at Apple's pricing. If we take out Apple-provided SSD and RAM -- which can be picked up aftermarket for less -- but max out the graphics and processor, we wind up with a $23,799 machine, with the 2.5GHz 28-core Intel Xeon W. We configured another HP workstation with similar specs, and it reached $22,150, on sale from its full $27,688 price point.
That HP configuration also lacks Thunderbolt 3, and only packs a single AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 with 16GB of memory. The Mac Pro, which costs far less at full price, is configured with two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo cards with 2x32GB of HBM2 memory each. You can add a second graphics card to the HP workstation, but it can only handle two WX 7100 cards rather than two WX 9100 cards.
Apple's Mac Pro isn't just priced competitively in the workstation market but comes in under the cost of many competing Windows-based offerings.
Apples to oranges
The Mac Pro isn't just a $400 i9 processor jammed in a machine with a plain-as-day Northbridge, a few PCI-E slots, and a couple of I/O options. Instead, the Mac Pro is a machine where processors by themselves can cost thousands of dollars, coupled with other components running into the thousands of dollars each, all aimed at a very specific, very demanding, market.
The Mac Pro is absolutely a "Pro" machine. It is also absolutely not for everybody, and absolutely not aimed at the same markets that the lower-end of the G4 towers or lower-end Mac Pro towers were. Comparing prosumer hardware like the low-end G4 or lower-end Mac Pro with a workstation is a strange comparison to make, but it's being made anyway.
And, for some reason, the jokes and Twitter hot-takes aren't talking about Windows workstation pricing, which, as we've demonstrated, are in the same range.
The comparisons to Apple's pricing are derived using part-pickers, component by component. Assembly labor and support of a Frankenstein configuration aren't free, and the value of both varies person to person.
The comparisons across the web today are omitting features, most commonly Thunderbolt 3. Comparisons are skipping the quiet enclosure and discounting the desire for macOS on workstation hardware. Just because you don't need something doesn't mean that it should be stricken from the compare.
We've said it before, Apple didn't set out to make that xMac of lore with Core i3, i5, i7, and i9 options, and just overshoot that target with the Mac Pro. The new Mac Pro is a workstation. While we won't argue that the xMac concept would be nice for us, and probably most of the AppleInsider audience, Apple set out to put the most processing power in the chassis they could, and they hit that target.
Now that it's available for purchase, it's even plainer to see that the new Mac Pro is aimed precisely at who the $9,900 Mac IIfx was targeted back in the day, who $6199 Xserve hardware was tailored for, and who the $3299 G5 quad-core in 2005 was sold to. The new Mac Pro is intentionally the biggest and beefiest computer that Apple has made since that IIfx, and that's a good thing overall.
Part of it. Running and compiling 3-D code for all those pretty images takes a fair amount of horsepower.
Unthinkable and unbelievable!
I’m grateful for them.
That question is probably insoluble to either man or machine.
Might as well as the ultimate computer “why?”.
Try editing a full streaming 8k movie, or doing a full sized magazine quality photograph photo spread in photoshop with full color in real time in memory in the computer, or rendering high definition FX realistic light ray tracing in real time. Then you’ll know why you might need 1.5TB of RAM.
Other things that need that much is calculating chaotic air flow over aircraft wings in reasonable time. Recall also, we are talking about a computer that has 18 cores, all of which can allocate dedicated RAM to their own uses with 64 channels.
This is a workstation grade computer. . . Not a home computer. There are many reasons someone would max out the RAM on such a computer.
The $53,000 might get you a down payment for your Cray. Crays start at about $500,000.
If you want it to, it can do both. My last Mac Pro was running nine operating systems simultaneously, including a version of Microsoft DOS 6. The processor is, after all, an Intel processor.
No Pro users would be doing this work without a robust uninterruptible battery backup system, probably redundantly backed up itself. We did that at my office so we would not have to subject patients to additional radiation in case the power failed in the middle of radiography.
Professionals cannot afford to lose work product.
It would definitely be overkill for that target audience. . . Unless you have money to burn and want to impress your ultra rich buddies. Ostentatious waste would be what that would be. However if you REALLY want to impress them by surfing eight different website simultaneously on eight different 32” 6K reference grade monitors, then this is the machine that can do it for you. . . Or play 8 different high frame rate games simultaneously on the same screens, it can do that.
Of, if you have delusions of evilness, wanting to be James Bond’s next nemesis, you can move down to 4K screens and have an entire wall of monitors and keep track of all of your henchmen simultaneously with this computer.
Ya. A little pricey for my tastes.
Might be the way to justify the cost as a video rendering server; to send rendering jobs to.
It’s not exactly what I would consider a “portable” computer, but once you’ve maxed it out, it does tend to get heavy. Maybe $400 for a set of wheels is understandable to move it out for servicing, but not necessary. I would not think one is going to take it very far. If one was, handtrucks are inexpensive at Harbor Freight.
On the other hand, I can actually see the $1000 price for the monitor stand for the 32” XDS Reference Grade Monitor. It is designed to hold a very heavy large screen monitor in multiple positions while still being easy to move, rotates 90º into a portrait mode, also easy to do, and allows the monitor to be easily mounted and dismounted with a magnetic connector. Attaching it is as easy as holding the monitor up to it and it automatically mounts itself. I was amazed when I saw how easy it was compared to how difficult it is to mount other monitors and TVs to such mounts.
The Apple XDS Reference 6K monitor itself sells for $4999 ($5999 with the stand), but it competes against other Reference Monitors such as the Sony 31” Reference Monitor which retails for $36,495 (often discounted to as low as $28,000), and is only 4K, compared to Apple’s 6K. A 27” Sony Reference Monitor is available for around $25,000. These are, of course, professional grade monitors, used in studio and production settings, which guarantee accurate color reproduction. The Sony’s do not come with stands.
I do agree it’s a bit disingenuous.
However, the $400 wheels are optional, the OS is mandatory and the $400 is the price for Windows 10 Workstation. You can’t get by with Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Home, which are less expensive. The OS on the Mac is included in the price of the Mac Pro, not an extra expense.
Try porn in 6K at 40 or 60 frames per second. They say your mind cannot tell it from reality at those frame rates.
Where’d you find that bargain? When we turned in our 2015 Stingray on lease, they were wanting us to lease a 2019 Stingray and the lowest price model they could get then was over $111,000. We were wondering what in hell they had added that was worth $26k more! Of course, that was in California. . . And loaded, like our previous $85,000 sticker price 2015 ‘Vette, but still, $67.5k is a heck of a good price. They were going to sell our ‘15 trade-in, with less than 15k miles on it for $49,950. . . (We actually negotiated the lease price down to under $70k when we got the lease). It was fun while we had it, but won’t buy another, not with our old bodies. It’s getting too hard to get in and out of that low of a car. I’ll keep driving my Lincoln.
I believe this configuration has an 8TB SSD for long term storage. . . You can also have more internal storage on spinning hard drives as there are still open HD bays.
Not Apples, especially the Mac Pros. Twelve year old Mac Pros are still bringing 30% to 50% of their new prices depending on their configuration. . . and even lower end Macs hold a lot of their original value.
You could pay a good amount of money for an Amiga with a Video Toaster, and many TV Studios did, especially Cable companies who ran their channel listings with one, or their weather displays. It was a lot cheaper than the $150,000 options the others were selling for the same purposes.
Add in Inflation from the 1990s time frame and you’d be looking at quite a chunk of change for that same setup.
We’ve been using a 2013 MacPro to compile 3D radiography for years, does it pretty fast at 1.5 Teraflops, this one would be done before it started at 53 Teraflops.
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