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zzzachi

macrumors regular
Jun 16, 2012
231
111
No, not all multi-core motherboards are equally fast. There’s a lot of signal integrity analysis and design, and careful placement and routing of components and interconnect, involved in board design. Apple traditionally does a very good job of it, better than most of the competition. Two-sided boards, high quality dielectrics and metallization, additional metallization layers to reduce interconnect length and avoid congestion, ground and power planes to reduce inductance, etc. are all places that Apple puts in extra effort but the competition often does not, in order to reduce cost.
i know, but you are talking of a few percent +/- performance here. i'm sure the performance differences are way under 5% unless you compare the mac pro with a no brand super cheap motherboard bought for $50 in an asian flea market. the mac pro has a xeon motherboard and if you compare it to a quality pc xeon motherboard, it will be hard to measure markable performance differences.

its not that i dont value apple. but with those 5-6 i have bought that quality case.
if i want a 28core xeon in it, i wont pay an extra 10k to apple, if i can order it for 3.5k online.
 

jlocker

macrumors 65816
Jun 20, 2011
1,022
1,194
Lake Michigan
Expansion Slots
Eight PCI Express expansion slots
Two MPX Modules or up to four PCI Express card slots
Each MPX bay provides:
x16 gen 3 bandwidth for graphics
x8 gen 3 bandwidth for Thunderbolt
DisplayPort video routing
Up to 500W power for an MPX Module
Alternatively, each MPX bay can support:
One full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slot and one full-length, double-wide x8 gen 3 slot (MPX bay 1)
Or two full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slots (MPX bay 2)
Up to 300W auxiliary power via two 8-pin connectors
Three full-length PCI Express gen 3 slots
One x16 slot; two x8 slots
75W auxiliary power available
One half-length x4 PCI Express gen 3 slot with Apple I/O card installed

Find me a PC motherboard that match this technology and not cost a arm and a leg. Not all Motherboard are the same.
 

realtuner

Suspended
Mar 8, 2019
1,714
5,053
Canada
Well parallel performance is what I buy a multi-core workstation for.
But I know that there are many usage cases for mac pros. (surfing, office decoration, etc)
This thread is funny with people making generic excuses why they need such a machine.

Why won’t anyone actually list the specific software they’re using on all their Mac Pros (or Windows workstations)?

Probably because people who actually DO use that software will call them out.
 

realtuner

Suspended
Mar 8, 2019
1,714
5,053
Canada
i do rendering for living and i can assure you that 32 cores render 4 times as fast as 8 cores. (minus a few percent overhead)
List your exact machine configuration. Processor, MB, type and amount of RAM along with the specific software and workflow you’re using.

Then also list this supposed 8 core Xeon that your machine is 4X as fast as.
 
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PickUrPoison

macrumors G3
Sep 12, 2017
8,131
10,720
Sunnyvale, CA
Blended margin? For Apple, my assumption (could be wrong) is that anything under 30% would be “not very profitable“ for them, but quite profitable by the rest of the industry standard. I can’t imagine that Apple does anything with a razor thin margin.
You’d be wrong :)

Upgraded configs, with their relatively pricey options, are much more profitable for Apple. Much, much more. Everyone knows about the high price of RAM and SSD upgrades.

All those high-priced upgrades, with their 100% or more profit margins, actually subsidize the price of lower end configs. The aggregate gross margin is about 32%, but it would be lower if it weren’t pulled up by the expensive upgrades in the higher-priced configs.

Certainly Apple could reduce the price of upgrades, but the entry level product prices would have to come up to replace the lost margin.
 
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realtuner

Suspended
Mar 8, 2019
1,714
5,053
Canada
No, not all multi-core motherboards are equally fast. There’s a lot of signal integrity analysis and design, and careful placement and routing of components and interconnect, involved in board design. Apple traditionally does a very good job of it, better than most of the competition. Two-sided boards, high quality dielectrics and metallization, additional metallization layers to reduce interconnect length and avoid congestion, ground and power planes to reduce inductance, etc. are all places that Apple puts in extra effort but the competition often does not, in order to reduce cost.
There’s also reliability to think of. Even if your les expensive machine gives you 90% of the performance it’s meaningless if you lose work due to unforeseen crashes or other issues when you have a deadline to meet.
 

dantroline

macrumors 6502
Oct 28, 2016
366
495
No, not all multi-core motherboards are equally fast. There’s a lot of signal integrity analysis and design, and careful placement and routing of components and interconnect, involved in board design. Apple traditionally does a very good job of it, better than most of the competition. Two-sided boards, high quality dielectrics and metallization, additional metallization layers to reduce interconnect length and avoid congestion, ground and power planes to reduce inductance, etc. are all places that Apple puts in extra effort but the competition often does not, in order to reduce cost.
That is heartening to hear, especially if/once one has bought one of these rigs. Ideally the defect rate of an Apple computer is lower than, say, a Lenovo. Is it though? I've had far more defects buying Mac than I have with Lenovo or Dell, for what it's worth. None of them have been perfect but when some Dell micro PC's had faulty hybrid drives I could just replace the lot as soon as I found out and thereby save the rest of the fleet. (With Apple, on the other hand, it can occasionally take until a class action lawsuit over defective materials before a repair/replacement program is available)

Are not benchmarks the measure of all of this, ultimately? Just like speaker wire, you can spend as much as you want on it, but decent gauge copper wire from the hardware store, by objective measures, delivers the same as $1000 a meter wire.

I am happy to believe that Apple engineers are probably better (maybe better paid anyway), and the materials are better, but enterprise quality is enterprise quality, no matter the brand. The big computer manufacturers live and die by the hardware and service contracts they get with big business, and reliability is right up there in the consideration.

One thing I can say is that Apple's visual design and marketing is the best in the industry by a mile.
 
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Jack Burton

macrumors 6502a
Feb 27, 2015
780
1,272
This thread is funny with people making generic excuses why they need such a machine.

Why won’t anyone actually list the specific software they’re using on all their Mac Pros (or Windows workstations)?

Probably because people who actually DO use that software will call them out.

After Effects
BG renderer max (to max out those cores in AE rendering)
Cinema 4d
Arnold Render

IIRC, Premiere doesn't benefit all that much from a zillion cores...

But on top of that AMD's 16 core 3950x also does great in single threaded tasks. Puget systems calls it that fastest processor for After effects. AMD really hit a sweet spot. That spot was previously held by the 9900k, the one in the 27inch 5k iMac.


There’s also reliability to think of. Even if your les expensive machine gives you 90% of the performance it’s meaningless if you lose work due to unforeseen crashes or other issues when you have a deadline to meet.

This is what makes me nervous. I've been bitten by terrible Windows bugs in the past - especially on home built PCs. During classes, projects, you name it. Tiny little incompatibilities or problems that add up like paper cuts, bleeding me slowly to death. Everything from Wacom issues to BIOS update issues preventing new GPUs from working.

Even if my Mac does have a problem (the only truly unreliable Mac I had was a G5 tower), I have good apple repair shops nearby. My best solution for PC's is Best Buy. It really does make the decision harder, like buying a super fast car and it might be unreliable or have a crappy service department in my city.
 

Alan Wynn

macrumors 68020
Sep 13, 2017
2,371
2,398
I've got a better idea - I'll get a PC with the exact specs that I need rather than the specs that Tim Cook thinks he can force me to pay for, and save $50 a month to spend on other things. MacOS is nicer than Windows, but it is not 1984 anymore and these days Windows is just as capable if you're not scared of a bit of change.

Exactly how does Tim Cook think he can force you to pay for something? Do you mean that Apple made a machine that was not targeted at you and you are upset that you cannot justify the price? Apple makes many other machines and while it may come as a surprise to you, they do understand that they cannot force anyone to buy anything. They have produced a machine that some people will want and others will not. You apparently are one of those who will not want it. Got it. Once you have switched to Windows, will we no longer have to hear about why Apple does not meet your needs?

If you only want to spend $3-5k on a machine, you wouldn't want or need enough DIMM slots, PCIe slots and Watts to put $30k worth of expansion in - but that's what the $6k MP is forcing you to buy.

Again, you mean that you do not want they machine they built, or do you know the needs of every and you are now speaking for all of them? My fiancé currently runs an iMac Pro. He needs more high speed secondary storage ("disk") and 100Gb/s networking for even more disk space. Having the option for more GPUs will be nice (he will move his external into a slot on this machine). Eventually, he will want to add RAM (from 128 to 256), but he can wait on that. If this machine is not for you, that is fine.

No you can't build a PC with the exact specs of the Mac Pro for $6k, but you can build a PC with comparable processing power and enough expansion for maybe a dual GPU, plus a decent amount of fast SSD for a lot less - especially if an AMD processor or even an i9 fits your needs.

Glad you at least acknowledge that other people might have different needs.

Sure, its gonna lose to the Mac Pro at Top Trumps when someone calls out "PSU Capacity" or "Number of Thunderbolt 3 ports" but if that's your criterion for buying a computer, you're holing it wrong.

It will also lose out by not running macOS or the software with which he is comfortable. A month of getting used to a new environment would lose him (and many others) way more than the savings. In addition, while Thunderbolt ports, and a high speed compression board may not matter to you, they are super valuable to others.

NB: The 10 core iMac Pro is $5800, has 1TB SSD and a better GPU than the $6k Mac Pro and comes with a 5k screen, the equivalent of which will cost you $1300. Going by the Mac Pro benchmarks on Apple's site, the 28 core MP only beats the iMP in proportion to the number of cores, so a 10 core iMP with Vega is going to smoke the Mac Pro.

The iMac Pro is a great machine. Unfortunately, it does not support 100Gb/s ethernet, nor over 4TB of fast secondary storage, so it simply is not a competitor.

So you don't even have to look beyond Apple to make the MP look silly - $2000+ extra for a slower machine with the privilege of being able to choose your own GPU and displays, or maybe add some extra internal storage. Maybe you do have to look outside Apple to understand that, in the real world, plain old full-sized towers are cheaper than ultra-compact all-in-ones full of custom parts and rocket-science cooling systems.

It seems that to you, any use case other than yours does not matter or exist. My fiancé has no ego reason for upgrading, but he has started to do more 6K RAW production and his iMac Pro no longer meets his needs. Your use case is clearly different, and I am glad you have an option to buy something that suits your use case, however, I wish you would stop acting as if it was the only valid option.
 
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sakurarain

macrumors 6502
Jul 26, 2018
318
235
Shanghai
Starting 10. Dec., I will refresh the below topic every minute, until I see some one place the order for the new MP.
EEB8391A-8F7E-411C-ABF0-26F72F8A28C5.jpeg
 
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macpro2000

macrumors 65816
Feb 23, 2005
1,325
1,097
This thread is funny with people making generic excuses why they need such a machine.

Why won’t anyone actually list the specific software they’re using on all their Mac Pros (or Windows workstations)?

Probably because people who actually DO use that software will call them out.

I’ll say it...I’ll get a nicely spec MP and 3 XDR Displays. I use Safari and Mail mostly. I just want the new stuff and because I can.
 
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Reed Black12

macrumors newbie
Dec 7, 2019
22
54
your certainty is failing you - i don't need those specs for that money, i would love for there to be a simpler model(or two) for a more reasonable price for those of us who don't need all the bells and whistles. and apple being a consumer brand(and a great one) should be giving options, and not creating one super high end model and nothing else. and btw this may not have been clear - i'm speaking of the display only.
Fair enough. While you’re busy complaining about what Apple has or doesn’t have for you, I’ll be enjoying my $6g Mac Pro and my 38inch ultra wide LG display! Woohoo!!!
 

falainber

macrumors 68040
Mar 16, 2016
3,413
3,979
Wild West
Expansion Slots
Eight PCI Express expansion slots
Two MPX Modules or up to four PCI Express card slots
Each MPX bay provides:
x16 gen 3 bandwidth for graphics
x8 gen 3 bandwidth for Thunderbolt
DisplayPort video routing
Up to 500W power for an MPX Module
Alternatively, each MPX bay can support:
One full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slot and one full-length, double-wide x8 gen 3 slot (MPX bay 1)
Or two full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slots (MPX bay 2)
Up to 300W auxiliary power via two 8-pin connectors
Three full-length PCI Express gen 3 slots
One x16 slot; two x8 slots
75W auxiliary power available
One half-length x4 PCI Express gen 3 slot with Apple I/O card installed

Find me a PC motherboard that match this technology and not cost a arm and a leg. Not all Motherboard are the same.
New Mac Pro doesn't even offer dual CPUs which is a norm for workstations.
 
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OkiRun

macrumors 65816
Oct 25, 2019
1,005
585
Japan
Your bitch that the base is $3k overpriced means you’re bitching about a $50/month perceived overcharge. So you’re saying that $16k machine should be $13k. Fine.

That’s still a $50/month difference: $265 vs. $215. If you work for a company that is so effing stupid they’ll take a person that costs them $10k/month and have them twiddling their thumbs because they won’t spend a few hundred on the equipment they need to do their job, do yourself a favor and quit now. Your company is very poorly run.

Departmental budgets are fine, but if your management can’t get you the resources you need to do your job, again, do yourself a favor: quit now. Your management is ineffective and you work for a poorly run company.

These complaints of, “oh, the sky is falling, its $3k too much, the base should be $3k” are not valid to who use these machines to do their job more efficiently. No CFO worth a damn says, “oh, that $30k machine should be $27k, you can’t have it”.

Even for a hobbyist, if you can’t spend $100 a month on your hobby—get a new job or a new hobby. Or cut out a dinner per month out at a restaurant with your spouse.

The 8-core cylinder is $4k; what did you think a full-blown tower—with a 1400W power supply, 12 DIMM slots capable of 1.5TB and 8 PCIe slots, with quiet, efficient cooling—was going to cost. $3k? In what world does that make any sense?

These complaints remind me of the bitching when Apple released the awesome Mac mini refresh last year.

Yes, the cheapest config went from $500 to $800. But the specs were upgraded from a dual core 15W CPU to a 65W quad-core desktop, the 4GB RAM became 8GB, the HDD (the “spinning rust” that all the “mini fans” bitched about) was replaced with a PCIe SSD, two Thunderbolt 2 ports became four TB3, a $100 10GbE option was added... and the fools in the mini thread bitched and bitched about a “60% increase in the base model”. It’s $300 effing dollars, for a MUCH better machine. $5 a month over a five year life cycle. Good lord.
Dang dude! Makes me want to go rush out and get a Mac mini right now!
 
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jinnyman

macrumors 6502a
Sep 2, 2011
760
670
Lincolnshire, IL
You're talking about prices and capability. And the Iici and IIfx were the best Apple had to offer back then in terms of power and expandability.

Today's Mac Pro and Pro Display HDR are well priced.
HDR perhaps because nothing like it really exist as of now, but no. not Mac Pro. I'm commenting only on base configuration because that price is already known. BTO Mac Pro is where real pro are after, and I'm certain that price is going to be outrageous also.
 

Billrey

macrumors regular
Aug 3, 2010
145
238
Copenhagen
Your rendering workflow isn’t going to sustain 32 cores, and it isn’t going to scale anywhere near four times 8 cores (just like 8 cores don’t scale to eight times one core).
For rendering, yes it will. Pretty much. Renderers use buckets and divide the image up into sections for each thread. There’s an almost linear improvement in render time as you add more cores with most renderers.
Of course there is a little overhead, but not much. A 32 core/64 thread Threadripper CPU will absolutely crush the 8 core Xeon, no doubt about it.
 

spotlight07

macrumors regular
Mar 28, 2007
170
104
I don’t fully comprehend how this is expensive or for the ultra rich. It’s a question of financial priorities but well within the financial reach of most households. The average car purchase is a multiple of the price of this computer and a lot of families have two cars. The Mac Pro has way more utility than a car. You can easily afford it if you buy a less expensive car. If you think it’s not affordable then maybe you’re just being greedy.
 
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