MP All Models Mac Pro 10X Overpriced. Seriously.

[zubikov]

A custom-built Ryzen 5900X/RTX 3070 machine from a reputable vendor now costs 1/10th of the nearest Mac Pro configuration. There's no hyperbole, that's the price disparity when you're seeking equal performance between a Mac and a PC at a high performance level.

I've been, and still am an iMac, MBP 2015, TV 4K, Homepod, iPhone 12 Pro, iPad, watch, etc. user for more than a decade (some professional, some personal). I'm fully bought into the ecosystem and love the continuity between all devices and Apple's services. However, there's a limit to how much I love that continuity and last week I found that limit when I ordered my first PC in more than 15 years.

I was able to get the following configuration from iBuyPower for $1,558 after factoring in $50 Amazon card, credit card rewards, sale price and taxes. A Ryzen 5900X, NVidia RTX 3070, 32GB DDR4 3200 ram, 512GB NVME SSD. The equivalent Mac Pro with a Xeon W-3275M and a Pro Vega II, 32GB RAM and 512 SSD costs $15,833 after all taxes and Apple 3% cash back. See screenshots below. I know the two systems aren't identical, but close enough. The PC build has PCIE 4.0 motherboard and Wifi 6 was included, while Apple has TB3 ports and is aesthetically pleasing. Apple has a 32GB pro Vega card, but what edge it gives in video processing when maxed out, it loses in tasks like gaming, ray tracing and VR to the RTX 3070.

I went to the first benchmark site that Google had in "processor benchmark" search results to remove any bias; so I used CPUBenchmark.net. They seem to have a good blend of computational tasks and single vs multi-core performance to arrive at their single benchmark scores for CPUs. Everyone has their reasons, preconceived notions, brand loyalty, ecosystem ties, lock-ins and application dependencies, so I'm not here to judge or call anyone stupid. But for me, I couldn't possibly justify buying an Intel Mac Pro at anywhere near these astronomical prices, when AMD and NVidia are absolutely killing it on the PC side.

 

[goMac]

Happy you got a machine that works for you. Hope you get a lot of good years out of it!

 

[AnotherSoftwareEngineer]

The Mac Pro isn’t for you, the home user, or even “prosumer”. It’s for the production studios and rendering houses and other business who have been clamoring for an upgrade from Apple and won’t bat an eye at the “FU” price Apple slapped on it.

Apple does not have an answer for those of us who want a powerful desktop equivalent.

 

[Xenobius]

You forgot to add Windows to your basket...

 

[zubikov]

You forgot to add Windows to your basket...

Getting free Win 10 and MS Office was one of the few benefits of paying the equivalent of a new Maserati to attend grad school.

 

[MisterAndrew]

You're comparing a workstation to a gaming PC. Workstations have server grade CPUs, RAM, and GPUs. They are always more expensive. The closest workstation to that gaming PC would be the Lenovo P620 which has Ryzen Threadripper Pro (which is Epyc for workstations). The P620 is still less than the Mac Pro though, so you can still make a similar argument, but the Mac Pro has specific technologies other workstations don't have, such as the MPX modules. It was designed with input from the target customers and that's what they wanted.

 

[Xenobius]

Getting free Win 10 and MS Office

I'm impressed and jealous.
Don't forget you get free Notepad as well.

 

[velocityg4]

It would at least be fair if your comparison to AMD was with an AMD Epyc CPU vs this Xeon. Not a Ryzen. Even Threadripper wouldn't be apt due to RAM limits.

Besides the Apple Tax. You can thank the parts Apple chose for the price.
- Custom MPX modules for GPU power and GPU Thunderbolt. That ain't cheap. It greatly increases GPU cost and motherboard cost.
- T2 Chip with dual SSD
- LGA3647

Perhaps Apple over engineered it. Sure they could have knocked the price way down by using off the shelf parts, custom case and writing their own firmware. With LGA 2066 and 3647 variants. But they didn't.

 

[zubikov]

It would at least be fair if your comparison to AMD was with an AMD Epyc CPU vs this Xeon. Not a Ryzen. Even Threadripper wouldn't be apt due to RAM limits.

Besides the Apple Tax. You can thank the parts Apple chose for the price.
- Custom MPX modules for GPU power and GPU Thunderbolt. That ain't cheap. It greatly increases GPU cost and motherboard cost.
- T2 Chip with dual SSD
- LGA3647

Perhaps Apple over engineered it. Sure they could have knocked the price way down by using off the shelf parts, custom case and writing their own firmware. With LGA 2066 and 3647 variants. But they didn't.

Before Oct 2020 I'm mostly in agreement. But I'd argue that the prosumer AMD/NVIDIA combo took such an epic leap in price/performance this cycle, that the tradeoffs are getting much more difficult and very specific. I do think the T2 chip and MPX modules are the most valuable items that you mentioned, and definitely have their merits. Is that enough though for a 10X price though?

I.e. The Ryzen 5900X vs W-3275M. If I have applications that are perfectly utilizing all 56 threads, or if I'm doing matrix multiplication for some production task that calls for more than 128GB buffered ECC ram w/ more channels, the 14nm Xeon still wins. Same if you absolutely need 64 slower pcie 3 lanes vs 20 faster pcie 4 lanes. But the 7nm Ryzen runs cooler at higher base freq, using less power and with more L2 + L3 cache. That value proposition to drop $7400+markup on a chip is vanishing when a $550 chip is neck and neck for vast majority of use cases. And this is Ryzen, not even Epyc.

 

[blackadde]

The Mac Pro isn’t for you, the home user, or even “prosumer”. It’s for the production studios and rendering houses and other business who have been clamoring for an upgrade from Apple and won’t bat an eye at the “FU” price Apple slapped on it.

Apple does not have an answer for those of us who want a powerful desktop equivalent.

All depends on what kind of production, rendering, and other biz use you need. If you need a million PCIe lanes and MacOS, it's a no-brainer to get a 7,1. There's nothing else that satisfies those two requirements so you don't need to think about it.

If you just need cores to render, then you get a 64C Epyc or TR system because the 7,1 won't touch that no matter how much money you throw at Apple.

If you're OS agnostic and want 16-32C with 'moderate' expansion (<= 256GB RAM, <= 4x PCIe slots) you have to make a decision between the two: here's where we see a massive price gap between Apple and everyone else. It's subjective, but I think 32C and 256GB of ram is well above what even a demanding 'prosumer' might be asking for in 2020. It would certainly qualify as more powerful than many production machines faithfully in service today.

 

[theMarble]

A custom-built Ryzen 5900X/RTX 3070 machine from a reputable vendor now costs 1/10th of the nearest Mac Pro configuration. There's no hyperbole, that's the price disparity when you're seeking equal performance between a Mac and a PC at a high performance level.

I've been, and still am an iMac, MBP 2015, TV 4K, Homepod, iPhone 12 Pro, iPad, watch, etc. user for more than a decade (some professional, some personal). I'm fully bought into the ecosystem and love the continuity between all devices and Apple's services. However, there's a limit to how much I love that continuity and last week I found that limit when I ordered my first PC in more than 15 years.

I was able to get the following configuration from iBuyPower for $1,558 after factoring in $50 Amazon card, credit card rewards, sale price and taxes. A Ryzen 5900X, NVidia RTX 3070, 32GB DDR4 3200 ram, 512GB NVME SSD. The equivalent Mac Pro with a Xeon W-3275M and a Pro Vega II, 32GB RAM and 512 SSD costs $15,833 after all taxes and Apple 3% cash back. See screenshots below. I know the two systems aren't identical, but close enough. The PC build has PCIE 4.0 motherboard and Wifi 6 was included, while Apple has TB3 ports and is aesthetically pleasing. Apple has a 32GB pro Vega card, but what edge it gives in video processing when maxed out, it loses in tasks like gaming, ray tracing and VR to the RTX 3070.

I went to the first benchmark site that Google had in "processor benchmark" search results to remove any bias; so I used CPUBenchmark.net. They seem to have a good blend of computational tasks and single vs multi-core performance to arrive at their single benchmark scores for CPUs. Everyone has their reasons, preconceived notions, brand loyalty, ecosystem ties, lock-ins and application dependencies, so I'm not here to judge or call anyone stupid. But for me, I couldn't possibly justify buying an Intel Mac Pro at anywhere near these astronomical prices, when AMD and NVidia are absolutely killing it on the PC side.


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One problem, you're comparing a gaming CPU to a Xeon. You'll find that your EPYC 12 Core will cost around the same as a Xeon W. Also:

- Vega II has much more VRAM which is necessary for the tasks that people buy the nMP.
- The Mac Pro has 8 PCIe x16 slots, your Ryzen board only 2-3 x16 slots, people need lots of slots in a pro system.

As others have said, you are not the person for a Mac Pro. A Mac Pro is for high-end production environments, not the home, or office. The Vega II has ISV certifications meaning that is known to be know in pro applications, unlike the Radeon RX and GeForce cards.

You would also find that if you specced a iMac or Mac Pro WITH THE EXACT SAME SPECS as the Apple version, the price would be the same, I've done that several times on PCPartPicker, same cost.

 

[handheldgames]

I've been running a 3900x / 5700XT / 128GB / Ryzentosh that I built in early March, replacing two well equipped 5,1's in the process. Best decision I ever made. 7,1 performance on a Mini budget.

 

[mattspace]

I've been running a 3900x / 5700XT / 128GB / Ryzentosh that I built in early March, replacing two well equipped 5,1's in the process. Best decision I ever made. 7,1 performance on a Mini budget.

got a documentation / build guide for it?

 

[chrono1081]

First mistake: Not comparing (pun not intended) Apples to Apples. Your processor isn't a Xeon and that absolutely matters when you're spending days at a time rendering things and constantly maxing your CPU.

 

[blackadde]

First mistake: Not comparing (pun not intended) Apples to Apples. Your processor isn't a Xeon and that absolutely matters when you're spending days at a time rendering things and constantly maxing your CPU.

How? Do you expect a Ryzen, i9, or M1 / ARM to suddenly give up the ghost just because it’s crunching numbers for longer? Stay within the thermal envelope and apply safe voltage - all of the major CPU families anyone can stuff into a case last forever under load.

There’s no mechanical wear and tear. The capacitors in your PSU will burst or the bearings in the fans will seize up first.

 

[AndreeOnline]

I don't think there is a need to hide behind labels such as 'server grade', Xeon or ECC.

If someone wants to compare pure number crunching—or frames per second—ability, it will look like something in the first post.

Of course, you can twist and turn that around as much as you like too: single out the best bang for $ PC vs the least bang for $ Mac, or the other way around. There are many variations.

I don't think my 2020 10 core iMac would look piss poor in a price/performance comparison if we look at the whole package with 5K P3 display and so on. Or a headless Mac Mini M1 in certain scenarios.

The only "error" that I think I commonly see in these types of discussions is that something like the first post here is commonly presented with a narrative like "you won't believe what I just found out". As if owners of "expensive" Macs have yet to learn about the limping relationship between their computers' price and performance.

But that is not the case. Many of us were PC builders at some point, and if not that, at the very least we all know about the existence of off the shelf PC components, their relative performance and how to combine them into a computer.

It's not that we have "yet to find out", but we have already found out and moved passed it. We're in front of, not behind, this simple metric and basic way of thinking.

Pure price/performance might be the end goal of someone's computer. That is a good use case for building yourself. But for someone else, a certain base level (which doesn't mean "low" level) of performance might be step one, but then there are a number of more important factors to consider.

It would be a mistake to think that building a PC is an accomplishment. But just like with anything, that too can be turned into an art. Still, just assembling something cheap that works great is easy. Choosing not to do so, is not so much due to lack of skill, but more often thanks to gained insight about one's personal needs.

 

[vel0city]

That was an absolutely beautifully reasoned and written post @AndreeOnline, possibly the last word ever needed on this subject!

 

[fgengineer]

As others have said, you are not the person for a Mac Pro. A Mac Pro is for high-end production environments, not the home, or office. The Vega II has ISV certifications meaning that is known to be know in pro applications, unlike the Radeon RX and GeForce cards.

That is the rub. Many different type of users were asking for a Pro Desktop, and Apple only delivered a product for one very small niche.

I too went with another system, a threadripper one. I built it myself for $3500. I would have considered buying the Mac Pro at $6000 if the system started at a usable configuration. However, at the base price, the Mac pro is useless (for power users).

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

The Mac Pro isn’t for you, the home user, or even “prosumer”. It’s for the production studios and rendering houses and other business who have been clamoring for an upgrade from Apple and won’t bat an eye at the “FU” price Apple slapped on it.

Apple does not have an answer for those of us who want a powerful desktop equivalent.

iMac Pro? ????

 

[randy85]

I guess if you really enjoy building and using PCs, why wouldn't you get one? I don't think anyone here would argue with that.

One thing that the Mac Pro has that a list of components won't show is just how nice (and expensive) it looks and feels. The case is milled out of solid metal, the internals are all clean and cleverly designed and the thing runs totally silently. The extra money (at least to some extent) does go somewhere.

Also, some people can't stomach Windows or don't want a liquid cooled RGB-lit monstrosity in their home or workplace lol.

 

[Chevysales]

I don't see many of the perceived customers of Mac Pro doing what you have done.

Enjoy your windows box...

 

[russell_314]

Another "I can buy a Windows PC cheaper than a Mac" thread. There should be a counter on the forums on how many times bored Windows users post these ? ? ? ? ? ?

 

[Chevysales]

That was an absolutely beautifully reasoned and written post @AndreeOnline, possibly the last word ever needed on this subject!

I'll second this

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I can't tell you how much I love Windows.

I broke Windows update in Vista. Microsoft couldn't fix it. I have a Win 10 box that keeps trying to do the 'you need this update or you won't be supported ever again', and it won't install. It goes through the install process, and fails, tries to rollback, and then does it all over again. I spent a whole afternoon trying to get to the reason it's not working, and just gave up. I'd reload it, but why? I'm sure something else will happen. My Windows SBS won't update either. It had a 'special edition' of the WSUS that couldn't be updated through Windows Update because the 'new' version wouldn't work on SBS, yet it kept trying to upgrade it. Maybe Microsoft changed that, but I have to wonder if a MS update snuck in there and hammered the process.

I've had more issues with Windows over the decades than I can count. Sure, sign me up for Windows - NOT!

I remember putting windows on a notebook that then had no network, no audio, and it even blocked a PC Card NIC. Talk about crap.

But if it works for you, good for you. Aren't there Windows sites you can go and crow about dumping macOS?

 

[lomahs]

I bought a MacPro 2019 as a private person. This was a conscious decision. The computer was expensive despite education discount but it works absolutely stable and almost noiseless even under full load. I am still very satisfied with the extra performance compared to my Mac Pro 2013.

It would have been quite possible for me to assemble and build a Windows computer myself, as I have some experience in this field. Still, the quality of the Mac was clearly worth more to me than the potential performance advantage of a DIY machine.

But as a private person I don't have to have the last ounce of performance per Euro, I can also wait a few seconds longer... Design and the inner structure of the computer also play a certain role. Admittedly, these are of course very subjective reasons.

Right next to the MacPro, there is also a self-built Windows computer under the desk. Thus, I can directly compare the operating systems Win 10 and macOS 10.15 or 11.1. And as it is to be expected in a Mac forum, macOS convinces me much more in terms of usage.

However, it will never occur to me to go proselytizing in PC forums with my decision for Macs. It's my money and only I decide what a thing is worth to me. There can still come a few hundred self-builders and claim that a Mac Pro is too expensive and it is much cheaper and more powerful with a Windows PC. I know that too...

And a professional user will have thought through his decision for or against a Mac Pro very carefully (and in contrast to me, will rather put subjective reasons behind). So who should be convinced here that a Mac Pro is 10 times overpriced?

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

If I had written it myself in English, you would have been spared this post. Some surely think that it might have been better...