MP 7,1 The Mac Pro 7,1 is not a Mac Pro. It's an Apple Pro.

[257Loner]

I've been reading about the history of the Macintosh. The remarkable thing about the original 1984 Macintosh was that it took some of the advanced features of the $10,000 Apple Lisa, such as a Graphical User Interface, and made them available to everyday users in the more affordable $2,500 Macintosh. You could argue that the $2,000 MacBook Pro, $2,000 Mac Studio, and $3,000 Mac Pro 6,1 were all Macs because they carried on the Macintosh's legacy of taking the best technology and making it affordable for more users.

The "Mac Pro" 7,1 does not do that. It starts at $6,000. Most don't spend less than $12,000. Many spend $24,000. It can max out at $50,000. This is not the Macintosh's legacy of taking the best technology and making it affordable for more users. It is taking the best technology and selling it only to high-end studios, and to other businesses and colleges with big budgets. And that is why the Mac Pro 7,1 is more appropriately named the Apple Pro.

 

[Jack Neill]

I've been reading about the history of the Macintosh. The remarkable thing about the original 1984 Macintosh was that it took some of the advanced features of the $10,000 Apple Lisa, such as a Graphical User Interface, and made them available to everyday users in the more affordable $2,500 Macintosh. You could argue that the $2,000 MacBook Pro, $2,000 Mac Studio, and $3,000 Mac Pro 6,1 were all Macs because they carried the Macintosh's legacy of taking the best technology and making it affordable for more users.

The "Mac Pro" 7,1 does not do that. It starts at $6,000. Most don't spend less than $12,000. Many spend $24,000. It can max out at $50,000. This is not the Macintosh's legacy of taking the best technology and making it affordable for more users. It is taking the best technology and selling it only to high-end studios, and other businesses and colleges with big budgets. And that is why the Mac Pro 7,1 is more appropriately named the Apple Pro.

It will be interesting to see what Apple Silicon will do to the lineup.

 

[257Loner]

It will be interesting to see what Apple Silicon will do to the lineup.

It will be interesting to see how Apple can make their next Pro desktop competitive. Do they want to make a "Mac Pro" that is truly competitive with a fast and affordable Puget System? Or do they want to make an "Apple Pro" that is competitive with more expensive "desktop supercomputers" like the Nvidia DGX Station A100? Who will they compete with?

 

[MisterAndrew]

This is a funny thread. There were a lot of threads like this when the 2019 Mac Pro was announced.

That $2500 1984 Macintosh was about $7,000 in today's dollars. Macs going forward were also expensive. Adjusted for inflation, a base 7,1 costs about the same as a Power Macintosh 8600 from 1997, which wasn't even top of the line. Then there was the Power Macintosh 9600 which started at $7,000 and the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh at about $14,000 in today's dollars.

Other computer manufacturers also sell expensive workstations. You can configure a Lenovo, Dell, or HP workstation near $100,000 or more.

 

[257Loner]

Other computer manufacturers also sell expensive workstations. You can configure a Lenovo, Dell, or HP workstation near $100,000 or more.

But are they competitive? The Mac Pro is the one product Apple insists on keeping even if it's not competitive with any other product in the market. If you want something equally fast but cheaper, get a Puget System. If you need something even faster, get an Nvidia DGX Station A100. Where does that leave the Mac Pro? Always the most expensive, but never the fastest. And that's not a competitive place to be.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

This is a funny thread. There were a lot of threads like this when the 2019 Mac Pro was announced.

That $2500 1984 Macintosh was about $7,000 in today's dollars. Macs going forward were also expensive. Adjusted for inflation, a base 7,1 costs about the same as a Power Macintosh 8600 from 1997, which wasn't even top of the line. Then there was the Power Macintosh 9600 which started at $7,000 and the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh at about $14,000 in today's dollars.

Other computer manufacturers also sell expensive workstations. You can configure a Lenovo, Dell, or HP workstation near $100,000 or more.

Mac ][fx

 

[257Loner]

As far as componentry goes, the Mac Pro 7,1 does seem to be your standard workstation: 1 workstation CPU, 2 workstation GPUs with a data link betwixt for work on larger data sets. But as far as price is concerned, the Mac Pro 7,1 brings these parts together in a product that is far more expensive than a Puget System which gets the same job done for far less money. So its componentry is like a "Mac Pro", but its price is like an "Apple Pro". This leaves me worried about its competitiveness in the workstation market, and wondering what Apple can do to make the Mac Pro 8,1 more competitive than its predecessor.

I don't think Apple will try to compete with Nvidia's DGX product lineup, which is highly specialized supercomputer hardware, one SKU of which can sit on your desk and, while it takes the shape of a workstation desktop, is stratospherically more expensive.

 

[randy85]

A lot of creative professionals came up learning their craft on a Macbook Pro, so it makes sense that they'll jump up to a higher end machine when they can and if they need one. I think it's that simple really. Not everyone cares enough about absolute performance per $/£/€ to switch to a PC workstation.

Another thing to think about is because how Macs "just work", even the really expensive ones get sold to people who don't really think of themselves as computer people. People who want good performance for their creative work but wouldn't know how to spec out a PC workstation as they're simply not big enough nerds (at least with computers) to know what to buy anyway.