[aceman67]

Seriously.

What.

The.

F.... udge.

How idiotic does Apple think it's consumer base is? For $1000, it better do more than hold a monitor. And get this, it's sold separately, and did I mention that the new monitor it's supposed to hold starts at $5000? And the new Mac Pro also starts at $5000 and can go as high as $35,000?

So, Model Mac Pro: $5000-$35,000
Pro Display XDR (Stand sold separately): $5000
'Optional' Monitor Stand: $1000

Apple has always treated it's consumer base as cash cows, always willing to come back for more. The term 'Cult of Mac' readily applies. But seriously, this is downright ridiculous! I know that Apple just became one of the first US companies to be valued at above $1,000,000,000,000; but this is insane!

I hope this backfires on them hardcore.

/rant

[Mack]

I don't think this machine is targetted for the average consumer. I mean, this new cheese grater anounced by them can be upgraded to have 1.5 TB of RAM. That's lot of RAM you'd really only need for production level work. At least that's how I see it.

Either ways, I don't see this for me. I don't need something like this. If I really need a powerful machine, I prefer building one with Windows on my own.

[Petrarch]

There are people out there that will fall over themselves to buy this stuff, but a grand for a stand is just absolute madness.

I've heard tell as well that the new Mac can't use a 3rd party stand either unless you get a VESA mount adapter.

Looking at a basic of 11K, you could build an exceptionally good, top of the line PC for that, get the desk, chair and the various other bits, get a large pizza each week of the year and still walk away with a considerable amount of change.

[Bridger]

There is a reason for that, watch the video and you know why the new one is made of Apple-inium.

BTW Apple Fans are more crazy than Trek Fans.

[Lars2510]

You could get two workstations, with 2 titan RTX's in each, and either a 9980xe or a 2990wx, with 6tb of nvme storage for that. My system cost £5000, and it has that AND watercooling (albeit I sent the titans back and replaced with 2080ti's the titans aren't worth it for gaming and the odd video edit job, even for me). God only knows what the hell people are thinking when they choose to buy a £35000 pc, particularly from apple

[Bridger]

Those machines a made for movie productions, that already record their stuff in 8K with Red Cameras or are going to start in the near future.

[aceman67]

I'm just looking forward to see if the new AMD Zen2 Architecture is going to live up to the performance hype. If it does, I'll give Intel some sorely needed compitition, and in turn lowering the price of consumer, pro-sumer, and professional level hardware, which will also hurt Apple's bottom line.

Those machines a made for movie productions, that already record their stuff in 8K with Red Cameras or are going to start in the near future.

You can do that on Pro-sumer hardware at 2/3rd the cost. Hell, At Computex this year, they were showing off laptops that can do it to some basic degree

[Bridger]

You can do that on Pro-sumer hardware at 2/3rd the cost. Hell, At Computex this year, they were showing off laptops that can do it to some basic degree

True but once you add filters and other shenanigans the load get's a lot higher and I guess that a movie production does not watch their timeline at a reduced quality for a smooth playback.

[Rellimie]

Seriously.

What.

The.

F.... udge.

How idiotic does Apple think it's consumer base is? For $1000, it better do more than hold a monitor. And get this, it's sold separately, and did I mention that the new monitor it's supposed to hold starts at $5000? And the new Mac Pro also starts at $5000 and can go as high as $35,000?

So, Model Mac Pro: $5000-$35,000
Pro Display XDR (Stand sold separately): $5000
'Optional' Monitor Stand: $1000

Apple has always treated it's consumer base as cash cows, always willing to come back for more. The term 'Cult of Mac' readily applies. But seriously, this is downright ridiculous! I know that Apple just became one of the first US companies to be valued at above $1,000,000,000,000; but this is insane!

I hope this backfires on them hardcore.

/rant

I'm an avid Apple user and have been for many years. I'm not a professional so I have no need for a workstation like this. I think that is the key here though, it's a workstation not a desktop PC.

I know people are throwing out PC builds that are comparable to the base model now but are they building a spec that will allow the expansion equivalent to what the new Mac Pro can expand to? I'm not sure. The 5,000 USD base model Mac Pro will have the same power supply, cooling, and logic board that the 35,000 USD Mac Pro will have so the owner will have no limitation to upgrading the machine over time.

As far as the monitor goes, it's not a consumer display. It's designed to compete against professional reference displays which typically cost 30,000+ USD.

Just for context, I do not use Macs because of the "cool" factor or the style, I'm not a blind fanboy. I use Macs because I prefer macOS and iOS over Windows and Android. I like the out of the box security and because I manage several thousand devices it makes my life much easier at work.

- - - Updated - - -

Just for fun I went on NewEgg and tried throwing together similar parts for the BASE spec:

Intel Xeon W 8-core: 1200 USD
Radeon 580 Graphics: 400 USD
32GB of ECC RAM: 200 USD
1.4kW Power Supply: 300 USD
256GB SSD NVMe: 300
Motherboard: 1800 USD (This is the closest I could come that supports the Intel Xeon W 23-core processor + 12 memory slots, it still doesn't have as many PCIe slots as the one in the MacPro).

So I'm up to 4200 USD and I have not factored in cooling, case, expansion card, nor the additional PCIe slots that it is offering, nor have I factored in brand because outside of the processor and graphics, everything else is generic. All of that has to come to around 1800 USD.

Am I saying there is no Apple Tax, no
All I am saying is the price isn't as bad as it seems.

[Lars2510]

I'm an avid Apple user and have been for many years. I'm not a professional so I have no need for a workstation like this. I think that is the key here though, it's a workstation not a desktop PC.

I know people are throwing out PC builds that are comparable to the base model now but are they building a spec that will allow the expansion equivalent to what the new Mac Pro can expand to? I'm not sure. The 5,000 USD base model Mac Pro will have the same power supply, cooling, and logic board that the 35,000 USD Mac Pro will have so the owner will have no limitation to upgrading the machine over time.

As far as the monitor goes, it's not a consumer display. It's designed to compete against professional reference displays which typically cost 30,000+ USD.

Just for context, I do not use Macs because of the "cool" factor or the style, I'm not a blind fanboy. I use Macs because I prefer macOS and iOS over Windows and Android. I like the out of the box security and because I manage several thousand devices it makes my life much easier at work.

- - - Updated - - -

Just for fun I went on NewEgg and tried throwing together similar parts for the BASE spec:

Intel Xeon W 8-core: 1200 USD
Radeon 580 Graphics: 400 USD
32GB of ECC RAM: 200 USD
1.4kW Power Supply: 300 USD
256GB SSD NVMe: 300
Motherboard: 1800 USD (This is the closest I could come that supports the Intel Xeon W 23-core processor + 12 memory slots, it still doesn't have as many PCIe slots as the one in the MacPro).

So I'm up to 4200 USD and I have not factored in cooling, case, expansion card, nor the additional PCIe slots that it is offering, nor have I factored in brand because outside of the processor and graphics, everything else is generic. All of that has to come to around 1800 USD.

Am I saying there is no Apple Tax, no
All I am saying is the price isn't as bad as it seems.

Intel 28 Core Xeon Platinum 8180 Server/Workstation CPU/Processor - $9699 = £8600
Crucial 64GB RAM sticks X 6 (to get the 768GB ) - 2538
1.6kW PSU EVGA - £310
Samsung 970 EVO V-NAND M.2 2TB SSD X2 (to get the 4TB spec) - £860
AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo - Unknown pricing, as not yet released. Highly unlikely to approach £6000, much less excede it. For demo purposes, £6000
Standard Server Motherboard to accomodate all these parts - <£500

Answer:

The lower spec may well be ok price wise, but this system i quickly specced out is the equivalent of the max spec mac pro listed. My system cost £18808, vs £35000. That's a difference of £16192, or in other words, you could almost get two systems like this. And bear in mind this is not shopping around and looking for best prices. That's a horrific price. Add in the mac OS and it's poor performance and flexibility, and you get a horrendous package in comparison. The only thing it adds to the mix is the security chip directly on the motherboard. That is it. And you can't upgrade any of this once it gets old and dies. You will have to buy a new one, because good luck breaking into anything apple. Obviously I haven't seen inside. But I have never at all seen a apple device that can be fully upgraded the way a PC can be. Even the old mac pro was hideously outshone because of this, and you could upgrade some of its components (just not enough of them).

So...I agree that the lower end may be an ok buy. But as soon as you go high end, the apple tax becomes almost 50%.

[Three of Seven]

Paying for the brand.

[Enlistednut09]

Additionally, you don't need to get the monitor if you don't want to, you can directly rack mount the tower if you wanted to. Only time will tell how good the system is, however historically if you look at the generation of MacPro's prior to the TrashCan many of those are still running quite well.

As much as most of you may poopoo the Mac most of them will last way longer without any additional upgrades compared to comparable PC models. I finally replaced my 2010 MacBook Pro over the weekend as it had finally slowed down, can most of you say that about your 9+ year old Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. laptop? In my experience very few I have seen are still running after 5 years. Additionally, you can dual boot the Mac into Windows 10 if needed. But again time will. tell how many pro's actually buy.

P.S. I personally said WTF while watching the WWDC intro about the monitor stand, but none of the hardware is geared towards me, though I wouldn't mind getting one "gifted" to me, haha

[Three of Seven]

As much as most of you may poopoo the Mac most of them will last way longer without any additional upgrades compared to comparable PC models.

I haven't upgraded my PC in a long time and I can still run modern games at a decent FPS on high settings, at 1080p (I don't own a 4k monitor), the only thing I have changed in my PC recently is the CPU cooler.

So I'll press X to doubt on this one!

[Enlistednut09]

Is it a desktop or a laptop?

I haven't upgraded my PC in a long time and I can still run modern games at a decent FPS on high settings, at 1080p (I don't own a 4k monitor), the only thing I have changed in my PC recently is the CPU cooler.

So I'll press X to doubt on this one!

[Lars2510]

As much as most of you may poopoo the Mac most of them will last way longer without any additional upgrades compared to comparable PC models. I finally replaced my 2010 MacBook Pro over the weekend as it had finally slowed down, can most of you say that about your 9+ year old Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. laptop? In my experience very few I have seen are still running after 5 years. Additionally, you can dual boot the Mac into Windows 10 if needed. But again time will. tell how many pro's actually buy.

All you have to do is install a linux distro...nothing to do with hardware and pricing. Just switch to a better OS, and that point is null and void.