From News.com
Apple also used the event to unveil a new version of its professional desktop computer, the Mac Pro.
The high-powered device, which will start at $US6000 ($A8600), was revealed alongside a connected display.
I don't even know what sort of home PC would possibly cost that much, but can't see how apple one could be more highpowered than a pc where you spent half of that?
People buy them. Why not sell them?
People buy Ferraris too when they could toodle about in a Corolla.
Not a good comparison….ferrari uses its own unique engineered parts, apple uses the same intel/amd/nvidia cpus/gpus that any consumer can buy.
🐑🐑🐑
they should make it gold and charge 19.999k
most are businesses and can write it off
might as well milk them as much as possible
The magic question is this… Should you buy a new PC every 2 years for $2866 or a new mac pro every 6 years for $8600.
Orrr a new PC every 3-4 years for 2866..
Apple Australia will still happily sell you the old 'trash can' Mac Pro for near $5,000 … :/
Mac Pro is not for "normal" people. It is absolutely pointless. It is for people that will take advantage of the power and specs. However, I think that the price tag is high even for the Pros. I am also really curious about the first reviews of the insanely expansive stand that is probably made from iridium or something. :D
I don't even know what sort of home PC would possibly cost that much
In what world did you think that the Mac Professional was a home PC..?
The thing is built for people dealing with very high-end media production.
And yes you could buy a custom built one for much cheaper, but that won't have Apple Support, the Operating System or the Optimisation and Software that most professionals go to MacOS for.
Does the stand sell separately? Asking for a friend
Lol @ it is made for businesses and that's why it is so expensive.
It's not like more can be done on a Mac than a Windows machine.
The price has always been silly for these machines but people buy them.
You need to add this to the ridiculous prices thread
What a pointless thread to be honest. This is targeted for professional user not for home users. For people harping on price, build a pro machine having XEON CPU with the same spec with any other vendor (HP/Dell etc etc) and it wont come out to be cheap. The 28 core Xeon by itself is more than 7k!
On the Xeon, it is worth noting that licenses apply by server. The more powerful is your server, the more users it can serve. It means you buy fewer servers, lowering the Adkin cost and the license cost.
The target market for Mac Pros is not you or I.
Not every product released is aimed at you.
Be content with that idea and maybe you'll become less of a whinge.
Gizmodo ran the math, so people like the OP can spend more time making hasty posts:
“Consider all that, and what it would cost to build up a similar machine, and the Mac Pro starts to seem not just logical, but practically affordable. A device similar to the base model $6,000 version of the Mac Pro would cost over $9,000 from HP and close to $6,300 from Dell. And that doesn’t include the extra Thunderbolt 3 ports, or capability to support 1.5TB of RAM.”
(https://gizmodo.com/is-the-new-mac-pro-worth-the-apple-tax-1…)
This should really end the thread right here, but when you have people that probably bought an OEM Windows license despite not being an OEM, there's no point in trying to explain things logically. But of course, you'll get those people who think Apple is pulling the wool over people's eyes and that they are somehow bound by fate to speak up and show others the light. Pro tip, when you say Apple computers are for the computer illiterate, please remember that most computer illiterate people use a cheap Windows PC bought from the likes of Harvey Norman.
Can you build better for cheaper? Yes.
Except in corporate environments custom builds are not a thing. This mac, HP's Z Workstations ect… they all serve a place in corporate environments
Copying their baseline equivalent would cost $3k USD, so apparently buying the ports & having macOS would double the price…
Before spewing more ignorance, maybe check what the actual competition costs for similar specks, yeah?
Warranty on a complete system in invaluable to corporate clients in comparison. You just don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that custom PC's are very much a consumer grade product and aren't sought after in professional corporate environments.
These workstations aren't aimed at you.
Mac PRO is not for everyday people and everyday use of web browsing… It’s a capable machine with insane upgradability for demanding workflows.
I think most may disagree but I think that design is just gorgeous. Has this kind of industrious beauty to it.
Hide the money, y'all, there's poor people around!
Why are you comparing it to a home PC? This obviously isn’t for normal consumers.
Why not? The base model is an i7 equivalent cpu, 32gb ram, 256gb ssd and a Radeon 580. Nothing pro about that. Especially for $9k.
Sure it can be upgraded to pro or "prosumer" specs, but so can anything. Usually with a much better base and more than half the price
My response below covers how it's justified though.
I agree with both sides. The equivalent hardware can be bought for regular PCs for much cheaper. However, Mac and iOS users are generally in this category for a reason, they do not build or are not familiar with anything other than Mac OS.
So if you want a high end Mac, you need to pay the Mac price for it. There's no easy alternatives to using a Mac on the cheap.
This benefits apple to the highest degree. because they are creating an "illusion" of being another product in a big computer market. But because they're so stringent with their OS and Hardware, they're actually a monopoly on Mac products (if that makes sense). So being a monopoly,they can charge whatever they want.
If people who use Macs are unhappys, they should be learning how to use other OS's for work or recreation and start giving the middle finger to Apple.
It's not for your average Joe that just browses Facebook and watches Netflix. It's targeted towards PROfessionals. Professional means big film and media companies, music production studios, etc where equipment cost is a non factor. Professional does not include wedding photographers or people that like to make little youtube videos in their spare time.
For the last 30 years I have heard people's complaints about my beloved Apple.
Then in the last 20+ years all the printing companies I have worked at have bought these beasts to make us productive.
They are a thing of beauty.
I have only used them for music composition and printing pre-press, I can't speak for video editing, but I think for that purpose they would be even sweeter.
If one was to invest in one of these, even the base model, it is quite reasonable to expect them to still be productive in 5 years time, and in 10 they will still be going strong doing some task. 15 years is not out of the question either…
But, but, Apple is always guilty of planned obsolescence /s
Yeah. I still rock my late 2013 MacBook Pro (just shy of 6 years old now). Works perfectly under Mojave (current release of Mac OS). My experience is not uncommon for Mac users.
Still productive? Perhaps as a doorstop.
This was the equivalent from 15 years ago
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/specs/powerma…
Thanks for that.
But I use 2 G4s for music.
They are even older.
Rock solid and you can max them out for cheap.
The G5 you referred to can be sold for reasonable $ just for the case!
They'll probably still work pretty well, but no company is going to justify spending almost $10k on a powerful computer today and still be satisfied with the performance in 5 years. That would be a sign that they grossly overestimated their needs in the first place.
its not designed for regular consumers. what regular consumer requires 1.5TB of ram
You don't get that for the base price of $8600
That's just Apple being Apple. People will buy it. It wasn't meant for everyone. The intended demographic, which would be professionals and corporates will not be turned off by the pricing.
Something is worth whatever is the price people are willing to pay for it.
People don't remember stupidly expensive the home PC's in the 80's and 90's were. A fully loaded 486 went for about 4-5 grand which, roughly adjusted for inflation, is close to the base Mac Pro price now. Actually the Mac Pro may be slightly cheaper!
I really like the commend by MKBHD: "The way they announced it [the price of the monitor and stand] on stage was terrible. They gave like the prices of $5000 or $6000 for the matt version. And then they also said btw. the stand costs an additional $1000. Why would you do it like that?" Much better would be this: "This is a $6000 monitor but if you want to buy it without the stand, you got -$1000."
What do you guys think of that from marketing point of view?
You people make me laugh… a home PC is not the same as a workstation.
Take a look at the prices on Dell Precision 7920. https://www.dell.com/en-au/work/shop/workstations/precision-…
The top uncustomised model is $8639 for just the tower. I had one at work. Filthy plebs.
If you feel that the item is too expensive, it probably is not for you.
Sorry to tell you that
Where were you when I got my mortgage? Your sage advice would have just turned me off houses in those two lines…
What I think is going on, is that Apple as a company makes the Mac Pro for a portion of the professional market.
Now most reputable ‘pro’ equipment manufacturers do absolutely minimal marketing and boasting about their own products.
An example would be Shure, a company that makes professional grade microphones and recording equipment among other things. If you asked someone what they thought of the Shure, most likely there would be a pause and a question asking what ‘Shure’ was or what they made. (Shure is a good example, as they also make a lot of consumer products so some people would know of the company).
While most professionals (in the recording industry) will be well aware of the brand and it’s reputation etc.
In this way Shure has built their reputation through their products among professionals, therefore are content with being quiet with marketing.
Now back on topic to the example of the Mac Pro. Which is intended for professionals, yet in true Apple tradition (innovation, premium flagship yada yada) reveals it by shouting from the top of the rooftops at WWDC in the same way they announce their consumer products. This is what I think is confusing a lot of people. They announce it and present it as a consumer product. As in if you are rich enough to buy it, that you have to have it. (This is slightly dishonest & sly, but companies do it all the time as marketing or the psychological ‘you need this’ approach.)
Who knows whats going on behind closed doors (lack of popularity in professional market, need for higher consumer sales), but this is my theory on how people who are never going to have to worry about purchasing / using a Mac Pro in their life / career are getting so confused about its purpose and/or value.
Note: whenever I see an Apple event video I always think, the crowd must be 80% investors & a few journalists mixed in with a few Youtubers all cheering and clapping. This must be how tech companies work these days.
“Custom PC”
Proof the person has completely missed the point of this machine, exactly the same as the iMac Pro. This isn’t a consumer pc for you to browse the web and play Minecraft, it’s for professionals who generate income from their machine and need server grade hardware, reliability, performance and warranty, and can claim a tax deduction. I suspect for smaller studio houses that are a MacOS shop and don’t have a render farm it’ll appeal.
In 10 years time you'll be able to pick one up for free in the hard rubbish collection
You do that and I'll give you $200 for it.
I'd say 7 years.
I suggest you jump on eBay and see how much pre-trash can Mac Pro’s are selling for, let alone trash can Mac Pro’s.
Don't bother - these people aren't here to actually understand why Apple develops this sort of hardware, and why the money is worth it for a lot of professionals.
non career IT admin here. that is all.
It's a professional product, not for consumers, so, not for the 99.99% people on this forum.
Imagine a surgeon, $250k microscope. Now $8000 for a computer and $1000 for a stand is a bargain.
"now?"…
heh.
I don't even know what sort of home PC would possibly cost that much, but can't see how apple one could be more highpowered than a pc where you spent half of that?
You build something equivalent for $4000 and then run some benchmarks.
Lol - love the justification from Apple users on how this is good value for professionals.
People really don't like admitting that you buy Apple for the brand, not for price or performance.
My work PC (a dual Xeon dell) cost $12,000 roughly 6 years ago. I had a work SGI Tezro (actually two of them) in 2005 and they were $35,000 each. $10,000 for a high end workstation grade PC is not unusual.
You got ripped off mate, I could have built a comparable white box for $3k /s
I posted on the whirlpool thread (https://whrl.pl/RfnykN) that I configured the dell precision 7920 - I tried to max out the config and gave up when it hit $320k. Adding 3TB ECC RAM added $200k to the price alone. I had not even configured the SSD/SAS options.
So yes, $8k or even $40k is not out of normal range. People just don't know anything outside home computing.
Apple has a legion of sheep who will buy and pay whatever they charge. Its really quite sad.
Thanks all.
Seems it's basically a server for high end video work so not comparable to a part built pc.
You could absolutely build a PC by yourself to do that kind of work. You could probably get a PC off the shelf for that exact same task and it would be cheaper or have better performance.
There’s already articles showing speccing up a similar PC with similar parts is barely any cheaper. And you have no warranty or support.
Are Apple Just Taking Piss Now?
Now? They weren't 7 years ago?
Regular comment - Free.
iComment™ - 499.00$
My Porsche starts at $80k… are they just taking the piss now!
The Mac Pro is not designed for your home prosumer who just wants it to play games or browse Instagram. It is for professional editors who need power, and with companies like Adobe optimising their software for macOS spending that extra money can save you time in rendering speeds etc. So the cost is actually worth it.
Thats actually cheap for a Porsche.
What is the software for Windows is photo + video editing?
As with the 5K iMac Pro before it, these things are actually decent value for money once you do a parts breakdown. The big issue though is case design and cooling, Apple has been shite in the last few years in this aspect in their race to slim down everything, and their 4-5k premium products would throttle down to a crawl in about 30m of encoding because of the poor design.
Thread closed by OP request
@wonderboy: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/bx33hg/savage…