
Who's buying the Mac Pro? - abennett
http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/82746/whos-buying-mac-pro
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nickyp
Basically: people who need to fill the slots to connect hardware that's as
expensive as their computing platform and/or are running a software stack that
can also cost as much as an iMac. In generally these people fit the 'Pro'
suffix ;-)

High-end multi-channel audio interfaces and/or audio processing cards that
accelerate audio plug-ins. Even Firewire or USB equipment works best if each
device is using dedicated controller cards. (every Mac has only 1 USB/Firewire
controller)

If you need to connect multiple 30inch Cinema Displays and still have proper
performance (e.g. 3D) you need multiple GPU's. These cards often get replaced
after a couple of years to boost performance.

And most often these kind of applications demand a lot of (very performant)
storage so RAID controllers and lots and lots of hard-drives come into play.

If you're not buying a Mac Pro for these kind of workflows, you're just
shopping for bragging rights I guess ;-)

And trust me: if you're using a Mac Pro in this manner you're not jealous
about that very speedy iMac with that really nice display. It might me
speedier, but it just can't do what your workstation was bought for.

And hey, maybe you'll buy one for the 'light web browsing' in your den ;-)

~~~
bhousel
One other difference: the Mac Pros use ECC memory, the iMacs do not. This
makes sense, given the users that each product line targets.

~~~
Tamerlin
Good point.

That probably adds quite a bit to the cost of the machine.

I realized after the fact that I implied that the creative industry was the
ONLY other one that would be interested in a MacPro rather than in an iMac,
rather than just an example. Oops.

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petercooper
The current low end Mac Pro does kinda suck compared to the iMac. Indeed, I
think it sucks compared to the _previous_ Mac Pro, which I own.

I bought the "entry level" (the default entry level - you could do a downgrade
to 4 cores for a small saving) Mac Pro almost two years ago - it's an eight
core 2.8GHz Xeon. It benches better than the mere quad 2.66GHz Nehalem _and_
was cheaper in 2008 than the current entry level machine! I think I got a
bargain ;-)

I can only believe that Apple's in a limbo with the Mac Pro and getting ready
to unveil something massive in the next several months. The Mac Pro has pretty
much sucked since the latest Nehalem revision compared to what it was.

~~~
bcl
NOTE: Apple has said they aren't releasing anything new for the remainder of
the year.

[http://www.macrumors.com/2009/10/27/phil-schiller-claims-
no-...](http://www.macrumors.com/2009/10/27/phil-schiller-claims-no-more-new-
apple-products-this-year/)

~~~
ionfish
Given that it's practically November, on a reasonable interpretation "the next
several months" that Peter mentioned isn't limited to 2009.

~~~
bcl
Ahh, but that statement includes November and December, and since those months
have been excluded by Apple (assuming we can believe them) it would be more
accurate to say next year, or January or some other statement that excludes
the rest of this year.

;)

------
cobralibre
I think quite a few Mac users would have a genuine use for the Mac Pro's
expandability, but have to satisfy themselves with dangling piles of
peripherals off the USB and Firewire ports of their iMacs and MacBooks because
they can't justify the cost of a Mac Pro -- and they aren't spending somebody
else's money.

I would also like to take this opportunity to salute the author for his use of
the word 'nichier.'

------
pxlpshr
The 27" iMac is the anomaly in the equation, prior to that the iMacs were not
nearly as comparable to the Mac Pro. And, the author is taking an existing
hardware configuration and comparing it to a brand new release which has blown
the doors off just about everything at its price point.

The benefit of the Mac Pro is obviously upgradability. I own one, it's a beast
of a machine. The question to a buyer is, are you really going to own/upgrade
it after ~3-4+ years, which is about when you start to realize the cost
savings of said system vs. all-in-ones?

For most people the answer is no, so the iMac 27" is a much better deal.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
I have a 4 core Mac Pro. It replaced a gaming PC and a Mac Cube. The reason I
went with the Mac Pro was that I need the power for gaming and wanted to use
my old 22 inch screen, which is a leftover from the Cube, but still going
strong. I want to try to upgrade the graphics card now, but that is about it.

My screens generally has lasted two computers, so over time I guessed that the
Mac Pro would be better value for money, as I don't have to chuck away screens
as often. But the price for screens have gone way down so I am not sure what
the next computer will be.

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m0shen
They are being purchased by the creative departments for various ad, print and
digital firms. I've done IT consulting for several of these types of
companies, it's typical for them to spec out low(er) end Mac Pros and then
load them up with third-party ram and disks. Sometimes they're purchased as a
bundle through accounts with places like PC Connection.

~~~
transburgh
I work with a couple of agencies and the creatives are moving to iMacs. Cost
less and built in monitor. The only people that use the MacPros are video
editors.

~~~
madh
I find that most are moving towards laptops (mbp) with external monitors.

------
bhousel
Another compelling reason to prefer a Mac Pro over an iMac would be
virtualization. Since I began using it a year ago, VMWare fusion has
completely changed how I work.

I have 6 VMs set up on my Macbook Pro that I use regularly - they contain
different versions of Windows along with Oracle, SQL Server, and various
service packs. I don't think I will ever go back to setting up a bunch of
dedicated machines for the testing and development that I do. If I wanted a
desktop server, I'd definitely buy a Mac Pro for this.

The way I would use it, 1 Mac Pro == 8 or more PCs :)

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Tamerlin
"The Mac Pro's target market is probably among people doing research or
running render farms"

and "Now if even hard-core enthusiasts like Matt and myself are turning to
laptops and iMacs..."

Makes me think that the author's view of the world is very narrow.

Renderfarms are in fact a bad target for a Mac Pro -- part of the reason for
the MacPro's cost is graphics hardware, which you don't need on a
renderfarm... though that's probably going to start changing as the graphics
processors continue to become compute clusters. That is, of course, why
there's such a market for rack-mount headless servers.

Outside of research, there are as mentioned elsewhere in the comments the
creative industry, which has much more need of memory, computing power, and
graphics performance than the "hardcore enthusiasts" -- compositing and
animation can be very intensive tasks... imagine the amount of data involved
in just the models for the battle scenes in "The Return of the King" for
example.

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spenrose
Almost no one. Total desktop sales have been drifting down for 2 years:
[http://images.macworld.com/images/news/graphics/143380-mac-u...](http://images.macworld.com/images/news/graphics/143380-mac-
units-q409_original.jpg) Of the 800K desktops, over 600K were iMacs (no
citation; sorry), and the average selling price was ~$1,250, meaning that
Apple sold well under 100K Mac Pros. I would guess it's a ~250K unit/year
business, shrinking slowly. They can probably keep swapping new processors
into the existing design for years w/o significant R&D costs. My guess is
high-end video-editing will keep it alive for some time.

------
acangiano
My co-founders and I use beefy MacBook Pros to handle the work associated with
ThinkCode.TV. We produce programming screencasts, so nothing too CPU/GPU
intensive compared to some other companies. Well, our laptops barely make it.
When working with video processing, the more powerful and future proof (read
expandable) your hardware is, the better. I fully expect us to consider
purchasing some Mac Pros in the future. How much time does a high-end Mac Pro
saves us over a new iMac? Is that time worth the cost difference? If yes,
we'll go with Mac Pros, if not we'll go for the iMacs.

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stuff4ben
One word, expandability. The top-end iMac is pretty much maxed out, whereas
the low-end MacPro has plenty of room for expansion and performance upgrades.
If I was in the market for a new high-end development platform, I'd be all
over the low-end MacPro and then upgrade it myself. It's definitely cheaper to
get memory and HD's from Newegg than Apple. Although I do have to say the 27"
iMac is pretty sweet but I doubt I'd have enough desk space for it.

~~~
DannoHung
I almost wish Apple would sell a bare-bones MacPro so I could pick decent
parts without Apple markup and not have to pay for the shitty parts they stick
in the entry level model.

No hard drive, no video card, no ram. Just the CPU, mobo, case, and a copy of
Snow Leopard (and pretty kb+mouse).

~~~
hamidp
I too wish Apple would disregard the core of its business plan and introduce a
niche product that few would buy.

~~~
kylec
Assuming that it's priced reasonably, I'd definitely buy it. I'm sure a lot of
people would. But it's something that Apple's not going to do as it won't work
out of the box.

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MikeCapone
I have an early 2008 8-core Mac Pro with 8 gigs of RAM. I just don't like
laptops much, since I'm always at my desk (and I have a Macbook anyway).

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jsz0
I bought a Mac Pro recently as an audio workstation. It's probably overkill
for my needs but there were enough reasons to go for it. ECC memory, internal
RAID, ability to drive more than 2 displays, lots of RAM capacity, optical
input/output, etc. It is an extremely reliable well built machine. My biggest
problem with the iMac is being unable to use two perfectly matching displays.

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rythie
I think they are pushing the iMac to replace most of the high end use cases
the Mac Pro had with the 27inch display, 16GB max memory, and Quad Core CPU
options.

Some people here are saying the reason to buy a Mac Pro is that it is
expandable - I think for that reason Apple would rather you kept buying new
iMacs rather than upgrading your Mac Pro.

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protomyth
The new iMac does remove some customers from the Mac Pro, but if you need the
fastest Mac available or need slots (more video people now then photoshop
people) the Mac Pro is it.

Actually, I think the new Mac mini server will make some people think who
might have purchased a Mac Pro instead of an Xserve.

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gcheong
A friend of mine composes music in his spare time and recently bought a Mac
Pro just for doing this.

------
numbchuckskills
I think the author is a little out of touch. Who's buying the Mac pro? Hordes
of preppy college students who will use it browse the web and write up papers
in Word. It's far from uber-niche.

~~~
mseebach
No, they're getting MacBook Pros. What's the point of having an expensive
computer if you can't parade it at Starbucks?

