
New Mac Pro - fumar
https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/design/
======
Shivetya
I know being expandable is important here but I am stunned by the fact that an
iMac Pro actually comes with better SSD and Video Card for less money and you
get a screen to boot!

256g SSD is shameful, I don't care what they were thinking. No Nvidia support
mentioned so I know a few that just wrote it off for that oversight alone.
They will probably hold out just to be sure but that was the hope for them and
others.

While I was never in the market for a Mac Pro, though the iMac Pro is not out
of the question jump over the iMac top tier, I never expected such low
starting specs for SSD and Video at this price point. 580X is old, 2017 old.
If this is what they are struck with by not using Nvidia they have done
everyone a disservice.

* did the spec this out in 2017 when they announced it and just locked it in?

* edit : Wrong on price, iMac Pro is 1,000 less than base Mac Pro

~~~
duskwuff
The first step up from 256GB is 2x512GB, and there's configurations up to
2x2TB. My guess is that the 256GB configuration is meant for users that work
primarily with data that's kept on network storage.

~~~
llampx
There's no professional that would buy a machine with 256GB of storage. Let's
call it what it is - a throwaway configuration meant to hit a price point.

~~~
bayindirh
Multimedia professionals do not store their data in internal/primary drives.

They generally have RAID boxes with either Ethernet or thunderbolt connection.

Most video editing/rendering is done on big storage arrays anyway. So 256GB
storage is more than enough for most serious multimedia professionals.

~~~
sixothree
I'm not entirely sure my Lightroom cache would fit on this drive...

~~~
coldtea
Lightroom allows to move the cache on another drive...

Besides, perhaps you're the user that needs the multi-TB version. Others, e.g.
video professionals wont have huge tens-of-TB source files in their main
system drive.

~~~
sixothree
I guess the point is for $6000 it should have another drive.

~~~
bayindirh
It should, but with a 24MP camera you can create ~50GBs of _compressed_ RAW
files per session pretty easily so, a TB of storage won’t do.

If you add a high performance spinning disk its performance won’t be enough
and it will be noisy even when idle.

In the end, it’s better to not add anything and let professionals bring their
own storage into the mix.

At the end of the day this won’t be sold to new beginners with no files. The
buyers will have their resilient storage and the internal drive won’t be used
much anyway.

Unless it’s configured as a developer workstation, but it’s generally MacBook
Pro’s role.

------
vbezhenar
That price is just absurd. I waited for Mac Pro announcement to decide whether
I'll stay with Windows or jump to macOS. Macbooks are not for me, but I hoped
for a remotely reasonable priced computer, something like $2000 with another
$1000 to expand with more memory, etc. But $6000 for 8-core CPU, 256 GB SSD,
GPU that is less powerful than my old $200 NVidia 1060? It's just laughable.

Otherwise seems like a good machine. But not at this price. Probably
configuration that I would like to have will be something around $10k and I'll
build this configuration for $3k myself.

~~~
PascLeRasc
The new Mac Pro, like Mac Pros always have been, is for music/TV studios and
design agencies that bill their time starting at $500/hour. It's really not
for individuals, and that's ok. Apple made a computer "just for the pros",
like HN begs for in every butterfly keyboard thread. I'm thrilled about it
even though I know I'll never touch one. It's for people who don't know what a
CPU core is but know how to produce a platinum album, get an Oscar nomination,
or bring a revolutionary industrial design to market. This is really something
where the price is superfluous. I personally wish it was higher so that was
more obvious.

~~~
aczerepinski
I disagree that it’s always been this way. I bought a G4 tower when I was in
college and it sure as heck wasn’t $6,000 back then.

This is the only traditional desktop computer that Apple sells, so it’s
disappointing that everybody outside of movie studio employees has to fall
back to an iMac or a Windows/Linux machine.

~~~
jrochkind1
Just as I'm curious what prices really were. don't know exactly what Gr tower
line you are talking about, but according to
[https://www.macstories.net/mac/the-power-
mac-g4-line/](https://www.macstories.net/mac/the-power-mac-g4-line/) , the
first reasonable powermac G4 was summer 2000, and

> Prices ranged from $1,599 to $3,499,

According to one online inflation calculator, $1599 in 2000 dollars is
$2,372.95 in 2019 dollars. and $3499 is $5,192.58.

So, I guess, yeah.I do recall them seeming awfully expensive.

I agree this new release seems awfully awfully expensive.

~~~
seltzered_
They were even higher in the early 90's. In 1993 the Power Macintosh 8100 (one
of the first ppc computers) started at $4200 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_8100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_8100)

~~~
macNchz
I found the invoice a while ago for the professional desktop publishing setup
that my parents bought in 1993...a Quadra 800 mac, upgraded video memory, a
flatbed scanner, b&w laser printer, a 20" monitor, a 14400 modem and some kind
of fancy magneto optical drive or something for FedExing large files. Total
price was $13k at the time.

~~~
shagie
Toss that $13k into an inflation calculator and sigh loudly.
[http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1993?amount=13000](http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1993?amount=13000)

It's about $23k in 2019 dollars.

~~~
bredren
Sounds like the coolest computer in the city.

------
bluedino
The thing the Mac Pro does is magically make the price of every other computer
look that much better.

$6000 for a computer? Johnson, that's insane.

What about $4999 for an iMac Pro? It comes with a display.

Great, order it!

What about $2499 for a Mac Mini with 32GB and 1TB SSD?

Great, order it!

What about $2499 for a Macbook Pro?

Great, order it!

~~~
Eric_WVGG
The 1987 Mac II released at $5,498, $12,125 adjusted for inflation.

Granted, that included a monitor.

IMO these things are designed for companies like Pixar, Disney, and aerospace,
the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" world.

~~~
haditab
> aerospace

I was under the impression that most engineering software for mechanical and
aerospace engineers are only supported on Windows.

~~~
smnrchrds
I am not sure about aerospace, but for mechanical engineering, SolidWorks is a
must, and it is only available on Windows. Many other important pieces of
software, for example ANSYS, ABAQUS, and Fluent are not available for Mac. In
fact, the only mechanical engineering software I know is available for Mac is
AutoCAD.

~~~
zerkten
I think Apple are trying to make the point that they have invested again in
this space, so they hope that software developers will also invest. The
expectation might not be for an immediate switch from software developers, but
laying the groundwork for something longer term. We'll see how it pans out,
but Apple are experiencing pressures they didn't experience a few years ago.

------
rock_artist
As most of us here are with the developer hat. I think it's worth reminding
that the target audience of those machines are Pro creatives. (those who
didn't ditch Apple yet ;) )

It's also the second time I remember Apple revert a critical interface
removal. (first one was FireWire from the first Unibody MacBook).

Apple lost a lot users when they've ditched PCIe. you can buy those
Thunderbolt-PCIe cages and have a lot of external media drives outside your
machine, but for pro people that meant new Mac Pro isn't well for putting in a
machine room or stacking under the table.

Back when Apple announced the switch to Intel a lot of studios had to do an
expensive upgrade not only replacing their old G5s but also additional
DSP/Accelerator cards from PCI-X to PCIe. when Apple showed the trashcan (Mac
Pro 2013) it was a hard sale that kept many folks with their Mac Pro
2010-2012.

While it's not stylish looking (imho) or ground-breaking modular deisgn as
I've assumed, it's the first time in a while Apple is responding to their
hard-core users.

price? I had macOS running on my AMD Athlon X2 back in the days (Leopard!) and
even then Mac Pros were much more expansive if you've compared pure hardware.
professional got Mac Pros because they've preferred their peace of mind. and I
must admit, with exception of memory & gpus failures, I know many of those
machines that are still rockin'.

Last thing Apple should do to get pros the freedom is sign Nvidia's drivers...

~~~
atonse
This likely is a great machine for creative pros.

But as a developer, I wanted a desktop class CPU and just a separate monitor
(tired of hearing my laptop fans all the time, and it not being expandable),
so I can upgrade them independently.

So while developers are pros, we won't appreciate things like XDR because we
don't need them, unlike movie studios and photographers. So a $5k monitor is
overpriced for editing code. But I honestly would've shelled out even $2k for
a good monitor. $5k is too much.

The computer seems like a better value if you know you'd keep it for 5-10
years.

~~~
nvahalik
I’m right here with you. Just built a Win10 machine because of thermal issues.
I don’t even mind having a laptop but is it too much to ask to pay iMac prices
for mid grade hardware??

~~~
rock_artist
The thing is, it doesn't need to be Win10 machine. Even if you're developing
for Apple. If you need a "Mac Dev" you can setup up any Intel based machine
with macOS. It's not "plug-n-play" but it's not that far from getting Linux
running with drivers and performance you'd expect it to.

~~~
atonse
Yeah but if it's your primary machine, you don't want to live under the
spectre of being one bad update away from hosing a day or two of productivity.

I already have that happening with node modules, don't need an additional
thing :)

------
jandrese
This is the first Mac in many years that feels like it earned its "Pro"
moniker, especially at that price point. It has a proper power supply. And
cooling! And you can swap out/upgrade the hardware. It's not a bunch of
thermally throttled laptop parts soldered onto some mini motherboard.

That display is in a class of its own as well.

------
wjakob
Lack of NVIDIA support is a deal-breaker. The AMD ecosystem is just so far
behind when it comes to frameworks like CUDA, OptiX, cuDNN, etc.. Why can't
Apple open up kernel-level support by cooperating more with NVIDIA? This state
of things seems completely bizarre to me.

~~~
roboyoshi
Maybe it's NVIDIA blocking the way? If Linus is correct, then they are not a
nice company to work with.

~~~
fjarlq
A member of NVIDIA's CUDA Product Management wrote in October 2018:

"Apple fully control drivers for Mac OS. But if Apple allows, our engineers
are ready and eager to help Apple deliver great drivers for Mac OS 10.14
(Mojave)." \-- [https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1042279/cuda-
setup-...](https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1042279/cuda-setup-and-
installation/cuda-10-and-macos-10-14/)

~~~
roboyoshi
well that is sad then.. Maybe they want to push the Metal platform? idk.

~~~
george_perez
macOS Catalina (10.15) is entirely built on-top of Metal. So, yes.

------
yurishimo
Really excited to see the future of this hardware even though I'm not the
target demographic. The ability to swap out with newer PCIe components down
the line will be nice and it appears Apple is likely using some sort of
desktop socket, so mounts and adapters for customizing the CPU will be
available from 3rd parties eventually. Hopefully Intel doesn't change the CPU
socket out from underneath everyone too soon.

I'm also curious if it will support PCIe Gen4 since Apple has obviously worked
closely with AMD. I'm not up to speed on the specifics on whether Intel CPUs
can take advantage of that hardware yet though or if we'll have to wait a
year. Maybe that's why Apple didn't give a hard release date?

What I'm really disappointed about is the new display. I would gladly pay
another $1-2k similar to the old cinema displays for something that's been
updated but without all the HDR features. $5k for a display is insane for
anyone except video professionals who need the HDR capabilities. The icing on
the cake is getting nickel and dimed for the stand too. $200 I think they
could make a good faith argument, but for $1k and it doesn't even come with a
vesa mount in the box is really disappointing.

You could definitely tell the crowd was bummed on that tidbit in particular.

Overall though, still a great showing by Apple and a move in the right
direction for power users.

~~~
horyzen
> I'm also curious if it will support PCIe Gen4 since Apple has obviously
> worked closely with AMD

Probably not. In order to have PCIe 4 working, you have to have CPU support as
well as mobo chipset support, neither is there in this machine.

~~~
josteink
So a really bad consumer grade performance machine, starting at $6k, and
already obsolete.

Where do I sign up?

------
KVFinn
Can people really use all this power with the GPUs offered?

The base is a 580X. The original AMD 7870 was a great gaming card in 2012...
but boy the latest attempts to keep that thing going with the 480 and 580 are
really pushing it. It's _still_ a good budget gaming card but an embarrassment
to offer with a Pro computer at that price.

I love that Vega 2 can come with so much RAM, but until the world moves away
from CUDA, are there a lot of uses for this? Even if I got this desktop for
free I'd have to use my old Windows PC for anything using the GPU because it
has nvidia.

~~~
endorphone
The 580X is an extremely capable GPU for normal usage scenarios. If you're
doing compute, they offer the Vega 2 which is very competitive with anything
on the market.

People doing CUDA work are not using Macs. And for Mac apps that do use
compute they'll take advantage of it.

I wish Apple wasn't so anti-nvidia, but at the same time an awful lot of the
comments in here are basically saying "People who would never have bought this
now won't buy it because..."

~~~
KVFinn
>People doing CUDA work are not using Macs.

The important question is are the people who want $6,000 workstations using
CUDA?

For me personally, I would LOVE a monster workstation, but if I found a Mac
Pro under my Christmas tree I'm not sure I would actually use it much. I would
have to keep switching back to my old Nvidia desktop to do the things I
specifically want a monster workstation for.

------
gigatexal
Complaining only signals that you are not the market they’re targeting. This
is for Hollywood media makers, high end studios, etc. This was never to be a
mass market item.

~~~
aczerepinski
How many Hollywood media makers are there? As an Apple shareholder should I be
excited to learn that they made a specialty computer for this demographic?

~~~
joezydeco
How many Corvette owners are there? As a GM shareholder should I be excited
they made a car just for mid-life crises?

~~~
beezle
2015 was a banner year, nearly 35,000 sold in the USA. Only about 19,000 last
year. Estimates from a number of years ago were of about $10,000 profit on
each sale

~~~
joezydeco
So you're saying the Corvette is a flagship model that loses money for the
parent company (unless their entire R&D is less than $20 million)

Perhaps that's what Apple sees in the Mac Pro as well.

------
reaperducer
Hopefully this will stop people from moaning that "Apple has abandoned the pro
market!"

Or probably not. They'll just redefine "pro" to meet their complaining needs.

~~~
slantyyz
Well, if the baseline for the Pro market was made up of people who could
afford the last version, then one can make the argument that Apple is the one
that has redefined "Pro".

~~~
reaperducer
It seems evident that Apple views the "pro" market as movie studios, large
corporations, and media entities that need serious computing power.

On HN "pro" is three guys at a co-working space using coupons to buy coffee.
It's these people who will complain the loudest about the new Mac Pro.

~~~
slantyyz
>> It seems evident that Apple views the "pro" market as movie studios, large
corporations, and media entities that need serious computing power.

If Apple is going to price out people who had purchased Mac Pros in the past
(the lowest point of entry for the new model is -double- the price of the
lowest late 2013 model), I don't really have a problem with that group
complaining about the price.

For that particular group, this new Mac Pro wasn't worth the long wait at all.

~~~
reaperducer
_the lowest point of entry for the new model is -double- the price of the
lowest late 2013 model_

2x the price for what multiple of performance? 5x? 10x? 100x?

~~~
slantyyz
You can make an argument about performance multiplier, but I would bet that
there are people who owned the trash can Mac Pros who want access to the new
-form factor- at the $3-4K price point.

I'm sure the number crunchers at Apple (and you) are OK with losing those
people, but it's a slippery slope, IMO.

------
dstaley
I was really hoping Apple would price the Mac Pro at a reasonable starting
point, hopefully stymying the flow of developers from Apple hardware to
alternatives. The features are obviously right for extreme creative pros, but
I don't think any developer in their right mind should pay this much for such
little hardware. I would have loved to have seen support for the LGA 1151
socket, off-the-shelf Nvidia GPUs, and user-replaceable RAM and storage.

My company offers a $2500 hardware budget, and I have a refresh coming up this
fall. I already have a MacBook Pro, so I want to go with a desktop this time
around. With that budget I could get a Mac Mini with an i7-8700, 32GB of RAM,
and a 1TB SSD; or I could build a PC with an i9-9900K, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD,
and the same GPU as the Mac Pro _and still have $1000 left of my budget_.

Too bad that would only get me the Pro Display stand. That would have been a
nice display to have.

------
justinsaccount
> The starting point for Mac Pro, the stainless steel space frame

Only apple could manage to call a bent piece of metal pipe a "space frame".

edit: getting downvoted because a "space frame" is a real thing. However,
those are very specifically designed to be a "Three-dimensional truss based on
the rigidity of the triangle" and this is absolutely not that. This apple co-
opting an existing term for something and applying it where it doesn't make
any sense.

~~~
reaperducer
_Only apple could manage to call a bent piece of metal pipe a "space frame"._

Or every architect and engineer in the world.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_frame](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_frame)

~~~
h3throw
Only Apple could get shat on for using appropriate but obscure terminology.

~~~
justinsaccount
But is it appropriate here? from that wikipedia page:

> The simplest form of space frame is a horizontal slab of interlocking square
> pyramids and tetrahedra built from aluminium or tubular steel struts

Do you see anything that looks like that?

~~~
pryce
Sure. Looking at each of the external sphere holes, each seems to be
associated with a triangle of connected internal sphere holes. The central
point of each sphere is therefore associated with the central points of three
others in an adjacent plane.

It is easily possible to conceptualise the 'grate' of this mac-pro as a set of
interlocking tetrahedra of origins of the spherical spaces, instead of
interlocking tetrahedra of the joints; a little like a photo-negative.

I dislike the appearance myself, it provokes a mild feeling of trypophobia,
but I don't see anything dishonest about their term.

~~~
justinsaccount
The holes are part of the removable external housing, not the frame.

------
jwr
Those of us who are slightly older may still remember how much real
workstations (as in a Sun SparcStation or an SGI Indigo) cost back in the day,
and are less shocked by the pricing :-)

Computing has really been democratized over the last 25 years.

~~~
llampx
Those workstations were substantially different (and faster) than commodity
x86 hardware at the time. Today you can buy a latest-gen 8-core CPU for $300
or so.

~~~
jandrese
The sad truth is they really weren't that much faster. Sun workstations were
using the same 68k processors that Macs were using. There is a reason the Unix
Workstation market didn't survive.

That said, this Mac is not as overpriced as it appears on the surface. A
server class motherboard with ECC RAM support and an 8 core Xeon aren't cheap
components. I'm guessing they aren't using the bottom of the barrel SSDs
either. 32GB of ECC memory aren't exactly free either. I wouldn't be surprised
if the BoM on this was over $3k.

~~~
bdowling
Sun's mid-1990's SPARCstation models used a SPARC CPU (hence the name). The
single-core workstations were a bit faster than the top of the line 386 or 486
available at the time. As I understand it, the draw was the CPU and OS
compatibility with Sun's million dollar servers.

------
FigBug
I think they took the name cheese grater too literally, it actually looks like
one now.

~~~
deckar01
This vent is uncharacteristically ugly for an Apple product. I have a hard
time believing that this sphere pattern is really optimal for performance.
Maybe optimal for minimizing the number of machine operations required to
produce it... Those holes are just comically large.

~~~
threeseed
Of course they are large. It's designed to let air in.

~~~
deckar01
Also dust, marshmallows, and fingers.

------
amarshall
The price saddens me. The $6K base is twice the base of the 2013 Mac Pro when
it was released. Some quick spec-ing for a somewhat-equivalent DIY build gives
somewhere around $3K. The build I was already spec-ing for my next workstation
has 2x RAM, 16x SSD, SFP+ NIC and is under $5K.

I hope at least that the SSDs are standard M.2, but looking at the pictures
I’m not sure they are.

~~~
_ph_
No, they seem to be Apple-specific, as they are controlled by their T2 chip.
So expect extremely expensive SSD too.

~~~
jandrese
Do they have to be special sauce drives? The picture makes it look like
standard M.2 drives. It doesn't seem like you should need anything special if
the T2 chip is just acting as a bog standard drive controller that happens to
send only encrypted data to the drive.

~~~
samcat116
I believe those drives are just the flash, as the T2 chip actually acts as the
controller. That might be wrong but that's what I've gathered from how the
iMac Pro works and I assume this is a similar configuration.

------
ghobs91
$1000 for a monitor stand is the pinnacle of arrogance from a brand.

~~~
askafriend
How is it arrogance?

Have you ever bought a nice pice of furniture? This stand is a super low
volume, custom design. It's solid milled aluminum and likely very hefty since
it needs to handle a 32" monitor (which itself is probably pretty hefty). Not
to mention the intricate hinge design that they say is rock solid (not an easy
feat to achieve).

This whole system is built to compete against $25k-50k reference monitors.

Here's a page of Table Lamps from Restoration Hardware for a sense of
perspective:

[https://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/category/product...](https://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/category/products.jsp?cellBackground=false&parentCatId=cat1597020&topCatId=cat160075&categoryId=cat3860007&sale=false)

And the whole reason they don't include the stand with the monitor is because
it's built for media production houses that already have rigs set up with
their own mounts.

They're not building this for designers to run Sketch or developers to run
Xcode.

This is for production servers, processing Pixar movies, and YouTube features.
It's a machine that will be expensed as the cost of doing business.

~~~
terandle
That link does not help your case $300 for a fashionable lamp you can use for
life and is a major fixture of a living space vs a $1,000 monitor stand?
Congrats Apple you made restoration hardware look like ikea in terms of
pricing.

~~~
askafriend
Did you see how big that monitor is? It's going to be a permanent fixture on
your desk. It's as much a part of your room and your life as anything else.

In any case, the only issue here is how they presented the pricing. They
should have just said that they're selling a $6k display but if you don't want
the stand, they'll sell it separately for $5k. If they framed it like that
then no one would complain.

------
secfirstmd
Am I the only person more concerned about the new "Find my Mac Feature"? Call
me a cynic but this feels like it has all kinds of privacy problems.

"The new Find My app combines Find My iPhone and Find My Friends into a
single, easy-to-use app on Mac, iPadOS, and iOS devices. Find My can help you
locate a missing Mac — even if it’s offline and sleeping — by sending out
Bluetooth signals that can be detected by Apple devices in use nearby. These
devices then relay the detected location of your Mac to iCloud so you can
locate it in the Find My app.

It’s all anonymous and end-to-end encrypted so no one, including Apple, knows
the identity of any reporting device. And because the reporting happens
silently using tiny bits of data that piggyback on existing network traffic,
there’s no need to worry about your battery life, your data usage, or your
privacy."

~~~
busymom0
> It’s all anonymous and end-to-end encrypted so no one, including Apple,
> knows the identity of any reporting device.

That should answer privacy concerns. They probably have a disable feature too.

~~~
chronogram
And should be a tick during the initial setup, considering find my has always
done that

------
blhack
Is the apple marketing through the window of Poe’s law at this point? This
page could easily have been a parody, complete with insane price.

------
ynniv
I know we all said that we preferred the cheese grater to the trash can, but I
don't think anyone meant it that literally.

------
technofiend
Well the hackintosh crowd has to be excited because a Pro hardware refresh
adds new hardware kexts!

------
colechristensen
The copy about the lattice pattern front being inspired by nature for airflow
and rigidity is pretty ridiculous.

It looks cool to have little spheres cut in the inside of a metal block but
that's it. If you were actually optimizing for airflow or density you would do
something entirely different (or you would look at the effects the grill has
on airflow and realize the effect is minimal regardless of what you do and
then move on to other priorities.

On the other hand it looks like it would attract dust and be obnoxious to
clean.

Apple has lost it's way with design.

~~~
threeseed
Not sure what you are talking about. They actually were optimising for
airflow. If you look at the picture you couldn't design to allow more air to
come through whilst maintaining a rigid structure: [https://www.apple.com/mac-
pro/design/](https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/design/)

As for dust/dirt you could just spray it with compressed air.

~~~
colechristensen
If your real goal was airflow with rigidity you could just leave the front
completely open and be fine with rigidity or perhaps have a small number of
bars crossing the front.

You also would not pick spherical cutouts. the bowl-shapes are going to add
drag.

This is only being done to show off manufacturing sophistication, you can say
you did something that looks cool without adding nonsense about performance.

------
minimaxir
For developers, there's another constraint in investing in the Mac Pro: the
increasingly high likelihood Apple will move to ARM:

> Mac Pro + display coming in at $11,000 a year or so before a switch to ARM
> is a hard nope from me. It's a little freeing, so I can now actually get a
> Mac mini

[https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/11356329822896537...](https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1135632982289653767)

~~~
aseipp
Why on earth would you ever even _consider_ getting a Mac Pro if a Mac Mini
will do the job you need? Unless you have $5,000+ just sitting around you want
to throw away on street creds? This is a serious question, because I really
cannot possibly fathom what scenario would actually put you in that position
as a buyer other than, "I have money and I like to spend it".

Also the idea that ARM hardware is somehow a threat to your "investment" is
just random FUD. First, it's still just speculation. But second, assuming it's
100% true -- you're kidding yourselves if you think Apple is suddenly going to
appear with magical Xeon-class 28-core ARM CPUs sometime in the next year that
can compete with what they're offering here. Try 5+ years (minimum) _after_
their first desktop-class CPUs are proven rock-solid. This Mac Pro cycle will
probably last that long. If they _do_ switch anytime soon, it will likely be
only lower end machines like the MacBook Airs and non-Pro models. And _even
then_ , if history is anything to go by, they'll offer 5+ years of binary
compatibility for newer devices to run old applications and multi-target
toolchain support for developers to target all systems. People keep computers,
even laptops, for longer and longer now. x86 macOS machines are not going
anywhere, anytime soon, and Apple knows not to randomly segment/abandon users
like that.

I'm not going to buy this machine for a number of reasons (including the
astronomical base cost), but FUD about future magical ARM machines doesn't
hold up at all, IMO.

------
amiga-workbench
Aesthetically, that's really quite loud. I'm surprised to see them ship
something that doesn't fit their signature minimal & reserved look.

~~~
andreasley
It's what people asked for – a work horse, designed to be fast, reliable and
reasonably quiet. They've tried the "beauty first" approach on the 2013
version and it was a disaster.

~~~
amiga-workbench
They can accomplish all that, just without the tasteless design.

The stainless steel frame contrasts with the shell, and not in a good way. The
ventilation holes are really weirdly proportioned and still manage to look
cramped with that inner baffle. And finally, that apple logo on the side
stands out a bit too much, on the old cheesegrater it was a darker gray and a
bit smaller.

The old G5 chassis was an understated and refined look, each of its elements
seamlessly blended into each other well. This thing is just sharp to look at,
my eyes do not know where to rest on it.

~~~
andreasley
I agree in principle.

However, design is always about compromises. The G5 had more beautiful
handles, but they had sharp edges and weren't nearly as ergonomical as the new
ones. And I wouldn't be surprised if the weird holes in the new Mac Pro allow
for twice the airflow. Both are tradeoffs that I, personally, welcome.

------
shoo_pl
What about Mac Mini + minimum viable ssd (256-512GB) + eGPU + decent SSD like
Samsung T5 (budget) or X5 (high end) ?

After today's announcements this is what I am looking at. The only problem I
see is that current eGPUs do not support the 5k thunderbolt monitor, with
exception of Blackmagic (but like most of apple products those are crazy
expensive and non-upgradeable).

Until that 5k monitor situation is solved, I am stuck with iMac. I tested
various 4k monitors, and somehow I find the 5k Retina (1440p) to be sweet spot
for daily usage & development.

Edit: Funny thing is, if you count the $$ for above set up, you will find out
it costs as much - if not more - then similar 2019 iMac. So it probably does
down the the question - do you really need that top-of-the-line GPU from AMD
(which isn't that fast anyway)? It seems that buying iMac that you can still
sell for 50% of original price after 2-3 years and simply getting new one with
specs bumped might be the same result as being able to update your
ram/gpu/ssd/monitor

Seems that iMac truly is the sweat spot for most "pros" that want a desktop.

~~~
eemil
Compared to a Mac Pro, you'll be giving up

* Desktop-grade cooling

* Multithreaded CPU performance (4-6 vs 8-28 cores)

* PCI-e lanes + expandability (via PCI-e slot)

* RAM expandable to 1.5 TB

* dual 10 GBit ethernet

Not all "pros" have the same requirements. In your case, maybe the Mac Mini
_is_ adequate.

------
ngcc_hk
My mind just asking questions:

No nvidia? no AI? Boot to windows? Might as well use mac mini? Starting to
learn hacintosh after my two 2010 mp die? Is that thing the ugliest thing I
saw in years from apple?

------
_ph_
Very sad day. In the first moments, I thought everyones wishes had come true,
and they bring back the old style Mac Pro back, with a redesigned housing. But
the old Mac Pro had started around 2-3k, so while never cheap, not out of
reach of an enthusiast user. While the specs of the new Mac Pro are certainly
impressive, the price is just out of the range of all private and most
professional users. Not sure why Apple refuses to sell a machine which just
allows to put in a normal desktop graphics card.

Also: they are selling a "Pro" desktop Mac without real mass storage? Just 4T
of SSD? (Of course only available at Apple prices). The old Mac Pro had a lot
of storage slots, both for 3.5 and 5.25 inch drives, but the new one couln't
house at least a couple of 2.5 inch slots as well as NVMe slots?

~~~
jakobegger
You can probably load it up with a lot of PCIe SSD cards.

There's really no need to add bays for magnetic drives anymore (if you want
magnetic drives, you probably want them in a NAS)

~~~
_ph_
Magnetic drives perhaps not, but I was mostly thinking of SSDs. But indeed, if
you can use some of the PCIe slots for storage, it would probably be ok. Still
a too large gap between the Mini and the Pro.

------
erdewit
1.4 kW power supply... the next Apple accessory will be diesel generators.

~~~
imagetic
that's really just to support multiple GPU's if a user decides to add them. At
the base model, it's nowhere near that.

------
busymom0
[https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/](https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/)

"28 core model has support for up to 2TB 2933MHz memory". 2TB RAM is crazy.

------
meerita
I still do some work on my 2010 iMac. It costed me 3400 EUR. It will be its
10th aniversary soon. That's 28,3 EUR /mo for 10 years in costs for a piece of
hardware that helped me to get a lot of money. This new Mac Pro, the base one,
will cost me around 57,6 EUR/mo over 10 years. No monitor included, but if we
include the new one, it will be around 106,9 EUR /mo over 10 years. I don't
know if it is too much but I see this new Mac Pro too expensive and I am not
chosing hard upgrades, but if you go a bit crazy yo can easily calculate
200€/mo over 10y.

------
woranl
This new Mac Pro design gives me trypophobia. Do we really need that many
holes on the front? Somehow this "industrial design" is really giving me
goosebumps. That's a first for Apple product...

~~~
lioeters
Thanks for my new word of the day: "Trypophobia is a proposed phobia of
irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps."

Someone elsewhere on the thread said the design reminded them of something the
Empire from Star Wars would make. It seems there may be a physiological reason
for this kind of reaction to the design.

------
Nursie
Wow that thing is pricey! Proper high-end workstation I guess. Some folks will
have a need for one.

Personally I was hoping for an updated (whiskey-lake and at least one
thunderbolt port) Macbook. Next year maybe...

------
mars
people complaining about the price and comparing hardware specs tend to forget
that the price incorporates running the world's best operating system with a
visual ui. although hardware spec's might not always be too impressive, it
needs to be considered that the macos can actually max these out as it's
purpose-built for the hardware it runs on which is not the case for most of
the windows/linux systems.

and no, i'm not an apple fanboi, but think that the products are pretty solid.

------
equalarrow
I've waited for this for a few years.. Until I stopped caring last year. Alas,
I'm underwhelmed. Mostly in the form factor.

I had an Intel beta machine from yonder. Apple sent everyone an iMac that year
we had to send those back. I had that and a MacBook Pro for a few years until
I got a 2009 Mac Pro. Had to retire that when OS X upgrades stopped working on
it. I loved that machine and put it through its paces for many years.

In 2014 I got a trashcan Mac Pro and that's probably been the most beautiful
Mac I've ever owned. I know a lot of people don't like it, but it's been
quietly humming away on my desk for years. It takes up about a 7" x 7" corner
of my desk. It's perfect. I love stuff that doesn't make a sound and gets out
of my way.

The new form factor, I'm not into at all. It's great that it's expandable and
powerful, but it just doesn't do it for me. I've been doing Mac and iOS
development for so long now and thrown so much money at them that I think I'm
just burned out. I mean, how much 'best ever', 'amazing', 'sensational', every
year can you take? I no longer drool every time Ive speaks and the video for
it had me yawning. I've seen it before, even though I haven't. Yah, no one
else makes that design, I get it. But, I am now asking myself, so what?

It seems like they have been less 'pro' the past years and now they're extreme
pro. I'm just average pro I guess. They didn't design this machine for me and
that's ok. I'm just underwhelmed by everything Apple now.

------
mastrsushi
It looks traditionally nice, definitely a throwback. Just not too conservative
to where it looks like every other boring black PC case these days. But also
not cylinder shaped like something out of a Sci-fi movie.

I don't really care about the specs because that's not really a concern one
should have when buying an Apple product. It's more about being promised a
solid experience, without having to be technologically conscious and do your
own homework.

------
droithomme
All I want is to be able to replace the hard drive when it fails after 18
months, and upgrade the RAM. Also need an optical bay for a tower.

It would be nice to have more than 2 USB ports, when I'm paying over $6000,
without having to look for a PCIe board that has a compatible driver. Also,
audio input would be a cool feature in that price range.

Main thing really though is replacing that hard drive when it fails, which
they always do before long.

------
firefwing24
Not a strict 1:1 comparison, but I guess as a reference point? (Prices from US
Amazon)

\- Asus Rog Dominus Extreme - 1,677.48

\- Intel Xeon W-3175X - 3.1 -> 3.8 boost (28 Core) - 3,078.49

\- Decent Case - 200$ (maybe even bump to 400)

\- 4 x 8 GB DDR4 3000 MHz Corsair C15 - 160$

\- 970 EVO m.2 NVMe Drive - 69.99

\- Radeon Pro 580X - Around 200$

\- Noctua NH-D15 - 90$

\- 1000W Titanium Seasonic - 256.92

Total: 5,732.88

Yeah there's some differences like having more cache, or more RAM support...
but $5,999 from Apple is for the 8-core base model...

Edit: I clearly new to writing lists.

------
Uptrenda
Not directly relevant but: boy do I love Apples marketing. They put so much
passion into conveying their products, its ridiculous. Its almost like their
marketing boarders on small art projects and "how its made style docs." I know
that's a weird thing to say, but I find them very creative and interesting to
watch. Sure beats the average commercial.

------
teddyc
You almost need a dedicated 15-amp circuit to run this or have 20-amp circuits
so you have some overhead for the rest of your electronics (or a cubicle
neighbor).

The power supply draws 1280W. A 15-amp circuit provides 1800W, but you are
really supposed to keep steady loads at no more than 80%, which is 1440W. I
bet some circuit breakers are going to start tripping when these go live.

~~~
jjtheblunt
Doesn't the power supply draw that at max load, rather than consistently?
(Honest question)

~~~
npunt
Correct, that's just the max draw it can handle. Most configurations will
probably draw no more than ~500-600w.

------
jedberg
Regardless of everything else, that AR thing on their web page was cool as
shit. I just looked at a new Mac Pro on my couch!

------
allthecybers
It’s a bit beyond my budget to buy for sentimental reasons because I owned a
cheese grater PowerMac G5 and a MacPro back in my video production days. But
this looks like exactly what the creative or media production professional of
today needs. If you need less grab an iMac Pro or iMac.

------
exabrial
I wish they'd make a "pro" Laptop... replaceable ssd, upgradeable ram,
thinline 10gb ethernet.

------
bitxbit
I rather like Windows machines in 2019. I believe Apple fumbled the “Pro”
market big time but it’s really not something worth for them to chase in my
view. I really see this new iteration more as a goodwill gesture to their pro
user base than an attempt to recapture the market.

------
linguae
I was ecstatic about the 2019 Mac Pro until I heard its price. $5999, which is
well above the price range of the entry-level 2013 Mac Pro ($2999) and of
other Mac Pro and Power Macintosh models, which have historically had an
inflation-adjusted entry level price range of $2500-3000 for the past two
decades. In fact, here's a list of prices for entry-level Power Macintosh and
Mac Pro models in the last 20 years (all of these prices were found on Low End
Mac):

    
    
      Blue and White Power Mac G3 (January 1999) -- $1,599 ($2,453 in 2019 dollars)
      Graphite Power Mac G4 (December 1999) -- $1,599 ($2,453 in 2019 dollars)
      2001 Power Mac G4 (January 2001) -- $1,699 ($2,453)
      2001 Quicksilver Power Mac G4 (July 2001) -- $1,699 ($2,453)
      2002 Mirrored Drive Door Power Mac G4 (August 2002) -- $1,699 ($2,413)
      2003 Power Mac G5 (August 2003) -- $1,999 ($2,776), reduced to $1,799 ($2,499) in November 2003
      2006 Mac Pro (August 2006) -- $2,199 ($2,787)
      2010 Mac Pro (July 2010) -- $2,499 ($2,929)
      2013 Mac Pro (December 2013) -- $2,999 ($3,289.83 in 2019 dollars, but you can still purchase an entry-level 2013 Mac Pro today from Apple for $2,999 in 2019 dollars).
    
    

I wouldn't have been surprised if Apple had announced a $3,299 or $3,499
entry-level Mac Pro model given how inflation-adjusted prices have crept
upwards over the past 20 years, but $5,999 is a gigantic leap from $2,999 or
even $3,499.

There's no doubt that the 2019 Mac Pro has answered the needs of some classes
of pro Mac users. For people in the movie and music industries as well as
professionals working in certain engineering and architecture disciplines,
they have clamored for user-serviceable, upgradeable Macs that are also very
powerful, and are willing to pay top dollar for their equipment since time is
money for them. The Mac Pro certainly delivers in these aspects, and I'm glad
that Apple has recommitted itself to these users.

Unfortunately Apple has disappointed another class of Power Macintosh/Mac Pro
user; those who want an affordable machine that is also user-serviceable.
Apple used to provide entry-level Power Macintosh and Mac Pro models that
catered to this group. Unfortunately the Mac lineup under Tim Cook has largely
become unserviceable by users, complete with soldered RAM, soldered storage,
and design decisions that make upgrading and repairs difficult to impossible.
The 2019 Mac Pro is a tease, a kick in the face for this class of user. We
finally have access to an expandable, upgradeable, user-serviceable Mac, but
at unattainable prices. It's like being an Acura fan who clamored for the
return for the Acura Integra or Acura RSX, which were affordable sports cars
that would probably cost $30,000 brand new if they were sold today, but Acura
points these fans to the Acura NSX, a $150,000+ supercar.

And, so, as a user of a 2013 Mac Pro, I have mixed feelings. I'm glad to see
that Apple is committed to its pro users and to the longevity of macOS, but
unfortunately Apple has doubled-down on its model of selling non-serviceable,
non-upgradeable machines to all but the most wealthy of its customers.

Unfortunately I feel trapped as a Mac user. Windows 10 sucks and the Linux
desktop is still not ready for prime time, but at least there are a wide
variety of PCs out there that are user-serviceable, upgradeable, and
affordable. macOS is the best operating system out there and is the only one
in my opinion that is truly designed for users in mind, but unfortunately it
is largely tied to hardware that is virtually closed off to repairs and
upgrades unless you're willing to spend $6000+ on a computer, which is
insanely expensive for a computer in 2019 unless you're in a field that
absolutely needs the most powerful machine around.

Thankfully my 2013 Mac Pro provides ample power for my needs, and so I'll be
using that for years to come. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a used 2019
Mac Pro for a more affordable price once my 2013 Mac Pro gets long in the
tooth.

~~~
imagetic
I think if they would have released an i9 model with a better GPU at say,
$3499, then they could have sold a lot of them. I don't see any point in
server chips and ECC ram being bottle necked by a single weak GPU with
proprietary upgrades.

------
juhannuspukki
I wonder if the people who complain about the price here have ever worked with
computers. For example, I am a software developer. It costs about 5000€/month
or so to hire me after I graduate. Every workplace I have been in has given me
a 3500€ MBP to write code with, no questions asked. Why? I need it and it's
cheap compared to my wage anyway. Even a 10000€ computer wouldn't be very
expensive considering it's estimated lifespan is 5-12 years.

For companies the cost of computers next to the cost of people is
insignificant, and that is the target customer group for this machine.

------
gitpusher
Anecdotally, this page takes a very long time to load in Chrome, whereas it
loads immediately in Safari. I wonder if they're artificially slowing the
response for non-Safari clients? Seems a bit hard to explain otherwise.

------
mratzloff
I've been waiting on Apple's Mac Pro announcement to decide if I would be
buying their new pro monitor. I have previously owned an Apple Cinema HD
Display 30", which was great, but started to show its age over time. I believe
it cost me about $2500 at the time. I'm not afraid of spending a lot for a
great monitor.

This is $5000, or $6000 with the stand. Oof. I wish there were a cheaper 4K
version.

I guess I'll just spend like 10-20% of that price some other 4K monitor.

------
blevin
The most interesting and least elaborated detail is the Afterburner FPGA. I’m
curious what the programming model is (Metal compute kernels?) and how it
compares to GPU.

~~~
carlob
During the keynote they used FPGA and ASIC interchangeably, which one is it?

------
swordsmith
The lattice gives me the creeps. Much better to just get a Lenovo C730 cube.
Similar mechanical design, better specs, and 1/5 of the price.

------
ChuckMcM
I get the complaining but hey _Apple released a new Mac Pro_ is pretty cool.
They could have just decided quietly leave the market completely.

I also appreciate how the display is a thing now. Not everyone remembers the
verrrry long period where 1920x1200 was the best you could do even when laptop
displays were shooting off into the retina world. A high dpi developer
workstation with tools to match could be a beautiful thing.

------
coldtea
I don't see it mentioned anywhere, but to me it's obvious they intentionally
went for an actual "cheese grater" look, as a play on the old "cheese grater"
Mac legacy.

(They made it functional of course, with the holes used for cooling etc, but
the 100% cheese grater look was intended this time).

------
imagetic
The same specs as the $6000 base level Mac Pro comes out to $1600. Granted, I
would use and Intel i9-9900K, non-server motherboard and non-ECC RAM.

As a media production professional who has spent most of my career on a Mac,
the original "cheese grater" is probably the best hardware platform I've ever
worked on. In my experience, macOS as an operating system has been vastly
superior in terms of maintenance and support for a lot of post houses. When I
install a Mac, I rarely have to come back and touch it until an editor
mistakenly updates the OS or Adobe suite and breaks something in the chain.
The original Mac Pro cheese graters lasted 5-7 years in facilities I ran.

But times have changed. Cameras got bigger and Apple started severely limiting
what their computers could do.

The Mac Pro "trash can" was drastically under-engineered. It overheated with
4k footage and could barely handle larger productions. You also ended up with
a tangled mess of peripherals that used to just live inside the tower. I can't
count how many times an editor would say something wasn't working and it was
just because they knocked a thunderbolt cable loose.

At first glance, the new Mac Pro is nothing short of impressive.

The big thing media people want from Apple is upgradable GPUs, which Apple
kind of did here.

The MXP module for the GPUs looks to be entirely proprietary. I haven't found
any mention of potential 3rd party GPU support. And I assume you'll buy the
GPUs preinstalled in those modules at the highest market value, despite the
rapid drop in video card prices over time. But without nVidia support I fear
this feature is going to be a stalemate with the industry.

What is most appealing to me is the Mac Pro basically a server motherboard
with a lot of room. Building a budget PC is restricting. The gaming
motherboards tend to move the fastest with technology and newer / cheaper
chips that are capable of hanging with server chips, but are part of the
silicon lottery. 1/4 that I receive is DOA or has to be returned for some
reason. That and they lack enough PCI slots for big post-house media work. If
I have to drop two GPUs in a PC, there is rarely room for I/O cards, 10GbE and
other requirements.

For a post-house who wants something stable, the price high of the new Mac Pro
will be returned fairly easily (maybe not with those new monitors). I don't
see the freelance / independent and small-production team market buying >$6000
Mac towers though.

The latest offerings from AMD with PCI 4.0 motherboards will weigh in at
$3000'ish with a single 2080 ti GPU. That's an extreme bang for your buck.

The downside in the PC world is mainly that it has become a build your own
adventure with next to no warranty and a ton of technological hurdles and
compatibility issues. For example, very few motherboards for Intel chips
support TB3 and have 10GbE built in. And if you go AMD you can forget
thunderbolt all-together.

Overall, I know a lot of places I've done work with are waiting to hit buy on
the new Mac Pro. Part of that is because it just works, and they'll deal with
the shortcomings later on. But really, it looks cool and the people they
attract are impressed by that fancy tower. But everyone who works alone or at
smaller companies are probably now waiting to drop their Ryzen 3000 and X570
orders into their shopping carts.

Disclaimer: I don't know any professionals who bought an iMac Pro. I haven't
seen one in the wild since it was released.

------
whywhywhywhy
After the iTunes calendar joke I actually thought when the launch video
started it was another joke about the old cheesegrater design and was going to
show an actual cheesegrater, until it cut and made it clear it was a real
video.

------
ksec
I am wondering what the top config would cost,

Intel Cascade Lake 28 Core

1.5 TB DDR4 2933 ECC Memory

2 x 2TB SSD

Radeon VEGA II Duo x 2 128GB HMB2 Memory

Thunderbolt 3 x 4 Port

Two 10Gb Ethernet ports:

Apple Afterburner FPGA Card

My guess would be $40K+?

There also another small question ( or big for some ) , what happen to people
with Trypophobia looking at the Mac Pro?

------
amelius
Only marginal improvements. And the marginal improvements keep getting
smaller.

------
chx
My, those machined lattices will cost a tremendous amount of money. That's
some Juicero level of madness but of course Apple will get away with it.

------
cfarm
Is no one going to comment on why a desktop needs wheels?

~~~
imagetic
In media studio environments, it' makes some sense...but it's mostly an iMac
on a cart these days.

~~~
cfarm
Do you also wheel around your monitor?

~~~
imagetic
In studio situations, it's usually on a c-stand / pin connector.

~~~
cfarm
seems like a very small population

------
KoenDG
Seems like they're not announcing the CPU just yet?

~~~
duskwuff
There's CPU specs at:

[https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/](https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/)

Most of the specs sound like Cascade Lake parts, but the cache sizes don't
quite match. It's possible that Apple's using a custom part, or one which
Intel hasn't announced yet.

~~~
amarshall
It’s most likely the leaked [1] but not yet announced Xeon W-3xxx.

[1] [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-xeon-cascade-
lake-w-...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-xeon-cascade-
lake-w-3000-series-specs,39278.html)

------
thomasjudge
Re SAN connections: what are the various options with respect to using the 10G
ethernet, vs Thunderbolt, vs a PCI slot HBA-type device?

------
StillBored
Lots of talk about 8k video/etc, but you have to buy a dell/etc to get a 8k
monitor. Really?

~~~
imagetic
Nobody edits AT 8k. Or watches anything at 8k for that matter.

~~~
StillBored
"Nobody" is obviously the market that RED is targeting with their 8K cameras
(shooting raw/lossless for that matter) or various projector manufactures.
Sure not everyone in the production pipeline is going to be watching
manipulating the edit list in 8k, but you better be sure there are a few
people looking at the dailies at full 8k res before the OCD/dictatorial
director shows up.

Apple obviously thinks there is a market here too, or they wouldn't be talking
about how the machine can show three simultaneous 8k streams.

------
swozey
This is the ugliest computer I have ever seen. The monitor as well. What in
the world. It's like someone discovered Trypophobia and wants to terrify
people. I can't believe I'm the only person to comment on that here.

I loved the original "cheese grater" (which doesn't even seem deserving of
that title now).

------
fock
nice to see that Apple still can build a real (UNIX) workstation. just about
the right combination of power, standard but exotic IO, price and design
(though not my favourite)

------
bradknowles
Thanks, I hate it.

At least, the bizarre horribly bad cheese-grater look.

------
SergeAx
Now that's a nice veggie grater. And inexpensive too!

------
m0zg
Yawn. Wake me up when they start offering NVIDIA GPUs again.

------
sabujp
and all the people with trypophobia screamed in horror

------
skunkworker
I’m disappointed that the new 6k screen doesn’t support Rec.2020 color space.

I wish it would be more future proof, though it’s possible it does support
this color space but doesn’t list it on the tech specs.

------
beenBoutIT
No mention of dust filters or keeping out dust.

------
balls187
Seems like dust is going to be a problem.

------
IloveHN84
Too expensive

------
kitchenkarma
Is this 2016?

------
vzaliva
I want to run Linux on it!

------
tus87
Well it's better than the trashcan....but still not as good as the original
alumINium box.

~~~
diehunde
This one looks like a different type of trash can

------
thrower123
It's the most expensive cheese grater I've ever seen

~~~
julienreszka
The usual cheese graters actually look fine, but this...

------
lordpankake
What an ugly box

~~~
w4rh4wk5
I was thinking the same thing. Seems like taste is subjective after all. ^^

------
julienreszka
Those holes trigger my Trypophobia.

------
781
Does it have RGB? For that price it better have one RGB led in each of those
holes.

------
busterarm
Unfortunately this triggers my trypophobia hard.

------
ofrzeta
Design-wise it's not great. The quite minimal case with the huge handles looks
a bit amateurish and cheap. Although they try to inflate every feature in the
typical Apple manner, like the "spherical array" that is "onto the internal
and external surfaces of the aluminum", the front panel is not sound. Actually
a perforated metal plate like in the old macs looks better. Obviously it's
question of taste but it's not great Apple design that used to impress me in
the past.

