

Mac Pro Build-to-Order Upgrade Pricing Revealed - unwind
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/12/16/mac-pro-build-to-order-upgrade-pricing-revealed/

======
adrianoconnor
_RUMORED_ MacPro Build To Order pricing revealed.

The clue is in the name of the website that you linked, and the article
couldn't make it any clearer that these are guesses.

~~~
unwind
True, sorry for not being more sceptical in the title. If I could edit I
would. I don't particularly follow the Mac scene, I picked this up on Twitter
from some hardcore game developers I follow.

------
anovikov
RAM pricing is ridiculous, no one will order it like that, you can buy RAM for
1/3 the price and just replace it yourself. But i will buy a stock version.
Plus a Dell 4K 28'' monitor. As soon as my Christmas bonus arrives :)

~~~
dan1234
Where are you getting 1866MHz DDR3 ECC RAM for less than those prices?

The cheapest 8GB module I could find[1] is £75 ex VAT, 4x is £300 which is
approx. $490USD. I think this compares fairly well with the $400 upgrade
pricing on that rumour page.

[1][http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT8G3...](http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT8G3ERSDD8186D)

~~~
dmm
Newegg has 16GB and a 4GB sticks for $209.99 and $72.99 respectively. I have
no idea if they would work with the Mac Pro though.

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239756)

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148771)

~~~
anovikov
Yes real prices announced by Apple are not that bad. With this being ECC
memory, that is okay - bit overpriced, but not an outright ripoff.

------
loudmax
These look really cool, but what is the target market for $3000+ desktop
machines? I don't doubt that there are some people who could take advantage of
that much power on a desktop, but it seems like kind of a niche product. I
work with machines that do use their 256GB of RAM, but they're all servers.
I'm a Linux user, so maybe the thin workstation model feels more natural to
me. My MBP has 8GB of RAM and I rarely even come close to using that much,
even running two or three VMs at a time.

~~~
dagw
Video editing and fx work can easily use 64 GB of RAM for even modest level of
work. Large DTP and image editing work can also hit those levels. So basically
anybody working professionally with video or print will have no problem
putting these machines to use.

At the last place I worked they had people doing fluid dynamic simulation and
they always complained about having too little RAM despite having 128 GB.

~~~
dylandrop
Wow! That's a crapload of RAM. Do you happen to know / able to say any metrics
on how big the data/computations were in order to have to use that much
memory?

~~~
dagw
Sorry, I never really had anything to do with that department so I don't
really know any numbers.

------
nakedrobot2
I'm typing this on a windows PC with 192GB ram.

64GB RAM LIMIT? WHY OH WHY?

it is 2013. 64GB is not enough for many serious tasks.

~~~
dan1234
>it is 2013. 64GB is not enough for many serious tasks.

Pretty sure the Mac Pro only has 4 DIMM slots and I don't think 32GB DDR3
modules are available.

~~~
aioprisan
you can buy 32GB DDR3 modules on newegg:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239607)

------
jotm
Hmm, will Apple be blocking non-certified CPUs and RAM? Cause those princes
are kinda high, would be cheaper to get the base config and upgrade it
yourself...

~~~
goldenkey
It's possible that it is like the Macbook Air and even the RAM is soldered on.
The thing about the air was that everything was so jampacked, so they were
forced to do that. Hopefully not the case with Mac Pro :<

~~~
jotm
I don't think so - the RAM is definitely removable based on the pictures on
the Apple website, and I believe Xeons are PGA only, no BGA version like with
mainstream chips.

But if Apple limits the processor and RAM models/types in the BIOS, it would
make it very hard to upgrade...

~~~
nwh
I would be shocked if Apple sockets the CPU, they haven't done that in their
other Macs for years, why would this one be any different?

~~~
jotm
Looking at Wikipedia, there _are_ BGA Xeons - a couple of new quad core, low
power E3 models. However, all other Xeons are socketed, including the ones
used in earlier Mac Pros. And all the 6/8/12 core Xeons are using either
LGA-1356 or LGA2011 sockets (not PGA, my bad)...

------
csmuk
Ouch. Very overpriced.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Feel free to produce a competitively priced, comparatively specced workstation
in a similar form factor.

[/obligatory reply]

~~~
csmuk
Got one next to me which cost less than the base Mac Pro for a better spec:

[http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/z820.html](http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/z820.html)

The form factor is not important if you're not carrying it around. In fact I'd
go as far as saying it's retarded for a workstation class machine. Nothing
swappable, nothing replaceable, graphics are shit, max memory is pitiful, no
internal disk worth mentioning.

It's a joke. A fucking expensive one designed to get slightly mental people to
spend money.

~~~
darkarmani
Where do you see that it is cheaper? That base model is $2300 without real RAM
and no graphics cards.

Where are you going to get "Dual AMD FirePro D500 with 3GB GDDR5" for under
$699?

~~~
csmuk
You don't pay the retail price. Take 40% off if you call them up.

