
$2,999 Mac Pro to go on sale in December - ddinh
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/2999-mac-pro-to-go-on-sale-in-december-in-all-its-dalek-resembling-glory/
======
MattRogish
Mac Pro: 7 teraflops for a few thousand.

Cray X1 in 2004 5.9 teraflops[1] for only ~$40M USD[extrapolating from 2].

Mind boggling what to expect 10 years from now.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray)
[2][http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/15/cray_flogs_x1_superc...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/15/cray_flogs_x1_supercomputer/)

~~~
ctdonath
Original IBM PC: $2400 ($6000 in today's dollars) for 0.00477GHz, 0.000016GB
RAM, no storage (cassette interface).

~~~
chiph
For years, it was a rule-of-thumb that your dream machine was always $5000.

Fully trick-out a Mac Pro, and that rule might still be true.

~~~
schnarfnark
I would expect it to top out at significantly more than $5k

~~~
JVIDEL
It doesn't matters, this is a halo product, it's main purpose is to showcase
the company's engineering chops not being a sales success story like the
iphone or ipad were.

Problem is previous such products like the G4 cube coexisted with the
traditional and less pricey powermac, while this thing killed the old mac pro,
leaving a lot of pros and their expensive expansions and accessories out in
the cold.

~~~
benjamincburns
> it's main purpose is to showcase the company's engineering chops

I agree with this, but I'd add that it's to show off their silky smooth blend
of engineering and design. We all can go to NewEgg or a million other online
retailers and build something which approximates the specs of this machine.
Shit, almost two years ago I built a 32 core machine with 32GiB of RAM
(could've added more RAM, didn't need it as problem was parallelizable and
CPU-bound).

As for the sales successes, I really _want_ one of these, and I'm sure I'm not
alone. I'm betting most individuals who buy these will be the types who also
spend money on art. What I mean is, I could scrape enough loose change
together to get one, but I have no use for it. My desire for one is purely
emotional. It's _beautiful_. Just a hunch, but I think Apple's margin on this
product fits more closely with the fine art consumer market than the mass
consumer market.

~~~
JVIDEL
That's the problem, the people who want this "as art" aren't nearly as many as
those who bought the previous mac pro for work, so again you have the same
problem the G4 cube had.

------
acomjean
Quote: Dave Girard noted in his "Critical look at the new Mac Pro" that the
machine has "a truly epic lack of expandability."

I totally agree.

As someone with a macpro1.1 I'm clearly looking elsewhere at this point. I
take a lot of still photos and frankly I'm filling up 2 TB drives. Plus having
a heavy bulky machine you can put a cable bike lock through makes it much less
likely to be stolen..

The design is interesting though. I'm sure its crazy fast.

Just odd that you'll need an expansion chassis for more drive space.

Plus hdmi for external monitor support? Is every DVI monitor going to need an
adapter?

~~~
ctdonath
The alternative is building a large machine containing vast empty space on the
speculation that someone might fill it - leaving almost every unit
significantly larger than necessary.

TB2 is fast enough that putting the storage outside the box makes sense. Makes
upgrades easy: plug it in, rather than having to tear the box apart.

~~~
KaiserPro
Or you can have a z820 which has much more space, cheaper, and has a much
better warranty and support(next day engineer on site, for free.)

want two GPUs? sure. want 96 gigs or ram? go for it. want three fusion io
cards? you betya.

~~~
wonderzombie
On the other hand, if you prefer OS X as I do, you are SOL. :)

------
hdevalence
The design of the Mac Pro is certainly attractive, but since the only way to
add on to it is through Thunderbolt, it seems a bit counterproductive. The
sleek black tube isn't so sleek when you need to have a bunch of external
drives sitting on your desk.

~~~
sp332
Thunderbolt cables are long enough that you could hide the drives elsewhere,
if appearance is the main concern. This would still take up a lot less room on
a desk even with a bunch of drives.

~~~
larrys
I'm seeing 98 feet. You could have them in a locked closet or cabinet
conceivably. Expensive though.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_%28interface%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_%28interface%29)

Note: I haven't read the entire wiki or triangulated it so this is a quick
take.

~~~
vacri
That's 9.8 feet, not 98.

~~~
m_eiman
_The first such optical Thunderbolt cable was introduced by Sumitomo Electric
Industries in January 2013.[30] It is available in lengths of 10 metres (33
ft), 20 metres (66 ft), and 30 metres (98 ft). However, these cable only
retail almost exclusively in Japan, and the price is 20–30× higher than copper
Thunderbolt cables._

Copper cable is limited to 9.8 feet (aka 3 meters in the rest of the world),
but optical cables can be up to 330 feet/100 meters.

That price looks nasty, though.

------
baldfat
I need to be upfront with my bias, I hate everything Apple. I also built and
ran my own digital studio (Not Pro Tools).

This lack of expandability for the Mac Pro is like the criticisms of the
Chinese worker conditions, not Apple's fault.

1) This is industry wide, look at Intel with the soldered cpu in the next
generation.

2) This is what Apple users want, a simple "just works" for most.

3) Any production Machine has a million things connected to it. So the fact
that you have to plug in a million wires into the thing is a mute point.

This is cheaper than I thought it would be. I still think anyone basing their
video or audio off of Apple is insane since they have continued to show that
they are more than willing to put pro users on the back burner for what 3
years and need I tell you the Final Cut Pro fiasco?

~~~
300bps
_So the fact that you have to plug in a million wires into the thing is a mute
point._

It's not only _moot_ , we are also past the Statue of Limitations to be able
to talk about this.

~~~
nitrogen
_...Stat_ ue _of Limitations..._

Was that a deliberate omission of the "t" to reference another eggcorn, or an
example of Muphry's Law?

~~~
uptown
Muphry's huh?

~~~
nitrogen
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law)

~~~
uptown
Never knew. Thanks.

------
glitch
For those looking for expansion:

• (qty. 2) x8 + (qty. 1) x4 PCIe 2.0 w/ Optional built in drivebay for up to
four (4) 2.5" SSD or SAS/SATA drives:
[http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t](http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t)

•
[http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Merc...](http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Mercury_Helios/)
(See also
[http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/](http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/)
for other devices.)

•
[http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html](http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html)

~~~
Mankhool
The fan in the Sonnettech is very noisy. I don't want that enclosure in my
edit suites.

------
Arjuna
Another Mac Pro configuration [1]:

Available in December at $3,999

6-Core and Dual GPU

3.5GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 processor

16GB 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory

Dual AMD FirePro D500 with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM each

256GB PCIe-based flash storage

[1] [http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-pro](http://store.apple.com/us/buy-
mac/mac-pro)

~~~
wmf
The 12-core configuration is conspicuously absent. $10,000?

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
I doubt we'll see one. Not only that but the suspect geekbench scores for the
new Mac Pro are timid.

Apple is hurting the Pro line. If they just gave it a normal form factor and
the best current hardware, I think it would be a better people pleaser.

This is a mac-mini on steroids and I'm disappointed.

~~~
wmf
Apple announced 12 cores at WWDC, so I'm assuming it will ship but they just
don't want to tell us the price.

------
l33tbro
Enjoy the specs while they're hot, as I doubt they'll update for another 3 or
4 years.

------
Anm
Capable of driving three 4k video signals. Amazing. Why can't the new Mac Book
Pro drive just one?

~~~
rsync
Since a triple monitor configuration is a de facto standard for pro users, pro
configurations, etc., I would disagree with your characterization of "three
4k" as being "amazing".

I would characterize it as the absolute bare minimum to even be in this space.

I have 5 monitors attached to my 2009 pro (3x 2560x1600 main displays, a
1920x1200 offset on the wall, and a 1920x1080 "tv" cabled out to another room)
and I've considered adding a sixth.

It's hard to say how many <4k displays you can add to the ports on the back
_in addition to_ the three primary 4k displays, but it had better be more than
"zero".

~~~
bodhi
Are you disputing "amazing"-ness of 3 displays, or number of horizontal lines
of resolution? Because I calculate your collection of displays at 7.08k, and 3
* 4k ~ 12k, or a 70% increase over your current count.

;)

~~~
rsync
Sure, but I set it up 4.5 years ago. And I didn't think it was amazing then, I
thought it was just "normal".

And three (insert current high end display circa this year) monitors attached
to this new mac pro will also not be amazing.

What will be amazing is if you can't add a 4th, 5th and 6th - of any
resolution.

------
apendleton
FYI for others looking for more specifics, there's now a specs page up
(separate from the store):

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

And there is, indeed, a 12-core configuration option listed.

------
ScottWhigham
As the owner of a recording studio (VO, music work), I'd say that it
disappoints me that I'm expected to pay $3000 for a top of the line video
editing machine. I wish they'd found a way to make a $2000 or $2500
musician/studio version that didn't have three 4k displays + two GPUs...

~~~
seanmcdirmid
As the owner of a recording studio, you know that you'll be paying at least
$3k, if not much more, for software to actually go on this thing. Most AV
professionals I know spend much more on software than hardware.

~~~
ScottWhigham
Not really - I use hardware EQs, comps, etc. The only software costs are
Reaper and a reverb (which I hope to replace with a Bricasti next year). I
ended up dumping Pro Tools over about a two year period and switching back to
all hardware. So it's a disappointment to me to see this pricing. It's as
though they've said, "Musicians - they can just buy a regular Mac. The Mac Pro
is for graphics and video people who need all this extra hardware."

~~~
bashinator
If all the heavy lifting in your studio is being done in hardware, why do you
need a high-end workstation?

~~~
ScottWhigham
You really don't nowadays - the key things to battle are latency though, and
that's often a metric of "How fast is your processing? How fast are your
disks? How long are your cords?" The faster Xeons and the faster bus speeds
will make big strides in that regard (thus keep your mic cable runs short and
you'll be okay). However, the Mac Pro has been a studio staple since it's
inception. I suppose we studio folks are surprised that we've basically been
regarded as "not significant" by Apple. Unlike previous Mac Pros, this is not
a machine built with "music studios" or musicians in mind. We aren't even
considered. You'd be nuts to pay $3000 for a "base model" for a recording
studio. You still have another $1000-$2000 that you'd need to spend for disk
space, monitor, mouse, and keyboard. It's crazy.

------
pdknsk
[http://tubelor.neocities.org/](http://tubelor.neocities.org/)

------
thinkpad20
As sweet as this design looks, I can only imagine what the same amount of cash
could buy you for a DIY Linux box. Of course, the available software is not
the same...

That said I'm a big fan of Macs; I own several. Great computers and the OS is
stunning... so who knows.

~~~
dan1234
I'd say the PCIe SSD, quad-core Xeon, dual FirePro graphics & 12GB ECC RAM are
going to add up.

Of course, not everyone needs all of those things.

------
smcl
Random selection of USD prices for the base model from different Apple online
stores, for the curious:

$4,053 in UK

$4,010 in Czech Republic

$3,880 in Australia

$4,257 in New Zealand

$4,300 in Sweden

So to US-based guys intending to buy one: hope you spend your ~$1k on
something nice :)

~~~
wmf
Including VAT?

~~~
coob
Yes those prices are including VAT.

So, $4053 - 20% ~= $3377, still an extra $378 because 'fuck you' :)

~~~
Wingman4l7
AU's GST is 10% so it's a $493 'fuck you' Down Under.

------
mtct
More I look at it and less I like it.

The design is weird and certainly not elegant.

Try to imagine it with 5 cables that come out from the "back" (a cylinder
don't have a real back).

~~~
nwh
It's about the same size as their G4 Cube really. It had cables coming out of
it's bottom and it's back, and that never detracted from an incredibly amazing
piece of hardware. The internals are fairly similar too, oddly enough.

------
Steko
7 terraflops in 11 pounds; looks like it would fit many carry ons or a decent
sized backpack. Good luck explaining what it is to TSA though.

------
beedogs
That's awfully expensive for something with zero internal expandability that
looks like a tiny wastebasket.

------
hglaser
So what's the future of the MacBook Air at this point?

Does the Retina MacBook Pro just keep getting thinner until the Air is
obsolete? Is there some fundamental technical reason they can't keep iterating
the Air thinner and put a Retina display on it? Or a business reason why
that's not a priority?

~~~
snowwrestler
The current MacBook Pro is probably the thinnest and lightest laptop possible
with a Retina display. They've already taken out the spinning HD, optical
drive, ethernet port, and removable battery, which are what they took out to
make the original Air so thin and light.

If they want to make a Retina Air as thin and light as it is now, they need
some sort of breakthrough. One option that has been mentioned is to power the
Air with ARM instead of Intel--like an iPad. But that would that probably
would require a heavy software translation layer to run OS X apps like Office
or Photoshop.

------
ChikkaChiChi
The Mac Pro would be awesome...if it were the Thunderbolt dock to a meat and
potatoes box I could store out of the way and expand whenever I saw fit.

If you want to innovate, give me a way to separate the things I need to use my
computer FROM my computer.

------
smegel
How much Mac software can take advantage of 2 gpus for processing, rather than
8 or more cores? I have a dual socket Mac at work with 12 cores total, not
sure this would feel like an upgrade.

~~~
grecy
They mentioned all the Apple pro apps are getting updates to take advantage of
the Mac Pro.

------
KVFinn
Disappointed in the GPU configuration. I would much prefer a single fast GPU
like a D700 (same hardware as 7970, R9 280X) over two slower GPUs like the
D300 (R9 270x) in the lower configurations.

And even the high end options -- the D700 is the pro version of a GPU
currently retailing for only 300 dollars. Nvidia has the Geforce 780 and AMD
has the R290x at twice that cost. Reportedly the GPUs are downclocked as well.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Isn't the point of the FirePro line that they come with ECC? I can sorta
understand higher prices and lower performance from such things.

~~~
KVFinn
>Isn't the point of the FirePro line that they come with ECC?

I'm pretty sure they use regular ram, but even if were the case, I'd still
prefer a single high end one.

------
nsxwolf
Anyone know: Is the 4-core version faster than the 6-core version for single
threaded operations?

~~~
wmf
No.

[http://ark.intel.com/products/75779/Intel-Xeon-
Processor-E5-...](http://ark.intel.com/products/75779/Intel-Xeon-
Processor-E5-1620-v2-10M-Cache-3_70-GHz) max turbo 3.9 GHz

[http://ark.intel.com/products/75780/Intel-Xeon-
Processor-E5-...](http://ark.intel.com/products/75780/Intel-Xeon-
Processor-E5-1650-v2-12M-Cache-3_50-GHz) max turbo 3.9 GHz

~~~
nsxwolf
So, what does that mean exactly? When are they not running in turbo? The 4
core is clocked higher in non-turbo, that makes no difference?

~~~
wtallis
Turbo modes are opportunistic based on temperature and short-term power draw,
so you can't be 100% definite about the speed the processor will run at. But
generally speaking, when that 6-core processor is only running 4 threads, it
will turbo up to the same speed that the 4-core operates at fully loaded, and
they'll both hit the same peak for a single-threaded workload.

------
checker659
Hmm.. I wonder if it's going to be the end of December or the beginning.

~~~
bdevine
Honest question: does it really matter? If you're obliquely referencing the
holiday season, I have to think that the number of people for whom giving this
as a gift is a viable option is basically a rounding error in Apple's customer
base. I could be wrong, though.

~~~
rubberbandage
“Before the end of the year” is important in this case not for holiday sales,
but for 2013 tax reasons. I doubt even seriously rich people would be buying
this as a gift ;-)

------
otikik
My MBA is doing everything I need it too, for a fraction of that cost. So I'll
totally skip this one.

~~~
theseoafs
You are quite obviously not in the target audience of this machine if all your
computing needs are being satisfied by an MBA.

