The new Mac Pro

[Guy Rowland]

The argument seems a little bizarre to me that there is wild excitement over something that costs the same as a car, won’t run very well but may have a drop in replacement at an undetermined point in the future based on pure guesswork that will also cost an undermined huge extra price, but iin the meantime it should just work out of the box and better than a Windows rig did 10 years ago?

I’m platform agnostic these days - Mac for mobile, Windows for main rig - and believe me there are times when I’ve wanted to throw windows machines over a cliff, but surely a little common sense applies here. The Mac Pro makes surprisingly little sense for audio work.

[Lawrence]

I agree with Anders about ease of operation, although I can’t speak knowledgeably about PCs because I’ve never run Windows. Still , I love my ancient cheese grater..what a faithful friend it has been for 11years!

I agree with Guy’s point as well-what’s the point in buying something super-expensive that’s not ideal for audio, and why buy anything on the basis that it “might” be improved in future updates?

[lofi]

Changing the whole motherboard is not exactly a drop-in replacement because a drop-in replacement means you wouldn't have to reinstall your OS and all programs. Mobo swap would require that to be done, due to the way OS is tied to the UEFI etc. As far as I understand things.

I know, but the strange thing is when I switched the tray IE the inside of my 3.1 MacPro and got a 5.1 all my programs ran as usual.
Have to say that most is locked to some sort of a dongle.
But, nothing had to be reinstalled.
It just worked (!)

Best,
Anders

But I'm with mr Dragon, Guy and Larry. Why pay for something really expensive only to have it replaced with (I'm guessing) even more expensive..?

[Guy Rowland]

Interesting article here about how many in the vis fx industry are also not thrilled with the Mac Pro, primarily because it doesn’t support Nvidia cards which are generally felt to be superior - https://apple.news/AcQJXzNmZSjmYFA6XJIQkmw

Little that Apple does these days is a failure and I don’t think this will be either, but I doubt it will be a runaway hit.

[kpc]

Fun, quick read on historic prices of the Mac. 512 Pixels

[FriFlo]

Fun, quick read on historic prices of the Mac. 512 Pixels

Maybe fun, but wrong. Historically speaking, there is no way around it that the power of a CPU and the amount of storage you get for the same amount of money has steadily increased over time. The upcoming base Mac Pro with its 8-core processor, 32gb ram and a 256gb ssd is not more then the natural evolution of hardware that has gotten better and cheaper over that time, if you would compare it to e.g. a 2012 base Mac Pro (4-Core-Xeon 64 Bit, 3,2 GHz). That 2012 model cost 2600€ at the time. The only way to justify the upcoming model to cost 6000 is justifying the design of the case and the other non-standard mainboard features to be worth over 3000 bucks.
Bringing inflation into the calculation is just another way of self-deception. Just compare what kind of gaming PC you got in 2012 for $2000 and what you get today for the same amount - dollar for dollar, without accounting for inflation! You will easily see, that there is an incredible growth of power - probably more growth than that from the 2012 Mac Pro to the 2019 Mac Pro ...
To make it perfectly clear: I am a Mac user, not a PC guy trying to bash Apple. I am willing to pay extra for good design, if it is not only for the looks, but also functional. But I find it irritating how people deceive themselves by obviously flawed comparisons.
Yes, you have always payed extra for Apple! But the amount of extra has never been as high as with the announced base model.
And my favourite excuse, when all other logic has failed: ... "this Mac Pro is not for you! It is a design accessory for company managers who care for the best design and money is of no concern."
This is what people literally write and then tell you something intelligent like "haters will hate". Has humanity (for the most part) really been robbed of the ability of critical thinking?

[EvilDragon]

Has humanity (for the most part) really been robbed of the ability of critical thinking?

Absolutely.

[FriFlo]

Has humanity (for the most part) really been robbed of the ability of critical thinking?

Absolutely.

I agree ...

This is my next "Mac Pro" (except, I will go for a i9 9900k and a different graphic card):
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/succ ... 80.267551/
It will cost around 5000€, but will include 64-128gb or Ram, something like 10tb of SSD space internally (the m.2 for the OS will smoke the Mac Pro card). The processor will also be an 8-core (only!), but it will be much better suited for audio workstations.
Sure! I cannot have 1,5Tb of RAM on that system! But as great as that sounds, what is it worth with the ability of disabling template tracks? We will wait and see, but I do not believe the power of one 2018 mac pro (even with up to 28 cores) will beat the Kontakt track count of two PCs! And I can buy multiple PCs like that for a fraction of a stronger mac pro.

[Guy Rowland]

Those who think they might be in the market for this, good article at Pro Tools Expert that drills down into the pricing and configuration details. It's not exactly the same for VI use rather than standard music or post, but a lot of overlap.

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-p ... now-so-far