Apple

[Macheath]

Jesus Christ.

I know we have some Appleheads around here, so I went looking for the "Apple Thread" to post this in, and... didn't find one. No, we have a thread for the iPhone, the iPad, the Macbook Air, Apple TV, and even freaking Mailbox.app, but not for Apple.

And so it falls to me to prevent the forums from being graced with a specific "Mac Pro" thread -- Lord forgive me -- by finally creating a generic thread for all things Jobsian (and, in this case, post-Jobsian). Me, creating an Apple thread. Do you see now what you've done?

Anyway, this new Mac Pro actually looks terrific. Like a jet turbine -- I assume that whole top part is one giant heat sink and fan/vent. Impossible to get in with elbow room and add anything to it, but I'm used to that from Apple products.

This dude unboxes his unit (underwhelming; why are people obsessed with these fetishistic unboxing videos?) and reveals that his is a custom model with... I could scarcely believe my ears... 64 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. Whatinthefuck. So I went to Apple's site, and first of all, the base models of this beast go for $2999 and $3999. More than I necessarily want to pay, but not as outrageous as I was half expecting. But then, they don't have half the specs of this "custom model."

His version of the Mac Pro? $8099.

[Equoria]

for once I don't feel this apple product is crazy overpriced. The specs on these are HUGE.


I am still not going to buy one as I have no need to edit uncompressed 3D 4K video.

[nynnja]

And so it falls to me to prevent the forums from being graced with a specific "Mac Pro" thread -- Lord forgive me -- by finally creating a generic thread for all things Jobsian (and, in this case, post-Jobsian). Me, creating an Apple thread. Do you see now what you've done?

Thank you!

Impossible to get in with elbow room and add anything to it, but I'm used to that from Apple products.

Actually it's supposed to be very friendly to repairs and upgrades.

[liuv]

Actually it's supposed to be very friendly to repairs and upgrades.

So long as you have components built in that proprietary form factor...

I get that they're big steps for Apple-philes, but "Accessible RAM" and "socketed CPU" should not be positives for computer repair/upgradability.

[Macheath]

for once I don't feel this apple product is crazy overpriced. The specs on these are HUGE.

I was going to reflexively argue this point, but at least according to this guy, it appears you're right. Based on specs alone, the Mac Pro's hardware is fairly reasonably priced. Now, that's not to say you couldn't build a comparable "Monstrous" PC for less than $3999, but I'll trust Mr. Fung at "Futurelooks" for now, because I don't really have time to look into it myself.

What else do you get with your Mac Pro aside from hardware? All the normal Apple niceties: it's preassembled, it looks sleek, it has a warranty and presumably excellent support, and you can legally shoot all the beturtlenecked hipsters who break into your house to gaze upon it. You also get all the normal Apple cons, of course: you're pretty well stuck with this configuration until the day you upgrade the entire beast (aside from possibly RAM and CPU), some of the applications which make the most use of specs like these (i.e. games) won't be available on a Mac, and if you leave it on the floor your dog will mistake it for a very tall water bowl. Or possibly a sleek new fire hydrant.

All in all, if I need a new PC at some point in the next year or two, and I've gotten used to OSX (I'm moving to a Macbook Pro at work as an experiment), and I'm comfortable with the gaming options on a Mac... I might consider the Mac Pro -- but probably not, since I don't need a megaputer and I can almost always build a PC that's more than sufficient for my gaming and video editing needs for under $1000-1500.

[Macheath]

Now, that's not to say you couldn't build a comparable "Monstrous" PC for less than $3999,

Incidentally, my (personally) most-trusted resource for PC building, the Ars Technica System Guides, had a new edition in November 2013. Their "Hot Rod" weighed in at $1443, and their totally absurd "God Box" crushed $16k (and both of those include monitor + all peripherals). Sooooo there's your available spectrum as a PC buyer.

[zlordsahan]

Macs run Windows software too, including games.

[Macheath]

I was going to reflexively argue this point, but at least according to this guy, it appears you're right. Based on specs alone, the Mac Pro's hardware is fairly reasonably priced. Now, that's not to say you couldn't build a comparable "Monstrous" PC for less than $3999, but I'll trust Mr. Fung at "Futurelooks" for now, because I don't really have time to look into it myself.

Glancing over what this Fung fellow did... I have to question his methods.

We’ve researched and taken our best parts that match the Apple Mac Pro’s entry level configuration, spec for spec, and have come up with our final totals. After tabulating everything, from the enclosure, to the operating system (add another $99.99 US for Windows 8 Pro), we have managed to achieve a total of $3994.65 US using today’s prices at retailers that actually stock the hardware. Although it isn’t quite as horrible as the defeat we were handed when trying to spec for spec build out the top end Apple Mac Pro DIY style, as a percentage, we did much worse on the low end, giving up over a grand to the entry level Mac Pro at $2999.99 US. However, we did accomplish the second order of business which was to build it better.

You "matched the Mac Pro spec for spec" by putting in considerably more powerful graphics cards, a better CPU, an extra 4 GB of RAM -- deviating from the Mac and marginalizing your entire premise -- then lumped in a phenomenally expensive and cutting edge PCIe SSD (rather than using SATA3) because that's how the Mac does it -- and "oh my gosh it turns out it's expensive!" Idiot.

[Macheath]

Macs run Windows software too, including games.

Steam only lists around 1100 titles that work on OSX. Unless you mean running Windows in a VM, then games inside that? I've always wondered what kind of performance hit that imparts.

[nynnja]

If you just really like the trash can, you can always build a computer in a trash can.