UPDATED APRIL 13, 2014 to correct information on Mac OS X and Expansion Chassis.
When I first saw the new Mac Pro announced it reminded me of one thing. The Cube.
The Cube was a “revolutionary machine,” putting a lot of power into a small, and very quiet space on your desktop. It was a flop however because it just wasn’t very practical. It was overpriced for what you got and it wasn’t very user upgradeable friendly. Apple appeared to put design ahead of practicality.
Now after just returning from the NAB Show 2014 and having the opportunity to not only see the new Mac Pro, but also play with them, my feeling is Apple has done it again. Created something for design first, practicality second. Consider who the Mac Pro is really designed for. It has it in its name. “Pro.” The casual desktop user is not going to buy this machine, they would purchase the extremely capable and quite powerful iMac. If that’s too much, there’s the very capable Mini and of course the awesome MacBook Pro and Air laptops.
The Mac Pro simply exists for the “Pro” users out there who need the most power they can get from a desktop computer. Generally Pros also want to get the most life they can get out of any purchase. With traditional desktop computers, including the previous generation Mac Pro, this was pretty easy by simply upgrading internal components. With today’s applications, that generally means adding RAM, adding a more powerful graphics card and adding the latest SSD drives to keep older machines useful and current. I still have 2009 and 2010 Mac Pros operating everyday in our shop humming right along with the latest Adobe Premiere Pro CC because we’ve updated the graphics cards. Taking some advice from folks at NAB, I’m going to add an SSD to all of them as well to get even more life out of them.
When I purchased a desktop in the past, I always went all out with the fastest processors available and either the max or close to max RAM for the time. Including the Video Cards (AJA or Blackmagic) my Mac Pros usually came in between $8500 to $10,000. Today, the maxed out Mac Pro by itself tops out over $10,000 US.
Granted, this is a much more powerful machine with more RAM and Graphics cards than any Mac Pro I’ve ever purchased. So what’s the problem? It’s the most powerful Mac Pro I could purchase today. The new Mac Pro is simply not designed for easy, off the shelf, upgrade parts. So what you purchase TODAY is pretty much what you’re going to get.
Looking at the size of the machine, it seems like it would have been so easy to simply make this thing a bit of a rectangle with standard PCI cards sitting vertically. Remove the outer sleeve, unscrew the PCI cards and replace them. Pop out the RAM and replace it. It would have required a square / rectangle appearance from the outside, but it could have made all the difference in the world in the practical longevity of the machine. There are already more powerful graphics cards on the market than the AMDs that are in the machine. AMD and nVidia are both moving forward with updated designs and while it might be possible to replace the graphics cards in the future, (jury is still out on that one) based on what we see inside the Mac Pro, these cards would have to be custom designed to fit the tight space requirements. Custom design + small quantity = overpriced graphics cards to cover the manufacturing costs plus a little profit. Standard, off the shelf PCI cards that fit in standard off the shelf PCI slots should be a bit cheaper.
And speaking of PCI slots, they’re still faster than Thunderbolt ports. Direct connecting a card to the computer is simply faster. Thunderbolt certainly gives a lot more options since you can use the same product on your desktop and laptop for example. But Thunderbolt is now available on the PC and of course the rest of the Apple line-up so that amazing Thunderbolt RAID will run just as well on a myriad of machines. You might not have 6 T-Bolt ports like the new Mac Pro but do you need them?
Raising the machine up off the desktop by 4-6″ would have allowed all the cabling to come out underneath the machine rather than the 15 ports that stick out the back. (yes 15, you can count them below) From a cleanliness standpoint, you could have one nice clean cable bundle coming out from under the machine vs. the various plugs that all hang off the back of the cylinder (reality in the right photo), cleverly hidden or non existent in all the slick marketing photos. (left photo.) Let’s face it, when you see the machine in person with even only a few cables coming out the back, it’s gets ugly and defeats the entire “slick design” purpose.
At $10,000 this seems like an awful lot of money for a machine that will be current for 12 months at most. If I knew for certain I was replacing my desktop computer every 12-24 months, then I would have no problem purchasing this machine today. It will definitely serve anyone’s needs for 12 – 24 months. After that, it will become long in the tooth and if the internal GPUs are upgradeable, well then you’ll get some more life out of the machine, albeit at a premium price. If they are not, well you’ll be looking at a new machine purchase or a Thunderbolt PCI Expansion Chassis.
All in all, my personal opinion is the Mac Pro is an overpriced desktop and sacrifices user practicality for the sake of a design statement. We already have one Dell Windows workstation in our office and the performance is so good, if I want to move forward with powerful desktops in our shop, it’ll be one of those machines. Since they’re so easy to upgrade, I don’t even have to start with the “most powerful machine.” I can start out with a LOT of RAM, SSD drive and a good graphics card. See how it performs and then decide if we have to have more graphics card. If we do, it’s as easy as sliding one into an available PCI slot.
If I was purchasing a brand new Mac today for editing, I would go with the 27″ iMac fully loaded.
Wait a minute, wait a minute…. the iMac is not easily user upgradeable either. No it isn’t, but it’s also $3155 US. Less than 1/3 the price of the Mac Pro. And it’s a very capable editing system, even with Adobe Premiere Pro CC. We have two 18 month old iMacs that are cutting on that tool every single day without any issues at all. (Original Article: If you need to add more power to the iMac, well you can look at an Expansion Chassis to add more Graphics cards and you’ll still be well below the $10,000+ price tag of the Mac Pro.** And that Expansion Chassis could be used on future iMacs or desktops as you need it.) UPDATE: Mac OS X does not allow for graphics cards to be used via Thunderbolt. In other words, the purchase of the iMac is more practical today from a business standpoint than the purchase of the Mac Pro. Your return on investment will come back more quickly and at $3000 you really could replace this machine every two years or even every year.
Truth be told, I’m waiting on a Mac Mini update. Yeah, you read that right, a Mac Mini. The Mini is essentially the iMac but without the monitor and without the nicer graphics card. It’s also $1500 US.
If Apple updates this to run 32GB of RAM I’m going to purchase one immediately and start testing out Premiere Pro on it. From an editing standpoint, even my MacBook Air can edit all day long on PPro so this machine should be able to handle it as well. I’ll definitely post on my testing if this happens.
So that’s pretty much my take on the new Mac Pro. Powerful machine to be sure. Fastest Mac Pro ever developed to be sure. Just not as practical as the previous generation or the many other desktop choices available to today’s creative artist.
Methinks you doth protest too much. Go ahead and buy one, you know you want it!
Um, no, I won’t spend my money on this design. I originally thought I might pick one up for the field crews because it will travel so well, but then one of my VARs told me about a killer HP Laptop that runs rings around this machine for what I want it to do. So we’ll send that machine in the field and wait to see what Apple does with the Mini. Probably an HP Z model to be our “Main Render” workstation in the office and maybe even move Resolve over from Mac to Windows.
And the reason for this blog post was the wealth of people at NAB who kept asking me if I had one or what I thought of the Mac Pro. So no, “I know I don’t want it” and I believe I’ve explained myself very well. If you decide to purchase one, enjoy it!
Hi Walter. I think a lot of your arguments are valid but I don’t think the price is out of line as far as high end workstations go. A similarly configured Boxx workstation comes in around $11800 before tax. With either system, you pay a premium for the 12-core processor and ram.
Don’t disagree that there are issues with design and upgradability, although it seems to me that it isn’t very difficult to upgrade CPU and ram and I’m guessing the video cards and internal drive won’t be a big deal either. If I recall, replacing the CPU on an old MacPro was a major PITA. OWC has already shown that the new one is a piece of cake.
It comes down to whether or not you can live with components that were formerly on PCIe being replaced by external (and arguably slower) Thunderbolt devices. Understandably, that’s a deal breaker for a lot of users.
Price is good for what it is. I’m leaning towards HP and Dell honestly and my point is that you don’t have to necessarily fill out the machine with the “top of the line” features right off the bat with a PC or other workstation. The Mac Pro is much less user friendly in my opinion.
I was actually rather surprised Apple continued to make the Pro. I figured they’d go all consumer. For anyone who wants a Mac Pro, this is a very good machine for right now.
Dell and HP are great choices. No complaints about the Z820 I use at work. But nothing is stopping you from buying a nMP with minimum specs and upgrading later. OWC already has a CPU upgrade program and offers much cheaper RAM upgrades. No options for the GPU and internal drive yet but I am very confident that they will arrive eventually. What GPU options did the old Mac Pros have when they were initially released? Usually took anywhere from 6mos to a year to see any viable options. Who knows, this time next year there might very well be a D900 with 12GB ram that you can easily throw in yourself. Overall, there are definitely less options on a Mac than you would get on a similarly priced PC, but hasn’t that always been the case?
Great article, Walter. I am in the market for a new Mac workstation (I currently use a 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina), and find any input helpful.
You talk mostly of using Premiere Pro (which I use daily) as a base to make your decisions on which Mac to purchase.What are your thoughts about using After Effects (which I also use daily)? Does using After Effects change your decision on which Mac you would purchase?
Cheers!
Why must it be a Mac? If you’re not dead set on using FCPX then a Windows box could also do ask that you need, possibly a lot cheaper depending on how you approach it.
Not saying you should necessarily, But surely it’s worth considering at least?
Dylan,
Yes, I’ve considered it. But in the end, it’s simply a preference thing for me. I have always preferred the Mac OS interface over Windows.
Great read Walter. I have to agree with you on the new Mac Pro. Very expensive in deed. We are looking at getting two for the local broadcast station I work at. I know in year or two I’ill end up with a Thunderbolt expansion box with a new more powerfull graphics card in it.
I just updated the article. Juan Salvo reminded me that it’s impossible to run a graphics card in an Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis with Mac OS. It doesn’t allow this to happen. So unless the on-board graphics cards are upgradeable, you’ll be stuck with what you get.
Last year I replaced an aging Mac Pro with a fully-loaded 27″ iMac and also took the plunge and moved from FCP 7 to X. I’m very pleased on both counts.
Walter, I think you summed it up perfectly with your first reply. “for what I want it to do”, that’s the concern for any business investment. For myself as a DIT, my cart is my world. Everything I need to do my job has to be able to operate and exist on the cart. I purchased a new Mac Pro. It sits on the corner and doesn’t make a sound giving me render speeds faster than almost anything for it’s $6000 price tag. I’m looking forward to the rack-mount options to hit the market so I can move it to the bottom shelf. I took a good long look at the HP WorkStation Laptops you mentioned. They are just as pricy if not more for the same features. The one thing that stopped me from that was over half of my clients want to walk away at the end of the day with ProRes on their hard drive. And as far as I know, the HP can not deliver that. For what I need it to do, it is a good fit. Would I fill an studio of editing suites with them, probably not.
I didn’t see them but I heard the rack mounts were pretty good out at NAB this year. Thanks for sharing your setup. That was the point of my original post, you need to purchase what’s best for your own personal and professional needs. For us, it doesn’t make sense to upgrade to the Mac Pro. In your case, and quite honestly for a lot of field work, the machine makes perfect sense.
Hi Walter-
Some valid points you make. I just wanted to share with you and your readers that I’ve taken delivery of the 8-core MacPro with dual D700s and 16 gigs of RAM. I bought 64 gigs of RAM from OWC for a big savings. So, I’ve got a very kick-ass machine in FCPX and Resolve and the Adobe apps (my mainstays as a one-man shop) for less than $7000 — because what does the 12-core machine give you at reduced clock speeds? I believe the 8-core is the most bang for the buck with the dual D700s and BareFeats testing would seem to back that up.
In my simple setup I’ve got two Dell Ultrasharp PremierColor monitors hooked up (no 4k here yet) and my Marshall monitor via HDMI. Thunderbolt RAID and drives and a USB 3 drive dock along with a FireWire 800<Thunderbolt adapter for my BluRay burner and I'm good to go. It also fits into my ThinkTank camera backpack with plenty of room to spare, which means the training session I did the other night was super easy to conduct and bringing it on set isn't a hassle (except for the displays).
It was painful to drop that much money on the machine, but the power and flexibility fit my needs perfectly. And it is so so quiet! Love seeing all 16 cores cranking away when rendering/exporting so quickly. At this point, after a month of daily production use, I highly recommend it.
-jw
Thanks for sharing your first hand experience Jeremy!