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Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
Ugh, no. This isn't, and shouldn't be considered consumer grade. Freelancers and companies that rely on massive compute and processing power are the target demo.

I work at a production company, we've got a render/sim farm... & cloud rendering. We're also setting up a GPU farm. I also freelance... I'm just not seeing the person, or company, that wants to spend money on something that isn't the most performance they could get for 50k+. Like, who is this person?

It looks cool, and its a mac. People buy into that, but its hard sell this as a wondermachine at those specs.
 

Deleted member 16365

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,127
I work at a production company, we've got a render/sim farm... & cloud rendering. We're also setting up a GPU farm. I also freelance... I'm just not seeing the person, or company, that wants to spend money on something that isn't the most performance they could get for 50k+. Like, who is this person?

It looks cool, and its a mac. People buy into that, but its hard sell this as a wondermachine at those specs.

Don't get me wrong. It think it's expensive, underpowered, and honestly a bit fugly. I just don't agree with the people in this thread who say it won't sell. I wouldn't expect to see Weta buying a thousand of them, but if you're a one or two many shop that get freelance farm work to roto or composite specific scenes to meet a deadline, this might be worth it for you. Depending on how much you make, of course. But that's what I meant when I say it'd pay for itself if you're able to take more jobs and not use up your only system to render.
 

sprsk

Resettlement Advisor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,450
Can't believe we have people getting so huffy about a silly little Crysis joke in a thread title. It's just a computer brand, nobody's attacking your way of life, chill out.

I'm mostly offended by the fact that someone made a Crysis joke in 2019. What's next, hamster dance?
 

HStallion

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
62,262
How do they even ship a PC like this? I would expect a full on wooden crate for that kind of money. The kind I need my pry bar to open just for the experience.
 

Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
Don't get me wrong. It think it's expensive, underpowered, and honestly a bit fugly. I just don't agree with the people in this thread who say it won't sell. I wouldn't expect to see Weta buying a thousand of them, but if you're a one or two many shop that get freelance farm work to roto or composite specific scenes to meet a deadline, this might be worth it for you. Depending on how much you make, of course. But that's what I meant when I say it'd pay for itself if you're able to take more jobs and not use up your only system to render.

Oh we can bet our sweet asses its going to sell. Its Apple.
 

captmcblack

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,060
Did we already price/spec out a comparable Threadripper machine for this?

Could that even exist? Legitimately I'm curious if you could build a broke boi version of this machine, lol
 

Shadownet

Member
Oct 29, 2017
3,277
I could pay off my car loan, buy my girlfriend a $24k new car and still have a substantial amount leftover for a down payment for a house with that $55k.

Apple, you're crazy.
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,750
Norman, OK
Did we already price/spec out a comparable Threadripper machine for this?

Could that even exist? Legitimately I'm curious if you could build a broke boi version of this machine, lol

Depends on what you're looking to do with the machine. For 3D/FX work, those dual Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's are going to be hard to replicate in a broke boi box. For straight CPU loading- Threadripper 3 is going to give you a lot more bang for buck than any Xeon solution.
 

Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
Depends on what you're looking to do with the machine. For 3D/FX work, those dual Radeon Pro Vega II Duo's are going to be hard to replicate in a broke boi box. For straight CPU loading- Threadripper 3 is going to give you a lot more bang for buck than any Xeon solution.

Can you Vray/Redshift/Octane(Renderman?) with Pro Vegas? Honest q. Was looking at amd cards when i built my box, but went with 1080ti ultimately.
Want to build a threadripper box, but currently, with a toddler... I've got oodles of time at home to wait for houdini to sim.
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,750
Norman, OK
Can you Vray/Redshift/Octane(Renderman?) with Pro Vegas? Honest q. Was looking at amd cards when i built my box, but went with 1080ti ultimately.
Want to build a threadripper box, but currently, with a toddler... I've got oodles of time at home to wait for houdini to sim.

I've got no hands-on experience with Vegas, at least not this decade. Can't imagine a scenario where you would be substantially better served for things like .h264 render acceleration or real-time playback of fx than with your 1080ti. CUDA core count doesn't seem to scale linearly for those types of tasks once you get up over 1,000 cores or so, IMO.

EDIT: Lol!!! I thought you were talking about "Vegas Pro" - the NLE video editing software. Thought it was weird that you were mentioning Vray and what not. I was thinking, "Shit, they been upgrading Vegas behind my back? Mofos doing Vray renders out of that now?"

Anyways- if you use Octane or Resdshift- your step up would be to look at Quadro cards, as the post below me points out, those are CUDA-only.
 
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Oct 29, 2017
13,479
The one problem with a threadripper 3 machine is that all the motherboards are EATX at most, which hold it back in terms of expansions and ports. It could outperforms the Mac Pro, you just don't get all the room for add ons

So the closest equivalent is probably a system using an Epyc CPU with a much larger mobo or using a Xeon with also a big mobo.
 
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Doc Holliday

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,809
You could build a better GPU 3D rendering solution for less. Most 3D rendering apps are moving toward gpu based rendering. You could get 4 2080s that could match this with octane/redshift.

Have video editing apps moved to GPU rendering yet?
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,750
Norman, OK
You could build a better GPU 3D rendering solution for less. Most 3D rendering apps are moving toward gpu based rendering. You could get 4 2080s that could match this with octane/redshift.

Have video editing apps moved to GPU rendering yet?

Yes and no. GPU's are more helpful with realtime playback of fx and the like. You do get GPU acceleration on web renders out of NLE's, but usually with a slight quality hit. So, you definitely still want a beefy CPU for your standard NLE + After Effects type rig, fo' sho'
 

Doc Holliday

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,809
Yes and no. GPU's are more helpful with realtime playback of fx and the like. You do get GPU acceleration on web renders out of NLE's, but usually with a slight quality hit. So, you definitely still want a beefy CPU for your standard NLE + After Effects type rig, fo' sho'

Got it. Makes sense. I'm still surprised Apple hasn't moved towards nvidia, or at least give the option to swap GPU.
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,750
Norman, OK
Got it. Makes sense. I'm still surprised Apple hasn't moved towards nvidia, or at least give the option to swap GPU.

Just corporate nonsense. The original Mac Pro towers of a decade ago had Nvidia options. AMD's done a great job of keeping themselves tied into these deals with Apple, Sony, MS and the like while times were kind of hard for them in the consumer desktop PC arena.
 
Oct 29, 2017
13,479
Got it. Makes sense. I'm still surprised Apple hasn't moved towards nvidia, or at least give the option to swap GPU.
They were at least supporting it until last year. Nvidia and Apple are in some sort of petty disagreement. You wont even be able to use a nvidia eGPU in the future, unless nvidia starts to release drivers for mac again and apple accepts to support them.
 
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Oct 25, 2017
3,722
Why not buy the base configuration and then source the upgrade parts at half the price and end up with a better machine at half the cost?

The apple tax on the parts is so stupid.
 

Deleted member 18944

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
6,944
I've been reading tons of comments here and elsewhere and man, y'all would be pure shocked at how much some Dell configurations cost at the enterprise level, which is what this machine is geared towards.
 
Feb 1, 2018
5,083
For shits and giggles, I just priced out a $52K single-CPU workstation at Puget Systems from their top of the line HPC range-

Here are the specs:
CPU: Xeon 18-core (worse than $52k mac pro- 28C)
RAM: 512GB ECC (worse than $52k mac pro- 1.5TB)
GPU: 4x Quadro GV100 32GB (better than $52k mac pro- 2x Vega Duo 2x32GB)
IO: 0x Thunderbolt 3 (worse than $52k mac pro), 1x 10GBe ($52k mac pro has 2x)
SSD: 2TB NVMe (worse than $52k mac pro- 4TB NVMe)
PS: 1600W (better than $52k mac pro- 1400W)
Accelerator: None ($52k mac pro has Afterburner)
OS: Windows 10 Pro (subjective, worse to me though because limited prores encoding, no preview/quicklook/handoff/continuity/airplay/airdrop/etc)
Case: loud, ugly black box with no wheels

So that's just 2 out of 9 categories that it out-specs, and it's less powerful/capable in all others.

Who still wants to tell me the computer is overpriced? I might do one from HP or Dell next.

EDIT: the mac pro is $48K if you get the EDU pricing that nobody verifies, widening the value gap even more lol
 
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reKon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,707
I've been reading tons of comments here and elsewhere and man, y'all would be pure shocked at how much some Dell configurations cost at the enterprise level, which is what this machine is geared towards.

For video editors and content creators is the iMac Pro supposed to be meant for them? That thing still starts at $5,000...
 

Deleted member 4783

Oct 25, 2017
4,531
The MacPro and Display are fairly priced... What's not is that stupid stand, but that's another topic altogether.
 

ChrisR

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,795
Would love to see a decent specced Pro head to head against a similar priced Threadripper 3 box sometime down the line.

Hopefully Apple is in talks with AMD for the next Pro, (doubt they'd put a Ryzen anywhere else, aren't their laptops going custom chips soonish?)
 

Deleted member 18944

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
6,944
For video editors and content creators is the iMac Pro supposed to be meant for them? That thing still starts at $5,000...

Completely depends on your workflow. If you are well within the apple ecosystem and utilize final cut pro for your business and other creative apps to render and compile, you would use this machine to greatly reduce time spent waiting for it finish.

And lets not forget that tons of industries and individuals utilize mac os and mac exclusive applications (or applications that just run better on Mac) for their businesses.

tons of people keep saying its underpowered, the clock speed is awful, you can price out a PC that does more, but let me tell you, just cause your PC has top of the line specs, especially in an enterprise environment, doesn't mean windows is going to play nice and not shit the bed, which it often does, hence why I'm even employed.

This machine is not made for a consumer. This machine is not made to replace your companies personal infrastructure that has been most likely highly customized and specifically designed and optimize for the business. This machine is made for very specific people who know what they need and probably recognize that this is a lot cheaper and convenient and TIME SAVING to buy as opposed to paying Dell 80k for a rack that does less and requires an excessive amount of knowledge to troubleshoot.
 
Oct 29, 2017
13,479
For shits and giggles, I just priced out a $52K single-CPU workstation at Puget Systems from their top of the line HPC range-

Here are the specs:
CPU: Xeon 18-core (worse than $52k mac pro)
RAM: 512GB ECC (worse than $52k mac pro)
GPU: 4x Quadro GV100 32GB (better than $52k mac pro)
IO: 0x Thunderbolt 3 (worse than $52k mac pro), 1x 10GBe ($52k mac pro has 2x)
SSD: 2TB NVMe (worse than $52k mac pro)
PS: 1600W (better than $52k mac pro)
Accellerator: None ($52k mac pro has Afterburner)

OS: Windows 10 Pro (subjective, worse to me though because limited prores encoding, no preview/quicklook/handoff/continuity/airplay/airdrop/etc)

So that's just 2 out of 8 categories that it out-specs, and it's less powerful/capable in all others.

Who still wants to tell me the computer is overpriced?

EDIT: the mac pro is $48K if you get the EDU pricing that nobody verifies
Intel has never been this unpopular in recent memory. You are going to have people who disagree as long as the machine comes with a Xeon cpu. Let's ignore people building machines themselves because that is always an unfair comparison. There's still a difference between disagreeing that Dell and HP will charge more than Apple for the same specs (and Puget Systems being a small company understandably changes more than everyone else for a no purpose machine that tries to cover all bases) and people who disagree on the platform choice in the first place, and would rather have an EPYC CPU in the same system for less.

edit: replace those Quadro GV100 with Quadro RTX 8000 tho (probably even just two and a nv link), more than half of your price are those 4 GPUs and the GV100 are not an all-purpose GPU just because they are the most expensive Quadro available.
 
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Feb 1, 2018
5,083
The MacPro and Display are fairly priced... What's not is that stupid stand, but that's another topic altogether.

Have you actually looked at the stand? It's counterbalanced and has zero play with a full range of motion (pan, tilt, rotate). The engineering is pretty impressive. I know you don't really care but still

You can also just get a VESA adapter and latch it onto your desk and save 800 bucks, that's probably what most people are doing
 

reKon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,707
Completely depends on your workflow. If you are well within the apple ecosystem and utilize final cut pro for your business and other creative apps to render and compile, you would use this machine to greatly reduce time spent waiting for it finish.

And lets not forget that tons of industries and individuals utilize mac os and mac exclusive applications (or applications that just run better on Mac) for their businesses.

tons of people keep saying its underpowered, the clock speed is awful, you can price out a PC that does more, but let me tell you, just cause your PC has top of the line specs, especially in an enterprise environment, doesn't mean windows is going to play nice and not shit the bed, which it often does, hence why I'm even employed.

This machine is not made for a consumer. This machine is not made to replace your companies personal infrastructure that has been most likely highly customized and specifically designed and optimize for the business. This machine is made for very specific people who know what they need and probably recognize that this is a lot cheaper and convenient and TIME SAVING to buy as opposed to paying Dell 80k for a rack that does less and requires an excessive amount of knowledge to troubleshoot.

I hear you, but I'm asking about the iMac Pro as opposed to the Mac Pro
 
Feb 1, 2018
5,083
For video editors and content creators is the iMac Pro supposed to be meant for them? That thing still starts at $5,000...

It's 4250 refurbished ;D. Micro center also has them for 4000 new from time to time.

iMac/iMac Pro: freelancers, home studios, indie guys, smaller studios and shops
Mac Pro: Big studio offices and trailers, large post houses, etc.
 

reKon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,707
Like I said, completely depends on your workflow and what your time means to you.

Yeah I figured that the answer would be the same. I only clarified because of your last paragraph. I don't really follow Apple's desktops closely, but it looks like a highly spec'd iMac would get a content creator what they may need without breaking $5K
 

Deleted member 18944

User requested account closure
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Oct 27, 2017
6,944
Yeah I figured that the answer would be the same. I only clarified because of your last paragraph. I don't really follow Apple's desktops closely, but it looks like a highly spec'd iMac would get a content creator what they may need without breaking $5K

As MKBHD displayed today, his Mac Pro cut render minutes down by more than half compared to the mac pro, and that was without the accelerator. At the end of the day, if I'm an enterprise and see this thing, you bet your ass im buying it for my needs.
 

barbarash22

Member
Oct 19, 2019
575
I am a freelance 3D designer and I don't know either who this is for.

While the specs are impressive you could built your own little render farm with this amount of money, which saves far more render time.

Or built your own computer much cheaper with more power via a dual xeon setup, for example.

Also ECC ram is not really necessary. I have had jobs, where some of my computers rendered for weeks without turning them off.
Crashes happened very rarely. Under ten times per computer in a year. And who knows if its even because of the normal ram.
 

Deleted member 1722

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
1,058
I wanna see what else that Afterburner card can do. It can be programmed to do basically anything eventually, right?
 
Oct 29, 2017
13,479
I am a freelance 3D designer and I don't know either who this is for.

While the specs are impressive you could built your own little render farm with this amount of money, which saves far more render time.

Or built your own computer much cheaper with more power via a dual xeon setup, for example.

Also ECC ram is not really necessary. I have had jobs, where some of my computers rendered for weeks without turning them off.
Crashes happened very rarely. Under ten times per computer in a year. And who knows if its even because of the normal ram.
All seems to point out that this is not for 3D artist but for video editors, plus color grading, After effects, etc. In a "buy 12 get a discount" scenario. Just the lack of CUDA support alone points that way, but even the 4 Radeon chips you can put in it are optimized for video.
Sure, one can still rely mostly on the CPU rendering like 5 years ago, but now that every big software is implementing GPU accelerated renderers there simply is a hole that this machine cannot cover.

I'm also a freelancer 3D artist. One thing that gets annoying in these threads is the notion that freelancers only do videography.