[HN Gopher] Apple Confirms iMac Pro Will Be Discontinued, Recomm...
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Apple Confirms iMac Pro Will Be Discontinued, Recommends 27-Inch
iMac
Author : ingve
Score : 124 points
Date : 2021-03-06 15:23 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| themgt wrote:
| My real hope is Apple releases the rumored "Mac Pro mini" to fill
| this gap. My desktop is still a 6 core Xeon 2010 Mac Pro, which
| now has 32GB RAM, 2 SATA SSDs, two HDDs, and with PCIe a NVMe
| SSD, Radeon RX 570 that can drive 3 displays, and USB-C card, all
| of which were surprisingly affordable upgrades. It even runs
| Catalina with OpenCore (amazing software btw).
|
| Apple really needs something in between the $700 Mac Mini and
| $6000 Mac Pro. A somewhat larger case that opens easily and some
| expansion slots should not carry a $5000 premium, and no I don't
| want a built in display.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Apple has been removing expansion slots for 10 years. I
| wouldn't hold your breath for the mythical priced like a dell
| with user upgradable parts but running OSX without hackintosh.
| perardi wrote:
| Might be worth noting that the top-of-the-line iMac was, at least
| in terms of semi-real world benchmarks, was beating the iMac Pro.
|
| https://barefeats.com/2020-iMac-5K-8core-versus-2017-iMac-Pr...
|
| And at quite the discount. You give up ECC RAM, and I think the
| fans on the non-Pro iMac ramp up like turboprop, but that iMac
| Pro was getting long in the tooth.
|
| _I am a bit out of the Xeon loop; was there even an appropriate
| Xeon to update the Pro?_
| giobox wrote:
| You also 10-gig ethernet and 4 TB3 ports which is pretty nice
| as well, given TB3 is only way to expand the computer if you
| want PCI-E devices (more likely if you are a serious customer
| for a 5k computer...). The standard iMac only has two, of which
| one will likely be used up powering an external monitor in a
| professional workstation. For a "Pro" machine, these kind of
| things often matter. My current top-of-line iMac (non-pro)
| setup has both TB3 ports consumed with just an eGPU and a
| monitor, but I would otherwise agree for cost conscious buyers
| its the better machine.
|
| I'm not sure if the updated 2020 non-pro iMac ever got the T2
| line rate encryption feature the iMac Pro has either.
| minimaxir wrote:
| The latest 27in iMac has upgradeable 10gig Ethernet and a T2
| chip.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The current model iMac is a monster and a pretty good deal,
| too. The 10g ethernet option is only $100, half the price
| of a thunderbolt 10g peripheral, and 1/3rd the price of a
| 10g add-in card like the Intel X550 or X710. The main thing
| you give up is ECC memory.
| jeffbee wrote:
| No. The iMac Pro has the latest Cascade Lake parts. Arguably
| the "Gen 2 Refresh" bunch of Xeon SP parts are newer, but in
| workstation scenarios they're not really faster.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Not really a lot of evidence either way.
|
| One of the issues with it as a product was that there was little
| they could actually do in terms of releasing newer, higher-
| performance models (given a relative lack of processor options).
| Eventually the high-end, non-Pro iMac basically caught up, so I
| expect sales have basically been nonexistent for some time now.
|
| We could easily see an ARM version later on - for the people who
| want a high-end desktop without requiring the excessive Mac Pro.
| But it could equally be the case that there's not much space in
| the product lineup any more and it's quietly replaced by a high-
| end ARM iMac.
| tptacek wrote:
| _Update: Since this story's original publication, Apple has
| confirmed to MacRumors that the iMac Pro has indeed been
| discontinued._
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Seems like quite a decent bit of evidence then :)
| stepanhruda wrote:
| Someone plug it back in!
| [deleted]
| devrand wrote:
| Can the link/title be updated to the MacRumors article that got a
| confirmed statement that it's being discontinued from Apple?
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/06/apple-confirms-imac-pro...
| motohagiography wrote:
| Out of curiosity, instead of killing products, why don't they
| raise the price so the production of fewer of them is profitable?
|
| There's probably a gap in demand for them up to say a +50% price
| increase, but there may be a market for fewer of them at double
| or more the price.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Besides anything else I don't expect they want the transition
| away from Intel to last any longer than necessary.
| protomyth wrote:
| Because the value proposition for the current iMac Pro at its
| current prices was already a bit iffy compared to the new
| iMacs. Raising the price would just mean the decision to buy a
| current iMac is much easier.
| bombcar wrote:
| The cost of keeping a manufacturing line open is immense,
| better to make a bunch and warehouse them (or even better, let
| third parties do that).
| sib wrote:
| One hypothesis is that they know that what they have coming
| next on Apple Silicon is so much faster that the people who
| bought the (newly overpriced) Intel-based ones would be
| extremely annoyed.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Apple hasn't made an official announcement the iMac Pro's
| future, but the Mac's product page speaks volumes. As first
| reported by MacRumors, the configurable models of the iMac Pro
| are no longer available for purchase. The only remaining iMac Pro
| on Apple's online store is the $4,999 base configuration, which
| Apple notes prominently at the top of the page will only remain
| available 'While supplies last.'_
|
| What a crappy article. Of course it has stopped with new Intel
| iMac Pros.
|
| Any new iMac Pro will have to wait for the ARM version.
|
| That doesn't mean it has pulled any plug...
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Huh? They're not dropping configuration and listing "while
| supplies last" on any of their other Intel products. This is
| _exactly_ how Apple kills a product line.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _They're not dropping configuration and listing "while
| supplies last" on any of their other Intel products._
|
| That's because they have plenty of supplies to their other
| Intel products, and continue to build them even because they
| are crucial to tens of millions of customers, whereas the
| iMac Pro is a limited units higher-end product -- whose stock
| has dwindled and whose any replacement will come after 2021
| and more pressing ARM releases (the standard iMac, the 16"
| Macbook Pro, the Mac Pro, and so on).
|
| They have stopped selling items that became available again
| in new versions/designs many times in the past, with similar
| "while supplies last" fashion.
|
| Remember how the Mac Pro wasn't renewed for 5+ years and
| there were similar cries, and then a new model came out, with
| an updated "recycle bin" design, that Apple has been working
| on for the best part of those years?
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Okay, guess we'll just see then.
| welearnednothng wrote:
| Apple isn't in the habit of treating end of life or soon to be
| replaced products in this way, so it raised some eyebrows.
|
| MacRumors got a follow up from Apple confirming that it has
| been discontinued. I suspect with the upcoming performance of
| the Apple silicon, lines between an iMac and iMac Pro were
| about to get blurry... but that's just a hunch.
|
| From MacRumors: "We've since confirmed with Apple that when
| supplies run out, the iMac Pro will no longer be available
| whatsoever. Apple says the latest 27-inch iMac introduced in
| August is the preferred choice for the vast majority of pro
| iMac users, and said customers who need even more performance
| and expandability can choose the Mac Pro."
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Apple isn 't in the habit of treating end of life or soon
| to be replaced products in this way, so it raised some
| eyebrows._
|
| They have done the same thing time and again during similar
| transitions or new designs. The eat through the stock, and
| then the item is not available at all, until at some point a
| new design/version hits.
|
| In fact, reports of "stock dwindling" and "while stocks last"
| etc and Apple stopping selling an item on the web Applestore
| are things Apple-focused news websites explicitly use to tell
| that a new version of some product is in the works or soon to
| land...
|
| In this case, the iMac Pro is niche enough, that the new
| version is not soon to land, as other more staple products
| have a priority for the Apple Silicon treatment. That doesn't
| mean it's not in the works.
| Applejinx wrote:
| ANY Apple Silicon iMac is going to kill, just kill, the top
| of the line Intel Xeon iMac Pros. Blurry is not the word.
| It's gonna leapfrog the Xeons for almost any purpose
| rendering the whole thing ridiculous.
|
| Source: I literally have an 18-core, 64 gig RAM Xeon iMac Pro
| and one of the new laptops (Macbook pro, 16 gig RAM). If they
| don't have to get 20 hours of battery life and they do
| literally anything to expand the processing from what they
| have, they're going to obliterate the discontinued ones so
| hard that it'd be insane or criminally misleading to continue
| selling the iMac Pros.
|
| They've already quit selling the machine I have, and I kinda
| wish they had half a year ago... because I spent more than
| $8000 in the belief that I was going to put a stake in the
| ground and rely on that computer for a goodly number of years
| and that it was relevant to where Apple was headed.
|
| Now (if Linus Tech Tips is to be believed) I can get a
| baseline Macbook Air, pop the back off, put a thermal
| conductive pad to vent heat away from the heatsink to the
| aluminum surface of the laptop, and get observably better
| performance on at least some realworld tasks for literally
| one EIGHTH the price.
|
| I won't say I feel ripped off, but I feel extremely
| blindsided and that's only going to get worse as Apple
| continues to put out more products. Not sure people quite
| understand how inferior Apple's 'top line' products from the
| last generation, are to what they're currently producing.
|
| Right now if you need heavy processing of VERY specific types
| involving many cores and many gigs of physical RAM but that
| doesn't fit into a category Apple's covering already with the
| M1s, such as 4k and 8k video editing that's better done on
| any M1 machine, that's the last known good use of the iMac
| Pros and Mac Pros. Only the heaviest of heavy lifting that's
| not covered by the strong suits of the M1...
|
| I give it four months before Apple has something maybe at the
| $2000-3000 price point that absolutely destroys all the
| previous machines, no matter how 'Pro', at any price. And
| this is why they've got to kill off the previous lines.
| People will be really angry when this becomes apparent.
| Better to not even try and sell the machines, much less try
| to market them as 'more performance'. Expandability, yeah,
| there's that.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Yeah, I had a hunch something like this was going to happen
| which is why I opted for a refurbished base model iMac Pro
| over something new. Still expensive (~$3500), but not
| nearly as bad for the period of time I was able to get use
| out of it. Will probably trade it in along with a 2017 MBP
| 15" to pay for the majority of a Mac Pro Mini or ARM MBP
| 16" and hopefully one of the lower-cost displays they're
| rumored to be releasing this year.
| shortformblog wrote:
| Engadget confirmed it via Apple.
|
| https://www.engadget.com/apple-imac-pro-discontinued-1551254...
|
| > _If you were hoping to buy an iMac Pro for some serious work,
| you 'd better act quickly. 9to5Mac reports (and Apple has
| confirmed to Engadget) that Apple is winding down sales of its
| all-in-one workstation. You can still buy one, but it's limited
| to the base 10-core Xeon configuration and only available
| "while supplies last." You'll have to be patient, too, as
| orders are taking three to four weeks as we write this._
| Applejinx wrote:
| I'm not a bit surprised they're doing it. I literally have an
| iMac Pro, 18 core Xeon with 64 gigs RAM, and a newer M1 Macbook
| Pro with 16 gigs RAM that was a quarter the price.
|
| The M1 laptop at a quarter the price is faster than the maxed-out
| Intel-based iMac Pro. Not for everything... I do streaming using
| software x264 encoding and can set the quality levels way higher
| on the iMac Pro as it's native and 18 cores (the laptop's running
| OBS in Rosetta and has 8 cores, four of which are efficiency
| cores). But for some things the laptop's already a bit faster,
| consistently, right now. At a quarter of the price.
|
| I'm guessing their experiments with scaling up what's in the
| initial M1-based Macs to more power vs. just maximum efficiency
| (for instance, a desktop that doesn't need to get 20 hour battery
| life and can actively cool itself) are turning out so shocking
| that they know they've got to kill the current product line,
| immediately.
|
| I bought my iMac Pro in June 2020. That's a little over half a
| year ago, and I'm still frustrated that they took my money
| knowing they've got this in development. It's a good thing it has
| such a nice screen and still has plenty of use, but it's going to
| be absolutely decimated by what comes out next. It's pretty well
| decimated now by my little laptop if you count how much energy is
| wasted, and how for certain tasks the giant 'Pro' monster
| absolutely cannot keep up with the introductory M1 models running
| native code, at a quarter or an eighth of the cost.
|
| There is no WAY they can keep selling their current line. Right
| now they shouldn't be selling anything that isn't an M1 or some
| other Apple Silicon.
| zepto wrote:
| > I bought my iMac Pro in June 2020. That's a little over half
| a year ago, and I'm still frustrated that they took my money
| knowing they've got this in development.
|
| I would be too.
|
| On the other hand there are people who really needed that
| machine then for whom it was worth the money not to have to
| wait a year.
| amelius wrote:
| > Right now they shouldn't be selling anything that isn't an M1
| or some other Apple Silicon.
|
| They can't because TSMC is overbooked already.
| steelframe wrote:
| > I'm still frustrated that they took my money knowing they've
| got this in development
|
| I don't think a Mac Mini M1 replaces an iMac Pro right now. The
| Mac Mini M1 maxes out at 16GiB of RAM, which means it will
| aggressively use swap for certain workloads that require a lot
| of memory. The speed of swap tends to mask the fact that you're
| swapping a lot more, but I think it puts a lot of wear on the
| flash. You don't want to do that because that can decrease the
| lifespan of your storage, and you can't swap the storage out
| once it's past its useful lifespan.
|
| Because of longevity concerns, if you're running memory-
| intensive workloads, I'd suggest getting a previous-generation
| iMac Pro with more memory. There's no published timeline on
| when Apple will release an Apple Silicon-based iMac Pro that
| can be configured with higher amounts of RAM (i.e., 64GiB). It
| might happen this year, or you might be waiting more like 2 or
| 3 years for that to happen.
|
| I don't think anybody who has purchased a previous-generation
| iMac Pro with more memory has gotten any kind of a "raw deal"
| from Apple.
| Tagbert wrote:
| When Apple formally announced the M1 Macs last June, they
| committed to replacing their entire lineup within 2 years. I
| suspect that they plan to do it well within that period.
|
| I would expect that the Mac Pro and a possible iMac Pro
| equivalent might be the last models replaced. Still, based on
| their timelines you might see an iMac that could fully
| replace the iMac Pro as soon as end of this year or early
| 2022.
| usrusr wrote:
| > The Mac Mini M1 maxes out at 16GiB of RAM
|
| ...and that tight coupling between RAM and CPU must be a big
| part of its performance.
|
| I wouldn't really be surprised if they went for a somewhat
| lazy architecture for the stationary/pro segment that simply
| (well, "simply", it won't be easy, just maybe less hard than
| a properly scaled up M1, perhaps much less hard) put n of
| those units on a shared carrier board with lots of memory
| slots that would either serve as slower RAM, relegating those
| 16 GB to an awesome "L4 cache" or maybe even just as one big
| volatile SSD swapspace.
|
| A "lazy architecture" might appear a bit out of character for
| Apple, but that pro segment must be so far from their core
| focus that this approach could work out really well. A
| conventional strategy whati new tech gets introduced in the
| pro segment and then trickles down until it eventually
| appears on the iPhone wouldn't really cut it because the
| phone is their unquestioned flagship and a "pro board" could
| make trickling up so easy that they might theoretically even
| make those things end-user upgradeable.
| izacus wrote:
| > The M1 laptop at a quarter the price is faster than the
| maxed-out Intel-based iMac Pro.
|
| Even with the "not for everything" guard, this is still some
| seriously heavy BS.
|
| iMac Pro wasn't used by people who ran Geekbench, but by people
| who benefitted with bespoke accelerator card, multiple display
| outputs (which M1 significantly restricted) and support for
| large amount of memory
|
| Seriously, let's avoid this type of hyperbole and silly
| comparisons.
| benreesman wrote:
| FWIW my daily driver has been a maxed out iMac Pro, albeit
| from 2018.
|
| I just got my hands on an M1 Mini and it demolishes the iMac
| on my use case as well.
| matwood wrote:
| > I just got my hands on an M1 Mini and it demolishes the
| iMac on my use case as well.
|
| This is why the iMac Pro is going away, it's simply not
| needed. The upcoming Apple Silicon iMac should be able to
| span entry level up to iMac Pro level with just BTO
| options.
| alexfringes wrote:
| Replaced a 10 core, 64 GB RAM iMac Pro with a maxed-out M1
| MacBook Air and very happy with that choice. Kept the iMac
| for Windows and "just in case" the Air doesn't work out. But
| it's just sitting in a closet now. It isn't just whether or
| not the speed tests look certain ways, you're right. It's
| also the fact that the Air is just a really great laptop.
| It's so good at being a laptop that, after years of
| compromising via a dual machine setup, the Air has allowed me
| to return to all the great things laptops used to represent,
| while providing comparable-to-desktop speed in the same
| machine. It can easily balance in all sorts of couch potato
| positions, functions as my main input to a larger screen, and
| can sit on my lap without burning me or giving me "build
| anxiety" like other laptops, where I'd dread the fan noise
| and heat of building. I'm not looking forward to having to
| decide to even have a desktop again because of however much
| faster the Apple Silicon desktops will be. Because having
| this much power in the same setup that I can take everywhere
| is really enticing and differs from past laptop offerings in
| the aforementioned improvements (and others like battery life
| or even the maybe somewhat silly option to run the Dyson
| iPhone app to control my office fan). PS: I think you might
| be thinking of the Mac Pro re the accelerator card, no?
| djrogers wrote:
| > iMac Pro wasn't used by people who ran Geekbench, but by
| people who benefitted with bespoke accelerator card,
|
| The iMac Pro never supported the afterburner card - that's a
| Mac Pro exclusive. I think you're getting your products mixed
| up here...
| izacus wrote:
| Ugh, I was thinking of the Mac Pro, not iMac Pro. Mistake
| -_-
| smoldesu wrote:
| What I've found over the years is that Apple's marketing can
| often lead people to buy tools they don't necessarily need.
| For every consummate Macbook professional I've found, there's
| always another savant who prefers to spend their money on a
| 15 year old Thinkpad and a 2-year supply of Four Loko. It's a
| somewhat ironic equilibrium in my eyes, but I think that's
| part of the ultimate joy of programming.
|
| However, I mostly agree with you. I think Apple's marketing
| does a pretty poor job of communicating the difference in
| their products, and it's certainly intentional. One of my
| friends ended up buying the iMac Pro for development, and I
| can't understand for the life of me why. Similarly, he also
| derides me for not buying a Mac Mini already and ditching my
| Linux ecosystem for good. C'est va, I suppose.
| jamroom wrote:
| The iMac Pro with it's 5K screen would make an excellent
| development system I would think.
| graeme wrote:
| I have an imac pro. I bought it so I could make live video
| recordings without fan noise, and export video quickly.
|
| I bought my assistant an M1 macbook air for editing. It is by
| definition quieter, and yet reliably beat my imac pro in
| renders!
|
| I would love a machine with ecc ram though. Way fewer random
| crashes since I got my imac pro.
|
| As for outputs, I'm certainly waiting for more, though the M1
| mac mini isn't terribly if you get one of those new hubs. It
| has ethernet, two usb c, two usb a and a dedicated power
| port.
|
| Yeah there's are people using the imac pro for super crazy
| advanced things but many people just wanted a fast quiet
| computer with ports.
|
| (The imac pro is still super quiet for recordings. But the
| air is fanless)
| Applejinx wrote:
| I literally have the 18 core Xeon iMac Pro, with 64 gigs of
| RAM. I bought the Macbook Pro (not the Air) with 16 gigs of
| RAM and 1T SSD.
|
| Not as concerned with video editing and renders. The iMac
| Pro can wreck the Macbook on specifically OBS software x264
| encoding, while OBS is not Apple Silicon-native. Repeat,
| software encoding, not attempting to use the hardware chip
| (there can be issues streaming to YouTube using it). This
| is the one case I've found, of anything, where the iMac Pro
| wins.
|
| I tried Minecraft, as there's an M1-native version out
| there. My old intel Mini: 70 fps. The iMac Pro: 240 fps.
| The M1 Macbook: 270 fps.
|
| I'm gonna say it's rare that my M1 Macbook Pro does NOT
| beat my Xeon iMac Pro at four times the price, four times
| the RAM. Again, I literally own both. I've even found a
| purpose (software x264) where the M1 machine can't keep up.
| It's the only thing I've found so far, where the M1 isn't
| faster. Everything else about operating this machine is
| faster than the iMac Pro, which remains my primary desktop
| I use every day.
| Terretta wrote:
| What does "literally" indicate or emphasize in this
| context?
|
| You used it above, and here, in a way I can't tell if the
| sentence is different without the word or if I should
| take some meaning from it.
| jiofih wrote:
| Probably not the best word for it, but it's clear he is
| emphasizing the fact he owns both machines, and is
| reporting first-hand experience and not just blurting out
| an "informed opinion".
| smoldesu wrote:
| I think Apple users employ the word "literally" to
| insinuate that they don't actually own the device, but
| they've seen their favorite apologist tech-tubers run
| some comparisons and really liked what they saw.
| graeme wrote:
| Slang/incorrect use. Used to show emphasis.
|
| A better use would be: "I literally have the best intel
| mac and the m1 air beat it"
|
| In that case it is literal. OP probably just switched it
| over to a case where highlighting literal ownership is
| superfluous.
| jagger27 wrote:
| Minor nitpick: the iMac Pro running Minecraft is pushing
| a lot more pixels than the MacBook at similar frame
| rates, assuming you used the native resolution of each
| device. Correct me if I'm wrong.
| Applejinx wrote:
| I didn't. It was windowed, plus on the M1 I was running a
| different screen resolution so that windowed could be
| 1920x1080, so that was actually a larger Minecraft window
| than the native screen resolution (hiDPI) would allow.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| I have both too. The M1 is fast, no doubt, but throw a
| big compilation project at it and it's smoked by the iMac
| Pro. Parallelism trumps the M1's smaller number of cores.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| What type and size of compile, and what numbers do you
| see?
| Applejinx wrote:
| That's fair. I see that in software encoding to x264, in
| OBS (though admittedly the M1 is running under Rosetta
| still). The iMac Pro can reliably stream at 'slow'
| quality level, but the M1 can barely go above 'ultrafast'
| without choking.
|
| You've nailed it as far as the reason: if you can come up
| with a task that legitimately needs parallelism that
| heavy, that's where the Xeon comes into its own. Anything
| lighter, and the M1 starts to zip ahead.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| M1 native version of Minecrat? AFAIK the Java version is,
| well, Java (also slow as hell), and the other (Bedrock)
| doesn't run on macOS.
| techrat wrote:
| You had an iMac Pro. Filtering fan noise is trivial with
| that kind of processing power.
| graeme wrote:
| I said
|
| > The imac pro is still super quiet for recordings. But
| the air is fanless
|
| I have no issue with the imac pro! Just to say the M1
| does win on both counts.
| perardi wrote:
| So these benchmarks are a bit out of date, as at least some
| of the Adobe apps have gone M1-native, but the iMac Pro does
| wallop the MacBook Pro in several cases.
|
| https://barefeats.com/m1-versus-imac-pro.html
|
| -
|
| _"...bespoke accelerator card..."_
|
| Are you thinking of the Mac Pro here? I don't think the iMac
| Pro had anything exotic for GPU compute.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Thing is, I don't play Warhammer :)
|
| My iMac Pro has the Radeon Pro Vega 56 8 GB. I'm given to
| understand the absolute top of the line had some kind of
| problems... still, that's as much in graphics card RAM as
| exists in the whole RAM of some of the M1s. I'm betting
| Warhammer makes heavy use of the graphics card and it's
| that which is walloping the M1-running-Rosetta-emulation.
|
| This probably means there will still be games where a
| previous version with a fancy enough graphics card will get
| higher framerates than what the M1 Macs can get. I don't
| anticipate Apple ever making those kinds of concessions to
| the gamer market, so that's where you're going to see the
| only holdouts (in terms of, M1 doing super poorly). And
| that, mostly with stuff that expects real gamer cards. I
| don't think the Radeon Pro Vega 56 is nearly top of the
| line for a gamer card but I can easily believe it's better
| than the on-board graphics for the initial M1 machines.
| Remember part of the selling point for the iMac Pros is
| that they could summon up graphics-card grunt for the
| purposes of 3d modeling.
|
| I should try some Blender experiments and see what's
| snappier, there's a possibility the iMac Pro will make a
| decent showing for itself for that reason :)
| izacus wrote:
| > Are you thinking of the Mac Pro here? I don't think the
| iMac Pro had anything exotic for GPU compute.
|
| Yup, my mistake. No idea why I was thinking of the Mac Pro.
| titzer wrote:
| I don't think we've even remotely scratched the surface of
| what the Neural Engine can do. Also, the battery life is
| incredible and stays up to the hyperbole I've seen online. 10
| hours of heavy work and takes it like a champ.
|
| I can't speak to the all-out performance comparison with a 18
| core Xeon, but yeah, this chip is pretty great.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| you can expand the ram, though, right? for _some_ workloads,
| that 's still going to be key. but yeah, I hear the
| frustration. I've been on the fence about getting a refurb 27"
| iMac. have been mostly laptop based for years, but the pandemic
| made me reconsider a desktop system again. Then... M1 news came
| out and... it's all up in the air.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > you can expand the ram, though, right?
|
| Ehh kind of. The 27" iMac (non Pro) has a RAM door, and RAM
| is fully user serviceable.
|
| The iMac Pro has slotted RAM, but it has no door and is not
| considered a user-serviceable part by Apple. So you have to
| disassemble the machine at the expense of your warranty.
|
| I believe you can also pay Apple an obscene amount of money
| to do it and keep your warranty, although you'd have to use
| their RAM.
| quesera wrote:
| > So you have to disassemble the machine at the expense of
| your warranty.
|
| If you are in the US, this is not correct. It's a common
| misunderstanding, which probably makes manufacturers happy,
| but it is not true.
|
| Disassembling your product does not violate your warranty
| -- even if you have to puncture a (very un-Apple-like)
| sticker that says "VOID IF REMOVED OR DAMAGED", etc.
|
| However: _damaging_ your product via disassembly, or
| anything else, allows the warrantor (Apple) to choose not
| to honor their warranty _if the damage is directly related
| to the issue being repaired under warranty_.
|
| But if you cause no damage, or if the damage is cosmetic or
| unrelated to the warranteed part, you are free to do as you
| like. And so is a third-party repair shop.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Get the laptop and hook it up to an external monitor or get
| the mac mini
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I'm not a great early adopter :). I will probably get
| something later this year assuming there's a second round
| of hardware (m1x? m2?) updates.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm interested in seeing what the next iteration of
| laptops is like. I have an iMac and MacBook Pro which are
| both over 5 years old and it would be nice to upgrade
| both to a new ARM laptop even if it's a bit less travel
| friendly than my current system. (I usually travel with
| my Chromebook anyway.)
| thitcanh wrote:
| Yeah, a quarter of the price, a quarter of the screen, a
| quarter of the RAM, a quarter of the SSD. Of course the price
| is also a quarter. The CPU isn't the only part of that
| ludicrous $5000 price point
| ghaff wrote:
| >Right now they shouldn't be selling anything that isn't an M1
| or some other Apple Silicon.
|
| A lot of companies are still providing employees with Intel
| MacBooks. I know mine doesn't have M1 variants in the line yet.
| The reality is that IT cares a lot more about support effort
| than they are about providing employees with the latest and
| greatest. You can't really blame them.
| kristianp wrote:
| Does that mean/imply an Apple Silicon imac is about 3 months
| away?
| S_A_P wrote:
| Bought the base iMac Pro right around release time. Still does
| everything I need at the moment. I pretty much have it maxed out
| with about 19 USB cables running off of it(synthisizers, midi
| interfaces, external drives, software dongles, 13 port hub) they
| add up. I dont ever hear the fan, and it can do full 24-48 track
| multi track audio + Plugins with no sweat. That said, in 3 more
| years I suspect it will get an M1 based replacement.
| SllX wrote:
| I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an exact replacement, but
| an M-series iMac might still be a good replacement.
|
| Apple announced a two year transition time from x86_64 to Apple
| Silicon. The MacBook Air, Mac Mini and 13" MacBook Pro have
| made the jump. That leaves the Mac Pro, 16" MacBook Pro, the
| 21.5" iMac and 27" iMac left to make the jump or otherwise be
| discontinued.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Hetzner just hiked their dedicated server prices +20%, after not
| being able to satisfy demand for some time.
| dgellow wrote:
| How is that related to the shared article?
| vondur wrote:
| You also can't order any custom Intel iMacs too. The new models
| should be out shortly.
| hampelm wrote:
| Looks like 27" are still customizable, but not 21.5" (US)
| vondur wrote:
| I was told by our Rep we can no longer get the 512 SSD on a
| 27" custom order.
| neallindsay wrote:
| I think the iMac Pro was originally supposed to replace the Mac
| Pro after the trash can proved insufficient. Eventually Apple
| realized that it wasn't expandable enough to satisfy some of
| their most high-end users so they made the current Mac Pro. Now
| that that exists, the iMac Pro is squeezed by the tower Mac Pro
| and normal iMacs--so it makes sense to drop the iMac Pro as the
| Arm iMacs near production.
| ArmandGrillet wrote:
| Apple clearly detailed their strategy back in early 2017:
| https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/06/transcript-phil-schiller-c...
|
| "As part of doing a new Mac Pro -- it is, by definition, a
| modular system -- we will be doing a pro display as well. Now
| you won't see any of those products this year; we're in the
| process of that. We think it's really important to create
| something great for our pro customers who want a Mac Pro
| modular system, and that'll take longer than this year to do."
|
| The Mac Pro and XDR display were machines that took a long time
| to build thus the iMac Pro (announced 6 months after that
| article) was created to fill the gap for two years. I don't
| think the iMac Pro was ever supposed to replace the Mac Pro,
| but only a biography of Schiller might clarify what really
| happened.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I think it just boils down to future ARM Macs having tiny
| TDP, and being full SoC based.
|
| Makes no sense to have a 20*50*50 box if the only part inside
| it is a tiny 8*8 PCB.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| _announced 6 months after that article_
|
| It must have been in development for much longer than that.
| unicornfinder wrote:
| To be fair I suspect Apple was aware of the problem long
| before they made the announcement to that effect.
|
| I remember at the time people were saying how un-Apple-like
| it was to admit that there was an issue at all. I think it
| was because at that point they figured the iMac Pro was
| still six months out and they felt they had to at least do
| *something* to show them that they still cared about pro
| users, though in truth I think in hindsight it's become
| evident that it isn't really a market segment that they're
| particularly interested in.
| headmelted wrote:
| Oh they're very interested.
|
| Serving the professional creative market is the core of
| their marketing.
|
| Are they selling a majority of MacBook Pro's to film
| studios? Of course not, but they need that prestige to
| compel Greg the aspiring film student to buy one so he
| can feel like he has "arrived".
| lupire wrote:
| MacBook Pro is dirt cheap compared to the desktop Pro;
| it's not what were discussing here.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| > I think in hindsight it's become evident that it isn't
| really a market segment that they're particularly
| interested in.
|
| Really? The volume may not be there, but I think Apple
| has always cherished the prestige associated with being
| the platform of choice for studio mixing rooms, cinema
| production, etc. People argued that that's why those
| ridiculous $20k+ configurations of the Mac Pro even
| exist-- as something for auteurs to demand as a status
| signal.
| smoldesu wrote:
| While I agree, Apple's interest in satisfying those "pro"
| audiences is waning, as is the interest in the pros to
| continue using their products. Apple has realized that
| it's much easier to market themselves where talent and
| personality intersect; aka, "the pro-sumer". For every
| Mac Pro they sell, they sell another thousand iPhones and
| a hundred Macbooks. Long-term, it makes much more sense
| for them to optimize around these audiences.
|
| With that being said, I've noticed a startling increase
| in Linux use among pro workflows. The other day I visited
| a mixing studio that was entirely driven by Arch and
| Reaper if you could believe it, a really neat setup to
| say the least.
| habitue wrote:
| The pro-sumer play sort of relies on them plausibly
| having a reputation for creating things for actual
| professionals. Over time, as that residual reputation
| burns off, seems like it may become less effective.
| Kye wrote:
| Are you able to name the studio? Now I'm curious about
| what they're up to since it's exactly the kind of
| Frankenstein setup that appeals to me. Bitwig is an odd
| backup to Reaper considering it's a completely different
| target workflow. It's aiming at Live and made by ex-
| Ableton devs. Reaper is more like Pro Tools or Cubase.
| theonemind wrote:
| Actually, I'd characterize that as short term thinking.
| Your platform needs developers, and the power users and
| such eventually lead the rest of the market.
|
| If they think they've got a castle in the sky, they'll
| find out why it's there if they start burning the pillars
| as firewood.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Don't forget that store became big again when they used
| bsd on OS X. It was a perfect dev machine
| mikepurvis wrote:
| What is the frontend in a setup like that? Is it Pro
| Tools on Wine, or something else?
| smoldesu wrote:
| To my understanding, they mapped all of the CC bindings
| from their digital mixer into Reaper and then routed the
| audio through JACK. They had a double monitor setup that
| seemed to be running a pretty standard Reaper setup (with
| Bitwig as an optional backup), as well as a smaller
| integrated monitor in the dashboard of the mixing console
| (which must have been running a custom UI). They were
| hooked up to a pretty sizable NAS, and they made a pretty
| large emphasis on separating project files from the OS.
| It seemed like the secret to their workflow was weekly
| backups of the OS partition with redundancy for the
| mission-critical components. Their round-trip latency was
| also pretty impressive, with less than 10ms for software
| sources and 30ms for hardware sources. All of it was
| running on an older Threadripper workstation.
| Blueskytech wrote:
| Just FYI 30ms from hardware sources is terrible, I can
| achieve under 2.5ms round trip with Dante at 128 buffer
| settings and the older MADI protocol achieves similar
| levels.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| What am I missing? Those numbers are an order of
| magnitude higher than I got with a similar Linux studio
| setup in 2008. We get 30-40ms latency over IP within
| about 100 miles.
| ghaff wrote:
| I have a 27" iMac and a 13" MacBook Pro, both of which are
| about 5 years old. I'm definitely holding on to see what comes
| down the road with Apple Silicon. I really don't like the idea
| of getting another iMac; it seems such a waste given that there
| is absolutely nothing wrong with my current display but the
| computer itself is getting long in the tooth for photo and
| video work.
| mobilio wrote:
| And you are not alone...
| minimaxir wrote:
| FWIW I got the latest 27in iMac when it released last August and
| it fits all my needs (Plus I did want the Boot Camp support).
| Granted, if we knew M1 and Rosetta was going to be this good I
| may have reconsidered.
|
| That said I may get the rumored 14in MacBook Pro with an M1X as
| well.
| hit8run wrote:
| I'm still enjoying my iMac Pro day to day. Thought about selling
| it but there is no equivalent..
| ssijak wrote:
| I would be so happy if Apple releases a mac midi with M
| processor, 16-64gb configurable ram, swappable disks.
| rafaelturk wrote:
| Hopefully it will be superseded by a iMac Pro powered by M2, M3,
| MX processor generations
| akritrime wrote:
| If both iMac and iMac Pro are powered by the same chip, then
| what would be the differentiating factor between them?
| bombcar wrote:
| Perhaps the iMac Pro could run TWO of the chips somehow.
| protomyth wrote:
| Well, I would expect that might be an option depending on
| what powers the Mac Pro going forward. I wonder if Apple is
| at the multi-CPU stage. I am expecting external RAM and I
| hope ECC for the next Mac Pro.
| weego wrote:
| I'd imagine you'd get a similar situation to the ipads where
| the X chip is far superior in the same gen eg:
|
| iMac - m2 chip + max out at 64 gig ram
|
| iMac Pro - m2x chip + max out at 256 gig ram
| akritrime wrote:
| Hmm the X Chip difference makes sense, because they are the
| same chip with the regular one built to be mobile. But in
| case of M2, the same distinction doesn't make sense because
| they are built for larger devices by default. Though I
| guess, they could have two completely separate chips and
| just use the X as convention.
| djrogers wrote:
| You're arguing about naming conventions for a product
| that hasn't been released, and where names are all
| speculative. What you think is an m1x may be called an
| m2, or a m2x or a dp2fgh.
| kelp wrote:
| I'd imagine the pro would have a better screen. Intended for
| professional creative work.
| akritrime wrote:
| Oh yeah, that could be it. Apple's Pro Display XDR with an
| ARM processor would be interesting, though the question is
| are the M SoCs ready to drive those yet?
| whynotminot wrote:
| They already do.
| [deleted]
| tempfs wrote:
| More graphics power in the form of a discrete GPU, more
| storage and memory offered...etc.
|
| With memory and storage soldered ofcourse...as is tradition.
| akritrime wrote:
| Hmm, the discrete GPU would be interesting, but I don't
| think would go back to that. The SoC model has been working
| out great for Apple, I can't see them seceding control to
| get a discrete 3rd-party GPU working.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I can't see them seceding control to get a discrete
| 3rd-party GPU working.
|
| Nobody said the discrete GPU would be 3rd party. I
| suspect Apple will release their own discrete GPU before
| long. SoC works well for the long end, but I can't see it
| being worth it at the Mac Pro level.
| akritrime wrote:
| That's also true. They already made some kind of add-on
| card for the Mac Pro, right?
| dagmx wrote:
| Yes the AfterBurner card for acceleration of ProRes
| content
| lanevorockz wrote:
| Apple lost touch with their clients, it became the large
| tyrannical IBM that Steve Jobs hated so much. Companies always
| suffer when their quintessential soul is lost. Business schools
| should learn from Elon Musk and drop the middle manager /
| politically correct agenda. Be what you want to be, not what
| society forces you to be.
| ericlewis wrote:
| Why do you say that?
| _the_inflator wrote:
| > I'm guessing their experiments with scaling up what's in the
| initial M1-based Macs to more power vs. just maximum efficiency
| (for instance, a desktop that doesn't need to get 20 hour battery
| life and can actively cool itself) are turning out so shocking
| that they know they've got to kill the current product line,
| immediately.
|
| I totally agree. I believe this is the only reason, why Apple
| "upgraded" the MacBook pro 13". The new MacBook Air smashed it,
| so Apple had to do something in the 13" range.
|
| MacBook 16" has the distinctive advantage of a better screen.
|
| I am totally excited about Apple's new MacBook lineup coming
| later this year. This is going to be really huge.
| kalleboo wrote:
| > _MacBook 16 " has the distinctive advantage of a better
| screen._
|
| Even the MacBook Pro 16" base models have too many ports and
| too much graphic performance for the original M1 to replace
| them. The base 13" already had enough limitations that they
| could replace it without making any of its specs worse (and
| leave the existing Intel 13" in the range with no changes for
| the 4-port model)
| nanofortnight wrote:
| Clickbait.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Good riddance - pro's do not want a computer that cannot be
| divorced of its display.
| BossingAround wrote:
| Then I suspect you won't be happy with the 27-inch iMac that's
| replacing the iMac Pro either :).
| Tagbert wrote:
| Your idea of "pros" may be a little narrow. I know programmers
| and video producers who are definitely pros and definitely use
| an iMac Pro all in one.
|
| Not that I don't see the benefit of a modular system, and it
| makes sense for some pros, but not all.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I guess to increase profit, they're going to push pro users into
| the "tower"
| protomyth wrote:
| I was guessing that we are seeing a simplification of the Mac
| lineup because the variety of processors available is going to
| be constrained. Right now we have the M1 and I would expect and
| M1X or M2 coming up. I don't think they will have the part
| count Intel has had.
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