In Defense Of The Mac Pro

The Misunderstood Trash Can

Are there people that absolutely need the most computing power that can possibly be had to make a difference in what they do every hour of every day? Sure, but really how many are there? Not many and if you think you do but use any machine for more than a year then obviously you were wrong otherwise you’d be chucking all this stuff out the window at a good clip. Are there people that buy computers that are actually less than what can possibly be applied to any given computer problem at the moment? Sure, actually most people. How about the so called high end of the market? Does every one of those people by the absolute most computer available? You would think they would based on the idiotic degree of outrage, criticism, and “told you” within the last couple of months since Apple said they made a mistake and the next Mac Pro will be more “expandable” than the old one.

Really? Really, Really??

So what are the issues these people have?

• Hasn’t been upgraded in like umm forever. Fair point Apple doesn’t upgrade their one and only pro machine every year. I can get on board with this kinda. Given the rate of change in hardware guts I would prefer that whatever I happened to buy was up to the moment even if I had no need at the same price point as whatever was last year. Then again it might not be at the same price point if there was a bunch of new R/D had to be invested every year given how small the market is.
• Can’t be upgraded? I call bullshit on this. The only Mac Pro trash can that can’t be “upgraded” is the biggest baddest-assed one. You think the pro market is small, it gets smaller still. The current Mac Pro can get shit tons of upgrades. Go ahead jamb any of the processors that will fit in, they are cheaper now. I’m fine with my 6 core for now. Hell there are even processors that Apple didn’t offer you can jamb in that are arguably the sweet spot for a lot of applications. SSD? Did you get the biggest one? There are bigger ones now if you use that internal storage for much. I’m fine with my 512G considering all my “stuff” has resided on external arrays since the last design. Hell the gigantic old Mac Pro only had 4 bays. That won’t do for me and if it won’t do for you does that mean whatever machine is a hunk of shit because you can’t jamb as many drives inside as you need? Of course not, just stupid. How about memory, 128G is pretty much a very high ceiling even today. I’m nowhere near that and don’t need it at the moment. Oh… it’s the graphics processors. Yep, if the 700 doesn’t cut it for your rarified needs then nope, can’t upgrade that. I wonder why all the component companies even frigging offer anything at the high end that’s not the biggest baddest one they can make. The 500 is fine for me at the moment. Probably will be for quite some time even now at 4 years old. So it comes down to the graphics card in reality. More on that in a moment.
• Not enough juice now and for some things the iMac 5K is actually better (like single threaded performance). Um yep and it’s always going to be the case for any individual that does not chuck things out within a year of buying them which is sort of my point here upgraded graphics or not there will always be something than can do “better” next year. So what. There’s way more middle ground in terms of “high end” and absolute maximum power that can be had on any given day. If there wasn’t then why the hell would any high end anything have any options that were not the biggest baddest stuff made?

The Misunderstood Part

I happen to be the perfect Mac Pro market. There are way more of me than there are people that actually need or could actually benefit from the maximum amount of raw compute power that can be jammed into a single machine at any given moment. Is the market I represent small? Absolutely but still probably bigger than those max max max people. How do I know this? Well, take your pick of any machine/workstation Mac or not do you really think the most sold are maxed out? Of course not.

So what is this market? The one that includes myself and probably a ton of other people.

• I can probably get away with a higher end iMac at any given year in the recent past. Really most people could even with “pro” requirements.
• I like small, and quiet, and pretty. I especially like quiet.
• I actually benefit from a bunch of cores and a reasonable amount of GPU horsepower. Not for everything I run but enough tasks that it does count. Would I invest in the baddest-ass GPU available at any given time? Not a chance. Oh and memory I just love my RAM.
• I have a shit-ton of iMacs laying around. Some obsolete, some dead, some under configured from the get go. One actually from around the same time as the Mac Pro came out. I also have a shit-ton of pretty good to really great LCD monitors laying around. I did go the high-end iMac route for a couple of iterations. I need another big but now not too useful 24 or 27 inch monitor laying around like a hole in the head.
• My storage technology for the large stuff happens to reside on external devices anyway. It has for a long time and I don’t want to change that. Honestly do you think the market is bigger for people that use a crap-ton of external storage or absolutely need the biggest baddest XEON and GPU made? What about that high end customer that actually could use a decently spec’ed iMac? Are you starting to see?

Put shortly the trash can is fantastic for the high-end customer that could maybe get away with the current high-end iMac that uses external storage arrays but could benefit from more memory (upgradable), more cores, wants a little more longevity, already has or rather have external monitors, etc. Oh and because they are in the market for a high-end iMac really wants something pretty, and quiet, and you know is willing to pay for the good design that gives her/him those things. Not every higher-end user is a giant box most power available every year at the cheapest price possible.

What’s To Like

I didn’t buy my Mac Pro when it was brand brand new back in late 2013 or 2014. I bought it when my pretty much sufficient maxed out iMac 27 died. I made a very careful and long thought about decision. I already had very nice monitors and 4K 10bit is going to be fine for me for the foreseeable future. I already have the bulk of my stuff on thunderbolt raid systems. The price point of the Mac Pro that best suited my current needs was about the same price (actually less) than a maxed out iMac 27 5K that at the time didn’t have the wide gamut the new one does or my 4K monitors.

I can tell you I love my Mac Pro. It’s very small. It looks like it’s some sort of powerful alien technology just sitting there silent, perfect, made out of some unknown dense element. It’s menacingly pretty, sort of like that object from the movie Sphere. It’s the quietest machine I’ve ever used. Read that carefully, the quietest machine, including laptops, including my new MacBook Pro. Even under load you can’t hear this thing. I love that.

Is it objectively faster at somethings like Lightroom single threaded performance relative to a maxed out CPU/Graphics/Memory current iMac 27 5K or even MBP 15? Nope, maybe even “slower”. Can you tell? Nope, when it comes to single threaded performance of applications I use heavily like Lightroom we’ve been at the point of sufficiency for most people for quite some time. The old Mac Pro is indistinguishable from high-end consumer machines that are technically faster at some single threaded things. They both rip through 24, 36, and 50 megapixel RAW files like they were nothing. In some tasks that are common to my own workload the Mac Pro handily beats the pants off those machines. Especially long running batch stuff that benefits from more cores and sometimes more GPU cores. What’s more is even though my MBP’s are sufficient to rip through one by one big RAW files the whole machine and especially the app that’s working on them crawls when doing any sort of multi-threaded batch stuff. The Mac Pro? Doesn’t break a sweat.

The Future Of The Mac Pro

Yes, Apple came out and “admitted” that the current design doesn’t meet the needs of a lot of their pro market (namely upgrading GPU stuff). Honestly I really think most of the angry mob would be fine if Apple offered tech refreshes with what is a beautifully designed and executed machine that you just cannot get anything like it from any other vendor. Sadly Apple is not going to refresh the guts and GPU’s in a design as wonderful as the current Mac Pro at a frequency that satisfies some of the high-end market. Instead they’ll go to a more generic path of jamming a newer generic component into it more frequently instead.

I hope that I can take Apple at it’s word and what we get is something with that off-the-shelf component swap-ability in terms of GPU cards or whatever and it really is as unique and well designed as they say it will be. I really hope it’s not just a big box of slots and bays in a pretty wrapper. We can get that from just about any company.

I hope whatever comes from Apple in the terms of a new sans monitor Mac Pro will be small and quiet. I hope it happens to hit the right notes for me and my market. I hope I am as amazed and surprised as I was with the trash can that happens to hit all the right notes for me. Assuming Apple goes the route of jamb any GPU card you want in the thing I have no idea how it will be small and quiet. Hell, all the high-end graphics cards out there are bigger and way louder than the entire XEON/dual GPU package as a whole that’s on my desk right now.

I truly hope Apple doesn’t just phone the next Mac Pro in by letting the vocal rabble design the product or we’ll end up with a 50 pound box of slots and bays which just about anyone can make. Products like the current Mac Pro are a unique and wonderful thing that only Apple can do and does do. I am not alone in hoping the next one is more like the current one in terms of what it does that nobody else can. Go ahead try and find another company that packs XEON’s and dual high end GPU’s, and all the rest of it into a 6 inch by 9 inch silent package. Maybe I’ll be surprised, I hope I am. Maybe they’ll pull a Steve Jobs and we’ll get it all instead of letting the rabble figure out what the product should be. Maybe they’ll pull a Steve Jobs and we’ll get…

• Something even smaller and quieter.
• A one socket and a two socket model so that the upgrade people can slam any Xeon or pair in they choose.
• Maybe, just maybe we’ll get a Steve Jobs-esque convincing the GPU companies to broadly offer their baddest current stuff in a format that’s not the giant card with it’s own cooling etc that you can jamb in any one you want but it leads a new “standard” that’s not based on a model so last century generic. Imagine a world where you could jamb in an NVIDIA or AMD chipset without the fans etc into the form factor we want now.

I doubt it but one can hope. Honestly do we really, really, really still need 4 bays in the same box? Do we really want a big loud ugly box that works the same way PC boxes have worked since 1982 with a bunch of bays and slots to chuck inefficient independently cooled plane jane “boards” in? If that’s the case jamming two of anything that are the current “full width” form factor in will make something that is so so backwards compared the current Mac. If we listened to the rabble (allegedly technically astute people) we’d all still have that albatross of the seperate and distinct bunch-o-little typewriter keys on our phones.