A thing that I don't understand regarding Apple.

[Sámsa]

All you're paying for is a name.

Its like buying Alienware. Sure, its good stuff but its higher than buying raw components and building yourself

Alienware got primarily famous for their gaming laptops. You are not just building a laptop. Not like a desktop pc.

You pay for them to provide you with something you otherwise can not get.

[Kagthul]

I have recently started to take interest on a spec upgrade, regardless if it is Apple or a Custom Built PC.

I have looked on the Apple website and the specs I need will will probably cost me $5000+

After I looked Amazon and I found a MOBO Bundle

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 cores, 4.7GHz boost CPU, ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming Motherboard, 32GB 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM
+ Graphics + PS + Case will cost me around $1500

I understand that somehow the MacOS is better in many ways, but why the fuck apple basic Mac Pro is expensive... They are nearly similar in specs

They aren't remotely similar in specs.

Your 1500$ rig does not have:

Bespoke cooling

ECC RAM

Custom-designed case and thermal solution
- with a custom drive mounting solution

4+ full-fat Thunderbolt 3 connections.

A Pro Level GPU ("but this 500$ 5700XT is BETTAR FOR DA GAMINGZ!?!?!" i hear you screeching. Does it have Pro level, certified, and signed drivers? Oh, no? Then maybe we're not talking about the same things). Its not about raw GPU power in this case, its about the support that comes with signed and certified pro level, error-correcting drivers. Go look at a Quadro sometime. The one that has the -exact same hardware- as the 2080Ti is 3x as much. Because its a pro card, with everything that entails. The Radeon WX cards are just as much more expensive vs consumer cards.

A Mac Pro is a workstation. It is not for gaming. In fact, its not even terribly good at it. Its not supposed to be. Its supposed to crunch through editing and scientific tasks like a beast, which it does. It has software you cant get on a PC that are a lot better optimized than their PC "equivalents" (Final Cut even on lower core count Intel CPUs beats the snot out of Premiere even on higher core count Ryzens).

You looked at 3 specs ("I have X amount of RAM, X many cores, and a GPU") and went "dey are da equalz".

No. No they are not.

Want to get a similarly spec'ed PC workstation? You're going to be spending nearly as much.

Now, if you want to say "why didn't Apple use Ryzen" - yeah, im with you there. But in terms of cost vs other manufacturers of the same kind of hardware, you're not paying a lot more than you would from SGI, HP's workstation division, etc. Even if you tried to build it yourself, you wouldn't save much - those Xeon's that Apple is using retail for over 1000$ each even for the cheap one.

ECC RAM is fucking expensive, even if you DONT Buy it from Apple (and dont. Apple charges a lot for RAM).

So the answer to your question is:

They aren't remotely the same specs. Not even close.

- - - Updated - - -

No, its crazy. I can't justify their insane prices.

What insane prices?

Go ahead and build an All-in-One PC with a 5k LG panel. Let me know how much that costs. (LG sells JUST THE PANEL for 1200$)

Go ahead and buy an ultra small form factor PC like a NUC that has the same guts as the Mini. It isn't any cheaper.

Go ahead and find an ultraportable with similar specs to the MacBook Air. Itll cost about the same (we just had that discussion in the MacBook thread).

You do pay more; but we're not talking double.

"Spec equivalent" means ALL THE SPECS, not just the two you want to seize on to try to prove your point

Yeah, you can get a big, chonky piece of plastic laptop that weights 50% more, has 1/3 of the battery life, and a shitty screen with zero color accuracy for 1000$ that will be "faster" (at least on paper) than a MacBook Pro.

But it isn't an equivalent machine.

Go find a PC that is - lightweight, lots of battery life, a good, color-accurate screen, 2x full speed thunderbolt 3 ports, etc... and they are nearly as much. Razer's Blade laptops are a good example.

[Gaidax]

Mac Pro is for the actual professionals who need specific tools, it's not for gaming. There are very serious tools exclusively available for Mac users that are either outright unavailable elsewhere or are inferior in alternatives. Particularly music creation, especially considering a rather sad state of audio subsystem in Windows.

For gaming it's obviously dogshit. I have it all, Mac, PC, Android, iOS and basically when it comes for gaming - PC no contest. But for work Apple is simply superior with absolutely amazing sharing, casting and collaboration tools built-in right into Mac OS. I especially love iPad and MacBook combo, that one is outright brilliant in between seamlessly using iPad as 2nd screen for MacBook on the go or airdropping my written notes right into MacBook and back and casting with AirPlay immediately to any screen installed in my office floor from either of the devices, that's just great.

Heck I even decided once to make a video presentation for some specific developed module and in Windows, I'd have to go install some 3rd party software for that after 5 trials and errors in finding one that does not blow and is free, so I naturally thought "Apple, pfft they must be charging arm and leg for this"... nope - included right there as basic Mac OS function any quality you want ready to fire at a simple hotkey combo.

So yeah, when it comes to usability, UX and bundled capabilities - beats the living snot out of Windows with its included tools from 90s' and various Linux distributions with their atrocious UX. Gaming though, just no, IMO it's one big Apple's mistake that one.

MacBooks might seem pricy, but when you compare them to Windows workstation flagships of similar configuration - suddenly the delta is pretty small if at all. For example my Dell Precision actually costs more than my MacBook Pro while having almost identical configuration. The only difference is that I have Quadro on Precision and Vega Pro on Macbook.

Mac desktops though are definitely in their own grade, it's simply a dedicated hardware at that point.

[Kagthul]

1) That ram speed is atrocious.

Yeah, super-fast ECC RAM is just everywhere, amirite?

2) Macos isn't better in any way.

lolwut. Its more secure, uses a better more reliable file system, is quite a bit more lightweight on hardware.... i can go on, but at this point you're so far off in la-la land that no amount of factual information is going to penetrate.

3) The argument that there is a market for the mac pro is hilarious. Any company with someone intelligent in charge of IT would go for business hardware from Dell/similar or go for server hardware for compute.

The scientific community.

The entire Movie industry.

The entire TV industry.

One of my cousins works for ESPN. He drives one of their mobile vans that goes to sporting events. When the iMac Pro came out, they refitted every van in their fleet (about 100+) with 6 fully decked out iMac Pros. When the new Mac Pros were announced, they IMMEDIATELY budgeted to replace all of those with fully decked out Mac Pros. For every Van. With dual 5k displays for each one.

The idea that you think there ISNT a market is hillarious, considering all the shit Apple took over the Trashcan. (And rightfully so).

Companies build supercomputers out of them; hospital systems do the same to use them for medical research and imaging (one of the guys i correspond with on several Mac centric sites is the guy who takes care of two of those computers used by the University of Michigan hospital system).

So... lolwut?

[yomammyass]

They aren't remotely similar in specs.

Your 1500$ rig does not have:

Bespoke cooling

ECC RAM

Custom-designed case and thermal solution
- with a custom drive mounting solution

4+ full-fat Thunderbolt 3 connections.

A Pro Level GPU ("but this 500$ 5700XT is BETTAR FOR DA GAMINGZ!?!?!" i hear you screeching. Does it have Pro level, certified, and signed drivers? Oh, no? Then maybe we're not talking about the same things). Its not about raw GPU power in this case, its about the support that comes with signed and certified pro level, error-correcting drivers. Go look at a Quadro sometime. The one that has the -exact same hardware- as the 2080Ti is 3x as much. Because its a pro card, with everything that entails. The Radeon WX cards are just as much more expensive vs consumer cards.

A Mac Pro is a workstation. It is not for gaming. In fact, its not even terribly good at it. Its not supposed to be. Its supposed to crunch through editing and scientific tasks like a beast, which it does. It has software you cant get on a PC that are a lot better optimized than their PC "equivalents" (Final Cut even on lower core count Intel CPUs beats the snot out of Premiere even on higher core count Ryzens).

You looked at 3 specs ("I have X amount of RAM, X many cores, and a GPU") and went "dey are da equalz".

No. No they are not.

Want to get a similarly spec'ed PC workstation? You're going to be spending nearly as much.

Now, if you want to say "why didn't Apple use Ryzen" - yeah, im with you there. But in terms of cost vs other manufacturers of the same kind of hardware, you're not paying a lot more than you would from SGI, HP's workstation division, etc. Even if you tried to build it yourself, you wouldn't save much - those Xeon's that Apple is using retail for over 1000$ each even for the cheap one.

ECC RAM is fucking expensive, even if you DONT Buy it from Apple (and dont. Apple charges a lot for RAM).

So the answer to your question is:

They aren't remotely the same specs. Not even close.

- - - Updated - - -

A custom built computer can also be a work station and much more for like half the price.

ECC RAM has nothing new where it comes to performance, in fact it is slower, comparing to a regular RAM.
It is mainly used for fixing errors, which would be important for people who can’t afford data loss.

In USD Similar spec Mac Pro is $7,999.00. 32RAM/16 core CPU/Radeon Pro 580X/256SSD
In UK this should cost £6569.94 when you exchange the rate, but it costs on the UK Website: £7,499.00

Sure, they can argue, brexit and other factors but they pocket a sum from this too.
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-dollar-parity

Intel is hiking up their prices.


So the only two that are left is noise and macos

I owned an iMac and a Macbook Pro in the past and at idle they were quiet, but when I was using all of the cores then the fans where spinning at 2400RPM, so noise is almost like regular PC.

Macos is the only good thing.

I am pretty much sure I can buy a silent liquid cooled case that doesn’t look like a cheese grater
and have same performance.

So in conclusion you are paying only for the greed, thunderbolt 3 and macos

Heres a vid for benchmarks.

Low spec but expensive Mac Pro vs custom built pc for half the price

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uyvtFXTd9oc

[Surfd]

I have recently started to take interest on a spec upgrade, regardless if it is Apple or a Custom Built PC.

I have looked on the Apple website and the specs I need will will probably cost me $5000+

After I looked Amazon and I found a MOBO Bundle

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 cores, 4.7GHz boost CPU, ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming Motherboard, 32GB 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM
+ Graphics + PS + Case will cost me around $1500

I understand that somehow the MacOS is better in many ways, but why the fuck apple basic Mac Pro is expensive... They are nearly similar in specs

You do understand that you are asking for "reasonable prices" from a company who's literal business model involves selling 700 dollar castor wheel kits and 300 dollar foot brackets for their insanely overpriced Personal Computers, right?

Apple's business model has been entirely based around milking the shit out of people who are willing to literally mortgage their souls for products simply because they have an Apple logo on them for decades now. If you want a reasonably priced product, you figure out what direction Apple is in, and then you turn around and run the other direction as fast as humanly possible.

[Sandraudiga]

An average person buying a mac is an example of a failed IQ test.

[Linkedblade]

Yeah, super-fast ECC RAM is just everywhere, amirite?



lolwut. Its more secure, uses a better more reliable file system, is quite a bit more lightweight on hardware.... i can go on, but at this point you're so far off in la-la land that no amount of factual information is going to penetrate.



The scientific community.

The entire Movie industry.

The entire TV industry.

One of my cousins works for ESPN. He drives one of their mobile vans that goes to sporting events. When the iMac Pro came out, they refitted every van in their fleet (about 100+) with 6 fully decked out iMac Pros. When the new Mac Pros were announced, they IMMEDIATELY budgeted to replace all of those with fully decked out Mac Pros. For every Van. With dual 5k displays for each one.

The idea that you think there ISNT a market is hillarious, considering all the shit Apple took over the Trashcan. (And rightfully so).

Companies build supercomputers out of them; hospital systems do the same to use them for medical research and imaging (one of the guys i correspond with on several Mac centric sites is the guy who takes care of two of those computers used by the University of Michigan hospital system).

So... lolwut?

Moving the goalpost by saying "superfast," but yes you can still use it on am4/tr4/sr4. edit: the op had regular ddr4 at 2400 in his custom build. Not talking about the Mac pro.

More secure? Not really. Mac has as many zero days and flaws as any other platform.

And like I said: If those companies had any respectable IT, the PC manufacturers have equivalent hardware for better prices.

And your cousin and your one guy are part of these things called anecdotes.

Also to reiterate what you're wrong about: The availability of parts that are in the Mac pro. The apparently valuable custom crap. Security of OSX. Using a series of Macs for research.

That would make no sense whatsoever to use in large scale research/compute. Might as well move on to reach servers.

The only purpose they serve is a halo product for apple. Anyone willing to buy them is doing it for the undeserved prestige of the apple brand. Because other than that they serve no purpose and fit no market niche.

- - - Updated - - -

You do understand that you are asking for "reasonable prices" from a company who's literal business model involves selling 700 dollar castor wheel kits and 300 dollar foot brackets for their insanely overpriced Personal Computers, right?

Apple's business model has been entirely based around milking the shit out of people who are willing to literally mortgage their souls for products simply because they have an Apple logo on them for decades now. If you want a reasonably priced product, you figure out what direction Apple is in, and then you turn around and run the other direction as fast as humanly possible.

Apple is a consumer electronics company. And they would much prefer to make profit from services or insane markups on their electronics. And when they actually r&d they expect that to be paid back from the consumer. They don't actually expect to sell the Mac pro. But it looks great on a spreadsheet for the investors.

[tangers58]

I have recently started to take interest on a spec upgrade, regardless if it is Apple or a Custom Built PC.

I have looked on the Apple website and the specs I need will will probably cost me $5000+

After I looked Amazon and I found a MOBO Bundle

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 cores, 4.7GHz boost CPU, ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming Motherboard, 32GB 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM
+ Graphics + PS + Case will cost me around $1500

I understand that somehow the MacOS is better in many ways, but why the fuck apple basic Mac Pro is expensive... They are nearly similar in specs

Mac is just a cult. They put cheap chinese electronics in a shiny white case and convince idiots that it is "cool" or "being different". Only thing the company does well is advertising

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, super-fast ECC RAM is just everywhere, amirite?



lolwut. Its more secure, uses a better more reliable file system, is quite a bit more lightweight on hardware.... i can go on, but at this point you're so far off in la-la land that no amount of factual information is going to penetrate.



The scientific community.

The entire Movie industry.

The entire TV industry.

One of my cousins works for ESPN. He drives one of their mobile vans that goes to sporting events. When the iMac Pro came out, they refitted every van in their fleet (about 100+) with 6 fully decked out iMac Pros. When the new Mac Pros were announced, they IMMEDIATELY budgeted to replace all of those with fully decked out Mac Pros. For every Van. With dual 5k displays for each one.

The idea that you think there ISNT a market is hillarious, considering all the shit Apple took over the Trashcan. (And rightfully so).

Companies build supercomputers out of them; hospital systems do the same to use them for medical research and imaging (one of the guys i correspond with on several Mac centric sites is the guy who takes care of two of those computers used by the University of Michigan hospital system).

So... lolwut?

Ah good old anecdotal evidence, the 2nd to last refuge of the uneducated. The good news is that you haven't fallen back on petty attempts at insults yet.

[exochaft]

Man, there's a lot of golden calf idol worshiping in here...

Simple version: Mac is best described as a specialty tool, while most other PC solutions are a combination tool. Specialty tools are awesome for specific jobs and can be more pricy, but their general application abilities would on average might be less than a combination tool in other areas. The real question is what do you need, a tool for a specific job or one that's well-rounded?

[Agent Smith]

Macbook Pro user here whom just switched over 4 years ago, im on my second Macbook Pro. Here is why:

1) The framework we are using at work functions BETTER on OSX. I can install Windows 10 and Ubuntu using Parallels, I cannot run OSX on Windows without having to go through tutorials that either dont work anymore or come with a thousand errors you have to spend HOURS trying to figure out. Its just not worth the time sink.

2) The battery on my Macbook Pro lasts longer... Like WAAAAAY longer than ANY other laptop i have used. The one that came really close was the Thinkpad.

2B) A very minimal mention that my Macbook Pro doesn't sound like a jumbo jet thats about to take off after 2 hours of usage.

My final thoughts:

As far as gaming goes, ports, touchscreen/general display, cost for hardware, the PC-Laptop dominates in every way. I could even argue that Windows 10 is far more stable for a lot of things OSX cannot do.

I purely got my Macbook Pro specifically for work and for battery life. Thats ALL I paid for. If the framework we are using didn't run so seamlessly on OSX and battery wouldn't be so awesome, I would 100% be using a Thinkpad or an XPS right now.

- - - Updated - - -

Mac is just a cult. They put cheap chinese electronics in a shiny white case and convince idiots that it is "cool" or "being different". Only thing the company does well is advertising

Ah good old anecdotal evidence, the 2nd to last refuge of the uneducated. The good news is that you haven't fallen back on petty attempts at insults yet.

Im gonna quote what you said here, then allow you to go lookup what "anecdotal evidence is" and the irony of calling someone "uneducated" all while doing that exact thing in your post. Because CLEARLY you have pointed out, with objectively verifiable proof of course, that people who purchase Apple products only do so to be cool. How profound your research is. Im sure its even peer reviewed.

[Linkedblade]

Macbook Pro user here whom just switched over 4 years ago, im on my second Macbook Pro. Here is why:

1) The framework we are using at work functions BETTER on OSX. I can install Windows 10 and Ubuntu using Parallels, I cannot run OSX on Windows without having to go through tutorials that either dont work anymore or come with a thousand errors you have to spend HOURS trying to figure out. Its just not worth the time sink.

2) The battery on my Macbook Pro lasts longer... Like WAAAAAY longer than ANY other laptop i have used. The one that came really close was the Thinkpad.

2B) A very minimal mention that my Macbook Pro doesn't sound like a jumbo jet thats about to take off after 2 hours of usage.

My final thoughts:

As far as gaming goes, ports, touchscreen/general display, cost for hardware, the PC-Laptop dominates in every way. I could even argue that Windows 10 is far more stable for a lot of things OSX cannot do.

I purely got my Macbook Pro specifically for work and for battery life. Thats ALL I paid for. If the framework we are using didn't run so seamlessly on OSX and battery wouldn't be so awesome, I would 100% be using a Thinkpad or an XPS right now.

OP was talking about the mac pro, not macbook pro.

[Agent Smith]

OP was talking about the mac pro, not macbook pro.

I know, but its still goes to prove that its expensive hardware all the way across the board for what you pay for. If I paid 3k on a PC laptop, my specs would be insane. If he pays 5k for a PC Desktop, he'd have ungodly specs.

[Linkedblade]

Let's compare the base mac pro to the components you can buy separately:

Part	Price
Xeon W-3223	$1,199
4x8GB @ 2666MHz	$279
Rx 580	$170
256GB SSD	$60
Total	$1708

Now compare that $1708 with the $5999 price tag of the Mac Pro. I know i'm missing parts, but with that $4300 difference, you can complete the build and have more than half the budget saved.

[jellmoo]

The Mac Pro is a niche product. A very, very niche product. There are reasons to need a Mac Pro over a similar Windows PC. But a spec vs spec battle isn't one of them.

Unless you have one of those specific reasons for the Mac Pro (say, doing advanced visual effects using a product like Nuke) you are pretty much always going to get a better bang for your buck with a Windows PC. But if you need to use Nuke, there isn't a viable Windows option. It's pretty much use a Mac or use Linux, and there you lose a lot of solid support options.

[LedZeppelin]

I understand that somehow the MacOS is better in many ways

who told you this?

- - - Updated - - -

The Mac Pro is a niche product. A very, very niche product. There are reasons to need a Mac Pro over a similar Windows PC. But a spec vs spec battle isn't one of them.

Unless you have one of those specific reasons for the Mac Pro (say, doing advanced visual effects using a product like Nuke) you are pretty much always going to get a better bang for your buck with a Windows PC. But if you need to use Nuke, there isn't a viable Windows option. It's pretty much use a Mac or use Linux, and there you lose a lot of solid support options.

You can run Nuke on windows.

[silveth]

Mac is over priced for a simple desktop/laptop, but it is a good desktop/laptop.

It excels at things like music, graphics, and "hand holding".

It is not good for gaming, Windows is king there.
Not good for true data driven power users because you get locked into the ecosystem, linux is king there.

Mac systems have their uses and people that love them.
Window systems have their uses and people that love them.
Linux systems have their uses and people that love them.

Its up to the person doing the "buying and the using" to determine whether its worth the price or not for what they want to do with it.

[jellmoo]

You can run Nuke on windows.

You run into the problem that it runs like garbage and most of the scripts and applets won't work on it. You can, but you probably shouldn't. I don't know of any major studio that does. Just about all of them will run Linux machines for most artists, and Macs for Supes and maybe Leads.

[LedZeppelin]

It excels at things like music, graphics, and "hand holding".

Macs being "good" at music is a complete relic of a forgone era

[ONCHEhap]

I have recently started to take interest on a spec upgrade, regardless if it is Apple or a Custom Built PC.

I have looked on the Apple website and the specs I need will will probably cost me $5000+

After I looked Amazon and I found a MOBO Bundle

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 cores, 4.7GHz boost CPU, ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming Motherboard, 32GB 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM
+ Graphics + PS + Case will cost me around $1500

I understand that somehow the MacOS is better in many ways, but why the fuck apple basic Mac Pro is expensive... They are nearly similar in specs

Apple stuff is more expensive because some people are willing to pay.

You may ask "but why are they willing to pay that much?"

If you're asking yourself that question,you're not the target for their whaling campaigns

- - - Updated - - -

Macs being "good" at music is a complete relic of a forgone era

it's actually a false belief built by the fact that a lot of music artists were sponsored by apple and therefore were always seen with macbooks
so people see big famous musicians with macbooks and think "surely apple is better for music" without really questionning the why and how of it.