I think the dust has finally settled on the celebratory fanfare that was the new Mac Pro’s
announcement.
Apple fans round the world clamored at this new, extremely high-end, extremely expensive,
modular PC.
And it brought a lot of features that Apple fans have been looking for.
Upgradable storage, RAM, a socketed CPU, and oodles of PCIe slots for either one of Apple’s
proprietary MDX GPUs or, if desired, the ability to use a standard off-the-shelf graphics card.
I know PC users will scoff at the proprietary keying on the PCIe SSD, or the Apple T2 chip
that limits upgradability and dual-booting into Linux, or the theoretically effective
but practically questionable cooling design, but for us battered Mac users that have been
dealing with MacBook Pro keyboard issues, a disappointing MacBook Air refresh and thermal
throttling problems, this new Mac Pro finally feels like a fresh start.
A new chapter.
Apple seems to be demonstrating that they still care about the Mac—at least, in some
form.
But there’s a problem.
This new computer starts at $6,000 and with really… underwhelming specs to boot.
There are lot of people that consider themselves “pros” but either can’t budget or justify
the hardware selection Apple has made on the new Mac Pro.
Let’s talk about why Apple’s current lineup excludes a whole lot of people and what they
could do to win us back.
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If you want a headless Mac—without a screen—you have two options.
The 2018 Mac mini (the cheapest Mac) or the 2019 Mac Pro (the most expensive Mac).
That’s it.
And while an odd number of Apple fans seem to think the new Mac mini is super great,
I don’t.
First off, there’s no upgradable or replaceable components save for the RAM which requires
a pretty severe disassembly process to access.
There’s no dedicated GPU—and you can’t blame the tiny footprint as the culprit because
Intel’s Hades Canyon NUC is about the same size and packs a rather powerful AMD RX Vega
M. The mini also has pretty severe thermal throttling issues as I demonstrated in my
review and the $800 base model’s specs are comically bad.
I built an Intel NUC hackintosh that not only performed 20-30% higher in benchmarks and
real world tests with significantly better cooling, but it was less than half the size
of the Mac mini and nearly half the price.
So many people then say, oh, well if you need more power than Mac mini, just get one of
the 2018 i9 iMac models or the 2017 iMac Pro.
Indeed they have a beautiful display, but they too mostly lack end-user upgradability.
The standard iMac can have its RAM upgraded but that’s it.
And on the iMac Pro, it’s not user upgradable.
Now, I say that with a bit of a caveat as I have, in the past, upgraded both the CPU
and the RAM on the 5K iMac and iMac Pro.
The CPU is socketed as is the RAM …BUT that’s a massive undertaking and is hardly something
I could recommend to any sane individual.
Furthermore, the GPU (which more frequently requires an upgrade than the CPU) is BGA-soldered
on all the iMac models.
Not upgradable.
Apple permits the usage of Thunderbolt 3 eGPUs, but I’ve tested them and while they work,
they’re expensive, noisy, and don’t take 100% advantage of the card’s capabilities.
The Mac Pro and the iMac Pro share similar flaws when it comes to hardware selection.
I, as well as other YouTube creators like LinusTechTips have demonstrated that when
considering the gorgeous 5K display that comes on iMac models, Macs are actually pretty competitively
priced for the hardware that’s in them.
What PC fans will point out—and they often have a point—is that no sane individual
will choose the same hardware that Apple does for their machines.
They unnecessarily utilize enterprise grade Intel CPUs as opposed to high-end consumer
ones which are substantially more expensive and offer little to no practical benefit with
latest generation hardware—even for the industries that allegedly require them—they
use ECC memory in a world where standard DDR4 has superb error correction, their GPUs are
over-engineered and under-perform cards that cost a fraction of the price, etc.
So yeah, their computers are priced pretty well for the hardware that they use, but normal
people wouldn’t choose the hardware that Apple uses.
They’re often willing to spend 3x as much money for a single digit performance or reliability
increase.
On the Mac Pro, I think that’s probably a fair call, but for people that are doing
anything other than data science, extreme 3D rendering, or need enterprise certification…
for those who just want a modular Mac, it isn’t.
Then we have the ProDisplay XDR.
This monitor is in a weird spot because you have color scientists basically saying the
monitor is cool but won’t likely replace reference monitors that are used in color
grading houses which was the competition Apple compared it to.
On the other side, you have people like developers or non-professional video/photo editors who
feel like they need the power of Mac Pro but don’t need a $6,000 monitor.
Sure, there’s the LG 5K UltraFine Apple sells, but the build quality is crap, it’s
ugly, and reliability issues have been pretty widely reported.
Apple straight up doesn’t sell a monitor under five thousand dollars.
You used to be able to use pre-2014 iMacs in “Target Display Mode” which allowed
you to basically use the iMac as a monitor for another computer.
It was great, but that functionality disappeared in 2014 when the 5K iMac was announced.
I described why in an old video—take it away, sexy young
Quinn!
The current base-model 27” 5K iMac starts at $1,800.
Even for $1,800, you can’t find a 5K monitor with similar color accuracy and max panel
brightness.
There are monitors around $1,100 that have better color accuracy, but they’re 4K, not
5K, and they’re significantly less dim without a glass panel.
I propose Apple do the following: build a Mac Pro mini of sorts.
Make it look the same as the Mac Pro, but with a much smaller form factor that provides
easy access to the CPU, RAM, and SSDs with 1 or maybe 2 full-size double-width PCIe slots
for GPUs and accessories.
Don’t use the Xeon line, don’t use ECC memory.
Using current-gen i7 or i9 CPUs intended for the high-end desktop market could act as a
jack-of-all trades.
While it will never happen, it’d be cool to also see Apple offer a desktop with AMD
Ryzen support since their price-to-performance is a current market champ.
Allow this newfangled Mac to be sold without a GPU—internal graphics only—with the
option for users to utilize their own macOS supported GPU.
And Apple, stop being a douche and let NVIDIA drivers work on your latest OS.
I think a base-config like this could be offered at a rather high $1,999 and a lot of people
would still opt for it.
I certainly would.
On the monitor front, take the exact 5K panel being used in the iMac Pro and put it in a
similar enclosure to the ProDisplay XDR.
Apple could price it at $1,499 and it’d still be one of the best priced displays on
the market.
And who knows?
Maybe they could even through in a free stand.
Filling this vacancy in the market could allow Apple to have a line of computers that could
cover nearly all use cases for every target consumer—which would be the first time Apple
would be able to make everyone happy in a really, really long time.
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