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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

2017 iMac Pro will be ready to buy 12/14/17

The guy who made that review video is comparing the tested machine to a similarly spec'd PC and is not taking into account that the tested machine is likely not the starting $4,999 model. 128GB RAM is the max and there are lesser options. The 16GB VRAM is the max and there are lesser options. Same with the storage and the number of CPU cores. It's probably an $8,000 iMac Pro, maybe more. The similarly spec'd PC is $5,100.
 
Dell equipped workstation to baseline iMac Pro, 8 core Xeon-W, 32GB Ram, 512GB SSD, 8GB AMD WX 7100, 10GB ethernet, USB-C Add-on Princes out at 5030, and that doesn't include a 27" 5K Monitor. Add another 1.5-2K for that.

I actually think the iMac is a steal.

Now, can I build a 10 Core i9 System for cheaper, yes. Would I in a production environment, prob not. Support is worth a lot more than some people value.
 
That ZDNet pricing article is a re-post from their speculation back in April/May. Fact is, we don’t know about pricing and Apple has been keeping that very tightly under wraps. What I can say is that the biggest upgrade in terms of price is probably going to be the 4TB SSD option. In terms of real-world pricing, there is only a $1440 price differential between the 8-core and 18-core Xeon-W CPU. CPU and pricing information on those CPUs were not available when they originally posted this article.

If Base price is $5K for the iMac Pro and we add full retail pricing on 128GB RAM, 16GB VEGA GPU and 18-Core CPU to bring it to a maximum 18-core 128GB configuration, we would be adding $5000 plus whatever it costs to add another 3TB of SSD. I’m betting the maximum configuration iMac Pro should be priced right at $10K, but knowing Apple they will find a way to make it $12K. I honestly don’t see how they could charge more than that. They have never historically charged an additional amount equal to the full price of a CPU to upgrade from a lower model. So taking a guess at the pricing of the 4TB SSD, I’m betting a maximum spec iMac Pro to clock in at either $11,995 or maybe $12,995. I don’t agree with the $17K assessment. Didn’t agree with it way back when and now we have CPU and GPU pricing that was not available when ZDNet made their prediction.
 
I’m going to embelish here and and this is my wild-ass guess at pricing.

Base 8-core, 8GB GPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD: $4995

CPU Upgrades:
10-Core: +300
14-Core: +800
18-Core: +1200

GPU Upgrade:
Vega 64 16GB: +800

Memory Upgrades:
64GB: +900
128GB: +2800

SSD Upgrades:
2TB SSD: +800
4TB SSD: +2400


Looking at this some more, I can see a maximum config possibly costing in the $13K range.
 
Marc Wielage said:
ZDNet's analysis of the pricing and components is sobering…
Click to expand...

Saying that upgrading from a Vega 56 to Vega 64 will cost you $2000+ is pure click bait.

I'm guessing around $500-600.

Jeff Kilgroe said:
I’m going to embelish here and and this is my wild-ass guess at pricing.

Base 8-core, 8GB GPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD: $4995

CPU Upgrades:
10-Core: +300
14-Core: +800
18-Core: +1200
Click to expand...

I hope you're right Jeff, but I'm guessing the CPU upgrades will hurt a lot more.
 
AndreeMarkefors said:
I hope you're right Jeff, but I'm guessing the CPU upgrades will hurt a lot more.
Click to expand...

Well, crap. My math was off on those CPU prices, I’ll adjust new predictions here, those really were not the prices I had in mind:

10-core +600
14-core +1000
18-core +1600

We shall see. The 8-core Xeon-W has a retail list price of $1110 and the 18-core list price is $2553. Looking at all of Apple’s past CPU upgrade pricing, they have never charged more than about 12~15% more than the price differential of MSRP to go from one CPU level to the next. These Xeon-W CPUs are aggressively priced from Intel.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The 8-core Xeon-W has a retail list price of $1110 and the 18-core list price is $2553. Looking at all of Apple’s past CPU upgrade pricing, they have never charged more than about 12~15% more than the price differential of MSRP to go from one CPU level to the next. These Xeon-W CPUs are aggressively priced from Intel.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I hadn't checked the retail prices, so I am thinking more with my gut. It would be very refreshing to see higher tier CPUs make more financial sense.

I won't go back and check, but I remember when buying my 6-core 5.1 Mac Pro in 2010 that the dual CPU configs were quite expensive. But of course, that was an upgrade from single to dual socket too.

Even if I'd rather wait for the Mac Pro proper, it will be interesting to see the pricing and clocking for the 14 and 18 core CPUs. Or has Apple already published speeds for those CPUs?
 
AndreeMarkefors said:
I won't go back and check, but I remember when buying my 6-core 5.1 Mac Pro in 2010 that the dual CPU configs were quite expensive. But of course, that was an upgrade from single to dual socket too.

Even if I'd rather wait for the Mac Pro proper, it will be interesting to see the pricing and clocking for the 14 and 18 core CPUs. Or has Apple already published speeds for those CPUs?
Click to expand...

Xeon-W specs:
8-core: 11MB cache, 3.7GHz base clock, 4.5GHz max turbo
10-core: 13.75MB cache, 3.30GHz base clock, 4.5GHz max turbo
14-core: 19MB cache, 2.5GHz base clock, 4.3GHz max turbo
18-core: 24.75MB cache, 2.3GHz base clock, 4.3GHz max turbo

If Apple releases a dual-CPU capable Mac Pro, the CPU prices will be higher as the system would most likely be based on the upcoming Xeon E5-v5 series. No official specs or pricing have been announced yet, but they launch mid 2018. Keep in mind that the current 18-core Xeon E5v4 CPU launched early 2016 with a n MSRP of $4960 and currently goes for right around $4400 on the open market. Dual 18-core with the upcoming v5 CPUs could easily be a $9K+ upgrade from the base configuration. I think HP is currently charging around +$8500 to configure a Z840 to dual 18-core up from the 6-core base model.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Xeon-W specs:
8-core: 11MB cache, 3.7GHz base clock, 4.5GHz max turbo
10-core: 13.75MB cache, 3.30GHz base clock, 4.5GHz max turbo
14-core: 19MB cache, 2.5GHz base clock, 4.3GHz max turbo
18-core: 24.75MB cache, 2.3GHz base clock, 4.3GHz max turbo.
Click to expand...

These are the official specs, it seems. We know that Apple is clocking the 10-core at 3GHz—so slightly underclocked. But seeing how the 14 and 18 core come in well below 3GHz as base clock, I wonder if they too are underclocked the same proportional amount, or if they are closer to standard spec.

And seeing that they are all pretty close in terms of Turbo performance, I'm curious if it would be possible to step up to 14 or even 18 cores without losing too much single thread performance. We'll see soon enough.

Regarding the new Mac Pro I think I would just make sure to get the price/performance dual CPU (if that's what they offer) version at launch and step up the cores as CPU prices drop in two or three years. Similar to what I did with my 5.1 that I later changed to a dual CPU config.
 
AndreeMarkefors said:
These are the official specs, it seems. We know that Apple is clocking the 10-core at 3GHz—so slightly underclocked. But seeing how the 14 and 18 core come in well below 3GHz as base clock, I wonder if they too are underclocked the same proportional amount, or if they are closer to standard spec.
Click to expand...

Actually we don’t that for sure. The demo units are not fully functional. They can’t underclock the CPU and still deliver the 4.5GHz turbo, can’t have it both ways. The reviewers are not allowed to do certain benchmarks or post specific details, they have not been given pricing details and rumor has it that OS X on these systems is not reporting specific CPU speed and other bits of info.

At the demo session I attended they would not disclose specifics. They wouldn’t let us look at the profiler or system info tabs. We were only told the CPU was running “about 3GHz” and there was 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD and the GPU was an AMD VEGA (didn’t know which one). We got to play with FCPX mostly and a few other things too. No mention of the A10 [A11?] chip, BridgeOS, etc..

The GeekBench scores that have leaked out thus far indicate the 10-core is operating at 3.3GHz base... Assuming we can believe the leaks and they’re actually from an iMac Pro. Apple people stated at the FCPX users group demo (10 days ago or so), which was not the demo session I was at, that they are not throttling back any CPUs. Now this also does not mean that Intel isn’t providing them with their own Apple-specific chips with different timings. Which has been done in the past.

And seeing that they are all pretty close in terms of Turbo performance, I'm curious if it would be possible to step up to 14 or even 18 cores without losing too much single thread performance. We'll see soon enough.
Click to expand...

This is the trickiest aspect of Intel CPUs over the past few years. We really have to make a choice of CPU that falls somewhere along the path between fastest speed and most cores. A very difficult prospect if the system is to be used for a variety of apps and workflows. I’d like to see more specifics on core usage and turbo scaling on the new Xeon-W chips, I have not seen that.

We should know a lot more here in a few hours...
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Actually we don’t that for sure.
Click to expand...

In an absolute sense, it's indeed hard for me to say I know 'for sure', but I'm basing the assumption off of the data I've seen on Geekbench. The six or so 10-core tests I found there reports 3.0GHz base for iMacPro1,1

And then as the Vega 64 results started to show up with results around 20.000 pts below (165.000 vs 185.000) what a Vega 64 scores in a 5.1 Mac Pro, I feel that supports the theory that Apple tailors the specs of both CPU and GPU to fit the iMac Pro thermal spec. In all honesty... as long as the iMac Pro can render with CPU at 100% for 3 days straight without shutting down—all would be good.

But, hey! No further speculation needed on my part—only a few hours away now! =)
 
Yeah you poor guys down under have it the worst for pricing. Nothing yet here so it looks like it will be 8:00AM Cupertino time now before they update.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Yeah you poor guys down under have it the worst for pricing. Nothing yet here so it looks like it will be 8:00AM Cupertino time now before they update.
Click to expand...

its insane 4400,- for the highest specked macbook PRO !! my last car was cheaper lol
 
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