New Apple iMac Pro - 18 cores, built for the pros

[chk071]

Price a Mac against a prominent DAW builder and you'll see Apple's prices are pretty comparable. Especially for the better design/sexier look. So I'm surprised that we're still talking about price. I thought it was agreed upon that Macs are comparably priced to similar spec/quality PCs.

Let's not do the "lemme build you a Mac killer for less than 1000$" game. I get it. I think the rest of the world gets that.

How does that fit together? Prices are comparable, but let's not compare, or we will see that a similarly spec'd PC is a $1000 less expensive?

It's pretty simple: Both the bespoke audio-computer builder, and Apple's offerings, come to you already to use. Buying your own parts, assembling them, and bragging about how much cheaper your computer is, doesn't make sense.

Just because you can buy some ingredients to make a curry at home, for cheap, doesn't mean you never spend many times that amount having someone else make the meal for you

Ok, point taken. I still think even a comparable computer-builder PC model will be cheaper. Other market, other demands. A Mac doesn't necessarily have to be inexpensive.

[stratology]

Let's not do the "lemme build you a Mac killer for less than 1000$" game. I get it. I think the rest of the world gets that.

A lot of the discussion comes from arguments that may have been valid in the 1990s. No link to any real price comparisons for current Macs vs. current PCs (not PC parts), of course.
There was even a guy ranting about people using Mac laptops in Cafés to look at Facebook - poor guy doesn't have grandchildren who can explain to him that nobody does that anymore, and that there are these things called 'smartphones'.

[robotmonkey]

A lot of the discussion comes from arguments that may have been valid in the 1990s. No link to any real price comparisons for current Macs vs. current PCs (not PC parts), of course.

I actually can't understand why are you going on about the 1990s? Evaluating computer configuration and prices is exactly the same as it ever was. The only thing that has changed is that Apple has absolutely lost any advantage when it comes to compatibility and reliability.

[stratology]

A lot of the discussion comes from arguments that may have been valid in the 1990s. No link to any real price comparisons for current Macs vs. current PCs (not PC parts), of course.

I actually can't understand why are you going on about the 1990s? Evaluating computer configuration and prices is exactly the same as it ever was. The only thing that has changed is that Apple has absolutely lost any advantage when it comes to compatibility and reliability.

Haha, you just, involuntarily, made my point.

[Jace-BeOS]

Funny thing is, it'll screw up Windows as well, which is likely where their poor experience came from in the first place.

So you recommend to run Windows without any antivirus software?

Windows comes with one that just works and has done for 5 years. So yes.

Really bad advice. Even though Windows Defender in the last Creators Update is improved, it's still not as effective as a proper endpoint protection product form any of the top vendors.

I generally don't use any third-party protection software either. Safe browsing and awareness are my tools. Occasionally I run SBSAD, but rarely (haven't in two years), and it usually only finds suspicious cookies. Adblock is probably the more important tool here anyway, since the internet and browsing are the most common vectors.

I've never been subjected to malware at home. The only time I saw it in labs of computers at work was when Windows XP's RPC was compromised. Service patch fixed it while keeping the network disconnected.

I don't recommend going unprotected for inexperienced users who can't as easily judge what's risky internet activity, but the wasted resources aren't as critical to "office worker-style" users.

My companion, however, is an interesting end user "office-worker" case: she runs three (yes three) anti-malware products at one time, yet she's a computer-savvy person. I think she's living in fear... though I DID have to remove malware from her machine at least once. She and her partner use their computers to an abusive extent (tons of open programs and literally hundreds of browser tabs at one time), so the wasted resources aren't inconsequential. I keep trying to teach them moderation...

But personally, I'm not going to waste my system resources and money on products that feed, and live on, FUD. Legit issues crop up and the OS vendors deal with them as needed; 3rd-party malware protection companies aren't the gods of catching these things.

Furthermore, while Windows is a security mess, I really don't care much anymore. I'm not using it for more than outdated games, and my bigger annoyances are historically caused by legit vendors... like Microsoft.

[Jace-BeOS]

mine didn't start failing until I started using it heavily with gaming and 3D software, suggesting thermal extremes were the issue).

Correlation is not causation.
Others who were not gamers and did not drive the Mac to 'thermal extremes', whatever that's supposed to mean, also faced the Nvidia issue when the GPU was one of the batch that had the issue.

Fair enough on correlation not being causation. As for not knowing what thermal extremes are

2. The solution was to give users another board with the same GPU on it, which would fail.

No. The replacement MLBs had GPUs that did not fail, because they were not part of the faulty batch.

This claim was very specifically disproven by people posting on forums about their Apple-"repaired" machines suffering the same failure months later.

[Jace-BeOS]

You can postpone updates in OSX and I don't think I've ever seen a driver update to be honest

Agreed.

Apple gets you to upgrade by the overwhelming force of being left behind. (spoken by a guy still mostly using Snow Leopard)

I much prefer Apple's passive-aggressive method to Microsoft's current "YOU GET UPDATE NOW!" nonsense in Windows 10.

[Jace-BeOS]

yep we're getting way off topic, my point is that people moan about Apple because of the price.

If somebody was given a MacBook for free, given a few weeks to adjust, they would never go back to using a Windows machine

Unless they're averse to change or need Microsoft Access. :-/ (both being why my two recent home guests, who sometimes get free tech support from me, are still captive PC users)

[stratology]

She and her partner use their computers to an abusive extent (tons of open programs and literally hundreds of browser tabs at one time), so the wasted resources aren't inconsequential. I keep trying to teach them moderation...

This may be relevant for Windows, but on macOS, as the OS manages memory and CPU cycles. So when you have 40 apps open, it does not really affect performance. CPU cycles used by the currently active apps, and possibly apps that actively work on something while in the background (like when you trigger a render in FCP and then switch to Mail) are more relevant than the number of apps open.
You can watch how this works by opening Activity Monitor.

One thing I did frequently years ago to show off the quality of the Mac's multitasking was to start playing music in iTunes, start 3 movies in QuickTime playing at the same time, and then launch 30 apps. No dropouts in the music, no dropped frames in the movies.


Regarding browser tabs: I have seen performance issues with large numbers (>50) open in Chrome, never in Safari.


Bottom line:
It's 2017, users should not have to do anything to manage resources on a computer. That's the job of the OS. If a user has to manage resources, it means the OS is not capable of doing it's job.

[stratology]

This claim was very specifically disproven by people posting on forums about their Apple-"repaired" machines suffering the same failure months later.

To actually disprove this, 2 people complaining of a forum is not enough. You have to provide some real world data that show repeat failures on a significant number of machines, and prove that the root cause of the repeat failure is identical with the original issue.
If you have this kind of data, don't hesitate to post a link.


Example: if someone gets a Mac repaired, and then f*s it up by using temperature/fan control apps, that's not a repeat failure. Or: if a user has the Nvidia issue and the symptom is a dark display, gets it repaired, and 2 years later the display itself fails, or a connector to the display fails, or the display stays dark because the power supply fails, that's also not a repeat issue, even though the symptoms look similar.

[robotmonkey]

I generally don't use any third-party protection software either. Safe browsing and awareness are my tools. Occasionally I run SBSAD, but rarely (haven't in two years), and it usually only finds suspicious cookies. Adblock is probably the more important tool here anyway, since the internet and browsing are the most common vectors.

I've never been subjected to malware at home. The only time I saw it in labs of computers at work was when Windows XP's RPC was compromised. Service patch fixed it while keeping the network disconnected.

I

This is a false sense of security. Adblock is definitely important but it does not always block against malwertizing nor does it block against things like browser exploits and cross site scripting attacks.

Saying that I'm not visiting dubious sites or the like has nothing to do with keeping you secure. There's been innumerable cases where some of the most popular and completely legit sites have been compromised and served some really nasty malware. And as was shown by the recent WannaCry outbreak all it took was to be connected to the internet with the right ports open.

I think many people mix up not being infected and not knowing about being infected. I you do not have a good endpoint protection and you do not constantly scan your computer with several malware protection tools, then you have no way of knowing if you are infected or not. I can't count the cases where I have had to clean computer full of malware even though they were running (a crappy) antivirus. These are not the 1990's anymore when viruses were made mostly to annoy users. These days malware is made to be as stealthy as it can be without taxing any system resources.

A best of class endpoint protection is an absolute must however you look at it. And indeed, if possible run two complimentary ones (but only those that have meant to be run side by side with other products, or you'll get into big trouble). There's several products like Sophos InterceptX or Malwarebytes that have meant to be run side by side with your regular endpoint protection.

[yoreP]

It is 2017, can we finally lay the Macs vs. Windows to rest? Everyone uses whatever machine they feel they get the work done. It's not as any Windows user would change into Mac user or the other way around just because he reads these forums. I'm a Mac user because I like it better than Windows. Simple as that. When it comes to pricing, shouldn't we now compare Apple machines to Microsoft ones? I don't see them being exactly cheap either But as the topic seems to be about iMac Pro and not Windows , it will be interesting to see just how expensive this new iMac gets when you're added the 18 cores, 4 TB SSD and 128GB RAM. Any advice to good lottery numbers?

[stratology]

And as was shown by the recent WannaCry outbreak all it took was to be connected to the internet with the right ports open.

Wrong. An essential requirement for the worm to take effect was that the computer had to run an outdated Microsoft operating system, specifically Windows 7 or older.


Remaining on an outdated OS release is always a security risk, regardless of platform.

[chk071]

This thread is so full of BS that a McDonald's can at rush hour is nothing against it. A typical Mac thread, kind of.

[robotmonkey]

And as was shown by the recent WannaCry outbreak all it took was to be connected to the internet with the right ports open.

Wrong. An essential requirement for the worm to take effect was that the computer had to run an outdated Microsoft operating system, specifically Windows 7 or older.


Remaining on an outdated OS release is always a security risk, regardless of platform.

What is exactly wrong with this statement? Please stop arguing for the sake of arguing if you even can not comprehend what is talked about. CVE-2017-0145 (EternalBlue) vulnerability was presents in all versions of Windows up to Server 2016 though the attack was targeted at Windows 7 machines. The patch was released on the same date for all versions of Windows except XP/2003. And yes, all it took, was to have the right ports open to internet for a machine to be compromised.