[andrewbarba]

Maybe I am completely off the marks here, and I'm sorry if this is off topic, but as someone who follows very closely what Apple is (or isn't?) doing in their Pro machines I am very curious how those specs compare to what everyone is asking for from Apple. The RAM is obviously low, fine, but it sounds like the CPU and GPU are significantly more capable than anything that Apple is shipping right now, and Microsoft will sell this thing at a fraction of the price that Apple will sell any pro hardware. What am I missing? Where is the big gap in component cost? How is something like an Xbox so different, and so much cheaper, than a pro level desktop?

[snuxoll]

Microsoft is running a custom SoC that is tailor-made to their platform, with shared memory, power delivery and internal communication channels for the CPU and GPU. This right away reduces a lot of costs you see in a traditional professional desktop, where you have a GPU with separate power requirements, dedicated VRAM, and all the hardware needed to communicate over PCIe on both sides. Not to mention the Xbox One uses really weak (in comparison) Jaguar cores, instead of something much more expensive like Ryzen or Kaby Lake.

The CPU+GPU alone can add up to over $1000 retail on a workstation, and that's a consumer CPU and GPU - once you start adding "workstation" graphics like AMD FirePro or NVidia Quadro territory the GPU can cost over $1000 retail alone for validated drivers to support CAD applications, etc.

Factor in all the extra components that go in to support upgrades (memory sockets, PCIe slots, external connectivity like Thunderbolt) and the fact that these components use much more power than the Xbox One SoC and as such require more cooling and you can see how costs quickly add up.

Now, with all that said - the Mac Pro is pure price gouging. You can get an equivalent workstation from HP for a fraction of the price, but then it doesn't run macOS.

Personally, I find it rather amusing. I remember when the Intel cheese grater Mac Pro was first introduced and Apple was showing off an equivalently specced Dell workstation was more expensive than the Mac Pro. Apple has really lost their way in the professional space (see everything they've done with the MacBook Pro since 2012 as well).

[cwyers]

The Mac Pro was actually pretty well priced for what it was offering at launch. The price just has stayed constant and everyone else kept improving their hardware.

[joshuamorton]

A big part of it is the type of graphics card. FirePro (the kind in workstations) are much more expensive than normal general purpose graphics cards, which are again more expensive than custom SoCs which can be developed barebones for a specific use. Reason being that a calculation error that results in a dead pixel is fine when you are playing a video game. It'll be there for 1/60s and then be gone, never seen again. The same error in a disney film or a 3d scene rendered for a poster needs to be pixel perfect, so workstation class cards have a much lower threshhold for error, and cost accordingly.

(Also, and this is just conjecture: its possible that Apple intentionally overprices their pros as a sort of "look this is premium" cost, while the goal of an xbox is mass market sale).

[nailer]

> Reason being that a calculation error that results in a dead pixel is fine when you are playing a video game. It'll be there for 1/60s and then be gone, never seen again. The same error in a disney film or a 3d scene rendered for a poster needs to be pixel perfect, so workstation class cards have a much lower threshhold for error, and cost accordingly.

I've heard this a lot, and I don't doubt that it's correct, but could you explain why? Like do consumer class GPUs have less accurate floating point, or do their embedded algos contain hacks to produce less accurate results faster?

[khedoros1]

In the past, I remember being told that the fixed-pipeline cards could push a ton of vertices, but that they couldn't hand the same volume of textures and rendering effects as a consumer card.

One of the first things on the FirePro and Quadro Wikipedia pages is that the actual graphics chip in the hardware is the same as consumer levels. Aside from hardware tweaks like ECC RAM and possibly different display connectors, I think that the biggest differences are the workload that the drivers are optimized for and reliability guarantees for the results that the hardware produces.

[joshuamorton]

Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough to give you a conclusive answer. One big thing is that most consumer-class GPUs use normal memory, whereas workstation-class use ECC memory, which can correct for bitflips that might occur during normal operation.

[AlphaSite]

HBM is ECC by default, so that distinction is slowly vanishing.

[martinald]

That's not true. Loads of stuff is offloaded to GPU, which would cause a complete crash if it didn't work. GPUs aren't just layering rasters on top of each other.

[joshuamorton]

It is though, here's someone else saying essentially the same thing: https://superuser.com/questions/690388/why-do-workstation-gr....

Drivers that prioritize accuracy, and ECC ram fall well within the realm of "lower threshold for error", and price discrimination is covered by my parenthetical.

That said, the reason that custom SoCs are often less expensive than mass market cards is just because they have fewer things on them. If you don't need an FPU (which you obviously do here, but as an example), you can leave it off, which saves silicon and saves money. General purpose cards needs general purpose things, but a custom chip can often leave out certain components, although I don't know which ones those might be in this case.

[snuxoll]

It is true. Workstation graphics cards often have ECC memory, consumer cards don't. The biggest difference in most use though is better fp64 support on workstation cards, important for CAD applications as well as some use cases with 3D animated films or special effects.

[pixel_fcker]

Animation software works just fine on geforces (no-one uses AMD for professional work) - you don't need fp64 for anything. Rendering for film is 99.9% CPU-based, and even if that weren't true, all the GPU renderers on the market don't make use of fp64 anyway.

The only reason to use workstation class cards is because the software is certified to run on them (I.e. You won't get support from AD if you use a GeForce instead of a quadro). The only real reason used to be memory but with 11GB in a 1080ti even that's less true these days.

[lowbloodsugar]

Actually the difference between a top consumer graphics card and a professional card is just the drivers. A few years ago the president of nVidia went as far as to say that we was running a software company that monetized their software with "dongles" (the card). It used to be the case that cutting or adding a link would turn a $500 consumer card into a $2000 pro card: the link would be detected by the driver to enable pro features.

Also, aren't Disney movies raytraced?

[pixel_fcker]

> Also, aren't Disney movies raytraced?

Yes.

[strictnein]

They're really just too very different things, on many, many levels.

For general computing purposes, an Intel i5 based system would be significantly more performant than this, but the Scoprio is highly, highly optimized for its specific task.

[83457]

Traditionally consoles are sold at a loss at first and the as components come down in price it evens out. Last gen though xbone and ps4 were essentially sold at cost. Most likely this is sold at cost and then they make money off of games. Apple needs to cover costs of OS and make a profit off of the computer alone and people are willing to pay a premium for Apple.

[ekianjo]

> Traditionally consoles are sold at a loss at first

That has not been the case since this generation, and even most Nintendo consoles were not sold at loss. the Wii was already profitable at launch, hardware and price-wise. Plus, looking at sites like iSupply is not a good estimation of the real cost of consoles, since manufacturers who order millions of parts do not pay the same price per component as consumers.

[eberkund]

You're not missing anything. If this console launch is anything like the previous generations the hardware will be an amazing bargain when it comes out. Comparable to a high end gaming PC or workstation for half the cost.

The only difference is that with Apple they will be expected to make a decent profit margin on that hardware and update it with newer specs in a year or two. With consoles, they will continue selling the same hardware for 5+ years so it is okay if they start selling at a loss initially if it means more money to be made from game sales.

[ben-schaaf]

Don't know if it's still the case for new consoles, but the ps3 was highly subsidised when it came out. Something like that would account partially for the price difference.

[mariusmg]

AMD vs Intel components is one part of the equation.

[EpicEng]

I've never seen anything in an apple desktop that suggests they aren't ludicrously overpriced. You can piece together a monster of a desktop for 2k, so I don't get it either.

[EpicEng]

If you're going to downvote I'd love to hear your reasoning. What about a Mac Pro justifies it's price?