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by CharlesColeman 2571 days ago
> I'm struggling to see why I'd take a $5000 (realistically since it's Apple more like $6500-7000) machine over a $2000 machine running Fedora unless I need to develop for iOS [emphasis mine].

IIRC, the problem was that Apple left those people (and other professionals in the Apple ecosystem) with literally no good options.
1 comments
noir_lord 2571 days ago
I'd argue at that price they still don't have a good option merely an option.

$6k for an 8 core tower with 32GB of RAM base and a 256GB SSD (my Thinkpad has 32GB of RAM and more more nvme m2 storage than that).

So it's less powerful in the base config with half the RAM of the machine I built last year for £2000 (about $2600 currency to currency, I suspect you could do it for $2200 if you built it in the states).

Which will shortly be a 12C/24T for another $499 - whatever I get for the 2700X.

I get that I'm not the target demographic but that is hilarious.

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blacksmith_tb 2571 days ago
A lot of their target market (photo/video/music) passes along the cost of their hardware to their clients, so I doubt an exorbitant pricetag will be too much of an obstacle. I am still using a 2010 Pro which would have sold for $3K+ when new, I spent $300 to get it used years later (and a few hundred more for SSDs and a newer GPU). Maybe I can pick up an abandoned "trashcan" once the new Pros start shipping...
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CharlesColeman 2571 days ago
Totally agree. Maybe I should have said "capable option" instead of "good option." Up to this point they had an expensive, dated, non-upgradable pro offering and a bunch of consumer level offerings. Something that's just expensive (but up-to-date and upgradable) seems like a significant improvement on their status quo.
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tjohns 2571 days ago
Keep in mind your Thinkpad probably doesn't have ECC RAM, probably can't accept 2 TB of RAM, and doesn't have a Xeon processor.

This is a workstation for complex engineering/design/research use, not a general purpose desktop. You buy a workstation when you need as much compute power and expandability as possible, irregardless of price.

You can find similar workstations on the PC side as well (e.g. a Lenovo P920 or HP Z840). And they tend to be roughly as expensive.

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