I didn't say "modest means." I said "more modest means" -- compared to a guy who made major cash thanks to an IPO. The vast majority of people on Earth, engineers included, have means more modest than that.
Second, I never said "need."
However, there are clearly a lot of folks who would benefit from top-tier desktop power (namely, developers) and would pay for it, but can't pay $6K.
Like I said, my parents were the definition of
middle class - a teacher and a factory worker -
and I had a $4000 computer setup in 1992 going to
college (see specs in another post). That would be
$7300 inflation adjusted.
It's hard to imagine anything less relevant than this. For oh, so many reasons.
So your family like had roughly 2X median income. But that's besides the point. Besides, maybe they had 10 kids or something.
Can the average middle class US household sustain a $6K or $7 expense? Yes, with significant effort. And this made a lot of sense in 1992, because that's what a powerful desktop system cost and the alternative was not having a powerful desktop system. So your parents made the necessary sacrifices, and since you're posting on HN 30 years later I'm going to assume it was a fruitful investment. However, asking people to pay $6K for a computer in 2019 is an entirely different proposition. You can get that level of computing power for a fraction of the price.
I'm not particularly mad about the Mac Pro, mind you. There are alternatives and nobody's forcing me to buy one. I do, however, think that -- to return to the topic of this discussion -- that claiming Apple's "listening" to developers w.r.t. hardware is pretty laughable. Most developers want a fast-as-fuck CPU in a box, and many are perfectly willing to pay an "Apple tax", but not thousands of dollars worth.
Even in 1992, that was way more expensive than the equivalent 386 PC with a better monitor. A laser printer was definitely not the norm.
But the Mac Pro wasn’t meant for your average developer. I doubt very many consumers would buy this at all. It’s aimed at businesses and professionals where a $6000 outlay is nothing. Do you really think after 2 years and building up an internal team of “pro users”, Apple didn’t design this product for its target market?
Apple didn’t say they were “listening to developers”. They said they were listening to pro users. Are developers a subset of that? Yes. Have a lot of high end developers gravitated toward the iMac Pro and high end iMacs? Yes.
If geeks were expecting Apple to
cater to lower end needs, they haven’t been following Apple for the last two decades.
They aren’t asking ordinary users to shell out six grand. They even made the Mac Mini much more of a midrange computer than it was before.
But the Mac Pro wasn’t meant for your average developer.
[...]
Apple didn’t say they were “listening to developers”. They
said they were listening to pro users.
Yes. That's the entire point. Developers are grumbling because Apple's listening to other pro users, but not them.
I feel like you're at a point where you completely understand Apple's stance ("we are listening to some pro users, but not developers in particular") and some developers' complaints ("boy, we wish Apple would listen and give us a relatively affordable desktop class machine, without a monitor") but are still, for some reason, arguing just for the thrill of it.
They even made the Mac Mini much more of a midrange computer than it was before.
More of a midrange computer, but not really comparable to high-end consumer desktop performance. It may be illuminating to take a look at other manufacturer's machines using this CPU. If you don't feel like clicking the link, I'll tell you: $1,000 laptops.
For a few hundred more (roughly $1400) you can get a desktop PC with a high-end desktop Core i7, giving you anywhere from 20%-60% more CPU performance, high-end GPU, etc. I'd pay $2K for an Apple version of that, but to option an iMac up to similar specs will have you pushing $3K.
Mac Mini 6 Core I7 16GB RAM - $1500
BlackMagic eGPU - $700
$2200
So for a mere $2,200 we can have:
1. A two year-old GPU inside the BlackMagic that has roughly roughly half the performance of the GTX 1080 Ti that was state of the art two years ago. Also, for this privilege, we pay $700 for this $200 GPU. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+Pro+58...
2. Whatever nightmares come with eGPU usage in 2019. At a minimum, it's another box, another fan, another power supply, and a cable. And that's if the software side of things actually works flawlessly in 2019 which, last I checked, was still a little hinky.
Even if you just subtract the eGPU (I don't think most developers care too much about that) this is why a significant number of developers just sort of want a fast CPU in a desktop box. It could literally just be the Mac Mini guts in a bigger box.
From the article you posted: "...it a solid performer even when under load for a long time."
Small case, excellent thermal management
From a simple, binary, "yes or no" perspective, the Mac mini clearly throttles based on the thermal condition. But, this is not a "gate," conspiracy, or anything of that nature. Everything with an Intel processor will adjust speed based on the thermal condition, with the severity of the slowdown and impact on performance depending on how much money you've invested into a cooling system if you've built the machine yourself.
All this said, we're impressed with how the performance on the Mac mini held up as the job progressed and time ticked on. The clock speed averaged out at around 3.4GHz to 3.5GHz under 100 percent CPU workload with the i7 models, but at no point did it drop below the 3.2GHz base clock speed —making it a solid performer even when under load for a long time.
Do you have comparative benchmarks between the Mini and a desktop under load for a long time?
Why would you think that an eGPU codesigned with Apple, where Apple wrote the drivers, to run on Apple hardware would have issues? I chose Black Magic’s eGPU since it appeared on Apple’s website, and I don’t know that market. But there are raw enclosures for $200 that let you put in any card with a supported driver.
I didn't say "modest means." I said "more modest means" -- compared to a guy who made major cash thanks to an IPO. The vast majority of people on Earth, engineers included, have means more modest than that.
Second, I never said "need."
However, there are clearly a lot of folks who would benefit from top-tier desktop power (namely, developers) and would pay for it, but can't pay $6K.
It's hard to imagine anything less relevant than this. For oh, so many reasons.First of all, household median income in 1992 was about $30K unadjusted: https://www.multpl.com/us-median-income/table/by-year
Which was also roughly the average salary for teachers: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1993/10/20/07aft.h13.html
So your family like had roughly 2X median income. But that's besides the point. Besides, maybe they had 10 kids or something.
Can the average middle class US household sustain a $6K or $7 expense? Yes, with significant effort. And this made a lot of sense in 1992, because that's what a powerful desktop system cost and the alternative was not having a powerful desktop system. So your parents made the necessary sacrifices, and since you're posting on HN 30 years later I'm going to assume it was a fruitful investment. However, asking people to pay $6K for a computer in 2019 is an entirely different proposition. You can get that level of computing power for a fraction of the price.
I'm not particularly mad about the Mac Pro, mind you. There are alternatives and nobody's forcing me to buy one. I do, however, think that -- to return to the topic of this discussion -- that claiming Apple's "listening" to developers w.r.t. hardware is pretty laughable. Most developers want a fast-as-fuck CPU in a box, and many are perfectly willing to pay an "Apple tax", but not thousands of dollars worth.