Mac Pro starts @ 3000...

Yeah, but unless you want a base model with the slowest processors, the least RAM, just 256GB storage, etc, you're at $5000 pretty quick.

That is crazy money!

Yea, we paid that for our new gene wine IBM AT 6 MHz with 1 meg of ram an a 32 meg hard drive with IMB DOS 3.3 back in 1986.

Wow, I hadn't realized. I know that a couple of years ago, you could buy Apple 5k 27" monitors (for $999), which seemed crazy, but would have given you matching 27" monitors. I also have had at least dual monitors for many, many years, and at work have been using anywhere from 2-4.

I think for my home PC, I could get by either using the 27" to display 2 programs and/or using the OSX multiple desktop feature which is great. I remember when windows and Linux were hot for the multiple desktop thing. It was pretty moderate in practice, but the OSX version seems to work much better.

Have had a Mac since the 512. Apple is continually coming out with new tech and abandoning old. I remember the cries of horror when they discontinued the floppy. And then the CD drives. Am assuming with the speed of USB-C and the relatively cheap new peripherals people will want, it will be a moot thing in 6 months. I've got a drawer with old dongles I never use. Will be interesting to see what is coming down the pipe.

Come to think of it had to go to dongles with the last laptop upgrade to be able to use my firewire 400 devices.

I've heard of photographers being upset with the loss of the SDcard slot to download pics from their camera. My camera can do that wirelessly but I usually just use the USB cable because it recharges the camera batteries while I am downloading the pics.

Back in the early 90's I heard about Apple going to Firewire. This was long before it came out. There was talk of using Firewire for all the peripherals including monitor and keyboard, and also wired network. Seems like that has actually happened with USB-C.

The only place dongles bother me is if I have to carry them with my laptop when going portable.

Those are LG displays, not Apple displays. You used to be able to buy an Apple branded monitor that basically looked just like an iMac.

Those are just LG displays that Apple is making that don't look anything like an iMac.

So, I priced up an Intel NUC. Top of the line unit with an 6th gen i7, 3.5GHZ, with a 512GB M2 SSD, 32GB of 2133MHZ RAM, 31.5" 4K display and Windows 10 Pro:

$1478.59

If I were to build an "ultimate" multi display drafting unit, with the 2nd from the top Intel CPU, top mother board, multiple video cards top of the line, 64GB RAM, 1TB SSB, etc, with 3 31.5 4K displays, it would be under $3K.

Edit - 2nd from top CPU is i7-6900K and is ~$1000, top CPU i7-6950k, is only $600 more. performance is less than 5% better.

The money is in the tech support and after-sale service now and no longer in the sale of a quality product. :rolleyes:

And you can do it with "industry standard" pieces that can be easily replaced or changed out if your software needs require it. Our big workstation had dual Nvidia 9800 cards and each card has two cooling fans. We needed to install a new software package for doing 3D mapping and pulled one of the 9800 video cards and replaced it with a Quadro K4200 and bought a 3D monitor with the glasses that the software company recommended. The 4200 is slower at pure graphics calculations but it does the 3D real well. There is not quite enough room to have all three cards on the motherboard with the other cards we have in there.

I can say first-hand that the 5k 27" Mac is mind-blowing even after months of ownership and use. Excellent product. If I ever get to a point where I can do Revit, Vectorworks, Maya, SketchUp and 3DS on a laptop all day (and admittedly the new MacBook Pro 15" I have comes close...) I'll ditch a desktop platform. For what I do the 5k iMac makes work almost enjoyable.