Want a $50k Mac Pro Cheese Grater? Get a $60 PC Cheese Grater!
by Dr. Ian Cutress on January 14, 2020 4:00 PM EST
One of the more bemusing aspects of 2019 was the launch of the new Mac Pro. Powered by Intel’s Xeon W CPUs, it offered a range of options such that the most buoyant of budgets could splash out on a fully equipped $50k+ system from the fruit company. The chassis was a doozy: nicknamed the cheese grater, because it had a holey and angled design such that you could grate cheese on it. Some reviewers even did that in there reviews – no joke. The only problem with this case is that it is only available for Macs. Phanteks' gaming brand, Metallicgear, has the solution if you want it for PC, and it’s much cheaper.
This cheese grater is called the Metallicgear Neo Pro, and currently in the last stage of design before retailing later this year in March/April. The concept from Phanteks has, for lack of a better phrase, turned into a cheap knockoff, intentionally. Apple’s case is machined aluminum for that premium feel – this Neo Pro is by contrast a plastic design, hence its ability to be only $60.
The circular vents are different to the Apple design, and the feel of the material is definitely different. Not only this, but Phanteks is thinking on making a set of wheels for it – a steal at $395 (they’re not actually making wheels, that’s a joke). However at a distance, you would be none the wiser, for at least the first few seconds.
The chassis design fits an ATX motherboard, and the idea is to ship the black model first with two black fans. The side panel is tempered glass, and the power supply bay is covered compared to the rest of the design. The front IO panel is on the top of the case, with two USB ports and audio outputs. More details to come when Phanteks is ready to ship.
Part of me wants this case, just to build a more powerful system in it than the top-end Mac Pro. Either that, or fill it with more than $50k of hardware, just to see if it is possible.
Images provided by Phanteks - ours weren't that great.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
60 Comments
View All Comments
close - Wednesday, January 15, 2020 - link
@AshlayW: "No, hon," Unless you're the one I'm bending over a desk I'm not your hon."most high-end PC owners are fully aware " Most are fully aware of nothing. Even on a site like AT 99% of commenters are ignorant asses who have to start a comment with "no, hon" to compensate for the rest of the crap they'll spill.
You start off by saying that *Apple* is overpriced but then go on to compare 2 CPU prices coming from you know... not Apple.
Then you tell me about the 3990X which, as great of a processor as it may be, won't be the first pick for people wanting 1.5TB of RAM.
You're obviously not in the market for anything like that but you're smart enough to think all of those people dishing tens of thousands must be idiots. Hon. I think somewhere there must be a cave with an endless supply of you people, smartest people around thinking that if they read a review they know more than the professionals actually choosing to spend real money on the gear.
How about you run along and show me a workstation with the same specs and significantly lower price actually available on sale. Hon.
Jimbo Jones - Wednesday, January 15, 2020 - link
People that "require" more than 1 TB of RAM for a workstation are going to be very few and far between. The people that could financially benefit from being able to render at more than twice the speed at half the CPU price will be, well, almost everyone ... just saying. If one actually does need more RAM than 1TB- I just priced out an Epyc rig with 2TB of RAM and more cores, for a similar price to the 1.5 TB 28 core MAC Pro.The Mac pro is a tough sell to anyone at its price but the most hardened fans.
Might want to dial that inner fanboy down a little ... its beginning to show.
sing_electric - Wednesday, January 15, 2020 - link
Well, if you're buying a $35k computer you'd better make sure that the performance meets your needs for your specific workflow(s). The Mac Pro is certainly a great computer for certain use cases, but configuring a Windows workstation to be as close to a component-for-component match to the Mac Pro as possible misses the point that, in the end, there's a lot of people for whom Apple's offerings (5 different Xeon W processors and 5 different AMD GPUs) doesn't make a ton of sense from a performance perspective.tipoo - Tuesday, January 14, 2020 - link
The upgrade models do get comparable to Dell/HP/everyone workstations, once you truly match up with Xeon Ws, pro graphics, and oodles of ECC RAM. However the base model is perhaps the worst value, 6K for 8 cores, a 580X, and 256GB of storage is handily beaten.PixyMisa - Tuesday, January 14, 2020 - link
Except no-one would use a Xeon W when Threadripper is available.Korguz - Tuesday, January 14, 2020 - link
but.. you could be comparing this to epyc as well....close - Wednesday, January 15, 2020 - link
Yeah, I think they meant EPYC since the if you want anything comparable to this when it comes to RAM. Haven't seen any TR MoBo with more than 8 RAM slots. Not so easy to find even EPYC boards for 1.5TB of RAM.Dug - Tuesday, January 14, 2020 - link
Except everyone that needs extreme high bandwidth system. Here's a copy and paste of some highlights.four Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports, and two 10Gb Ethernet ports.Connect up to 12 4K displays or up to six Pro Display XDRs play back up to six streams of 8K footage simultaneously at 29.97 fps in Final Cut Pro X, 4K footage in the same app, you can play back up to 23 streams of ProRes RAW video at 29.97 fps.
Two mpx modules give 56.6 teraflops and 1TB/s memory bandwidth each.
RSAUser - Tuesday, January 14, 2020 - link
Are you Trying to argue against the thread ripper? The one with PCIe 4 support?Korguz - Wednesday, January 15, 2020 - link
or just pick up a epyc rome....