I got into a full blown battle royale with another fellow on a different forum regarding this machine. The funny part was in the end he didn't even own one, was not about to, yet boasted about "money no object", and found his qualifications as an "IT pro" didn't even include a college degree! In other words: Full tilt fanboi who's overdosed on the Kool-Aid. But I digress...
My take after going back and forth of us "educating each other" and personal research:
Depending on who you are, it's a great/fast machine. BUT:
For Audio guys, I'd say it's not for us. Especially for a commercial place. Though if you throw enough money at it you can make it "Work" and it will be great for a few years. Buy a ThunderBolt chassis and tons of adapters for what used to be on the machine (i.e. firewire), possibly an isolation booth, and the cost of all the extra parts and a place to put it all and you're all set!
When you're done though you could easily be pushing $10k US.
Doing the Numbers, the price for just the MAC PRO itself is actually pretty good and hard to match if you built your own. It's the form factor and need to buy "accessories" that screws the pooch.
I agree all the external boxes and wires take the whole "Chic" thing away and makes it pointless other than the cooling. The noise is back because you have boxes there with you again anyway.
As a "Roll your own" kind of guy you can build a SICK machine for less than half that with room to grow and NO need for an extra chassis. Though the only caveat is the "bleeding edge" Processor is not yet available as a part for PCs . Since rarely does the software take advantage of "Bleeding edge", I generally build at the "Cutting edge" level with room to grow/upgrade as time goes on.
Lastly, it's kind of a "throwaway" machine. Everything is pretty much proprietary apple. The video cards it has are BADASS for 2014. Though down the road it's doubtful there will be many 3rd party upgrades available unless you can disable and throw new ones in your TB chassis provided it's not already full by that point. Or buy ANOTHER TB chassis assuming with everything you don't tap out the bandwidth. Same goes for the SSD. No matter what, you'll need something to archive to eventually unless you trust "the cloud".
IMO this is a great machine for Video guys who upgrade every couple of years and don't mind dumping a few grand on a new system vs. upgrading an existing system.
There also is an assumption about Thunderbolt catching on. Some companies have gotten on-board, but not all. Right now it's pretty much an "Apple Thang". Last I checked unless you buy specific motherboards it's a challenge to get Thunderbolt on PC. There's simply not much out there. AFAIC, Thunderbolt is only fragmenting the market and wreaking havoc on equipment makers and dividing their userbase.
If you want to be really pissed at apple, look at the origins of Light Peak. it's an INTEL technology which Thunderbolt is Apple's watered down version of with a proprietary connector (Display port). Originally it was supposed to be backward compatible to USB3 (See Sony's CORRECT implementation with Power Media Dock
http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/14/2490 ... light-peak) but none of the bigger computer companies wanted to play because was too expensive at the time. Apple decided to "Appleize" it so it became "Theirs" and to hell with everyone else (THANKS APPLE!)
Personally I've gained a mistrust for Apple as they drop technologies like a hot potato the moment it suits them or to force "obsolescence" to sell new wares. There is no way to know if Thunderbolt will be any different IMO. The current Mac Pro could prove to be a very expensive trash can pun intended
Now please forgive my bias, but that's my take from the "Non-Mac" camp
