“iMac Pro has been in the house for a week – this has been my experience so far!” Marques Brownlee writes on YouTube.
Apple’s powerful new iMac Pro launches the general public on December 14th.
Brownlee tested a 3GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W iMac Pro with 128GB DDR4 RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 16GB HBM2 memory, and a 2TB SSD. iMac Pro is a completely sealed computer, so the specs you order are the specs you’ll be using. Choose wisely, Padawans.
The all-new iMac Pro, with its 27-inch Retina 5K display, up to 18-core Xeon processors and up to 22 Teraflops of graphics computation, is the most powerful Mac Apple has ever made. Featuring a new space gray enclosure, iMac Pro packs serious performance for advanced graphics editing, virtual reality content creation and real-time 3D rendering. iMac Pro starts at $4,999.
MacDailyNews Take: For the right type of user, iMac Pro is the stuff of which dreams are made.
See also:
The ram cannot be upgraded by the user? That is a step backwards!
Not the RAM, not the SSDs, not the video cards, no possibility of NVidia, no possibility of adding TB4 (should it ship). Eat your dog food as served and like it!
You can expand via Thunderbolt, so Nvidia would appear to be an option for an external upgrade. Not ideal, perhaps, but better than nothing. You can similarly expand external storage.
If you are looking for the functionality of a cheese grater Mac Pro from circa-2012, then you will have to wait a bit longer. Hopefully, Apple will give you everything you want and more.
Not even close to sufficient speed for sli or crossfire…
Right now I’m running dual Titan Xs, it would need to at least do that.
And when Apple does wake up, I will bet you it will be stratospherically priced, possibly still have proprietary parts requirements, etc… but I will wait before passing final judgement.
They clearly want to keep this for a somewhat different market to the upcoming MacPro and additionally make sure that they get new sales as replacements further down the line to make it all worthwhile and ticking over. I guess this is the payment from the pro brigade for Apple ‘making the effort’ to give them something to play with. A touch cynical perhaps though I have to say now I have a solid state drive I have little impetus to change anything else so most designers will find this sufficient even if the price is far greater than the one I forked out.
As stated in the video, the iMac Pro is very viable for someone working with Final Cut Pro or the like. It is not a one-size-fits-all tool for pros, in general.
As far as the pricing of the Mac Pro goes, I really don’t know, and neither do you. All you have is consistent cynicism. It is possible that the new Mac Pro will fall into similar cost brackets as the iMac Pro after you eliminate the built-in 5K display, but augment the chassis, power supply, PCIe expansion slots, internal drive bays, extra ports, RAM capacity, thermal control provisions, etc. If the Mac Pro reverts to something more akin to the previous cheese grater design, but with a lot more headroom for multiple processor cores and RAM, then the base cost might start out in the same general range. The price of the maxed out Mac Pro with a couple of dozen cores (or more), 256 GB of RAM (or more), and various options for SSD and HDD storage will, no doubt, be very high. For those who need that power, it will also be worth it.
I don’t want to bother debating comparisons with low-cost PCs or hackintoshes. When newly released, the high-end Macs tend to be reasonably priced compared to similarly spec’ed PCs in the majority of credible reviews that I have seen. I will not defend the current pricing of the trashcan Mac Pro relative to contemporary PC offerings, because it has not been updated in years. And I agree, that is inexcusable. But you need to jettison your bitterness, look ahead, and chart your course forward, whether it involves a Mac Pro or not.
“All you have is consistent cynicism.”
And all you have is consistent BLIND Apple fanboy excuses …
“The price of the maxed out Mac Pro with a couple of dozen cores (or more), 256 GB of RAM (or more), and various options for SSD and HDD storage will, no doubt, be very high. For those who need that power, it will also be worth it.”
No question it will be high at those specs, but the likelihood is it will be “way too high” compared to what can be done with a non-Apple solution. MacOS remains the main advantage. That advantage (to me) is diminishing.
“All you have is consistent cynicism”
Yup! Fueled by Apple’s self-serving policies, pricing, and fans who totally fail to be critical, never mind cynical. A fan, almost by definition, protects the interest of their beloved, often over their own.
But to be honest, I am pleasantly surprised by the objectivity of many of such fans here. Others… expactly what one would expect.
The guy in the video priced out a comparable PC and it came it at $5,100, but without as good a display. He says right in the video the price is fair.
What about the benefit of versatility? Worth nothing? Choosing a monitor that fits your budget, while keeping compute for instance?
Were we talking about versatility? That will be worth something to some people and nothing to others. You said “the likelihood is it will be “way too high” compared to what can be done with a non-Apple solution.” and I said the video already compared prices and found the iMac Pro was fairly priced.
Versatility enters the value equation. The more versatile does more, thus has better value.
Versatility means different things for different people. For some it is the capability of the machine and they’ll never even consider wasting additional time and money reconfiguring or upgrading the machine because it isn’t necessary or cost effective. For others versatility means changing up the hardware configuration and that is useful. Versatility has value for some and not for others, and in different ways. You can’t make a blanket statement that the iMac Pro offers less value because the user can’t crack it open and swap in new parts. In some cases not having to upgrade it and getting many years use out of it is what has more value. I’m approaching year 9 on an iMac, still doing everything I need in my business. I’d be a fool to complain about the original purchase price.
Most respectfully, don’t compare Apple RAM pricing to anyone else’s. At least 2X more often higher.
“You can have any color you want as long as it is black.”
-Henry Ford until Chevrolet passed him in sales by offering a variety of colors.
Waaaaaa! It’s overkill, and I can’t upgrade it!
Buy a Lego set. Build a bird house.
A bird house does not cost $4,999
A “Pro” bird house.
How would having upgradability negatively impact you?
My biggest beef with the systems not being able to be upgraded is that you still pay a premium to get memory at purchase. Fine, if you will not let me upgrade it than at least sell me the upgrade at purchase for something close to cost. In the Mac mini, the jump from 8GB to 16GB is $200. If I could upgrade it, I would not spend anywhere near $200 to buy 16GB RETAIL. That way people would be more likely to get more memory (or storage or whatever) and that improves their experience.
In looking at the pics on the Apple website at: https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/ (about 2/5 of the way down the page) it looks like the installed RAM is/are standard size desktop SIMM’s. I would say that if the screen were removed and would wanted to get in behind the logic board, it would be replaceable/upgradable… We’ll see… and likely a LOT of work…
You should probably top off the RAM as much as possible, and get the best version of video, that should hold you for awhile. Oh, and take out a second mortgage while your at it to pay for this beast.
And a person could build about half a dozen loaded Hackintoshes for what a mid-spec iMac Pro will cost.
Microsoft mentality.
And my $2000 Hackintosh will run the same OS with similar performance to the cheapest iMac Pro, and can be upgraded two years from now.
Better than taking it up the a$$, unless you prefer it that way.
100% sealed and not upgradeable in any way.
I’ll pass.
I’m gonna guess you passed at the price tag.
Was never under consideration. Probably owns a Chromebook.
Agree totally! …
It is sealed only to the average user. The current iMac is sealed too – yet I was able to open it up and swap out the hard drive for an SSD. Earlier reports showed that the processor was not soldered to the system board. I’m not sure about the RAM either but it hardly makes sense to solder processors and RAM for low volume Macs.
The new iMac Pro is sealed for virtually all users. Extremely few people are going to unglue the screen to replace/upgrade things. While the process to get into the 24 inch iMac is laborious to replace/upgrade RAM or hard drives, it is not impossible. Yet, it is difficult enough that extremely few do so. The same will be true for this new iMac Pro.
Upgrading the RAM on the “standard” 27″ 5K iMac has been straightforward. There is a door for direct access to the RAM. Therefore it is inaccurate for you to say the current iMac is sealed too. Comparing 27″ 5K machines (iMac & iMac Pro) the new one is sealed. The “standard” one is not. Directly from Apple’s site for the current “standard” iMac 27″: “8GB (two 4GB) of 2400MHz DDR4 memory; four SO-DIMM slots, user accessible”. Note the “user accessible” part of that.
I am not taking a $5,000 unit and prying it open and dealing with the glue and all that nonsense.
It’s not that hard if you have an iMac repair kit and I’m sure MacFixit will have one for the iMac Pro soon enough. The trickiest thing was aligning the adhesive strips to re-attach the glass.
It’s marvelous to behold inside of it though.
I do not understand why this computer is sealed.
—It doesn’t need to be lightweight
—It doesn’t need to have a razor-thin profile
—It doesn’t need to be portable
—It has a 27 inch screen, I’m not going to be moving it around a lot
Just give it a fairly slim profile with a door for the the RAM (like previous iMacs.
And a slide out tray for the HD/FusionHD/SSD
There is enough room behind that gorgeous 27″ screen to put two HD trays and no one would care if it were an extra inch thick—it’s a desktop computer!
One thought, if the Ssd and ram are soldered in, this albatross edifice of s%*! Is basically Apple pretending to listen to creative professionals and, out of sheer spite, spitting in their face… if basic ram and Ssd are not upgradable, I will happily dance (a very scatological one at that) on its cube-like grave. F’ Apple. Unbelievable.
Wait for the Mac Pro. That is the machine that you want.
Other than not including a door to enable user-upgradeable RAM, there are no surprises whatsoever in the iMac Pro design. It is exactly as Apple promised. There is no “spitting in the face” of anyone. It is what it is. Buy it or don’t buy it. Wait for the Mac Pro or go Windows. The griping is overdone on this forum, and has been for years. You know what is coming – wait for it or move on.
Thanks Mel, a lone voice of sanity in the wilderness of cry-babies!
Some of these whiners couldn’t put a Pez dispenser together. Russian trolls hired by Microsoft?….
For pro photographers it’s a no brainer. Fully deductible inc AppleCare over it’s lifetime, horsepower to spare – even for the majority of videographers. SMBs too.
I don’t need one but the business niche is huge.
Lots of negativity from wannabe power users and entitlement weenies.
If it were highly upgradable, it would have an anticipated service life of greater than five years, and it would not be fully deductible. The auditors and IRS would require it to be treated as a capital expenditure and amortized over its expected lifetime.
Difficulty to repair is only a problem for those who do not purchase a (deductible) AppleCare policy. Professional videographers, photographers, etc. are as likely to do their own repairs as the average Ferrari owner is to do his own tuneups.
Well said, KingMel, well said.
Welcome to 2013, where these same lame rationalizations/appologies worked so well for the trashcan, which in comparison, is a wonder of upgradeability. In the mean time, pro’s in droves ran away from the platform. It also worked great for the cube before it. Something something about history, and something something, doomed to repeat it.
Earth to fanboys: An iMac PRO that is sealed is NOT A PRO MACHINE! Yes, Apple is spitting on Pro users once again. But I do agree you know what your getting, and NOT getting upfront. I will certainly pass on this ridiculous insult to the Pro market …
Time for “Apple Certified” clones.
Apple doesn’t seem to care about hardware anymore. Let someone else make some hardware choices and give us a choice.
Tap, tap tap… Still waiting for that upgradeable “2018” Mac Pro….
Though as Schiller explained it takes this long to make an iMac Pro and they only started maybe last March on a COMPLETELY new Mac Pro, well, 2018 starts to seem a tad optimistic.
Nothing pro about it if it’s sealed and not expandable! Sorry Apple! Missed again! Should be user serviceable!
DUD. Nice throwaway gaming machine for the basement dwelling unemployed drop out.
It will be a cold day in hell before I shell out $5k for an iMac that is glued shut and cannot easily be repaired or upgraded by the end user. Now if you are stupid enough to buy a throwaway iPhone for $1k maybe this looks like a screaming deal- kind of like the people who pay outrageous prices for designer shoes.
Hope someone in Cupertino is lurking:
1 Don’t glue it shut. Make it where it can be opened without special tools.
2 Workstation form factor- not an all in one.
3 Able to be accept standard memory, graphics & expansion cards and socketed CPUs.
4 Great connectivity- plenty of ports.
5 No built in display- I’ll buy my own
Kind of like this:
So after the 15 or so angry posts, I’m confused. Are you or aren’t you buying one? 😉
Not in this lifetime.
Note Apple sent test units to the YouTube crowd first- not anyone who would seriously test it.
This unit is “Pro” like Fox News is “News”- a title, not a statement of fact.
Can anyone give a logical reason for this machine to be completely non-upgradeable?
What does sealing the unit add to its usefulness? How is it better than having some sort of openings, or – remember when Steve Jobs introduced the revolutionary “door” on the G3 Mac?
Yep.
Phil wants you to buy another one in 2 years- just like your phone.
Apple does not want you to buy a Workstation you can upgrade and keep for years on end.
Throwaway phone- iPhone
Throwaway laptop-MacBook
Throwaway tablet- iPad
Throwaway desktop- iMac
So Apple can sell you another one in two years.
> Can anyone give a logical reason for this machine to be completely non-upgradeable?
A “Manufacturing Efficiency Expert” will note that eliminating pieces such as access doors results in a lower parts count, and lower parts counts mean that it is cheaper to assemble. For a given price point, this increases profits.
Real world customers, OTOH, will point out that it also makes the device disposable, which will mean earlier replacement and a net higher lifecycle cost. Which means that the product represents an inferior value.
It starts at $5K and is sealed. People will just wait for the mod Mac Pro.
I wonder how many people are looking at the money they could make, that would more than pay for the iMac Pro over time, but will still wait for a Mac Pro? I mean, you could take on more jobs OR do the jobs you have faster in the months where you’re waiting to be able to, say, swap out RAM. I think this system is made for REAL Pro’s that are pulling in the 10’s of thousands of dollars a month at least, not the “Pro” that just wants a computer to tinker with the internals of.
This is actually exactly what I’d predicted they would release, and I’m guessing I’ll be correct about the Mac Pro that starts at or above $10,000.
For those businesses, I would imagine buying 1 or 2 to replace older Macs than a wholesale replacement and wait for the fully upgrade-able Mac Pro to replace the rest.
Wait get too long, Pros move on to PCs, Apple decides Pros are no longer interested in Macs and produce less the ‘next’ time feeding a vicious circle downward.
So, the standard 27” iMac has a door to access RAM, but the ‘Pro’ version doesn’t? What I’m the actual fuck, Apple?
iMac Pro is designed for a professional that will spend $6-10K on a Machine to save themselves 2 to 3 hours a month. That’s big money. After 24 to 36 months they’ll buy another machine. The iMac will sit cleanly, quietly, and nicely on their desk and be a real screamer.
My iMac is almost 5 years old and it will be replaced when my client comes out with their new software specs. My iMac is 24 months past its replacement time. It saves me 5 hours a month. $5 to 6 K is chump change, the iMac Pro very well could be the last computer I’ll buy in my professional life.
To all the perpetual whiners in this thread, I direct you to this actual review from a person who actually used the iMac in question. He makes a very good point that time is money for a pro user. And so rather than kvetching about ‘access’ to the innards etc. he talks about doing real world tasks with it. Tasks that are his living.
http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2017/12/12/apples-new-imacpro-has-an-impressive-200-300-speed-bump/
How would building in some level of upgradability slow down the pro user?
It wouldn’t slow down the pro user at all, obviously. But it would slow down the manufacturer and their carefully crafted and intricate production and marketing plans. — they are literally in the business of making money and have demonstrated a knack for doing just that. Look, it pisses me off, too. I want to believe that a company as rich as they are should at least have a mercy unit that delivers what you and I crave. But even if Tim Cook appealed to Apple’s Board of Directors on our behalf, and even if the directors felt pangs of sympathy for our plight, the cost of running a mercy unit would run too high. Yes, they could afford it, but would anyone responsibly do it? No.
Which brings me, a Mac owner since 1989, a Mac sales rep for several years, and an Apple Certified Technician at one time, to begin building my first Hackintosh in the coming weeks.
I’ve owned in the past a Mac Plus, a Mac LC, a Performa 630, two MacBooks, a PowerMac 7100, and two iMacs. Currently own a nine-year-old iMac and my daughter’s MacBook Air.
Would I be OK with a new standard iMac? Probably, but the lack of upgrade-ability kills that idea.
I don’t have a problem with the sealed iMac Pro. To me, it will be a souped-up version of an iMac and should suffice for my needs for the next five years or so. I’m just going to go with the base model and pay for more RAM upfront. Except for the non-upgradeability, it’s good enough for me. I’m past the age of tinkering.
I hope enterprise users can appreciate the iMac Pro and Apple sells a lot of them. If they’re trouble-free, it should be a good deal.
Right now there are a million PC hackers who could easily assemble the hardware that professional mac users want, and instal Mac OS on it. The idea that Apple is struggling to figure out how to make a serious Pro Mac is just insulting. Apple is trying to slowly kill the mac.
The reason: I think they have given up on the market. If Apple produces something new and innovative that encourages mac sales, the PC market will just copy it, and the copy will likely make more money for Microsoft then the original does for Apple. So they figure if they neglect the mac, PC sales will languish too, and all the interest will be where Apple is already strong; with phones and tablets.
The CASH REGISTERS where I work have several features I’d love to see on an iMac. HDMI input, Accessible USB and memory card slots, a slider to cover the camera, space to add an extra hard drive without a rats nest of cables on my desk. (I have 10 external drives right now.) It is so frustrating to see apple simplify their own production costs at my expense.
The specs for this iMac are way more than sufficient for most people making a living with a iMac. I use a 2012 every day for Inventor, 3D printing, CAM, 4K / 8K video editing, photo editing, adobe suite, etc. I routinely use CAD files over 2GB in size and video in the 30gb range and properly maintained it keeps pace.
After 5 years I recently upgraded the SSD and the HDD, took me about an hour with $50 in tools. Thank you iFixIt.
Its a good practice with technology that when you buy a new piece of equipment always have plan that it will pay itself off in less than 24 months. If not you are not doing enough work to warrant this level of investment.
The new iMac looks to save me even more time. Good tools cost more and are worth it. If you want to build a franken Mac and futz with it – knock yourself out. You want easy expandability – use the tool that works for you. Stop your winging and move on.
For 95% of us the iMac Pro is a welcome addition to our stable.
Minimalism should only go to a certain degree.
Question: would anyone have an opinion if this machine is overkill for audio work? I do trailers, film production. Need to upgrade badly. For me it’s a write off regardless. or should I wait for new MacBook Pro? Been using a 2011 17” 4 core with 2 SSDs. But need to make a move soon. Financing!
More than adequate for audio work. Of course, for about $2k you could have a 12 core cheese grater that would also do just fine for audio.
Where the old <2012 Mac Pros are limited is gpu and i/o. As long as you can work over ethernet or to a local drives, however, save your money. This new iMac is fairly priced, but the fastest versions won't be available for many months.