Chaim Gartenberg for The Verge:
Apple announced [yesterday] that its new Mac Pro starts at an already pricey $6,000, but the company neglected to mention how much the top-of-the-line model will cost. So we shopped around for equivalent parts to the top-end spec that Apple’s promising. As it turns out: $33,720.88 is likely the bare minimum — and that’s before factoring in the four GPUs, which could easily jack that price up to around $45,000.
For all that dough, big-budget video editors and other creative types get a lot of firepower: a 28-core Intel Xeon W processor, an almost-impossible-to-comprehend 1.5TB of RAM, 4TB of SSD storage, and four AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo GPUs… Add in a Pro Display XDR monitor (and a Pro Stand to go with it), and you’re looking at a workstation that could clear $50,000. Keep in mind too that these estimates are based on market prices for these (or similar) parts: Apple historically has charged far more for its pre-built configurations than for a computer you’d build on your own.
MacDailyNews Take: If you have to ask…
Joe Schmo: Hey, how much did the RAM is your Mac cost?
Mac Pro (2019) Owner: $17,867.88. What’s it to ya?
So, yes, this is professional hardware and it’ll sell at professional prices. For a production company working with budgets of tens of millions of dollars per film, a maxed out Mac Pro is a rounding error. These setups aren’t intended for little Jimmy’s book reports. Apple offers other Macs for all different types of users.
As we wrote earlier today, the new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR are two grand slams by Apple!
To once again be able to confidently state that Apple makes the world’s most advanced personal computer has us brimming with joy! Regardless of how relatively few will be purchasing Mac Pro units – this one is for professional users, through and through – the knowledge that Apple has this flagship Mac now percolates throughout the entire family of Mac models, elevating them in the process. The same goes for the Pro Display XDR.
There’s a reason why quality carmakers, for example, make esoteric high-performance models – because they can and because they cast a halo of quality on all of their other more salable models. They don’t make money on the supercars themselves, but supercars make them money.
This is why we were so disappointed with Apple letting Mac Pro rot for over half a decade and for killing off Apple-made high quality displays. Both were poor decisions, now rectified. All Apple needs to do now is demonstrate their commitment to these products over an extended period of time and they’ll be right back on track!
WOW A $50K cheese grater!
So what!!!! The top of the line is not meant for the average Joe/Jane user/hobbiest/prosumer but for th e PRO production companies/studios. There is the fully max’ed out iMac Pro for $12.6 K for them.
What is noteworthy, is this price was calculated by looking at Mac and PC parts and pieces available now. So a more realistic headline might be, “This Mac Pro or a PC could cost $50,000”.
Just checked the source story. Yep, all standard PC parts. They also included the $5,000 display and $1,000 stand. I would not have counted that if you are just pricing a PC. They included but did not put a price on the Apple Afterburner Accelerator card. The ram alone is over $17,000.
Are the video cards standard?
How about m.2 slots?
Can I buy two Titans from nvidia and run them at full bandwidth in sli?
And I remain cautious over the full role of the T2 chip.
But this will all come out, one way or another, sooner or later.
Apple will be getting more that $50,000 worth of hate from the critics. It’s not as though anyone is being forced to pay that much for a decent configuration and could likely get by with half that amount. My question would be is it competitive in price to similarly spec’ed computers made by other companies such as Dell or H-P. I can only say it’s a lot better in terms of upgradeability than the trash-can model it’s replacing.
From what I understand, the Pro Display XDR is bargain basement priced. Some reference displays this size can run up to $40,000. But what do I know :/
By the time Apple actually ships its fashionista machined alyoooominyum display, its Asian suppliers will have identical hardware with a cheaper plastic case in full production, at 20% lower prices than Apple charges. No corporation wins the long game when it outsources everything to Asia.
“Pro” is no longer a marketing term with this thing. And that is good. Apple needs to always have a state of the art, sky-is-the-limit F1 race car of a rig. And here it is. I will never own one, but the brain power and cultural learning developing it will influence the culture at Apple Park, and the devices they make for consumers like me.
So some of this pricing total BS. The CPU upgrade they list to 28cores as “listing” for $7.5k can be had for $3k (up to $3.2k) basically from any online outlet.
https://www.rakuten.com/shop/thekeykey/product/225957/?sku=225957&scid=pla_google_thekeykey&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_uXeqMfQ4gIVDLjACh1JzAF-EAkYAyABEgLUO_D_BwE
They are clickbaiting the prices for effect. Verge is the HuffPo of tech. I look forward to their demise.
The base model of the new Mac Pro is claimed to be a couple of grand less than a comparable PC workstation. The new and unmatched Apple XDR display at $5K (with stand) is reportedly far superior to a $43K reference monitor. It is obviously going to be quite expensive to max out such a machine, just as it did with the old cheese grater —- even more so because the new Mac Pro has such prodigious capacities for RAM and such
For the rest of 2019, maybe.
Give me a $6K to $10K budget and see what I can build or get.
Boutique build or DIY.
This is pure insanity on Apple’s part. Gone are the days when power users were happy to go into debt to fund this kind of nonsense. It may indeed be a ‘love letter’, to those users, but none of them can afford to buy it. Due strictly to pricing, this is almost more of an insult than the trash can.
I dare say you are not the target market and those who genuinely need rig as powerful as this don’t suffer sticker shock.
I wonder if $50,000 estimate has factored in extra cost of the wheels? They could add a premium…
I wonder if they have a whitewall option?
Let’s give Apple credit where credit is due. They’ve done good. Apple finally came out with a pro level machine. Only when it finally does make it to market and somebody can install one and find out what it can do, will it prove whether or not it’s worth the eye watering price tag. The real pros that need it will make up the cost of the computer with a single application. No need to worry about whether or not you’re going to run out of compute power, or whether or not it is going to be 100% fault tolerant on critical applications. This new Mac Pro, if it delivers on its promise, will be redemption for Apple for having cheaped out the term “Pro” by sticking it on consumer grade laptops.
I can’t wait to see what this thing will do.
I hope Apple priced it to at least break even. Even if it’s a loss leader, the Mac Pro will be the halo machine that gives them the reputation to sell all those macBooks, iMac, and Ipads and other devices all the way down to a pencil.
Still $50,000 is a lot of cash for one machine. MDN: “For a production company working with budgets of tens of millions of dollars per film, a maxed out Mac Pro is a rounding error”. Not when you have to equip a graphics dept with machines. How many graphic artists worked on say the latest X-Men movie? More than one I am guessing. I could see studios hiring the Macs for the duration of editing the movie. It would save on costs.
However, I for one and glad Apple are making this machine. Now, if all the parts including CPU are upgradable (like the 4.1 and 5.1 were) then this will be a great computer.
Just to have a moan, could Apple please let us have nVidia Graphic cards as well, please? I want to run CUDA.
Graphic artists would be poorly served by the Mac Pro – modern iMacs are far more suited for 99% of Illustrator, inDesign and Photoshop work. In contrast, 3-D, VR, 8k video and DNA sequencing as well as particle physics applications are what this new monster Macintosh is hungry for – expect to see Apple selling them by the truckload and train car load to Hollywood directors and all their minions. Still, Photoshop folks who crunch 100 megapixel photos daily will appreciate the expandability, so for the small minority of graphics arts professionals who need such monstrous power, this new machine is a Godsend, and doubtless the majority of that tiny minority DO work for movie houses, so you’ve got the right of it… I work on gigantic files myself, so I am considering my options carefully… 😉