You can spec out an all-new Apple Mac Pro so that it costs $52,599, but is that overpriced?
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes for ZDNet:
Apple’s
updated[sic all-new] Mac Pro has finally landed, and as expected, it isn’t cheap. While it starts at a vaguely reasonable $5,999, a few taps or clicks spirals this price up to $52,599.Is the new Mac Pro overpriced? Not really.
To begin with, $52,599 is buying you a lot of hardware… But the most significant part of that hardware is, as you would expect, the RAM. Going from the base 32GB to the 1.5TB option adds $25,000 to the price, not including the fact that 1.5TB of RAM requires upgrading to the 24-core or 28-core Intel Xeon processors, which from the base price adds $6,000 and $7,000 to the amount, respectively. Is $25,000 a lot for that much RAM? Not really. The cheapest I can find is $18,000, and I doubt Apple is using the cheapest.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s all-new Mac Pro expensive, but it’s certainly not overpriced.
It’s a professional Mac, not a toy for Joe and Jane Sixpack. These machines are for pros who spend far, far in excess the cost of a new Mac Pro with multiple Pro Display XDRs on cameras, tripods, lighting, sound equipment, staff, etc. Way back when, we used to buy Avid Media Composer and Symphony systems that easily cost more than the cost of two, three, or even four fully-loaded Mac Pros, each with dual Pro Display XDRs and, yes, all with Apple Pro Stands. If you have to ask how much it costs, the Mac Pro is not for you – you’re supposed to be shopping for an iMac, Mac mini, or a MacBook Air.
We explained in June why the Mac Pro has to exist (and should’ve existed long before today):
Of the new Mac Pro, every Mac user should be proud.
The Mac Pro is sort of like why you fund a space program, if you’re smart. Yes, there are pressing needs elsewhere (and, btw, there always will be; it’s a bad excuse for not investing in exploration), but if you’re not pushing, you’re stagnating. Nothing unexpected can be discovered, no new solutions uncovered when no new challenges are ventured. It’s why smart car companies make esoteric supercars of which only a few will ever be sold and on which the investment will never be recouped. As with supercars, lessons learned from the Mac Pro, the Mac flagship, will percolate throughout and improve all of Apple’s product lines. Yes, Apple worst-selling Mac is their most important.
May the Mac Pro never be dead-ended, abandoned, and ignored again!
Think about what you thought of Apple’s Mac lineup when it had a half-decade-old, neglected, dead-end design as its flagship. The entire Mac lineup was diminished. Apple’s management who allowed this to happen were diminished, too. People could only see the flaws – in the machines and the people. Now, with the new Mac Pro proudly raising the flag high atop the mountain, all Macs, and everyone responsible for making Macs, are lifted up along with it. — MacDailyNews, June 6, 2019