Apple’s Fully Loaded Mac Pro Is Now Available for the Low, Low Price of $53,000

[Tsing]

Apple began taking orders for its Mac Pro today, and it's a real wallet buster. While the grater starts at the relatively modest price of $5,999, those who desire its ultimate configuration should be prepared to pay nine times that amount: we're looking at a whopping $52,247.98 when the configurator is maxed out with the best parts that Apple has to offer, such as Intel's 2.7 GHz 24-core Xeon W CPU, 1.5 TB of DDR4 ECC RAM, and AMD's Radeon Pro Vega II Duo.

There are currently four SSD storage options, ranging from the base 256GB to 4TB for what almost seems a reasonable $1,400. The promised 8TB version is not yet available and no pricing is listed. Similarly, there are two further graphics card configurations listed as "coming soon." Those are a single Radeon Pro W5700X with 16GB of GDDR6 memory or a pair of them. Again, no pricing is available yet.

 

[Dudhunter]

You could make a far better setup for 10,000... but Apple knows people will pay.

 

[Zarathustra]

You could make a far better setup for 10,000... but Apple knows people will pay.

I'm guessing the only people who will pay are professional creatives who are locked in to th emac platform because of platform exclusive software like Final Cut Pro. That's literally the only scenario I can imagine that paying this ridiculous sum for this machine could make sense in, and even then, those doing so should be pissed that Apple is forcing them to.

Might be time to convert all those projects over to Adobe Premiere Pro

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I wonder how many Pixar/Disney have ordered up.

 

[AntiQuark]

I dont have a reason to buy this at 1/5 the price.
They deserve to struggle.

 

[Uvilla]

Jeezus, the TR platform is a rock bottom bargain.

 

[SeymourGore]

When will the FPSr review be up??

 

[Uvilla]

I thought it would top out at 14k or so. Well I mean.... Profit on it must be real nice.

 

[rat]

You could make a far better setup for 10,000... but Apple knows people will pay.

I tried to do a close-as-possible build comparison specwise.

PCPartPicker:

* AMD Threadripper 3970X 3.7 GHz 32-Core Processor - $1999.00
* NZXT Kraken X62 Liquid CPU Cooler - $179.87
* Gigabyte TRX40 DESIGNARE XL ATX sTRX4 Motherboard - $633.98
* Corsair Vengeance LPX 256 GB (8 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory - $1219.99
* Sabrent Rocket 4 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive 3000MB/write - $649.99
* Sabrent Rocket 4 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive - $649.99
* AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB Frontier Edition Video Card - $1499
* AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB Frontier Edition Video Card - $1499
* AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB Frontier Edition Video Card - $1499
* AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB Frontier Edition Video Card - $1499
* FSP Cannon 2000W ATX 12V & EPS 12V Fully Modular Power Supply with 18 Sets of PCI-E 6+2 Pins - $429.99
* LG BH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer - $104.99
* Phanteks Enthoo Elite Case PH-ES916E_AG - $899.99
* Dell UP3218K 31.5" 7680x4320 60 Hz Monitor - $3452.00

Base Total: $16211.80

Shipping: $34.98

Total: $16246.78

Includes monitor.


Mac Pro:

* 2.5GHz 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz (+$7000)
* 384GB (6x64GB) of DDR4 ECC memory (+$6000)
* Two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo with 2x32GB of HBM2 memory each - (+10,800)
* 4TB SSD storage (+$1,400)

$31,199.00

Doesn't include monitor or monitor stand.

Mac has more ram (128GB More) since I was unable to match exactly 256GB on the Mac config. Mac has less cores (24 vs 32) at a lower base clock (2.5Ghz vs 3.7Ghz), no BluRay burner, no water cooling, half the storage, twice the price.

I didn't know what case to compare with the MacPro one since there are SO MANY OPTIONS, so I just picked the most expensive PC case I could find.

So when you start going beyond this close-enough config, the markup gap widens. As-is, there's no way to justify a $15,000 mark-up for the config I speced out.

But idiots will continue to buy this overpriced junk because it's "magical", even though the industry could just abandon things like Apple Pro Res, eliminate the vendor lock-in issue, switch to something like BlackMagic RAW without even the least bit of downtime.

But instead, they insist on ProRes and Final Cut project files because **** being rational.

Yay Apple.

 

[Uvilla]

Well I mean I know some will argue that these machines are to make money with them.. however as already posted you can have better for half... So over 10 machines you could actually hire a person at 140k a year, to build and maintain your machines in house. Does apple care give you a full time employee in house all the time? O mean there is expensive, and there is absurd. When i read about these macs, i thought wow, ok starts 5k, bet they top out way more at 14k maybe 15k... Okay if it landed at 18k , would be like meh its a great machine... Oh boy, I guess you can't expect a limit to Apples over pricing things.
Well in the end, if anybody wants to buy it, why not... Just buy the magic.

 

[Dan_D]

I tried to do a close-as-possible build comparison specwise.

PCPartPicker:

* AMD Threadripper 3970X 3.7 GHz 32-Core Processor - $1999.00
* NZXT Kraken X62 Liquid CPU Cooler - $179.87
* Gigabyte TRX40 DESIGNARE XL ATX sTRX4 Motherboard - $633.98
* Corsair Vengeance LPX 256 GB (8 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory - $1219.99
* Sabrent Rocket 4 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive 3000MB/write - $649.99
* Sabrent Rocket 4 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive - $649.99
* AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB Frontier Edition Video Card - $1499
* AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB Frontier Edition Video Card - $1499
* AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB Frontier Edition Video Card - $1499
* AMD Vega Frontier Edition 16 GB Frontier Edition Video Card - $1499
* FSP Cannon 2000W ATX 12V & EPS 12V Fully Modular Power Supply with 18 Sets of PCI-E 6+2 Pins - $429.99
* LG BH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer - $104.99
* Phanteks Enthoo Elite Case PH-ES916E_AG - $899.99
* Dell UP3218K 31.5" 7680x4320 60 Hz Monitor - $3452.00

Base Total: $16211.80

Shipping: $34.98

Total: $16246.78

Includes monitor.


Mac Pro:

* 2.5GHz 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz (+$7000)
* 384GB (6x64GB) of DDR4 ECC memory (+$6000)
* Two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo with 2x32GB of HBM2 memory each - (+10,800)
* 4TB SSD storage (+$1,400)

$31,199.00

Doesn't include monitor or monitor stand.

Mac has more ram (128GB More) since I was unable to match exactly 256GB on the Mac config. Mac has less cores (24 vs 32) at a lower base clock (2.5Ghz vs 3.7Ghz), no BluRay burner, no water cooling, half the storage, twice the price.

I didn't know what case to compare with the MacPro one since there are SO MANY OPTIONS, so I just picked the most expensive PC case I could find.

So when you start going beyond this close-enough config, the markup gap widens. As-is, there's no way to justify a $15,000 mark-up for the config I speced out.

But idiots will continue to buy this overpriced junk because it's "magical", even though the industry could just abandon things like Apple Pro Res, eliminate the vendor lock-in issue, switch to something like BlackMagic RAW without even the least bit of downtime.

But instead, they insist on ProRes and Final Cut project files because **** being rational.

Yay Apple.

Apples have always been overpriced. The company is also ****ty. You get far better support from Dell or HP on workstations or servers. In a mixed environment, I saw just as many problems (if not more) with Mac Pro's locking up. When a Mac locks up your basically doomed. When a PC does it, you can normally kill that one program that's giving you an issue and not have too much of an interruption. The guts of that thing will be pretty, but hard to work on and the power supply and other components are nothing special. Foxconn builds the boards for that just like they do for everything else.

Macs are pretty, but that's it. Its like dating the sexiest girl you can imagine, but all she does is spend your money, hang out with people you don't like, bring drama into your life, not cook, clean, or work for a living and to top it all off, she doesn't put out very often. It's like trying to have a deep conversation with someone only to find out that they write in a combination of emoji's and text shorthand and they've never read anything thicker than an issue of Cosmo.

God I hate Apple............ Few companies actually earn my ire, but Apple has done it time and time again. I think beyond the iPhone (and there are better products) they don't make anything worth getting.