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Desktops (Apple) Apple

Apple's New Mac Pro Can Cost $52,000. That's Without the $400 Wheels (bloomberg.com) 273

Posted by msmash from the budget-computers-inc dept.
Apple started selling its new Mac Pro desktop computer on Tuesday, complete with eye-watering pricing options that can push the cost north of $50,000. From a report: The new machine, built in Austin, Texas after Apple got tariff relief from the Trump administration, starts at $5,999 for specifications that some programmers, video editors, and photographers might consider measly. Fully loaded, the computer costs more than $52,000, and that's excluding the optional $400 wheels for easily moving the machine around an office. For some professional users, the cost of Apple's new computer is just part of doing business. But for most consumers, the Mac Pro's price is shocking. As one of the most expensive personal computers in the world, some Apple users quickly compared the cost to a car. The base product includes 256 gigabytes of storage, low for professional computers in the same price range. A 4 terabyte option is an extra $1,400. An 8 terabyte upgrade is coming later, according to Apple's website, but pricing hasn't been announced. To increase the computer's RAM memory from 32 gigabytes to 1.5 terabytes is $25,000 extra, the main reason the price can exceed $52,000. Apple said a version of the Mac Pro designed to be racked in data centers costs an extra $500 and will launch later. The Mac Pro does not include a display. Apple put a new Pro Display XDR on sale Tuesday for $4,999.
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Apple's New Mac Pro Can Cost $52,000. That's Without the $400 Wheels More

Apple's New Mac Pro Can Cost $52,000. That's Without the $400 Wheels

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  • Expensive Build Parts add Expense. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:07AM (#59507566)

    Where's my news story for this $67,665.07 Dell Precision 7920 Tower Workstation [imgur.com] I just built?

    • With free shipping!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      It has more to do with you than the story.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jabuzz ( 182671 )

      That's nothing I was pimping out one this morning and hit over $100k and I had not finished.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      No telling whether the two have anything in common without the specs, which you conveniently left out.

    • Re:Expensive Build Parts add Expense. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:50AM (#59507738)

      Yes adding all the options can make any product expensive fast.

      I am more bothered with the 5k starting price. As most pro systems are between 1500 and 3000

      • It spec'ed out about what I had thought it would.

        I spec'ed out the one I wanted and was about $7100 ...but I"m held up at this point, by the lack of the Radeon Pro W5700X with 16GB of GDDR6 memory option.

        I"m guessing that is about $1K above the base GPU offering and I was counting on that.

        I had been shooting for about $8K roughly for my Mac Pro that I had planned to pretty much immediately pull the trigger on.

        I need to spend money before EOY so I can write it off on my 2019 taxes....

        I'll give them till

    • What are the specs and where does it start?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Of more interest is the fact that it launched at just the wrong time for AMD to make it look overpriced and underpowered even before it was available to buy.

      The Intel CPUs they chose are not all that competitive with AMD's Threadrippers, and cost a lot more to boot. And then you have the SSDs, which only benchmark about 3 GB/sec on the Mac compared to people getting over 9 GB/sec on custom AMD systems with NVMe RAID. To put that in perspective it's faster than RAM from a decade ago.

      Of course it's the only l

      • The Intel CPUs they chose are not all that competitive with AMD's Threadrippers

        I thought I understood that if you go the Threadripper route, you cannot to as high on RAM as the Intel Xeon chips they're using can on the Mac Pro to max it out?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It's a limitation of current motherboards, not of the CPU or chipset. The address lines are there, you just need a mobo with enough sockets. All the early ones are based on the reference design which is max 256GB, but in time more will be available.

          Of course there is also Epyc which supports terabytes of RAM too.

    • That is one helluva savings!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      All the cool kids who have never tried to price out a workstation are into bashing Apple, because only sheeple like Apple!

  • It's not a consumer product (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Perl-Pusher ( 555592 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:07AM (#59507570)
    These computers are for Disney, Pixar, or Lucasfilm animation rendering or intensive scientific/government/research applications. They aren't for your typical recording studio or prosumer. The $52,000 price might seem like a lot, but for comparison, just an ARRI Alexa camera body costs much more than that, so it's all relative. I remember in the Air Force an SGI workstation costing $90,000 and it wasn't anything near the power of this. But heads above what was in most peoples homes.

    • Re:It's not a consumer product (Score:5, Insightful)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:28AM (#59507650)

      I remember in the Air Force an SGI workstation costing $90,000 and it wasn't anything near the power of this. But heads above what was in most peoples homes.

      Times are not what they used to be. Your $90k worth of custom hardware doesn't stand above ordinary hardware solutions anymore. That's why all those companies failed once PCs started speeding up. Also, nobody is insane enough to do rendering on such machines. You use cost-optimized distributed solutions for that, not individual overpriced desktops.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pyramid ( 57001 )

        What year did that SGI workstation cost $90K? Was that an off the shelf system or what it hardened for military applicatins? And what other hardware/software was available at the time that had similar specifications for cheaper?

        • You have an ID that low and don't know SGI was big bucks? There wasn't anything competitive x86 based at that time . Graphics wise SGI was the top of the line. You could get fancy cards from other UNIX vendors like IBM or Sun but they weren't nearly as powerful. Back in 2001 you could get an Octane and max it out with 8Gb of ram. What did a PC top out at back then?

    • Re:It's not a consumer product (Score:5, Interesting)

      by aitikin ( 909209 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:35AM (#59507680)

      These computers are for Disney, Pixar, or Lucasfilm animation rendering or intensive scientific/government/research applications. They aren't for your typical recording studio or prosumer. The $52,000 price might seem like a lot, but for comparison, just an ARRI Alexa camera body costs much more than that, so it's all relative. I remember in the Air Force an SGI workstation costing $90,000 and it wasn't anything near the power of this. But heads above what was in most peoples homes.

      Also pro audio. Atmos is the future of audio (because it's SIMPLE for the user), but it requires vast amounts of power to create. I took a tour of Blackbird Studio [blackbirdstudio.com] last month and their Atmos rig required 3 separate computers to operate (one for playback of the files, one for mixing the actual Atmos mix, one for encoding the Atmos file(s), due to the brevity of this part of the tour (room was booked for a solid 10 hours that day and we were in before it officially opened) I couldn't dig in further).

      Furthermore, Apple has seemingly had pro audio in mind from the beginning of this computer as they debuted the Mac Pro with multiple Avid HDX [pro-tools-expert.com] (yes, I realize the linked story mistakenly refers to them as PCI not PCIe slots) cards installed.

  • Yeah, that's what workstations cost. Configure a Boxx with similar specs and you get a similar price. This is news?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      But is this a workstation? Are those needing a Boxx workstation going to consider a Mac instead?

      Homes cost a lot more, too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JBMcB ( 73720 )

        But is this a workstation? Are those needing a Boxx workstation going to consider a Mac instead?

        Homes cost a lot more, too.

        You're asking if a machine with a Xeon CPU, Radeon pro graphics, and a top memory cap of 1.5TB is a workstation? Yes, it's a workstation. People doing graphics, video and audio production still use macs.
         

    • Well people like to complain that their dream computer is past their budget range.

      That being said, I am less and less inclined to need the biggest baddest computer as much as I needed in the past.

      The home PC heck even my Smart Camera (with Phone chip) has more than enough processing power for most fairly intensive processing.

      I am not in Video and Audio processing, but general number crunching a PC is more then adequate to do the job.

  • Clickbait is clickbait? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AnonyMouseCowWard ( 2542464 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:14AM (#59507588)
    The summary has it right. "For some professional users, the cost of Apple's new computer is just part of doing business. But for most consumers, the Mac Pro's price is shocking."

    And then you start telling me $25K is for 1.5TB of RAM. Terabytes people! Why would a consumer need to bump up RAM to 1.5TB? This is like.. "shit did you know, if you ask Tiffany to put diamonds all over your monitor's edge, the cost can add up to way more than $5000!" Okay, thanks?...

    • Re:Clickbait is clickbait? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:26AM (#59507638)

      This is like.. "shit did you know, if you ask Tiffany to put diamonds all over your monitor's edge, the cost can add up to way more than $5000!" Okay, thanks?...

      And for $400 those wheels better come with low profile Pirellis or something

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      I have some datasets that could use upwards of 10TB (on a cluster), we regularly fit 512G-1.5TB of RAM in a single node, basically, whatever we can afford and yes, that's mostly RAM because a single stick of ECC 256GB RAM costs ~$3000 bulk.

    • You are right. The shocking part is the low-end pricing: $6k for a machine with on 256GB storage, 32GB RAM, an 8-core processor and an ok GPU. Mind you, at least they have finally stopped trying to sell their 5-year old Mac Pro as if it were a new computer.

    • The summary should be "if you want to spec up your computer to use 1.5TB of ram it becomes expensive", and then this apple instance is just another example

    • Yeah.... Most "Consumers" don't need this system, and would be happy with an iMac or a MacBook Pro.

      That said, the upgrade pricing on this system is insane. What Apple gets away with for SSD and Memory upgrade charges is practically criminal.

    • I don't think the need of 1.5TB of RAM in 2020 is really needed, Especially if you have good Solid state drive. Unless your code is breaking the 80/20 rule of thumb of data and you are changing gigs of data all the time. Otherwise, normal caching and paging with these drives would probably be just as fast.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      Do you realize how many copies of Doom in ramdisks you could play simultaneously with that????

      Years ago I actually had a professor who used a workstation that way... it had tons of ram, so he would use it as a big ramdisk and load the whole Doom disk image into it.
  • I thought Apple walked away from servers when the XServe was discontinued, but if they are offering rack mount kits for these that suggests they might be pondering a return. Yes, these could be used in rendering farms, computational clusters, or storage facilities, but people who are involved in those sectors know there are other vendors that offer better bang for the buck.
    • Because a server is not a regular computer? Because it takes special magic ponies or pixie dust inside? Please tell us why any old random computer is not capable of being a server

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      Not sure if you'll find many places where you'll get better bang for this buck. You're talking 4 high-end GPU cores, 1.5TB RAM and 28C Xeon. In comparison, a Dell Precision with these specs cost $71,106.21

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by klubar ( 591384 )

      Features I'd look for on a server include:
      - Dual hot swap power supplies
      - Front access, hot swap disk drives
      - Remote access at hardware level
      - Great thermal configuration (including redundant fans)
      - Designed for high density rack mounting (with all ports rear access)
      - ECC memory (and maybe redundant memory for zero-downtime)
      - Battery-backed up disk controller with options for RAID 5/10/60
      - Maybe price (depending on quantity)

      The Mac Pro might be a good "server" for small organizations who need to rack mount

    • Will they support standard server management support options like PXE? Will there be a management card equivalent to a DRAC or ILO?

  • Lisa 2.0

  • This is a computer for people who really need a powerful workstation with OSX. If you can't justify the price, then this is not the computer for you.

    Apple's real problem is the value erosion of the rest of its lineup over the last five years. The 16in MBP is a good step in the right direction, but honestly, when I bought my 2013 15 MBP it was expensive, but you couldn't even get a ThinkPad (my previous computer) with the high resolution display and the battery life/weight it had for any money. It easily jus

  • Uh, ok (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hentai007 ( 188457 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:23AM (#59507630)

    Are you telling me a 26 core, dual 64 gb video, 1.5tb of ram with an afterburner card is priced out of reach of the average home user!? Damn you Apple!

    • The point is if Trump allowed these to be made overseas they would only be $51,000.

      • https://www.google.com/amp/s/w... [google.com]

        Apple has been making Mac Pros in Austin way before Trump. Yay, we can still make really expensive stuff in America still, who knew, but good for Apple anyway, I'm sure there were lots of challenges.

        They invited the president out to see the latest iteration because they had expanded, probably hoping to sell more of these than the trash can models, and the president is easily infl... impressed.

  • So what?! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:29AM (#59507658)

    Last I looked, this was a free country.

    If people want to blow $50k on a workstation that's on them.

    Why is it some "journos" and "editors" think it's press-worthy to bash pricey things?

    A case of deep-seated jealousy? Or is it a more Socialist / Communist point of view? The Rabble can't have computers like this, so therefore no one should? Y'know, equality and all.

    • This is a December chestnut of Slashdot... years ago they were talking about the total cost of a maxed out Mac G3...

  • I'll skip the $400 wheels though because I'm too lazy to push it around; I'll make my butler carry it around the mansion as the footmen push me on the Segway I can't be bothered to charge.

  • Can you put together a $50K Mac? - sure.

    Can you put together a $60K Dell workstation? - sure.

    You can even buy $40K speaker cables (Transparent Magnum Opus).

    There is a small market for all kinds of specialty items. The vast majority of us only read about them as a form of entertainment, so view this as that.

    Now, I think I'll drive to the showroom (in my 10-year-old econobox) and look at a $300K Bentley....

  • Good stuff costs a lot (Score:3)

    by presearch ( 214913 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:50AM (#59507740)

    In 1991, my entry level SGI Indigo setup had a list price of $36K.

    That was for a 100Mhz MIPS CPU, 8-bit color, 32MB of RAM, an 18" CRT, a nice keyboard and mouse.
    It has a great DAT drive for audio and backup and two SCSI drives on sleds.
    I loved that machine. Beautiful industrial design. Uptime measured in months. Never, ever crashed.

    Granted, I got it for free from SGI. It was delivered on a big wooden skid. A happy, surreal day.
    Thanks, Richard. I need to find a friend that works in dev services at Apple...

    • In 1991, my entry level SGI Indigo setup had a list price of $36K.

      Yeah, but that's not a counter-argument. SGI machines were super duper expensive. Even other Unix workstations were cheaper, even when you compared like graphics options.

  • Oh look (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @10:52AM (#59507748)

    The children are upset over the cost of a Mac Pro. A direct result of the outrage culture we see daily. Oh what is twitter telling me to rage over today? Mac Pro prices! Grab those pitchforks and get woke. Let me tell you something, back in the dark ages of the 1990s an SGI Indigo2 could cost you $60,000 and that was a desktop machine. You could option a deskside Crimson or Onyx with Infinite Reality graphics and now you were looking at quarter million.

  • "Fully loaded, the computer costs more than $52,000, and that's excluding the optional $400 wheels..." So do words not have meaning anymore? Fully loaded used to mean options. Time to go get into my fully loaded Toyota Tercel that excludes every option.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Wheels are not generally part of a computer.

      Fully loaded my IBM servers have some ridiculous options and get into hundreds of thousands easily.

      But I don't count the IBM-branded wheeled 19" rack that I can get with it, because that's not the computer / server, it's a different thing entirely.

  • Apple has often had a premium high-performance machine that is not priced for those looking for best performance per dollar, so this echos previous efforts on that front.

    Just to remind people that in 1992, Apple sold a Mac IIfx [wikipedia.org] which was configurable to about $12,000, which would be about $22k now. With various external high-speed SCSI drives and monitors at the time, probably it could have been spec'd to something comparable in price to the top Mac Pro presently. But not many IIfx's were sold at that hig

  • Let's be realistic - Long time Mac Pro user here (Score:3)

    by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @11:25AM (#59507924) Homepage

    OK, as a long time Mac Pro user waiting forever for an update, it is a bit on the expensive side, but definitely not what the article implies, unless you have a very specific usage that requires 1.5TB RAM - in which case I don't think you'd be looking at a Mac Pro anyway.
    So, I currently have a reasonably maxed-out 2010 Mac Pro with 3.46GHz 6-Core Xeon, 48GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 2x2GB HD (along with USB3 & eSATA). I do software development that may require VMs, heavy photo editing for astrophotography etc, so this system has been quite limiting for a while now, however my requirements are not exotic. Looking into the new Mac Pro I'd go with this minimum:

    3.3GHz 12-Core (the second slowest option - the others are just more cores, perhaps I could go up to 16?)
    48GB RAM (match what I have minimum)
    Minimum graphics (I only ever play something like Civ)
    1TB SSD (minimum option at least as big as current)
    Total: $7700

    Is this steep? Sure is, hence I am not in any hurry to upgrade. Part of the cost is the Xeon (Intel's non-server offerings are already not cost-competitive with Ryzen, never mind Xeons), biggest part, as usual, is Apple. I'd expect the above sort of minimum configuration to be around $6k to make it reasonable FOR A MAC (I'd expect even less for the same from another manufacturer). On the other hand, we know Mac Pro users were never an Apple priority and the fact that there is a Mac Pro with modern CPUs and internal SATA (!) is definitely a good development.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by bigpat ( 158134 )

      So, I currently have a reasonably maxed-out 2010 Mac Pro with 3.46GHz 6-Core Xeon, 48GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 2x2GB HD (along with USB3 & eSATA). I do software development that may require VMs, heavy photo editing for astrophotography etc, so this system has been quite limiting for a while now, however my requirements are not exotic. Looking into the new Mac Pro I'd go with this minimum:

      3.3GHz 12-Core (the second slowest option - the others are just more cores, perhaps I could go up to 16?)
      48GB RAM (match what I have minimum)
      Minimum graphics (I only ever play something like Civ)
      1TB SSD (minimum option at least as big as current)
      Total: $7700

      Coincidentally I just ran the inflation calculator on a $2,638 Apple IIe from 1983 and it works out to $6,812 in today's dollars... and I am thinking you are getting somewhat more utility.

  • I don't know how Apple can get away with charging *tens of thousands* of dollars for their computers when you can get a perfectly capable raspberry pi for only $25.... I know there's the whole "Veblen goods" thing that comes from being fashionable and "cosmetic", but 2e5% markup seems kind of high even for the fashion or cosmetics industries!

  • Yeah, because people put 1.5 TB of RAM in their personal computers.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @11:46AM (#59508012)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • System76 Thelio [system76.com] are computers of similar magnitude and they can move straight into "new car" territory and beyond when maxed out in the config.

  • https://www.amazon.com/AudioQu... [amazon.com]

    That's less than $1.3 per millimeter, a steal!

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