2017 iMac Pro worthless now?

[kupomac]

Hey everyone,

I bought the 2017 iMac Pro for over $5k when it was new. I was fully expecting for the value to have depreciated at this point, but granted I have not been keeping up with the advancements that Apple has made with their Silicon processors.

Apple says that they will give me only $600 for my mint iMac Pro. I know I can probably get more selling on my own, but who knows if its even worth the effort if everyone thinks they are garbage now. The idea was to get around $2k so I could migrate to a Mac Studio set up, but it looks like I won't get anywhere near that.

If you guys have any advice on selling somewhere besides eBay and Facebook Marketplace, I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

[MarkC426]

Apple's trade in values are a massive insult to owners.
A 5k iMac Pro is by no means a slouch or worthless.

Amazon marketplace still sells refurbished models for £2k+

I have found it worth far more to me to keep any Apple products, rather than get a pittance.

Not sure if that model is able to be used as a 5k monitor with another Mac...?

 

[kupomac]

I’m not sure, but I’ll look into it more. It’s still a work horse and the display is gorgeous. If I could get $2k for it, I would be happy. It’s mint with the original box and all original accessories. The keyboard and mouse have never been used!

 

[stradify]

Kupomac,
You need to check out Apple's Refurbished iMac Pro page: https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/imac-pro to see what Apple sells them for and then deduct an appropriate amount to account for the 1 year of Apple Care that's included with refurbished apple products. I think you'll be shocked.

 

[kpluck]

I sold my iMac through my local Mac user group. If you have such a group in your area you might try that.

-kp

 

[Juicy Box]

Kupomac,
You need to check out Apple's Refurbished iMac Pro page: https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/imac-pro to see what Apple sells them for and then deduct an appropriate amount to account for the 1 year of Apple Care that's included with refurbished apple products. I think you'll be shocked.

Yeah, Apple really doesn't like to give that much of a discount, even on their old refurbished models. They used to post the percentage off on the refurbished store, but they stopped that a few years back. The refurbished discount is usually between 15% to 20% off the price of what it was new. I think I have seen is much as 30% off before on models that were a few generations old.

Although, the current refurbished iMac Pro examples are probably not the best for the OP to compare their $5k iMac Pro to.

Right now, they only have 18-core iMac Pros in the refurbished store. IIRC, the 18-core BTO option alone was about $2.5k. Between that and the other upgrades, those refurbished models currently listed could have easily been $8k machines when new.

 

[theorist9]

If you want to see the market value, search for it on Ebay and then check "Sold Items" in the sidebar (see screenshot). That will tell you what people are actually paying (not including tax and shipping).

When I did this I found the prices ranged from $1k to $2k (probably depends on condition and level of equipment) (you can use the sidebar to dial in the level of equipment to more closely match yours). Or try Craig's List (since you're using "$", I assume you're in the US), but of course the Craig's List prices are asking rather than selling.

You can use the iMac Pro as an external monitor with an AS Mac. There are two options—AirPlay (free, comes with MacOS) and Luna Display ($120)—but neither allow you to use the display at full resolution and frame rate without compression, so it won't look as good. Plus people have reported lag. Thus it would be better to use it as a secondary display rather than your main display. Personally, if you only wanted to use it as a display, you'd be better off selling it and putting the money towards an ASD (or perhaps the upcoming 27" 5k Samsung, or maybe even the upcoming 32" Dell 6k).

MacRumors also has a marketplace, but I don't have an experience with it. If you live in a big city (i.e., a big market) I might first try listing it on Ebay for local pickup only to avoid having to deal with shipping. Craig's List is great for buying locally, but for selling locally it might be a pain, since you'd have to deal with lowball offers, etc.

 

[Agincourt]

Hey everyone,

I bought the 2017 iMac Pro for over $5k when it was new. I was fully expecting for the value to have depreciated at this point, but granted I have not been keeping up with the advancements that Apple has made with their Silicon processors.

The iMac Pro is still a powerhouse, even when compared to newer M2 computers. If you maxed out the RAM or have an impressive video card, I don't see any reason you'd want to trade it in. The only major drawback I see is that it consumes a lot of power in comparison, but you still have that luxurious 27 screen and only the high-end M2 machines can match its RAM and VRAM capacity.

If you're a professional and need the speed and are willing to pay a premium for it, then you'll be more likely to get a good price off ebay or amazon. For $2k I might just want it. Can I ask about the specs?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

$600 isn’t worthless?

 

[theorist9]

The iMac Pro is still a powerhouse, even when compared to newer M2 computers. If you maxed out the RAM or have an impressive video card, I don't see any reason you'd want to trade it in. The only major drawback I see is that it consumes a lot of power in comparison, but you still have that luxurious 27 screen and only the high-end M2 machines can match its RAM and VRAM capacity.

If you're a professional and need the speed and are willing to pay a premium for it, then you'll be more likely to get a good price off ebay or amazon. For $2k I might just want it. Can I ask about the specs?

Yeah, would be interesting to see the specs. Though since the OP says they bought it new for "over $5k", which I take to mean under $6k, it's proabably close to the base config., since the price range when it was introduced was $5,000 to $13,200 (unless they subsequently upgraded the RAM).

Review: Apple's powerhouse iMac Pro wows with stellar performance and design | AppleInsider

Apple's new, high-end iMac Pro packs a ton of power into a svelte, all-in-one desktop machine. Its performance and style are more than enough to impress, giving professional users a much-needed workhorse option in the iMac lineup — provided you can stomach the $5,000-and-up price tag.

appleinsider.com

Incidentally, while max stock RAM on that machine was 128 GB (matching, as you said, the max available from Apple Silicon) (on the M1 Ultra), with OWC's newer RAM modules you can go to 512 GB. Of course, the M1 Ultra's unified memory gives the GPU access to much more RAM than the iMac Pro provides.

I've not used the iMac Pro myself, but another reported advantage is that, for sustained heavy loads, it's much quieter than the iMac because of its superior cooling:

"The iMac Pro is very quiet. Apart from the fans kicking up momentarily when we cold boot into macOS, the fans are virtually silent — even when doing 4K video editing. When we ran the same tests on our regular iMac, the fan was running at full blast."