Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How much do you think the 2018 Mac Pro is gonna cost?
- Thread starter Mr. Dee
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I will be maxing it out with after market RAM thats for sure.
Apple might do some things just to differentiate it from the iMac Pro: 64 GB of DDR4 ECC RAM might be one change. That alone could add $1500 to base model pricing bringing it up to $4,500 knowing Apple.
Apple might do some things just to differentiate it from the iMac Pro: 64 GB of DDR4 ECC RAM might be one change. That alone could add $1500 to base model pricing bringing it up to $4,500 knowing Apple.
Good point ; I guess I was carried away with the dual CPU thing a little, still thinking in cMP/4 cores per CPU terms .
[doublepost=1514899473][/doublepost]
Same concern here .
And with seperate modules prices would go through the roof .
I like the idea of modules a lot, but don't think it would be affordable .
it depend on what CPU Apple choose.
If their deployed Xeon W it must less than $4000.
but if they deploy dual Xeon scalable i think cheapest mac pro will cost around 6000.
iMac Pro
8x up to 4.2 / vega 56 / 5000
Mac Pro
12x up to 3.7 / vega 56 / 6000
24x up to 3.7 / vega 56 / 7000
If their deployed Xeon W it must less than $4000.
but if they deploy dual Xeon scalable i think cheapest mac pro will cost around 6000.
iMac Pro
8x up to 4.2 / vega 56 / 5000
Mac Pro
12x up to 3.7 / vega 56 / 6000
24x up to 3.7 / vega 56 / 7000
Last edited:
Here's the rub - I believe Apple needs a product line for the entire workstation market, bottom to top, or they can't compete at all .
Even though they can be used as Windows machines, and in general are very well made computers, the Mac's OS is arguably its main best selling point .
And noone will deal with a proprietary OS in the long run, if it covers only a limited range of uses , especially not in the workstation segment .
June 2018? Did I miss an announcement about this date?
[doublepost=1514904015][/doublepost]
I see all kinds of old Windows based PCs in use and I even have a 10 year old PC which still sees regular use today. It is a myth that old Macs outlast old Windows PCs. This is not an attempt to convince you to buy something other than what you want.
There never has been an Apple tax with their pro Macs—or rather, the "tax" came from issues with updates rather than the form factor or Apple's initial offering.
The G4, the G5, the Mac Pro, the 2013 Mac Pro—all these products were faster than their counterparts (the G4/G5) when released, or with the Intel macs, price-competitive or even cheaper than the competition. The problem was and continues to be that the value proposition drifted over time (Intel started stomping the G4s, the G5s couldn't hit their 3GHz threshold, the 2010 and 2012 Mac Pros didn't update for the latest hardware, and the 2013 Mac Pro was more limited in terms of configurations, and didn't update for the latest hardware.)
I fully expect the new Mac Pro to be, expensive or not, very price-competitive. Whether it remains that way if you want to buy a model in 18 or 24 months from when it's released is the bigger question.
Don't the RAM and Storage options usually have comedy profit margins?
It kind of takes the shine off of the argument if you have to add an asterisk: "p.s. don't get the options because Apple will try to rob you blind".
Last edited:
There’s a joke in there somewhere about the 2018 Mac Pro costing the same as a new house...
Not really. I took a grab bag of upgrade options off Apple's site and compared them to prices for doing it yourself or to other vendors. The storage options aren't usually that much more; a 3TB SSHD is only $40–60 over buying the product yourself and installing, a 1TB SSD $70 over a similar NVMe drive. 2TB NVMe SSDs akin to what's in the iMac Pro cost $1200, and it's $800 to trade up from a 1TB on the iMac Pro, so again there's not a dramatic price difference there.
The RAM is where Apple has always asked proportionately higher prices, but they aren't that out of line of other official sellers. You will pay $800 to get 64GB of RAM in the new iMac Pro, versus $800 to buy similar RAM from Crucial (the difference here being roughly $300 due to the 'saved' cost of swapping the 32GB in the BTO iMac); the price premium on maxing it is actually only around $400 more. Meanwhile, you'll pay $500 more to max your HP single-CPU Z840 tower to 128GB versus upgrading yourself.
If you want to argue about Apple value proposition in terms of what you actually *can* upgrade after the fact, you'll have a far better argument. And again, whenever Apple doesn't upgrade their hardware while keeping the prices the same, there's a big difference in price as a result. But the "Apple tax" argument is usually misstated and framed in the wrong terms.
And yeah, I expect a $3000 base cost. A lot of the reason for price inflation on the previous pro Macs was the switch to Intel and how much more expensive the chips got; unless Apple wanted to do something like release a 'budget' model at $2299–2499 I doubt we'll see sub-$3K.
I think the more interesting argument is how expensive it'll be if you max it.
Well said .
Apple tax was a poor choice of words -re. the MPs - but the shortcomings you mentioned are what I had in mind .
As the MP line goes, I think you basically 'pay' for having OSX and a well adjusted computer with certain limitations and a lazy attitude towards hardware updates .
At the same time, I think that at this point the limitations of the entire Mac line are not based on a valid alternative approach or necessity , but on marketing strategies .
When Apple switched to Intel, the technology wars had pretty much been settled, it should have been smooth sailing from there on for Mac users .
Honestly I think the lack of updates themselves are less problematic than the lack of scheduling. If Apple wants to update their pro Macs on a two-year schedule instead of one... okay. Would be nice to be able to cover some of that with upgrades, but if I know the new Mac Pro is coming in X months I can make an informed decision about when to buy. But as with this last cycle, so many people asking the "should I buy" question can't be given any useful answer because no one has any clue when another model will drop.
So, because I had a bee in my bonnet about this, I decided to pull together the pricing info for every (headless) pro Mac since the B&W:
http://davidhfuchs.com/2018/01/03/on-pro-mac-pricing-trends/
Unsurprisingly the base price of a pro desktop has crept up over time, with the biggest changes however coming in the Intel era (where easy processor gains halted and non-coincidentally the delta between low and high processor SKU costs ballooned.)
What's also interesting is that the price between Apple's entry-level offering ($999 with the iMac SL when the B&W was around) and today has massively grown ($500 Mac mini versus $3000 MP today). Of course, the 'entry level' is now the Mac mini while the iMac has filled the middle ground, which probably explains why the xMac dream is more elusive now than ever.
http://davidhfuchs.com/2018/01/03/on-pro-mac-pricing-trends/
Unsurprisingly the base price of a pro desktop has crept up over time, with the biggest changes however coming in the Intel era (where easy processor gains halted and non-coincidentally the delta between low and high processor SKU costs ballooned.)
What's also interesting is that the price between Apple's entry-level offering ($999 with the iMac SL when the B&W was around) and today has massively grown ($500 Mac mini versus $3000 MP today). Of course, the 'entry level' is now the Mac mini while the iMac has filled the middle ground, which probably explains why the xMac dream is more elusive now than ever.
Data is from Everymac: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...-quad-core-2.93-early-2009-nehalem-specs.html
The SKU prices aren't including additional upgrades, though, just base processor config and upgrade costs.
Dells in that range start at about $2500, so I'd say $3000-$3500.
They won't launch at iMac Pro prices or higher. They'd be so un-price competitive it would be batty.
They won't launch at iMac Pro prices or higher. They'd be so un-price competitive it would be batty.
I am afraid the nMP will be a lot due to the normal Apple reasons. Which makes me angsty as I just came to check Alienware prices:
www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-desktop-computers/alienware-area-51/spd/alienware-area51-r4/dpcwy00b4
Now, you can have whatever opinions about how pro components those are or if there is air in that price too or not, how much it goes up with extras, but... 5300$ for 18 cores and NVidia 1080... Can I have this with OS X, plz?
www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-desktop-computers/alienware-area-51/spd/alienware-area51-r4/dpcwy00b4
Now, you can have whatever opinions about how pro components those are or if there is air in that price too or not, how much it goes up with extras, but... 5300$ for 18 cores and NVidia 1080... Can I have this with OS X, plz?
Considering this is Cooks Apple, he is charging 5 grand for a non user upgradable system, and the new Mac Pro is supposed to be upgradable, and Apples ever increasing massive price rises across its entire range....
I would say 5 to 6 grand BASE price with no monitor minimum. And I bet no keyboard or mouse either.
I would say 5 to 6 grand BASE price with no monitor minimum. And I bet no keyboard or mouse either.
It goes under my desk - so the aesthetics are a non-issue.
There is a European company that makes imaging software for cat scan machines. The software is Mac only. Their logic regarding costs for these kinds of machines in their use case was you need the computer and software to see the images from the CT scanner. The CT scanner alone is a multi million dollar piece of hardware. They were using the iMac pro as an example that in their field the workstation computer costs are a tiny fraction of their overal costs.
The way I look at it is if a computer is integral to your work then you should budget it as equally important as say whatever piece of equipment you also use.
I have seen people who buy really expensive cameras both still and video with the logic "the camera makes me money", reality is the computer is equally as important in the money making scheme as those digital files are pretty useless with out a computer.
As for the original posters question, I think the iMac pro price around there somewhere. There is the no screen aspect to the cost but then we will have to just what the next Mac Pro will have to offer.
The way I look at it is if a computer is integral to your work then you should budget it as equally important as say whatever piece of equipment you also use.
I have seen people who buy really expensive cameras both still and video with the logic "the camera makes me money", reality is the computer is equally as important in the money making scheme as those digital files are pretty useless with out a computer.
As for the original posters question, I think the iMac pro price around there somewhere. There is the no screen aspect to the cost but then we will have to just what the next Mac Pro will have to offer.