Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iMac Pro Launched Seven Years Ago Today

asdfjkl; said:
Well, I know there are a lot of fans of the larger iMac, but for less than the cost of the old iMac Pro you can buy a base model Mac Studio and Studio display with the tilt and height adjustable stand.

iMac Pro starting price: $4,999
Base model Mac Studio and Studio display, keyboard and mouse: $4,296

I'd argue that the Mac Studio + Studio display is a better bargain especially considering you can keep the monitor while just upgrading the computer to meet your needs.
Click to expand...
All in ones had a lot of initial appeal, looking much prettier and taking up less space than what went before; and meeting the need in many low intensity/consumer settings.

What many buyers came to realise, myself included, is how wasteful it feels to chuck away a perfectly good monitor/computer when the other part fails and isn’t economical to replace. There’s no rational argument, nor sustainable demand in tying the two together and making one dependent on the other; when the alternative is being able to replace/upgrade each independently and at much lower cost.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Chuckeee, freedomlinux, picpicmac and 2 others
This was a dark time at apple. I really thought they were going to abandon the Pro market. In reality, they were hard at work with the M series chips.
 
iMP was such a sweet bit of kit

I could never justify the price at the time, but had considered a preowned one later on
Ship has largely sailed for me on all that, but it'd be awesome to see Apple take another crack at one in 27/32" variants

Modern Apple, though, would probably price it into the absolutely stratosphere, which sort of nukes my interest anyhow
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Chuckeee
A simple search on Amazon reveals the DIY 2024 iMac Pro.

1734203194189.png


If you don't want it on the backside (meaning, someone can see the backside and you can't endure the visual horrors), then mount it underneath your desk. Either way, pair the Apple Studio Display with an M4 Pro Mac mini and you have the performance equivalent of an M2 Max iMac -- for about $3k. And either piece is upgradeable.

I'm not saying this is as "elegant" as the 27" iMac Pro, but visually, enough people can make this option work that Apple would be hesitant to release another iMac Pro.

Especially when the AVP is considered a "failure" by most MacRumors visitors...having only sold 100-200k units or so. I just can't see the iMac Pro market being any bigger.

That said, I agree with everyone hoping for a return of Target Display mode...for a company as "green" as Apple, that alone would have kept many 5k iMacs out of the landfills.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ralph_sws, DocMultimedia, drrich2 and 1 other person
Time for Apple to start paying attention to what the customers are asking for and not making them wait years for it when the technology is already available
 
drrich2 said:
Apple has basically committed itself to the 220 dpi 'retina' display practice that entails using lower volume panels (since few other vendors use 5K 27", for example), and such displays are expensive.
....
And when that system came to its useful end-of-life, you'd toss out a 5K retina 27" display (just as I'm looking at doing with the iMac I'm on now, if FedEx ever gets my ordered M4 Pro MacMini here to replace it) instead of having that display for 2 or 3 computer systems.
....
Click to expand...
Some of us found a use for our old iMacs ;)

 
  • Like
Reactions: drrich2
djgamble said:
It was about this time when I did the maths and figured it was significantly cheaper to buy a 2018 Mac Mini and pair it with an eGPU (in my case one with a Vega 64).

My long-term plan was to upgrade the GPU every few years. However Apple moved away from using Intel CPUs paired with AMD GPUs (and had its whole hissy fit with Nvidia about its own poorly conceived plan to have a Mac 'pro' that was more like an overpriced Mac Mini as their decision to not have a proper expansion port locked you into a very specific Nvidia CPU). This left a bit of a gap as Apple Silicone wasn't quite ready for prime time in the beginning and I liked the luxury of having a decent GPU.

I ended up getting a 2012 Mac Pro from a friend and popping the Vega 64 in there. That's still my computer when I wanna play games that require a decent GPU. Will eventually buy into Apple Silicone as they are now ridiculously fast. However there was a sweet spot for a moment when those 2012 Mac Pros were the king.
Click to expand...
Slapping an eGPU into a Mac mini back then got you nowhere near the performance of a iMac Pro, I also doubt it would have been cheaper when you considered all the peripherals

Back then I was a few years out form college, finished paying off my student loans and wanted to upgrade from my clunky Toshiba laptop being used for work and personal at home. I was considering building a gaming rig, but also wanted to stick within the apple ecosystem and form factor and was torn on what to do (since apple didn’t really offer anything with a decent GPU).

When the iMac Pro was first announced, I was immediately interested. I recall pricing up a comparable PC build with PC part picker and all peripherals (4K / 5K monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc). The total cost wasn’t much different, obviously there was a slight apple premium, but it came assembled and had far higher build quality.

When microcenter (oddly) slashed the price by $1k even though it just came out, it became a no brainer. I couldn’t even build a comparable setup for cheaper. It also fit my weird niche list. It allowed me to dual boot windows and Mac, separating work and personal. It also did fairly good at gaming (especially by Mac standards). I was playing Star Citizen and other demanding games on very high quality with no issues.

Heck even now 7 years later it’s still running strong. It’s basically the last good Mac that supports boot camp and windows, and still even keeps up with star citizen. I’m hoping I can squeak out another few years to see if game developers come over to Mac, or if better solutions are developed to allow gaming on an apple silicone Mac. Otherwise, I’m probably going to flip back to building a gaming PC as my M1 iPad Pro still perfectly satisfies my needs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: anakin44011, drrich2, AlexisV and 1 other person
Regulus67 said:
Some of us found a use for our old iMacs ;)
Click to expand...
Yes, albeit that route seems to require some technical sophistication and confidence to pull off successfully. Quick question on that - do I recall correctly that when converting an old iMac into an external display the DIY route, you retain the resolution but lose some color depth (e.g.: how many 'bit' the color is)? Are there any other trade-offs?

I'd be nice if Apple Stores offered an official way to get that done. Gotta wonder what would be a decent price if they were set up to convert old 27" 5K iMacs into external displays. It could make consumers happy, give Apple some 'green' bragging rights, and maybe even make Apple a little money (like they'd settle for a little!) and save customers some.
 
brofkand said:
2013 was the year Apple admitted they had no idea what their Pro users need when they released a Mac Pro that absolutely nobody asked for, and it hasn't gotten any better.
Click to expand...
I’d argue they chased a relatively logical path at the time in many ways. The machine’s strength, or what they expected it to be anyway, was dual GPUs, at a time when GPGPU workloads using multi-GPU configs looked ready to take over the market, and openCL appeared to be on the verge of breaking open the CUDA market. That didnt happen the way they expected. It painted them into a thermal corner later because the machine couldnt easily be re-engineered as a dual CPU machine instead. They also expected thunderbolt to become ubiquitous, which only happened much later with TB3 and the switch to USBC. They also missed that some folks are always going to need more internal expansion in a single big box, so nixing the tower outright instead of having both form factors was a mistake too.

On the general idea of a pro mac in that kind of desktop form factor it was try 2 of 3 on this kind of design (G4 Cube, 2013 MP, studio) not counting the NeXT Cube as a direct predecessor and other separate but similar workstations like the SGI Octanes/O2s, and I’d argue the studio finally fully made it work for apple.

The 6,1 was a dead end in itself, and a compound of several misjudgments on where the market at the time was going, as was the G4 Cube, but they paved the way for the studio, which is a truly solid desktop pro machine
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chuckeee
visualseed said:
Nonsense. I owned a G4 Cube and it didn't have anywhere near the performance relative the rest of the product line that the 2013 Mac Pro had. What killed the cube was that it cost just as much as a PowerMac G4 and offered less all the way around. A hypothetical XEON Mac Studio priced under a iMac Pro with similar specs minus the display would have been a winner. That machine in 2013 would have taken the pressure off of Apple and probably made the iMac Pro unnecessary. Exactly what the Mac Studio is doing today.
Click to expand...
What should the 2013 Mac Pro have been priced at to convince people to buy it instead of a tower then? It had expensive workstation-grade hardware so hitting a price target lower than the previous 2012 Mac Pro tower with it would've been pretty difficult.

Apple couldn't price the Cube significantly below the tower either, again because it had mostly the same high-end G4 hardware inside. The lesson learned was to not use the same high-end hardware and instead release Mac mini at a significantly lower price, which ended up as a successful product.
 
RWI said:
I will buy any iMac that is 27" (or bigger) and has a black bazel instead of a white one.
I still am working (pretty ok) with my 27" Intel iMac, but am seeing it's limitations more and more.
I just can't seem to purchase the current 24" models although I would really like to upgrade for over 2 or 3 years now.
This (and the lack of a iPhone Mini) is what is making me salty about my lifetime favorite tech brand.
It seems I am no longer on the mind of Apple as a customer "group".
Click to expand...

iMacs are basically glorified MacBooks now in terms of performance. Why don’t you have a look around and find yourself a display you really like that will last you many years.

Then you can decide if you want a Mac mini or if you don’t want cables a MacBook? One cable for display and charging.

I loved my 2013 iMac but moved to the M1 Mac minion release for the performance. I now have an M2 MacBook Air as well and that thing has had more use in 8 months than my mini has in 2 years.

Laptops are the way for me. Given I work from home and have a MacBook Pro docked all day I’ve started just swapping out the laptop when I’m using my personal on.

The Mac mini is soon going to be moved to purely handle streaming.
 
  • Like
Reactions: redheeler
Wanted797 said:
iMacs are basically glorified MacBooks now in terms of performance. Why don’t you have a look around and find yourself a display you really like that will last you many years.
Click to expand...

Not the OP but I've been running a Mac mini with an external display for the last six years and I have to say it isn't great. Problems include:

1. DRM doesn't work so I can't stream HD content.
2. The monitor is slow at coming up when I bring the Mac out of sleep.
3. If the Mac is rebooted the monitor never comes on, I need to wait an appropriate time then type my password blind and wait for login to complete. Alternatively connect a crappy HDMI monitor I have kicking around.
4. The panel is yellowing so I will need to replace it within the next couple of years. It will probably reach its end of life at the same time as the Mac mini.
5. When Sonoma was released it couldn't set 5K resolution until an update was available.

This is the LG 5K monitor purchased from Apple, I had worse problems with a previous Dell monitor.

It seems Apple isn't great at dealing with 3rd party monitors so I would be inclined to buy an all in one next time.

The only thing putting me off is the lack of height adjustment in any of the iMacs.
 
  • Disagree
  • Like
Reactions: hajime, jib2 and freedomlinux
ducknalddon said:
Not the OP and just an anecdote but I don't think I have ever seen a 21.5" model outside of an Apple Store but I have seen plenty of 27" models on my travels.
Click to expand...
I barely recall what computers people have at their homes, but for iMacs I think in my life I recall one 27” and two 21”. But yeah I don’t know what these anecdotes are worth.
 
drrich2 said:
Yes, albeit that route seems to require some technical sophistication and confidence to pull off successfully. Quick question on that - do I recall correctly that when converting an old iMac into an external display the DIY route, you retain the resolution but lose some color depth (e.g.: how many 'bit' the color is)? Are there any other trade-offs?
Click to expand...
Yes, you retain the resolution and colour depth.
The trade-offs are you loose the built in mic and camera.

You can still use the built in speakers with a pair of crossover dividers
 
  • Like
Reactions: drrich2
ducknalddon said:
This is the LG 5K monitor purchased from Apple, I had worse problems with a previous Dell monitor.

It seems Apple isn't great at dealing with 3rd party monitors so I would be inclined to buy an all in one next time.
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear you've had substantial difficulties. That said, a lot of Mac users seem happy with their 4K 27" displays, so I don't think that's the typical user experience.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chuckeee
bushman4 said:
Time for Apple to start paying attention to what the customers are asking for and not making them wait years for it when the technology is already available
Click to expand...
That's just silly.

If Apple did not make what people want then they would not be the most valued corporation (by equity valuation, which of course changes daily.)

The iMac Pro was always going to be a stop-gap product, until Apple made a new Mac Pro.

Just get an ASD and add a Mac Mini to it and you've got all that an iMac Pro could be.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chuckeee and seek3r
picpicmac said:
Just get an ASD and add a Mac Mini to it and you've got all that an iMac Pro could be.
Click to expand...
Just get an ASD and add a Mac Mini to it and you've got all that an iMac 27" could be ;)
An iMac Pro should use the M* Max chip or better.

The iMac Pro 18-core performed about as well as the Mac Pro 7.1 16-core
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back