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

Refurb Mac Pro now? Or wait for WWDC?

MBHockey

MBHockey

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 4, 2003
4,062
313
Connecticut
I am in the market for an nMP, likely the 6 core model. It seems it's due for an update any day now considering Grantley has been shipping for quite a while and the GPUs are pretty long in the tooth at this point. I wouldn't mind paying at a 15% discount for a refurb machine, but has there been any indication that a refreshed nMP may be in the works for WWDC?
 
MBHockey said:
I am in the market for an nMP, likely the 6 core model. It seems it's due for an update any day now considering Grantley has been shipping for quite a while and the GPUs are pretty long in the tooth at this point. I wouldn't mind paying at a 15% discount for a refurb machine, but has there been any indication that a refreshed nMP may be in the works for WWDC?
Click to expand...

Anyone's guess is as good as the next one at this point. Even if new machines are announced at WWDC they might not immediately ship, and there's generally a lag between when refurbs drop in price after the new model hits. Since there's only a month until the dev conference you might as well wait and see what hits.
 
If you need it now, buy it now. If you can get a good deal on a refurb then why not. Apple may update the Mac Pro this year, they may not.

Many people waited an age for an updated Mac Mini only to be disappointed with one when it arrived, and if history is anything to show the Mac Pro has very long update cycles. Apple certainly don't push it very hard or make it very visible in their stores - it's all about laptops and the iMac.

I would also say that if you are looking at refurbs you may want to look at the previous Mac Pro as it may give you more expandability and better GPU options, etc. It depends upon what your needs are.
 
shaunp said:
If you need it now, buy it now. If you can get a good deal on a refurb then why not. Apple may update the Mac Pro this year, they may not.

Many people waited an age for an updated Mac Mini only to be disappointed with one when it arrived, and if history is anything to show the Mac Pro has very long update cycles. Apple certainly don't push it very hard or make it very visible in their stores - it's all about laptops and the iMac.

I would also say that if you are looking at refurbs you may want to look at the previous Mac Pro as it may give you more expandability and better GPU options, etc. It depends upon what your needs are.
Click to expand...

Isn't that strange? I went to a local Apple Store recently and couldn't find the Mac Pro to play with. When I asked an employee where the Mac Pros are he looked at me as if nobody had ever asked him that question before.

As far as cMPs -- is there a reputable site that people are buying them used off of? Or just ebay/craigslist?
 
Given it's only a month away, I'd wait till WWDC to see what, if anything, happens. You may still opt for a 2013 refurb, but if so, it'll be a fair bit cheaper to buy.
 
ActionableMango said:
Macrumors buyer's guide says the average time between updates is 449 days, and the last update was 509 days ago. In other words, "don't buy".
https://buyersguide.macrumors.com//#Mac_Pro

IMHO if you can wait till WWDC, then you might as well. If you cannot, then you shouldn't even be asking us.
Click to expand...

I've seen this but am not convinced they are useful for predicting future refreshes. They are incredibly variable.
 
MBHockey said:
I've seen this but am not convinced they are useful for predicting future refreshes. They are incredibly variable.
Click to expand...

They are pretty useful for the products Apple cares about and updates yearly, like iDevices. For the Mac Pro, it's anybody's guess when they won't be too busy to dedicate someone to updating it. The guy who was in charge of that is probably busy working on new Apple Watch bands.
 
The current mac pro doesn't really seem good value atm. I just picked up a 5,1 3.46 6 core W3690 with 48gb ram 2x256gb PCI ssd standard 5770 (which i will upgrade) and a 4tb hdd and it cost me £1200 it is 20% slower than the nMP but spec a nMP to that in the apple store and its £3600.

Thats a saving of £2400.

Pretty good until apple update the nMP. My thought process was although Thunderbolt is great I would have to spend another £400 on a thunderbolt enclosure, I like the internal HDD of the cMP, size doesn't really bother me it goes under the desk. So it would have been a £4000 upgrade for a 2 year old machine.

The nMP is upgradable, CPU, Ram and SSD but it will cost an arm and a leg to do so. The graphics are in theory upgradable, but if you read a few of the threads like this it looks like they won't be able to in the future.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1876181/

The current graphics don't support 5k and won't? So they will hit the second hand market and be a pointless buy for future purposes.

Although the cMP is technically a 2012 it has PCI2 (at least it has PCI) Sata 2 (although you can get a SATA 3 card), and slower ram its still a valid machine and can still be upgraded more so than the nMP especially when you save 60%.
 
Zorn said:
They are pretty useful for the products Apple cares about and updates yearly, like iDevices. For the Mac Pro, it's anybody's guess when they won't be too busy to dedicate someone to updating it. The guy who was in charge of that is probably busy working on new Apple Watch bands.
Click to expand...

hahaha
 
MBHockey said:
Isn't that strange? I went to a local Apple Store recently and couldn't find the Mac Pro to play with. When I asked an employee where the Mac Pros are he looked at me as if nobody had ever asked him that question before.

As far as cMPs -- is there a reputable site that people are buying them used off of? Or just ebay/craigslist?
Click to expand...

It's not much better here in the UK, they are just shoved to one side. Weird that Apple made such a loud noise at launch time, then nothing.

As for used cMP's there are probably specialists who deal with used Mac's in the US that will give you a warranty, etc. In the UK there's Scrumpy Macs. Does anyone know if there's anything similar in the US?
 
I bought mine from mac_store_uk on ebay.

Product described as:

The Mac has been professionally upgraded and comes with a 12 Months RTB hardware warranty
 
I can't see Apple ignoring Mac Pro for Thunderbolt 3 and the ability to drive dual 5K displays (likely Apple-branded) that can be hooked up via a single cable. But that's not until next year.
 
dagamer34 said:
I can't see Apple ignoring Mac Pro for Thunderbolt 3 and the ability to drive dual 5K displays (likely Apple-branded) that can be hooked up via a single cable. But that's not until next year.
Click to expand...

USB 3.1 devices will be more useful than TBx (1-3). It's possible a new version nMP would have USB 3.1, but currently you CAN get USB 3.1 card for the cMP now, and support will flourish as time goes on.

The TB "tax" is too high.
 
Isn't it sad that we are in this waiting game again with the MP? Instead of regularly updating like other companies, we have to guess which calendar year might get an update. Might.

For some people, (myself included) the MP is a good chunk of money. It would be nice if they would treat the public with a little more respect instead of acting like every release is the greatest technological feat ever.

The worst part is knowing that if I had the money, I'm not sure I'd buy one because it doesn't seem that even Apple cares about the line. Simple updates would go a long way in helping me toward a purchase.
 
thanks for all your input everyone. Possibly against my better judgement I picked up an nMP refurb (from Apple) a few days ago, 6 core/512 SSD/D500/16 GB. The timing was right for me,. I do still hope they release something new at WWDC for anyone who is waiting for upgrades. I'm very happy with my machine.

I live in a small apt in nyc and space is a premium. The fact I could put this on my desk rather than have a cMP tower take up space on my floor was actually a big factor. Loving it so far. Only imperfection i've found on this refurb unit is a small defect in the metal casing (paint chip?). I wonder if that's why this one got sent back. It's very minor and absolutely worth the savings, even for me who tends to irrationally obsess about these kinds of things.

I have been using a 4GB MBA for photo editing over the past year (bought it two years ago before i got into photography). Lightroom/Photoshop on this machine is an absolute dream compared to what I was using!
 
Meh. I'm waiting for WWDC.

Isn't it funny how they made such a big deal about the nMP after waiting so long, and we thought that it signaled Apple finally cared only to find out they didn't care at all, and they could've simply given us another new cMP like most of us wanted?

It's pretty clear now that Apple does not want real computers to exist. They could have at least released a second version before they abandoned the line again, so the people wary of being first adopters could at least have one.
 
You also have to blame the manufacturers like Intel who are nearly 2yrs behind schedule with processor updates. It's been thought that Apple has been waiting for Skylake + TB3 before releasing an updated system.
 
AppleDroid said:
You also have to blame the manufacturers like Intel who are nearly 2yrs behind schedule with processor updates. It's been thought that Apple has been waiting for Skylake + TB3 before releasing an updated system.
Click to expand...

Since when is it news that complex leading edge processors slip the schedule a bit?

Blame Apple for not anticipating the norm.

And, pray tell, why not blame Apple for not adopting Haswell-EP processors?

Why not blame Apple for not adopting Maxwell GPUs that spank the ATI GPUs and OpenCL - plus offer CUDA?

Why not blame Apple? Why not blame Apple for withholding some real advancements just because something better may be coming? (Unless Intel realizes that its T-Bolt strategy has been flawed from the beginning, and T-Bolt3 never ships.)
___

Or, would blaming Apple be tantamount to admitting that Apple doesn't care about the Mac Pro?
 
AidenShaw said:
Since when is it news that complex leading edge processors slip the schedule a bit?

Blame Apple for not anticipating the norm.

And, pray tell, why not blame Apple for not adopting Haswell-EP processors?

Why not blame Apple for not adopting Maxwell GPUs that spank the ATI GPUs and OpenCL - plus offer CUDA?

Why not blame Apple? Why not blame Apple for withholding some real advancements just because something better may be coming? (Unless Intel realizes that its T-Bolt strategy has been flawed from the beginning, and T-Bolt3 never ships.)
___

Or, would blaming Apple be tantamount to admitting that Apple doesn't care about the Mac Pro?
Click to expand...

I blame Apple for the breakup of my marriage. It hasn't actually happened yet. Not even close. But if it does, they'll have some 'splaining to do.
 
AidenShaw said:
Or, would blaming Apple be tantamount to admitting that Apple doesn't care about the Mac Pro?
Click to expand...
That's the crux of it. MP fans need to understand that Apple has pretty close to zero interest in the MP. It just doesn't fit into their vision of the future of the PC. They clearly came close to killing it off altogether before moving forward with the nMP. That doesn't mean they won't continue to release more iterations of the nMP over the next few years, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it stay on a two year update schedule.
 
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