Apple’s 2019 Mac Pro Tower Now Available: From $5,999 to $53,000
by Anton Shilov on December 10, 2019 3:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Workstation
- Displays
- Apple
- Mac Pro
- Monitors
- Desktop
- Pro Display XDR
Apple on Tuesday started sales of its revamped Mac Pro workstation. The new Mac Pro brings Apple back to the forefront of expensive, high-performance workstations for the first time in years. The company also began sales of its new Pro Display XDR, the company’s first high-end monitor in a long time.
The Apple Mac Pro workstation are powered by Intel’s Xeon W processors, with options ranging from eight to 28 cores. Memory options similarly span a wide range, all the way from 32 GB to 1.5 TB of DDR4-2933 memory. Meanwhile the machine's storage, which all solid-state and backed by Apple's T2 controller, is available today from 256 GB to 4 TB, and Apple has already announced that an 8TB option is coming soon.
As for the graphics side of things, the Mac Pro starts with AMD's Radeon Pro 580X. Upgrade options include the newer Radeon Pro W5700X – roughly equivalent to AMD’s recently launched Radeon Pro W5700 – and the top option is up to two AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo graphics cards in MPX form-factor. The latter offers a total of 16384 stream processors (4096 SPs per GPU), 128 GB of HBM2 memory (32 GB per GPU), and eight display outputs.
Since the Mac Pro machine is aimed at professionals from the movie and adjacent industries, they can be equipped with Apple’s Afterburner FPGA-based accelerator card. All told, the workstation has multiple PCIe 3.0 slots and a 1.4 kW PSU, so the new Mac Pro can be expanded quite significantly.
The base price of Apple’s new Mac Pro tower with an eight-core CPU is $5,999, but a system with maxed out specifications is priced at a whopping $53,247.98.
In addition to the new workstation, Apple also started to sell its exclusive 32-inch Pro Display XDR monitor. The (ed: breathtaking) display uses a 10-bit IPS panel and offers a 6016×3384 resolution, 1,000 nits – 1,600 nits brightness (sustained/peak), and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio because of Mini-LED backlighting. The standard model of the display costs $4,999, but an anti-reflective version with nano-texture glass carries a $5,999 MSRP. Infamously, the monitor doesn't come with a stand or VESA mount adapter, and these have to be purchased separately for $999 and $199, respectively.
Related Reading:
- Apple’s 2019 Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR Will Be Available in December
- The Apple WWDC 2019 Keynote Live Blog (Starts at 10am PT/17:00 UTC)
- Apple to Redesign Mac Pro, Comments That GPU Cooling Was A Roadblock
- LG Unveils New UltraFine 4K & 5K Monitors: Now with iPad Pro Support
Sources: Apple
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Xex360 - Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - link
It's very odd, why would you use a Mac in the first place, it's not powerful enough to justify its premium price. Software wise it's not as comprehensive as windows.Llawehtdliub - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
"Professionals" demand to usw macOS, silly! Windows bad!FunBunny2 - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
real professionals use *nix. always have.29a - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
So you're saying Mac users are "real professionals" since OSX is unix.808Hilo - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
The netherlands are Unix and Apple purdifies and loopholes. Not something I want to deal with in a business...so Win for me.crimsonson - Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - link
But this is not competing with DIYers.This is competing in terms of hardware specs to the HP z8 and similar workstation.
smilingcrow - Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - link
True, but the comparison shows what their margins must be like.crimsonson - Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - link
True.I work in the industry target for this Mac Pro. I prefer HP z8 because they have a more versatile configuration and warranty is far superior. That said, Hp prices are no different than Apple’s.
I still need to see details about what PCIe cards I can install in these Macs. If they need Apple EFI or any proprietary hardware that would be the most critical thing. NOT the price.
Samus - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
Last I checked a 28 core z8 with 512GB RAM and 4TB SSD was $18,000. Apple wants almost double that and the only difference is a $3000 video card.crimsonson - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
Please post the config of the z8. Likely you are not matching the same CPU. z8s use Bronze/Silver/Gold/Plat Xeons. Apple uses the W-series for the Mac Pro 2019.We have bought hundreds of HP workstations (mostly from VARs). I like them a lot. But they are not significantly cheaper than Apple's workstations. They may go on sale or certain config can come cheaper but overall they are in the same stratosphere as any branded workstation.