Apple iMac Pro to be released tomorrow, priced from $4,999

by Mark Tyson on 13 December 2017, 11:01

Tags: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

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Apple usually doesn’t have a very long gap between product unveiling and availability but that’s not been the case with its iMac Pro computer. Originally unveiled back in early June at the Apple WWDC, these AiO workstation computers are set to become available from tomorrow (Thurs 14th Dec). This powerful computer incorporates Intel Xeon CPUs with up to 18 cores, an AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPU with up to 16GB of HBM2, plenty of fast RAM and storage options, behind a bright and colour rich Retina 5K display.

To recap on what Apple is offering here, the base iMac Pro machine costs $4,999 and includes the following specs; an eight-core Intel Xeon processor, an AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB of HBM2, 32GB of DDR4 2666MHz ECC RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage. All those aspects are upgradable, at least at purchase time and you can pay extra to configure a 10- or 18-core Xeon, an AMD Vega Pro 64 with 16GB of HBM2, 64GB or 128GB of Ram and SSD storage of 2TB or 4TB built-in.

There are certain constants with this iMac Pro such as the display. It’s a 27-inch ‘Retina 5K display’ with 5120‑by‑2880 resolution with support for billions of colours, up to 500 nits of brightness, and support for wide colour gamuts (P3). Usres can connect up to two more 5K displays or four more 4K 10-bit displays for more screen working space.

10Gb Ethernet is built in, as is Wi-Fi 802.11acm and BT 4.2, and you can also connect / interface via 4x Thunderbolt 3 (USB Type-C) ports, 4x USB 3.0 ports, and SDXC card slot. Other useful features are the built-in 1080p FaceTime camera, 4x microphones, stereo speakers, plus the supplied ‘Magic Mouse’ and Magic Keyboard with numpad. MacOS High Sierra comes pre-installed.

Apple has yet to reveal the upgrade prices beyond the $4,999 base but with high-end options selected we wouldn’t be surprised if the price approaches double that of the base model.



HEXUS Forums :: 28 Comments

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How on earth is this even news? apple make a new computer at a much higher price than it should be?

Chances are it won't even be that good but defended to the hilt by fan boys for being clad in aluminum and not running windows.

I tried apple many years ago and vowed never to buy any of there products ever again until proof it was faster than a pc of the same price ……. guess I have a log wait to go yet :D
Rubarb
I tried apple many years ago and vowed never to buy any of there products ever again until proof it was faster than a pc of the same price ……. guess I have a log wait to go yet :D

Depends if speed is your only criteria, in which case you may be correct in your decision.
Rubarb
How on earth is this even news? apple make a new computer at a much higher price than it should be?

Chances are it won't even be that good but defended to the hilt by fan boys for being clad in aluminum and not running windows.

I tried apple many years ago and vowed never to buy any of there products ever again until proof it was faster than a pc of the same price ……. guess I have a log wait to go yet :D
I don't know how much the premium is on this, as it's a market I have no idea what the prices are. Is an equivalent machine (with similar spec display etc) much cheaper?
It’s expensive in terms of hardware, but the big advantage is that the OS is extremely well integrated with hardware, so it you have been running an app on another Mac machine, it will port across seamlessly. No worrying about whether you need different drivers for peripherals, all that is done for you. The OS is configured for that hardware configuration.

The downside is that you loose flexibility in configuring the hardware, but for most users who want the machine to do some heavy grunt (video rendering for example) don’t want to be faffing around with it, they want something that just gets on with it, and the relatively small price premium is worth it for those users.
All those aspects are upgradable
I think configurable might be a better term.
I'm not a big mac fan, but I will admit the hardware is really well designed and built.

Interestingly there's a growing movement away from mac's in the music industry which seems mainly to do with the way apple keep changing connectors and people have been getting a bit annoyed with having to replace a bunch of other kit if they want to replace their mac, not because it's any better but because all the old kit can no longer be connected.
And some “updated” software required for the newer OS versions suddenly lacking features that the older software had.