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 $199, respectively.
Related Reading:
- Apple’s 2019 Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR Will Be Available in December
- The Apple WWDC 2019 Keynote Live Blog (Starts at 10am PT/17:00 UTC)
- Apple to Redesign Mac Pro, Comments That GPU Cooling Was A Roadblock
- LG Unveils New UltraFine 4K & 5K Monitors: Now with iPad Pro Support
Sources: Apple
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Llawehtdliub - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
Bingo. I was really hoping Apple's delay with this mac prk release where due to it adding threadripper options. That would make sense, but hey it's Apple! Less is more!PeachNCream - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
Pretty sure Papaspud was implying the exact opposite of the best when stating "don't care if you have the best." Wording it another way "money is no object and I know I'm not getting a good deal for the price I'm playing, but I do not care about bang for the buck."gijames1225 - Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - link
Eh, pricing is obscene, but it is Apple after all. It's a shame they still can't be bothered to let Nvidia release drivers on Mac OS, and it's also going to be awkward now that Threadripper and Epyc destroy this on the CPU end of things, but aren't even options.I wondered why Apply retreated from making a real desktop system, but it sort of makes sense when you realize how unmotivated they are to support diversity of hardware. They spent years designing this platform, and both CPU and GPU fronts it's inadequate, given the pedigree.
crimsonson - Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - link
Price is in line with HP, Dell and other workstations.bernardl - Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - link
Yes, indeed. But most replying on pricing are not really in the market for a pro workstation.They don't know that an HP Z8 can be configured to cost more than 100,000 US$.
Llawehtdliub - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
You get a lot more for your money with the z8. Better selection too.People who use these systems dont dare what OS its running. This mac pro is going to flop.
crimsonson - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
I agree with a better selection, but it also a different choice. HP uses a different line of Xeon processors. And often, people make a mistake as an apple to apple comparison. They are not.I strongly disagree, you get an "a lot more" from z8. If you can if you are looking for a specific configuration but overall, the MP2019 is the same price range as the z8s.
I assume you mean "care what OS it is running". Uhm, they do. People who buy these are usually integrating it into a large, often established workflow. They need it to support specific software, thus OS versions.
As there are niche software or environment e that are strictly Linux or Windows, there are software that is Mac OS only.
Then there is an environment that is both (we do Windows and Mac OS).
DominionSeraph - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
Nvidia probably wants no part of this. AMD, who already can't compete in the professional space, looks 10x worse with their hardware attached to these prices.The ~$45k profit margin on this wouldn't be going into Nvidia's pocket, it goes into Apple's. Nvidia looks much better giving you $50k worth of performance for $50k than $5k worth for $50k.
Nvidia has clear differentiation and good optics across Tesla, Quadro, and GeForce. The Mac Pro doesn't line up with any of it because it has no clear purpose. It's just an overpriced heater.
If I had a billion dollar business like Nvidia with a sterling reputation in the professional compute, rendering, and consumer gaming spheres, and Apple came to me wanting to put my hardware in this low-volume pile of crap, I'd say "No," since it would be a multimillion dollar reputation hit for a few thousand in profit.
Spunjji - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
Then you'd be a fool. Getting into Apple's workstation business invariably means getting into their entire Mac business, which is an opportunity that nVidia would be mad to pass up. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure bumpgate was responsible for killing that relationship dead, and Apple recently dropping them out of the drivers makes it unlikely they'll reverse course any time soon.id4andrei - Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - link
What a load of bull. Apple is not using nvidia because of CUDA. Apple does not want its mac to just another CUDA terminal. They want all GPU assisted work to be done with Metal. They are playing politics with what should be sensible consumer options.