Apple’s Mac Pro is available for purchase today, and several people have noticed something curious about it. Namely that, if you choose the correct options during the purchasing process, it will cost you more than a Cybertruck.
The Mac Pro slides in just at the end of 2019, technically fulfilling the company’s promise to be available by the fall. When my colleague Napier Lopez revealed the company would release the Pro this month, he mentioned the rather steep base price — $5,999 — and added, “ Expect that price to rise dramatically as you add fancier components.”
Napier, buddy, you have no idea how right you were.
See, this cheese grater is configurable, and you can build your perfect machine during checkout by selecting from a list of available components. I selected the most expensive components because I like to pretend I can afford to boujee sometimes. The final build includes:
2.5GHz 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
1.5TB (12x128GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
Two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo GPUs with 2x32GB of HBM2 memory each
A 4TB SDD
Wheels
The price for everything sits just under $53,000. Just for shits and giggles, I added the pre-installed Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X to my build, which bumped the price over $53k.
Honestly, just looking at the number on my screen kind of scared me. I was just doing this for the purposes of demonstration, but I kept thinking I could accidentally slam my mouse against the side of my keyboard as the cursor was hovering over the “Continue” button and I’d suddenly be on the hook for a greater sum than both of my kidneys would fetch.
Funny thing is, this version isn’t even priced to include the lovely monitor — which, I’ll remind y’all, costs $4,999 at minimum, and $5,999 for the version with Nano-texture glass. And the Mac Pro can potentially run six of them. At that point, you obviously have more money than you know what to do with, so why not get the $999 monitor stands for all of them?
I get that the Mac Pro is a computer strictly for professionals — it’s kind of in the name. But even for the pros who are for the Pro, who is this monster to serve? I remember hearing video editors tell AppleInsider they needed this kind of power, but even they said they’d probably consider going with the base configuration. Please, rich professionals who get one of these, please ping me on Twitter and let me know you exist. I must know what jobs this beast is going to do.
