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The Most Powerful iMac Pro Now Costs $15,927 (vice.com)

Posted by msmash on from the here-comes-the-money dept.

Apple recently updated the upgrade options for the iMac Pro, and getting the very best will cost you. A baseline model will cost you just under $5,000, and maxing out the hardware to absurd heights runs a whopping $15,927. An anonymous reader writes: The most expensive possible upgrade is a $5,200 charge for upgrading the RAM from 32GB to a startling 256GB. Other addons include an additional $700 for a 16GB Radeon video card and $2,400 for a 2.3 Ghz Intel processor with 18 cores. Almost $16,000 is a lot of money for a computer, especially one so overpowered that there are very few reasonable applications of its hardware. Most people will never need more than 16GB of RAM to play video games, and 32-64GB will take care of most video editing and 3D modeling tasks. With 256GB of RAM, you could run advanced AI processes or lease computing power to other people.

3 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Expensive is relative by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Informative

    If your time is worth hundreds of dollars per hour, then this purchase becomes justifiable if it can save you a sufficient number of hours. I don't think that there are that many people who will see significant improvements from maxing this thing out. About half of the cost is maxing out the RAM and using the largest internal SSD possible. You can save considerably by avoiding the Apple tax and installing your own RAM upgrade and you've probably already got an external RAID setup for storage if you're in the market for this kind of machine. The $2,400 for the extra 10 cores is probably the only thing that most people would want/need to touch and I expect that over a few years of use, it's likely to justify its cost.

  2. Sometimes, too much is a good thing by Miles_O'Toole · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sixteen grand for a machine like this is still dirt cheap for a high end animation studio like Pixar or Ghibli.

    --
    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
  3. I thought people hated lack of choice? by King_TJ · · Score: 3, Informative

    I mean, in all the years I've used Apple products, that's always a complaint about them from detractors; They don't give you enough flexibility or choice!

    Well, here's a system from Apple that you can configure in all sorts of insane, over the top ways, IF you actually want to -- and people are complaining because it's too much?

    I actually own one of these iMac Pros, but I purchased it in the standard "base" configuration. I was also able to buy it for $1,000 off the regular price on a sale that Micro Center stores ran on it, shortly after it was released. They ran various sales on it for months after that, varying between about $500 off and that $1000 discount -- but there were definitely some opportunities to get one for less than Apple's advertised pricing.

    It's been a great computer and I have no regrets purchasing it.... The 5K display in it is excellent and partially justifies the base cost of the computer when you see how much equivalent monitors sell for separately. I certainly don't see the need to buy the upgraded configurations for many thousands more? But I'm glad those were available, in case people needed them. I can see someone running a lot of virtual machines in test environments, as a developer, possibly needing a lot more RAM. Maybe not 256GB but 128GB? Yeah .... could happen.