Apple reinforces commitment to professionals with nearly 200 US-built Mac Pro configurations
While Apple has made efforts in recent years to pare down its product options in an effort to simplify choices for consumers, the company's new Mac Pro desktop comes in nearly 200 potential configurations, giving professional users the ability to build a system that's right for them.
With four different potential CPU options, four different RAM amounts, three internal storage capacities, and three graphics card options, the base Mac Pro, starting at $3,000, is available in a total of 144 different configurations.
And Apple's $4,000 model comes with three upgradeable CPU and three GPU options, bringing its total number of potential configurations to 54. Together, they result in 198 different Mac Pro hardware possibilities for customers to order.
To put the number in perspective, Apple's other professional-grade computers, the MacBook Pro lineup, are offered with far less options. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display has 23 potential configurations, while the 15-inch model has 22.
Such flexibility in ordering the new Mac Pro may signal some of Apple's renewed commitment to professional users -- a market that pundits speculated the company would abandon, in order to focus on consumer-driven products like the iPhone and iPad.
Prior to Apple's much-hyped revamp of the desktop, the Mac Pro lineup floundered for years, featuring the same legacy design that's existed since the Power Mac G5 in June of 2003. While the outside appearance of the Mac Pro remained largely the same, internal components were also infrequently refreshed, leading to severe dissatisfaction from professional Mac users.
Executives at Apple were said to be unsure of what to do about the Mac Pro in late 2011, and were allegedly evaluating whether to continue to invest in furthering its full-size workstation line. Macs in general, and the Mac Pro in particular, have become a far less important part of Apple's bottom line in recent years, with the iPhone and iPad dominating the company's profits and public buzz.
But Apple came out swinging earlier this year when it unveiled the new cylindrical Mac Pro, featuring a radical desktop design and packing in enough power to drive three 4K ultra-resolution displays.
"Can't innovate anymore, my ass," Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller famously proclaimed upon showing off the machine at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
And with preorders for the Mac Pro kicking off on Thursday, it's now apparent that Apple's efforts go beyond just horsepower, and aim to offer professional users more flexibility when ordering the new desktop. Apple has also made the unprecedented move of building the machines entirely in America, making it the only computer in the company's lineup, and one of a few technology products on the market today, to hold that distinction.
Given the sheer number of potential options to choose from, authorized reseller and AppleInsider partner B&H has opted to select what it thinks will become the 20 most popular configurations for the new Mac Pro. It is currently taking preorders for those models, which can be found in the Mac Pro portion of the AppleInsider Mac Price Guide, included below:
* MacMall also only charges sales tax in CA, NY, IL, WI, MN, CO, TN, NC and GA.
+ B&H Photo only charges sales tax in NY, yielding hundreds in additional savings for most readers.
With four different potential CPU options, four different RAM amounts, three internal storage capacities, and three graphics card options, the base Mac Pro, starting at $3,000, is available in a total of 144 different configurations.
And Apple's $4,000 model comes with three upgradeable CPU and three GPU options, bringing its total number of potential configurations to 54. Together, they result in 198 different Mac Pro hardware possibilities for customers to order.
To put the number in perspective, Apple's other professional-grade computers, the MacBook Pro lineup, are offered with far less options. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display has 23 potential configurations, while the 15-inch model has 22.
Such flexibility in ordering the new Mac Pro may signal some of Apple's renewed commitment to professional users -- a market that pundits speculated the company would abandon, in order to focus on consumer-driven products like the iPhone and iPad.
Prior to Apple's much-hyped revamp of the desktop, the Mac Pro lineup floundered for years, featuring the same legacy design that's existed since the Power Mac G5 in June of 2003. While the outside appearance of the Mac Pro remained largely the same, internal components were also infrequently refreshed, leading to severe dissatisfaction from professional Mac users.
Executives at Apple were said to be unsure of what to do about the Mac Pro in late 2011, and were allegedly evaluating whether to continue to invest in furthering its full-size workstation line. Macs in general, and the Mac Pro in particular, have become a far less important part of Apple's bottom line in recent years, with the iPhone and iPad dominating the company's profits and public buzz.
But Apple came out swinging earlier this year when it unveiled the new cylindrical Mac Pro, featuring a radical desktop design and packing in enough power to drive three 4K ultra-resolution displays.
"Can't innovate anymore, my ass," Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller famously proclaimed upon showing off the machine at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
And with preorders for the Mac Pro kicking off on Thursday, it's now apparent that Apple's efforts go beyond just horsepower, and aim to offer professional users more flexibility when ordering the new desktop. Apple has also made the unprecedented move of building the machines entirely in America, making it the only computer in the company's lineup, and one of a few technology products on the market today, to hold that distinction.
Given the sheer number of potential options to choose from, authorized reseller and AppleInsider partner B&H has opted to select what it thinks will become the 20 most popular configurations for the new Mac Pro. It is currently taking preorders for those models, which can be found in the Mac Pro portion of the AppleInsider Mac Price Guide, included below:
* MacMall also only charges sales tax in CA, NY, IL, WI, MN, CO, TN, NC and GA.
+ B&H Photo only charges sales tax in NY, yielding hundreds in additional savings for most readers.
Comments
But in practice, you can't actually get them all, because Apple only made around 182 Mac Pros.
ALL of the higher-end model configs are already contained in the possible lower-end configs. It's different with the Mac Pro in that high- and low-end model are just dfferent base configs that can be configured with the same options. With iMacs etc., you usually don't get the same options, and Neil's counting would have been correct.
Regardless of the above, I fail to see what tons of ("US-made!") BTO configs show in commitment to professionals...
I might spring for 32 Gigs from OWC, I wonder if I can sell my Apple supplied 16 Gigs to anyone? Do these work in many other machines out there?
Maybe I can auction mine on January 6th?
I think owc will buy them
Memory from OWC is also ~$400 cheaper than Apple's.
Just remember to heed:
"Mac Pro uses unregistered DIMMs (U-DIMMs) in all memory configurations except 64GB, which uses four 16GB registered DIMMs (R-DIMMs). Registered DIMMs cannot be mixed with unregistered DIMMs."
So if you buy the 16GB registered DIMMs from OWC then you have to not use the unregistered DIMMs that come in the Mac.
144 isn’t “nearly 200”. It’s “nearly 150”.
Go melt down your childhood paint chips and gargle them. Where you think this is acceptable behavior is beyond anyone intelligent enough to be called human.
So does the Android logo.
Looks like a jet engine intake to me.
Anyone else remember that old "Buy a Mac" ads where they made fun of Vista for having so many configurations?
Well, I guess now it's coming back to bite them in the ass. Apple does the same stuff as everyone else; they just want you to think it's different
Why would there be a jet engine intake inside your office?
I'm not sure about that. It isn't a terribly expensive machine considering what you get in the base model but it is simply in another segment that most users aren't willing to move to. From my standpoint it is about $1000 to expensive for my desktop.
I thought the base model was a little weak for its price. Some of the upgrades are reasonably priced. People have blown the D700 one way out of proportion, but at the same time, it doesn't seem like they're tacking on as high of a markup as with the 12 core. Most of their cpu cto options are typically retail list + 30%. In the case of the hex core, it's a $500 upgrade, so they do credit the cost of the quad. $600 cpu + 180 rounded to $200 - $300 quad = $500 cto. They aren't always that generous about crediting the initial one. Other oems vary greatly in that regard, so I'm not going to make a comparison. The only things I've considered that would make full use of something like the D700s still run better on CUDA. I've been waiting on stable OpenCL versions for a long time. It may happen eventually. It hasn't happened yet. For the most part I've avoided that where possible due to the year to year variance in configurations offered by Apple and a lack of desire to deal with configuring GNOME.
Can you buy this base model and upgrade later with non apple accessories ? $1000.00 seems pretty steep for a 1 TB flash drive when you can get 1TB for $500.00 from crucial.
Internally it may be a non-standard connector, so I wouldn't count on it. You will want to consider external storage with only applications and OS on the primary drive.