Neil Hughes
In a rare pre-announcement intended to appease professional users, Apple offered a sneak preview of the new iMac Pro coming in December, boasting up to 18-core Xeon processors and up to 128GB of ECC memory.
Priced at $4,999, the iMac Pro will be the most powerful iMac ever built by Apple when it ships this December. It will feature next-generation Radeon Vega graphics, and comes in a space grey chassis.
With a 27-inch 5K display, the all-in-one machine offers what Apple characterized as workstation-class performance thanks to a completely rethought thermal architecture.
Configurations will include 8-, 10- and even 18-core Xeon processors, capable of delivering up to 22 teraflops. The hardware will boast four Thunderbolt 3 ports that can drive two 5K displays and two high-performance RAID arrays.
Apple says to build a comparable PC would cost about $7,000, but Apple plans to undercut its competitors with a $4,999 starting price. The iMac Pro will begin shipping in December.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
72 Comments
Wow, looks like they're getting serious about the pro market.
Actually, to me, it looks like the opposite.
The *biggest* complaints from the pro market all revolve around the perceived lack of customizability and expandability of the current Mac Pro.
So what does Apple do? They make one that will undoubtedly be even more proprietary and harder to customize and/or expand.
This, to me, is further evidence that Apple's current "pro" products are really just high-end enthusiast products that happen to work for some professionals.
But we'll see. It certainly looks like it will be a beautiful piece of hardware!
This looks like the kind of rig I will repeatedly deck out in the Apple store, sigh, then close the browser tab.
Not all pro's care about customizing their PCs. Some just want horsepower and it just works.
What they didn't want is not have an upgrade path other than a 2013 machine. If they refresh the iMac Pro every year that would work out very well for many pros.