Apple have finally opened their order books for the 2019 Mac Pro, and what a beast it is.
Now that it’s available for sale, we can see the pricing, not only on the base model, but on the upgrades as well.
The price here in Australia is better than I thought it would be – based on the exchange rate and adding GST, I thought we’d be looking at $11–12,000 however the base model has come in at an even ten grand (well, $9,999) inclusive of GST.
The options are expensive, but not crazy. Upgrading from an 8-core CPU to 12 cores is $1,600. Going all the way to the top to the ridiculous 28-core Xeon W is an eye-watering $11,200.
RAM upgrades are fairly reasonable (for Apple pricing). They are only double the street price for RAM. Fortunately it should prove to be quite straightforward to buy quality third-party RAM and install it yourself.
Graphics card upgrades, again are expensive but within the ballpark for what you would pay for such graphics power.
SSD upgrades are fairly reasonable compared to a top-spec SSD like a Samsung Evo Pro.
The Apple Afterburner Card is an interesting option at $3,200. It seems like a must-have option if you’re working in Final Cut Pro X, however we’ll need to wait and see which third-party applications end up supporting it.
The keyboard and mouse are nice, unique, versions of Apple’s standard Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse 2 – this time around they are not the standard silver with white keys, nor are they the space grey with black keys from the iMac Pro. Instead the Mac Pro comes with a special silver-and-black version of these peripherals. Expect to see them being sold off on eBay for silly amounts very soon.
Anyway, as people always want to know how much it can go up to – the base model starts at $9,999 and if you tick all the option boxes, including Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X pre-installed, you’re looking at a cool $85,600 worth of Mac. Without a monitor.
Speaking of which, the new Pro Display XDR is also available for purchase. The base model with “Standard Glass” is $8,499. The Nano-texture Glass is $9,999 and the stand is $1,699. With a VESA adapter coming in at $349, and some excellent third-party options for VESA mounts, I think this is the route most people will take.