The top spec Mac Pro only costs $50,000

2019 Mac Pro
2019 Mac Pro (Image credit: Rene Ritchie / iMore)

Okay, you know how this goes. The most expensive Mac ever is here. And this is the most expensive version of the most expensive Mac. Spoiler alert, it costs $50,000. Yes, that's a 5, with four zeros.

Tower or Rack

Well, you can't pick Rack yet, so it has to be Tower. The base model Mac Pro starts at $5,999, so this was never going to be cheap. Once the Rack does eventually get released though, throw another $500 on the total.

I didn't know they made processors this big

The Mac Pro comes as standard with a 3.5GHz 8-core Intel Xeon Processor. Is that even enough to run macOS? Of course, we want the top-spec, which in this case is a 2.5GHz 28-core Intel Xeon W, featuring Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz. Oh, it's also $7,000.

Memory

So if a meager 32GB of DDR4 RAM will not suffice, you can upgrade the RAM in the Mac Pro to astonishing levels of performance. We're playing it safe with 1.5TB of DDR4 (12x128GB). At $15,000, this is the one upgrade you'll want to forget about come checkout.

Mac Pro

Mac Pro (Image credit: Apple)

Graphic content

You can also add a decent amount of graphics to the new Mac Pro. The highest offering? Two Radeon Pro Vega II Duos with 2x32GB of memory... each... Not quite as expensive as the RAM though, which is nice... $10,800.

Storage

The 8TB SSD storage option isn't yet available, goodness knows how much that will cost on release. Right now, the most storage you can get is 4TB of SSD. $1,400.

Something Something Afterburner

For an extra $2000 you can add an Apple Afterburner card, its a PCIe accelerator that offloads decoding of ProRes and ProRes RAW video codecs in FCP X and QuickTime, as well as some support third-party apps. Add this option and you'll get it preinstalled in PCI Express slot 5.

Wheels... wait what?

Yes, you can add Wheels to the Mac Pro, at only $400 this is basically a steal at this point.

Accesorize

As per usual, we'll throw in the Magic Mouse 2 and the Magic Trackpad 2, one for each hand and only an extra $149. Software to make use of all this power in the form of Final Cut and Logic Pro X, $500.

The total

$53,247.98. Hey, at least the shipping is free! If you like, you can also add Apple's fancy new Pro Display XDR, a 32-inch Retina 6K. This also starts at $4,999, or $5,999 for the nano-texture glass model. So round it up to $60,000 if you want one of those. If we're spending this much money on a Mac Pro, you can be sure we're putting AppleCare+ on it, so add another $300 for the road.

Mac Pro

When Apple Card launched its 3% cashback scheme, the amount might have seemed laughable. However, right now it's offering up to 6% on Apple Hardware as a holiday season offer. This means you'll get a MacBook Pro's worth of cashback from buying a new Mac Pro at full spec. Over $3000! We'll take two!

Stephen Warwick
News Editor

Stephen Warwick has written about Apple for five years at iMore and previously elsewhere. He covers all of iMore's latest breaking news regarding all of Apple's products and services, both hardware and software. Stephen has interviewed industry experts in a range of fields including finance, litigation, security, and more. He also specializes in curating and reviewing audio hardware and has experience beyond journalism in sound engineering, production, and design.

Before becoming a writer Stephen studied Ancient History at University and also worked at Apple for more than two years. Stephen is also a host on the iMore show, a weekly podcast recorded live that discusses the latest in breaking Apple news, as well as featuring fun trivia about all things Apple. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwarwick9