Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

price of mac pro historically

S

sbb155

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 15, 2005
498
5
can someone review the price of the stock base top end and low end mac pros at different points in time since 2006? Is the general range always 2500-4000?
 
2006: LE: $2199 (2x 2 GHz dual core Xeons) HE: $3999 (2x 3 GHz quad core Xeons)

2008: LE: $2199 (1x 2.8 GHz quad core Xeon) HE: $3599 (2x 2.8 GHz quad core Xeons)

2009: LE: $2499 (1x 2.66 GHz quad core Xeon) HE: $3299 (1x 2.26 :)rolleyes:) GHz quad core Xeons)

I couldn't find 2007.

If you'd like, I can attach a .numbers graph.
 
2006 2.00GHz 4 core - $2199
2006 2.66GHz 4 core - $2499
2006 3.00GHz 4 core - $3299

2007 3.00GHz 8 core - $3999

2008 2.80GHz 4 core - $2299
2008 2.80GHz 8 core - $2799
2008 3.00GHz 8 core - $3599
2008 3.20GHz 8 core - $4399

2009 2.66GHz 4 core - $2499
2009 2.93GHz 4 core - $2999
2009 2.26GHz 8 core - $3299
2009 2.66GHz 8 core - $4699
2009 2.93GHz 8 core - $5899
 
I know that there's someone that did a graph going back to the Power Mac G5 and took inflation into account.

Surprisingly the price of hardware hasn't gone up if you include inflation but then again Intel's processor prices have gone down for the performance that you do get. You're not going to see that much of a performance gain going from the $300 to the $1,000 processors on a single socket system.
 
I adjusted for inflation using Wolfram|Alpha's 2007 estimate of 2.653% per year.
 

Attachments

  • Mac Pro Prices (Inflation Adjusted).zip
    104.2 KB · Views: 85
Charts?

Thanks for doing some charts Shake 'n' Bake.

Would it be possible to take a screenshot of the charts and attach it as png or jpg?
I don't have numbers and Preview/Quickview is not so happy with it.

I understand this wouldn't allow for live updates and 'playing with the numbers' but better than not seeing it at all.

Just an idea.
Thank you.
 
Here ya go.

Left is no inflation adjustment, right has inflation adjustment.
 

Attachments

  • No Inflation Adjustment.png
    No Inflation Adjustment.png
    49.1 KB · Views: 91
  • Inflation Adjusted.png
    Inflation Adjusted.png
    52.3 KB · Views: 91
hehejames said:
So... what you are you trying to accomplish here?
Click to expand...

To see if the new Mac Pro is a good value compared to the previous ones.

It looks to me that the octo-core 2.93 GHz is the worst value octo-core yet, whereas the quad-core is a pretty good vales compared to other generations.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
To see if the new Mac Pro is a good value compared to the previous ones.

It looks to me that the octo-core 2.93 GHz is the worst value octo-core yet, whereas the quad-core is a pretty good vales compared to other generations.
Click to expand...

The "what you get for your money" aspect is missing. For instance the 2008 quad was a single 5400 series chip in a logic board with an extra socket which could be upgraded (provided you could find a heatsink) whilst the 2009 quad is a single 3500 series chip (much cheaper part) in a logic board with only one socket and a different (cheaper) chip set so there is no chance of upgrading it to two processors. The number of RAM slots is also a lot less.
 
This is something that always interests me about pre-built systems: The price excluding the processor at Intel's list price. Especially on the Mac Pro where the processors are expensive and the value of the other components hasn't really changed at all since 2006. Obviously Apple may have had better prices on other compnents or from Intel at certain times, but for retail buyers who can put a value on components easily it is something often considered.

14ayo9v.png
 
Where you say cost it really means price. Then it makes sense. You immediately see that Apple must have dramatically increased their margin on the 2009 models. This is rather shameless. I thought that Tesselator was right with his opinion. But here we see it clearly in numbers ourselves. It looks like the person making the marketing policy has changed. Is that Schiller vs Jobs?
 
gugucom said:
Where you say cost it really means price. Then it makes sense. You immediately see that Apple must have dramatically increased their margin on the 2009 models. This is rather shameless. I thought that Tesselator was right with his opinion. But here we see it clearly in numbers ourselves. It looks like the person making the marketing policy has changed. Is that Schiller vs Jobs?
Click to expand...

Although I doubt it, what if there is another power struggle?
 
A dying segment

I think those figures do prove that Apple substantially increased its margins on the Mac Pros.

And it does confirm some people's musings about the 'professional' market segment inside Apple.
That it is a dwindling branch and that the only way it can stay viable within Apple is to increase margins. Pros will likely have the money to afford higher margins, and Apple can still keep this segment afloat for a few more years.

If the alternative is to remove the Mac Pro from the product list, I'd rather pay a bit more.

I wonder how dire the Mac Pro situation really is. We do know that Apple is not nearly selling as many as they used to. In fact rather few now. (And that was the 2008 model, which was much cheaper.)
 
Dreamail said:
I think those figures do prove that Apple substantially increased its margins on the Mac Pros.

And it does confirm some people's musings about the 'professional' market segment inside Apple.
That it is a dwindling branch and that the only way it can stay viable within Apple is to increase margins. Pros will likely have the money to afford higher margins, and Apple can still keep this segment afloat for a few more years.

If the alternative is to remove the Mac Pro from the product list, I'd rather pay a bit more.

I wonder how dire the Mac Pro situation really is. We do know that Apple is not nearly selling as many as they used to. In fact rather few now. (And that was the 2008 model, which was much cheaper.)
Click to expand...

It may have been a case of maintaining similar profit levels, if they were recieving huge discounts on the 2006 and 2007 (2008 Mac Pro) Xeons as some sources suggested.
 
Umbongo said:
It may have been a case of maintaining similar profit levels, if they were recieving huge discounts on the 2006 and 2007 (2008 Mac Pro) Xeons as some sources suggested.
Click to expand...
So assuming the $2,558 price tag for the 2008 two 3.2GHz quad cores are list price:

If Apple got a better price, then Apple's margin would indeed increase.
But I doubt this would account for the $1,250+ difference between high-end 2008 and 2009 model. Or in other words I don't think Apple got two 3.2GHz quad-core Xeons for $1,300 in 2008. That'd be too huge a discount.


The truth probably lies in between. They got a little discount from that list price and needed to maintain this margin on the new machines where they got no discount.
But also increased the margin a bit as they needed a higher one to keep the product line viable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back