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MP 14,8 2023 M2 Ultra Mac Pro for $4999 new - at MicroCenter

R

rondocap

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 18, 2011
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MicroCenter has the 2023 base Mac Pro M2 Ultra for $4999 brand new.

I got one from them, they're excellent to deal with. If you have a Micro Center near you, that is a nice $2000 savings and makes it a better value than it was before.

You can add Apple Care on it as well like normal after purchase, they are an authorized Apple seller.

Just figured I'd share since that is where I got mine and someone was on the fence!
 
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Micro Center used to be the king of these kinds of deals. It's been a long time since I've seen a discount of this magnitude from them. I'd be tempted to buy one if Apple hadn't lost me as a customer.
 
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m1maverick said:
Micro Center used to be the king of these kinds of deals. It's been a long time since I've seen a discount of this magnitude from them. I'd be tempted to buy one if Apple hadn't lost me as a customer.
Click to expand...

We're not too far off from the M4 Mac Pro so that might be reason for sales. Will be interesting if it's another dud or if it will do something to regain some respect from enthusiasts, which would include: PCIe 5, an extreme version of the chip, GPU support, replaceable RAM support...
 
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ZombiePhysicist said:
We're not too far off from the M4 Mac Pro so that might be reason for sales. Will be interesting if it's another dud or if it will do something to regain some respect from enthusiasts, which would include: PCIe 5, an extreme version of the chip, GPU support, replaceable RAM support...
Click to expand...

Can you imagine the extreme outrage if it had GPU support or RAM that could be upgraded? We went through months and months of forum vitriol from various folks giggling that everything was going to be locked down and joyous at the death of the traditional Mac Pro.

Those people would be fuming at Apple.
 
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avro707 said:
Can you imagine the extreme outrage if it had GPU support or RAM that could be upgraded? We went through months and months of forum vitriol from various folks giggling that everything was going to be locked down and joyous at the death of the traditional Mac Pro.

Those people would be fuming at Apple.
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They could probably do that if the SOC could come out and you put a new one in, like the old PowerMac daughtercards that XLR8te Your Mac and Sonnet used to sell. That would seem to be the most plausible way of creating an upgradable Mac Pro with Apple Silicon, at least to me. Here's my thinking:

- You buy an M4 Ultra Mac Pro that has an upgradable SOC (lets say you get one with 1TB SSD and 64GB of ram)
- Apple releases M5 Ultra or M6 Ultra SOCs that you can trade in with more ram and storage options (lets say 4TB SSD and 192GB of ram)

It would probably be expensive, but slightly less than buying a new Mac Pro.
 
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www.amazon.com

Apple Mac Pro Wheels Kit

Put your Mac Pro on wheels with the Mac Pro Wheels Kit. The custom-designed stainless steel and rubber wheels make it easy to move your Mac Pro around, whether sliding it out from under your desk or across your studio.
www.amazon.com

Apple Mac Pro Wheels at 377. Lowest price I've seen. Might be good for future Mac Pro too?
 
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ZombiePhysicist said:
www.amazon.com

Apple Mac Pro Wheels Kit

Put your Mac Pro on wheels with the Mac Pro Wheels Kit. The custom-designed stainless steel and rubber wheels make it easy to move your Mac Pro around, whether sliding it out from under your desk or across your studio.
www.amazon.com

Apple Mac Pro Wheels at 377. Lowest price I've seen. Might be good for future Mac Pro too?
Click to expand...
Or for your skateboard?
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
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They dropped the M2 Mac Pro to $3999, same price as the Mac Studio. That's crazy, I thought I got a good deal at $5299 but this is even crazier.

That shows you how many people are buying these, especially from Micro Center - I bet I was the only one lol.

$3999 is not bad if you need the PCIe, still almost a year until we see the M4 Mac Pro most likely.

But much better than $6999, that price is definitely too high for the market - Apple should have priced it at $4999, $1000 over the Mac Studio would have been fair imo.

www.microcenter.com

Apple Mac Pro Z171000N8 (Mid 2023) Desktop Computer; Apple M2 Ultra 24-Core CPU; 64GB Unified Memory; 1TB Solid State Drive; - Micro Center

Get it now! Mind-blowing performance now comes standard. The new Mac Pro is a game-changing combination of Apple silicon performance and PCIe expansion for specialized workflows. And every configuration comes with the incredible new M2 Ultra - our most powerful and capable chip ever.
www.microcenter.com www.microcenter.com
 
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Currently $3599.

At this price, might pick one up. Although not thrilled about the 64GB of memory.

Thoughts? Wait for M4?

1732502969254.png
 
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Pretty sure this is semi-clearance pricing because they were already a tough sell, and they're now 2 generations old. If you wait for the M4 the price will shoot right back up.
 
Definitely clearance pricing.

I guess the decision would be between this vs an m4 ultra Mac Studio.
 
MacPoulet said:
They could probably do that if the SOC could come out and you put a new one in, like the old PowerMac daughtercards that XLR8te Your Mac and Sonnet used to sell. That would seem to be the most plausible way of creating an upgradable Mac Pro with Apple Silicon, at least to me. Here's my thinking:

- You buy an M4 Ultra Mac Pro that has an upgradable SOC (lets say you get one with 1TB SSD and 64GB of ram)
- Apple releases M5 Ultra or M6 Ultra SOCs that you can trade in with more ram and storage options (lets say 4TB SSD and 192GB of ram)

It would probably be expensive, but slightly less than buying a new Mac Pro.
Click to expand...
Yeah, to me the Mac Pro basically exists for two niches now: people who need a lot of/internal PCIe slots, and people who want slightly more organized internal storage schemes. The price jump over the Studio is pretty dang hefty for those use cases, especially because you're not just comparing it to the product lineup now, you're also comparing it to years ago where the Mac Pro was a similar price jump up from an iMac but you got a lot more flexibility than you do now.

Having a daughter card setup so you could upgrade from an M4 to an M6 or something down the line (even if it was limited in that sense that you could probably only upgrade 1 or 2 generations from where you started or similar breaks in design like Intel sockets) would give it much more of a reason to exist and to have the high price.
 
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fuchsdh said:
Yeah, to me the Mac Pro basically exists for two niches now: people who need a lot of/internal PCIe slots, and people who want slightly more organized internal storage schemes. The price jump over the Studio is pretty dang hefty for those use cases, especially because you're not just comparing it to the product lineup now, you're also comparing it to years ago where the Mac Pro was a similar price jump up from an iMac but you got a lot more flexibility than you do now.

Having a daughter card setup so you could upgrade from an M4 to an M6 or something down the line (even if it was limited in that sense that you could probably only upgrade 1 or 2 generations from where you started or similar breaks in design like Intel sockets) would give it much more of a reason to exist and to have the high price.
Click to expand...

The internal PCI-E / storage is why I jumped on it. I have 5 4TB NVMEs added via PCIE adapters. Only using about 150GB on the 1TB soldered drive, everything else is mapped out to 'external' storage. Works great!

(Logic projects, Final Cut, lots of Unity game dev stuff - all adds up)
 
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I bought it at Microcenter several months ago, and I've been loving it. The PCIe slots are essential for me, with tons of NVME storage, and the M2 Ultra is very fast. I don't see any bottlenecks where an M4 or M5 would help my workflow honestly, I do video work on it and it's already smooth and almost instant in a lot of cases. Add to that the expansion potential, and it's great.

I had 192GB of ram in my old 7.1 Mac Pro, but 64GB has been enough for my video workflow, I rarely go above 50GB.

At $3499 it is a no brainer IMO. I got it on sale but it wasn't that low, later on I went back within the 30 days and the price matched the sale price as it was changing every week at that time.

Not a good deal at $6999, but anything under $5k and it is a great system IMO.
 
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It's funny I was worried about the ram as well, my hack I had 192GB and I would regularly hit 100+GB of usage under x86, but with Apple Silicon - I'm not claiming it's magic or a miracle worker or anything - 64GB has been just fine. I'll regularly have Blender + Unity + Affinity or Logic + Final Cut + buttload of plugins and it just works.

I'm also amazed at how well Crossover / Wine works for gaming emulating X86 -> AS -> Windows -> Mac - crazy. When I had the time, spent part of the holiday playing Silent Hill 2 Remake on Steam and it was just fine. 60fps capped @ 4k (use -dx11, dx12 has shader issues still).

Great time to be a Mac user!
 
rondocap said:
I bought it at Microcenter several months ago, and I've been loving it. The PCIe slots are essential for me, with tons of NVME storage, and the M2 Ultra is very fast. I don't see any bottlenecks where an M4 or M5 would help my workflow honestly, I do video work on it and it's already smooth and almost instant in a lot of cases. Add to that the expansion potential, and it's great.

I had 192GB of ram in my old 7.1 Mac Pro, but 64GB has been enough for my video workflow, I rarely go above 50GB.

At $3499 it is a no brainer IMO. I got it on sale but it wasn't that low, later on I went back within the 30 days and the price matched the sale price as it was changing every week at that time.

Not a good deal at $6999, but anything under $5k and it is a great system IMO.
Click to expand...
If only we had those sort of deals in the UK……. 🤨
I would jump on it definitely.
 
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