How Well do MacPros Hold their Value?

[Ironduke]

I have recently purchased apples developer packages for ios & mac os.

I am sick of being a low paid skivvy, especially when I have some diploma training in computers programming.

I currently have a Mac Book 13" but I want some serious Dev Power, the Mac Pro would also cover other bases like storage, Media Player etc..

just a few questions, are Mac Pros good investments? how much would one be worth say 2 years from now?

Also I plan to have the macpro connected to a 46" via min-DP to Hdmi to my Digital Reciever as I hear it carry's dolby digital audio sound via the Display Port? And Then Use a 5M Dual DVI cable to connect to a 24" Monitor for Working.

Yours thoughts are welcome

 

[arogge]

Regular computers aren't like camera lenses. The value of a Mac after a year is whatever the market wants for it. If you wait too long to resell, you may even be insulted by Apple's reuse redemption company, which will tell you that your Mac has no fair market value regardless of its working condition. A two-year-old Mac has more value as an additional computer to you. If you look at Intel's CPU plan, you might see why your old Mac will be obsolete in two years.

 

[Ironduke]

Regular computers aren't like camera lenses. The value of a Mac after a year is whatever the market wants for it. If you wait too long to resell, you may even be insulted by Apple's reuse redemption company, which will tell you that your Mac has no fair market value regardless of its working condition. A two-year-old Mac has more value as an additional computer to you. If you look at Intel's CPU plan, you might see why your old Mac will be obsolete in two years.

obsolete doesnt mean invaluable, I salvaged two ibook's from a fire, one was working one wasnt, I made over 400 UKP's from the pair.

 

[Black107]

I would say Mac Pros probably have a steeper initial drop due to their price tags, but tend to settle at a fairly respectable price for longer than the iMacs or laptops. This is partially due to their performance, but probably more to do with the fact that they're only updated once a year, vs every 6-8 months like the laptops seem to be.

 

[yochiar1]

Mac Pro depreciation

According to EveryMac.com, using the original 2.66GHZ Intel-based Mac Pro from 2006 as an example of what you can expect. Original price was US $2400 and current price $US 1400-1600 for the base machine with 1 gig of ram and a 250 gig HD. These values are pretty accurate if you compare them to what similar models are going for on eBay.

So a depreciation of $1000 over 4 years or $250/year. Not bad for a computer, especially if you consider that most of the people buying Mac Pro's are using them heavily every day and making money from that use.

I think the thing that helps a Mac Pro hold it's value compared to a laptop, or even an iMac, is the ease of upgrading. You can easily speed up an older Mac Pro yourself by adding more memory, an SSD or two, a newer graphics card, etc. Many of these upgrades are difficult to impossible to do to a laptop or iMac.

As has been mentioned the majority of the depreciation (probably 50%) likely occured in the first year, so if you buy and sell in a year or two, it will be more painful than if you hang on to it for 4 or more years.

 

[oban14]

I have recently purchased apples developer packages for ios & mac os.

I am sick of being a low paid skivvy, especially when I have some diploma training in computers programming.

I currently have a Mac Book 13" but I want some serious Dev Power, the Mac Pro would also cover other bases like storage, Media Player etc..

just a few questions, are Mac Pros good investments? how much would one be worth say 2 years from now?

Also I plan to have the macpro connected to a 46" via min-DP to Hdmi to my Digital Reciever as I hear it carry's dolby digital audio sound via the Display Port? And Then Use a 5M Dual DVI cable to connect to a 24" Monitor for Working.

Yours thoughts are welcome

If you're an ADC member, the discount on a Mac Pro is very significant - better percentage discount than any other machine I believe.

Couple this with the expandability (and assumption that RAM/HD space will be cheaper tomorrow than they are today) and you can upgrade over a few years, and then sell a fully loaded Mac Pro while buying a non-loaded one now.

 

[3282868]

I would gather from working at Apple and having sold 10+ systems over the years that iMac's have the highest resale value followed by Mac Pro's. I recently sold my 2008 2.8 8-Core with 8 GB's RAM and a 1TB HDD and Blu-Ray burner fr $2800 (AppleCare has through March 2011). I used my discount to purchase a 2010 3.33 6-Core Westmere and paid very little difference. I sold my 2006 Mac Pro for $2400 (it had a few upgrades) in 2008. As for iMac's, I've sold 2-3 year old systems for the past five years with any where from a $500-$1000 depreciation. In general, Mac systems have the highest resale value on the market. Most Apple employees sell their systems every three years and use their annual 25% off to upgrade, in some cases breaking even.

 

[goMac]

If you're an ADC member, the discount on a Mac Pro is very significant - better percentage discount than any other machine I believe.

Couple this with the expandability (and assumption that RAM/HD space will be cheaper tomorrow than they are today) and you can upgrade over a few years, and then sell a fully loaded Mac Pro while buying a non-loaded one now.

Nope. ADC discount no longer exists.

(Mostly because ADC no longer exists.)

Being a registered developer no longer gives you a hardware discount.

 

[teeck2000]

I sold my 2008 MP 2.8 ghz octo, almost 3 years old for $2700. It had been upgraded to 14GB of ram and an Nvidia GTX285. It was my work machine so I think I sold it for an amazing price. I bought it for $2827 originally and the upgrades cost about $550 for the video card and ram (flashed PC video card).

 

[alphaod]

Nope. ADC discount no longer exists.

(Mostly because ADC no longer exists.)

Being a registered developer no longer gives you a hardware discount.

I think it's for the best; I didn't think paying $5000 for ADC access was really worth it, but paying $100 now certainly is.

 

[goMac]

I think it's for the best; I didn't think paying $5000 for ADC access was really worth it, but paying $100 now certainly is.

For me it was a good deal. I needed to do development for pre-release versions of Mac OS X, and for $500 I got a hardware discount as well. I bought a Mac Pro with it for more than $500 off. So basically I got a machine for below retail, along with pre-release Mac OS X and higher tier developer support.

I wouldn't have recommended this path for normal users, though. Too many hoops to jump through. I honestly think normal users exploiting the discounts is one reason they had to shut it down. Apple was willing to give developers deals because they gave back software to the platform. It wasn't meant to give Joe Six Pack a way to game Apple.

 

[UltraNEO*]

obsolete doesnt mean invaluable, I salvaged two ibook's from a fire, one was working one wasnt, I made over 400 UKP's from the pair.

Adding to your post. I did the same with a leaky but fully working PowerMac G5, after my initial investments, an hour of DIY mayhem, profits were up 500%

 

[sim667]

Whilst no computer holds its value well at all, mac pros will go on and on and on and on and on.

 

[Ironduke]

thanks for the input guys I had to settle for an IMac.






for now.............muhahhahahahhahahahah <---what the hell was that