iMac Pro is $1,000 Off at Micro Center Stores, Now $3,999 While Supplies Last

[PickUrPoison]

You make a very good point. If I was interested in buying the iMac Pro I would definitely get double of the RAM and storage. That's why the base configuration might not be selling that well. Pros need all the power they can get and since your are already paying for it the base config. is not enough for most needs.

This Micro Center deal isn’t an Apple price cut, it’s a single retailer’s loss-leader sale price. Micro Center is well known for this, they’ve been doing it for at least 5 years that I can remember.

The base config is plenty for many iMac Pro customers. Of course, certain workloads can use more cores/RAM/storage, but price still matters to buyers. If I had to guess I’d venture that 1/3 of iMac Pro sales will be the $4,999 base model, with another 1/3 coming in under $7,500. (A 10-core, 64GB, 2TB unit is $7,399.)

Specifically regarding the CPU config, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple sold more of the 8-core than the 10-, 14- and 18-core combined.

 

[themastermind]

Specifically regarding the CPU config, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple sold more of the 8-core than the 10-, 14- and 18-core combined.

I'd agree with that. 8-cores is very powerful, and when you factor in the price difference, its real easy to be satisifed with the base.

 

[ben2e]

Any way to get around the "in store only" part ? No stores anywhere in the NorthWest.

 

[ascender]

Typically products which have been on sale for less than 30 days do not receive a 20% discount. Does it prove that the iMac Pro is a flop? Certainly not. But, without some other reason, it certainly suggests it's priced too high.

Its one retailer doing a promotion - its not Apple cutting their price.

Has anybody done a quick check on just how much it would take to build a standalone system with similar quality components yet?

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Aaaand, the closest location to me is 1000 miles away... (Almost literally - Google Maps says the drive is 998 miles from my house to the nearest store.)

 

[norbinhouston]

Any way to get around the "in store only" part ? No stores anywhere in the NorthWest.

Some have gotten Best Buy to match it in store. Do you have a BB near by?

 

[jalyst]

Anyone wanna buy this for me, & ship it to Oz? (Australia).
Partly serious, just not sure how to pull-it-off without being scammed.
Plus it's prolly too late already, & shipping might be exorbitant.

 

[anticipate]

those Plugable TB3 to display port plugs which seem to be the only ones that can drive a 4K display at 60hz. I have two dell p2715q monitors to attach to the Pro.

FWIW, I used two of those Pluggable adapters to successfully power my Dell 5K screen at 5K attached to the iMac Pro.
[doublepost=1516116351][/doublepost]

That's why the base configuration might not be selling that well. Pros need all the power they can get and since your are already paying for it the base config. is not enough for most needs.

This statement is just not true. We use the base config and it's ripping through fairly complex 4K edits (30 min shows) with no slowdown in quality mode, non-transcoded native footage, on FCPX. It's faster than any "new" Mac Pro, even at base! This machine is wonderful for video editing. Of course if you are using Premiere/AVID, or doing something else like heavy duty 3D ray- tracing, the more cores the better.

 

[AppliedVisual]

Anyone wanna buy this for me, & ship it to Oz? (Australia).
Partly serious, just not sure how to pull-it-off without being scammed.
Plus it's prolly too late already, & shipping might be exorbitant.

I doubt this would be worth it after duties/VAT and the usual ridiculous costs of shipping from USA to AUS... Not to mention it may need to go through a licensed exporter to clear customs without issue, thus incurring additional fees.

Then again, Apple likes to charge you guys insane mark-ups on their systems to begin with.

 

[jalyst]

Yep there's the "Australia Tax", nothing to do with actual tax or difference in currency etc.
So wouldn't be surprised if still came out majorly on top...

Just not sure how the hell to work out which stores still have it;
And how to get someone to buy it for me without being scammed!
And ofc avoid (or greatly mitigate) some of the other costs that get lumped-on in transit.

I wish I had close family or friends there...
EDIT: Yikes 1:40am bed time!

 

[gugy]

FWIW, I used two of those Pluggable adapters to successfully power my Dell 5K screen at 5K attached to the iMac Pro.
[doublepost=1516116351][/doublepost]

This statement is just not true. We use the base config and it's ripping through fairly complex 4K edits (30 min shows) with no slowdown in quality mode, non-transcoded native footage, on FCPX. It's faster than any "new" Mac Pro, even at base! This machine is wonderful for video editing. Of course if you are using Premiere/AVID, or doing something else like heavy duty 3D ray- tracing, the more cores the better.

Never said the machine is not wonderful. Just said most pro's will need more storage and RAM to run intensive tasks. If you are already willing to spend $5k adding more money to get more power is not a huge deal especially due the fact you cannot easily upgrade these two components down the road.

 

[anticipate]

Never said the machine is not wonderful. Just said most pro's will need more storage and RAM to run intensive tasks. If you are already willing to spend $5k adding more money to get more power is not a huge deal especially due the fact you cannot easily upgrade these two components down the road.

I've already got 28 TB attached to it via TB and USB-C Gen 2 and it's all plenty fast (A combo of RAID Hard drives and RAIDed SSDs). The RAM is easy enough to bring in and get upgraded with new sticks. What's the problem?

 

[Jetfire]

Cincinnati Store finally sold out. I bet the never sold this many high end computers this fast before. At least 11 in 4 days. Wonder if they will get anymore in before the 28th. Columbus still shows 10+. So either they had a lot more or they aren't selling any.

 

[gugy]

I've already got 28 TB attached to it via TB and USB-C Gen 2 and it's all plenty fast (A combo of RAID Hard drives and RAIDed SSDs). The RAM is easy enough to bring in and get upgraded with new sticks. What's the problem?

Some people rather have more internal storage and add additional external. The RAM AFAIK you need to either bring to an Apple store to add it later in order to not void warranty.
The bottomline is people have different needs and desires. While the base model is a beast of a machine, I can easily see people BTO make make it suit their needs starting from the base config.

 

[Jetfire]

Some people rather have more internal storage and add additional external. The RAM AFAIK you need to either bring to an Apple store to add it later in order to not void warranty.
The bottomline is people have different needs and desires. While the base model is a beast of a machine, I can easily see people BTO make make it suit their needs starting from the base config.

If I remember correctly you can work on anything that you own with out voiding the warranty. As long as you don't damage anything will doing it. Those void if open stuff were never legally enforceable.

 

[adamw]

I just got home from Micro Center at the St. Louis, Missouri (Brentwood, MO) store. I called first and they said they had 1 remaining. You can not order over the phone, so I had to drive 45 minutes to the store and I got it. I couldn't pass up the $1,000 discount. The store clerk told me that someone had driven from Tennessee to St. Louis the other day to buy an iMac Pro (~400 mile drive) at this special price. Thanks to this MacRumors article for giving me the heads up about this great sale.

 

[fairuz]

So don't buy Intel chips then. AMD's stuff is a bit less vulnerable, cheaper, and performs just as well and in many workloads better than the Intel junk.

I think AMD is just as vulnerable to Spectre, or should I say, the general idea of branch prediction. Hard to tell when there's so much misinformation and damage control.

 

[boomvader]

I just got home from Micro Center at the St. Louis, Missouri (Brentwood, MO) store. I called first and they said they had 1 remaining. You can not order over the phone, so I had to drive 45 minutes to the store and I got it. I couldn't pass up the $1,000 discount. The store clerk told me that someone had driven from Tennessee to St. Louis the other day to buy an iMac Pro (~400 mile drive) at this special price. Thanks to this MacRumors article for giving me the heads up about this great sale.

Awesome! 400 miles? That guy has me beat.... My trek to pick one up from Asheville, NC to Duluth, GA was barely 200! Enjoy the Pro! I have no regrets!

 

[lec0rsaire]

You make a very good point. If I was interested in buying the iMac Pro I would definitely get double of the RAM and storage. That's why the base configuration might not be selling that well. Pros need all the power they can get and since your are already paying for it the base config. is not enough for most needs.

Yeah. I think the sweet spot would be the 10-core CPU, 64GB Ram, the 8GB video card and 1 TB of storage. It doesn't make sense to max the internal storage since external storage is cheaper, fast enough and is used anyway be pros. Since the ram is upgradeable it's possible that this can prolong it's life. 128GB of RAM is an insane amount. That costs $7,200 or $7837 with tax in NY. If ordered from B&H it's just $7,200. So for an extra $2k you're getting a lot more than the base model and like I said those who can afford the base can afford a higher end version.

 

[kingtj]

I just bought an iMac Pro while I had a chance on this $1,000 off sale. The fact the 3 year AppleCare is still only $167 is another benefit. (Seems odd that the AppleCare for a 2013 Mac Pro was much more expensive but Apple didn't make a new tier for the iMac Pro.)

I agree that many of the customers for one of these systems will order a custom configuration. But on the flip-side? I've happily used my 2013 Mac Pro as my primary home computer, driving 3 large monitors, for around 4 years now. Resale value on it, minus the displays, should still be somewhere around $2,500. That means I'm only spending $1,500 to upgrade to the latest technology.

I configured my 2013 Mac Pro with 64GB of RAM (purchased at a discounted price off eBay), but I think I can live with only 32GB on this iMac Pro. In real world use, I wasn't typically doing anything that couldn't run just fine inside 32GB of memory. The exceptions involved running multiple virtual machines with Windows sessions in them ... something that I did more because I could than because I needed to.

I'll also be going from a 512GB SSD in the 2013 system to 1TB in the iMac Pro, so that's a real improvement. Most of my "big data" was stuff I kept on an external drive before, though, and I expect that won't really change.

The one place I think the base model of iMac Pro disappoints a bit is the graphics card. It almost always makes sense with Apple to pay extra for the best graphics card they're willing to sell you, because that's what tends to make your computer "outdated" before anything else. CPU power has, honestly, reached the point where they'll sell you far more cores than 99% of your software can use efficiently. (And technically, the CPU in the iMac Pro is socketed, so at least in theory is upgradeable.) But at $1,000 off? I'm willing to go with "second best" on the graphics. Again, it should still run rings around the Radeon D500 FirePro I had in the last machine.

You make a very good point. If I was interested in buying the iMac Pro I would definitely get double of the RAM and storage. That's why the base configuration might not be selling that well. Pros need all the power they can get and since your are already paying for it the base config. is not enough for most needs.

 

[adamw]

I just bought an iMac Pro while I had a chance on this $1,000 off sale. The fact the 3 year AppleCare is still only $167 is another benefit. (Seems odd that the AppleCare for a 2013 Mac Pro was much more expensive but Apple didn't make a new tier for the iMac Pro.)

Congratulations on your new iMac Pro purchase! The sale $3999 offer from Micro Center is what hooked me today to buy one. It is a big upgrade from my 2015 iMac and my 2010 Mac Pro Tower Quad Core System. If I were a real power user I might have opted for more RAM and more cores in the CPU, but the iMac Pro should last me for many years, and the $169 AppleCare was a bargain too.

 

[jalyst]

What's the easiest way to determine which of the stores -if any- still has stock, surely one needn't ring every single store? TY/BR.

 

[PickUrPoison]

What's the easiest way to determine which of the stores -if any- still has stock, surely one needn't ring every single store? TY/BR.

Not sure, but most people don’t have even one store nearby so it’s a moot point for them. Where are you located?

Since the sale is for in-store purchase only, maybe call your nearest store and possibly they can check their system for stock levels at other stores if they themselves are already sold out.

 

[jalyst]

I'm in Oz (Australia), so for me it's doubly difficult as I need to use a broker to buy for me.
So far 2 of the 3 brokers I've approached can't or won't do it...

 

[adamw]

What's the easiest way to determine which of the stores -if any- still has stock, surely one needn't ring every single store? TY/BR.

Just go to: http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?Ntt=imac+pro

to search for the iMac Pro and then Select the "Change Store" button near the top Center of the page and select each of the Stores manually. The page will refresh and show you if any $3,999 iMac Pros remain available in that store. You can then follow up with a phone call to that store to verify availability. You have to go to that store in person to get the iMac Pro as they do not do orders over the phone or via the website.

The Central Ohio/Columbus store is currently showing 9 iMac Pros in Stock as of 7:15am Central Time on Thursday, January 16th, 2018, available at:

747 Bethel Road
Olentangy Plaza
Columbus, OH 43214
614-326-8500
Mon - Sat 10 to 9, Sun 11 to 6

Also, Northeast Ohio/Mayfield Heights store is showing 2 available at:

1349 S.O.M. Center Road
Eastgate Shopping Center
Mayfield Heights, OH 44124
(440) 449-7000
Mon - Sat 10 to 9, Sun 11 to 6

The Brooklyn/Gowanus Expy NY store is also showing 2 iMac Pros available for the $3,999 price.

The Cincinnati/Sharonville Ohio store is showing 10 iMac Pros available for the $3,999 price.

The North Jersey / Paterson NJ store is showing 4 iMac Pros available for the $3,999 price.

The St. Louis/Brentwood NJ store I bought mine from yesterday was out of stock this morning, but just changed and are now showing 4 iMac Pros available for the $3,999 price.

You can Change Store to check any of the other stores, while using the above Search URL that I provided.