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

@adamw You bloody legend, thanks for that! :D

Alas the 3rd & final broker I'm aware of, also won't do the pick-up for me -sigh :(
I've reached out to MyUS, PriceUSA, & ShipItTo.

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us.

Our Personal Shopper service does not offer an in-store pickup option. We can only order items from online retailers that will accept our orders and ship to our warehouse in Sarasota, FL.

We are not able to order from Microcenter.com. They do not accept orders from consolidators/forwarders.

We are sorry for any inconvenience.
If you need additional assistance, please let me know.

Best Regards,
Karen
Personal Shopper Department
www.myus.com
Click to expand...

There used to be this crowdsourced "community of buyers" called Cuzin a few yrs back.
It was just a small start-up, & since seems to have died AFAICT.
 
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kingtj said:
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.)
Click to expand...

Yeah, the price of AppleCare+ for the iMac Pro may actually be worth it. And if you combine it with the Amex Extended Warranty (you get this automatically if you use your Amex to buy the iMac Pro) then it's a 4 year warranty!
 
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kingtj said:
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.

... 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to pay extra for the best graphics card they're willing to sell you, because that's what tends to make your computer "outdated" before anything else.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.
Click to expand...

A lot of people here poo-poo the "base" model as somehow underpowered. Keeping in mind what I use the computer for is video editing with 4 -8K footage...

As you state, the 8 cores are still fast enough for 99% of most software workloads (especially if you're video editing.) They are also about 30% faster than the old 8 core MP due to architecture improvements.

As for RAM, I had a 2013 MP with 64 GB of RAM. In normal use, I never filled it, and only when I loaded tons of extra apps up just to try and saturate I did. The only exception to this was Motion or AE RAM previews, which of course, need lots of RAM.

The graphics in the base model are not really underpowered relative to the rest of the line. The Vega 56 is only about 8-13% slower than the Vega 64. (see http://barefeats.com/imacpro_vs_pt5.html - the one anomaly was the compressor score, transcoding to H.264, which uses the Vega I confirmed last night. The extra VRAM probably helps there.)

The Vega 56 is 50-100% faster than the D700 cards, never mind the D500s (add 13% for the 64). I don't think it is worth the huge markup they charging for the 64. The desktop PC Vega cards are similar; the 64 isn't much faster than the desktop 56.

Point is... the Vega 56 "Pro" is a VERY fast chip. For the Mac. It's 9.5 Teraflops of double precision compute. The Vega 64 Pro is 11. The D700s (both together) were 7.. and you only got that in limited circumstances. It was 3.5 normally. The D500s were I believe 5.

This doesn't take into account things like fill rates and so on which are 2-3x faster than the D700s as well.

You're almost doubling your GPU power in a base iMP unit over a 2013 MP. And you can add another GPU for compute down the line via eGPU. (See Barefeats again)

...

Random facts : The PC desktop versions of the Vega cards are faster. The Vega 56 card is 11 Tflops, equal to what the Vega 64 gets in the iMP.

The RX 580 card in the iMac is very good, but still around 6 Tflops. The "base" Vega 56 is 63% faster in compute, than the very fastest gfx chip in any other Mac computer.

People seem to think the Vega 56 is a downgrade, as is usually the case when you get less than the max GPU model with Apple. But in this case, it's still in the top tier for all current GPUs. It's a substantial improvement over Apple's current non-Pro best, and their top of the line Mac Pro. And very little difference than the "best" 64 model.
 
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It looks like the stores are getting new supplies in. Cincinnati store was sold out but now shows 2 in stock. Don't know if these are unopened returns though or shipped down from Columbus which was always showing 10+ until now showing 10. Don't know if the Columbus store isn't moving any or they had a lot more than Cincinnati. When I bought mine the Cincinnati store had 10+ and after it was 10. It also seemed like I was the first one to buy one on the first day of the sale, which goes on to the 28th.

Waiting to see what OWC comes up with on user upgradability. I know the Ram is upgradable, but wonder it if 128GB is the true limit. CPU should be upgradable if you can get your hand on a CPU, same for the two SSDs.
 
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jalyst said:
@adamw You bloody legend, thanks for that! :D

Alas the 3rd & final broker I'm aware of, also won't do the pick-up for me -sigh :(
I've reached out to MyUS, PriceUSA, & ShipItTo.

There used to be this crowdsourced "community of buyers" called Cuzin a few yrs back.
It was just a small start-up, & since seems to have died AFAICT.
Click to expand...

Anyone got any ideas? Any other brokers or buying communities I could try?
 
Hmm, I'd have to find a BB that price-matches, & then takes online orders & ships to one of the brokers warehouses (the brokers need this, but 1 or more may be flexible on the former), not an easy task given I'm in Australia.
 
Microcenter is restocking this unit. Cincinnati Store was out last night but now have 8. So this doesn't seem to be a door buster promo. Just watch out when it gets close to the 28th. That's when the sales end and they may not restock as much. Since from what I understand they don't usually stock many of the high end units.
 
69Mustang said:
It's my favorite tech store. Most of the staff is knowledgeable and likes to help but they don't crawl up your butt when you enter the store. Best Buy often price matches but I doubt they'd be willing to price match $1000 off especially since it's in store only. Within a 5 mile radius of my house I have Microcenter, Best Buy, Fry's, Staples, and Office Depot. I used to cross shop all of them but Microcenter typically had the best price on a day to day basis.
Click to expand...
I just had Best Buy price match it for me and the nearest Micro center is over an hour from me.
 
I actually ran out and bought one. I just finished setting it up and WOW! I haven't had this feeling in years and years of buying new Macs. I've been buying them every few years since 1990 or so. I've been through them all. And finally, this monster feels like a whole 'nother ballgame.

Not that anyone cares, but I have been using a late 2013 macbook pro with a Thunderbolt 1 Belkin Dock connected to a Apple 23" Cinema Display. The monitor has been my favorite for 10+ years that I've had it. But it's looking fuzzy, and keeps crapping out, I have to buy used powersupplies on ebay and hack them.

So I got goofy and went to BestBuy last week and bought a new 2017 15" macbook pro, the $2799.00 model. That started a crap storm - I bought the Thunderbolt 3 Belkin Dock so I could go 1 cable to monitor. But that old monitor just felt wrong, so I bought an LG 4K 27" monitor. It was fairly mac-like, white and silver, matte finish, quite nice.

But Adobe CC 2018 ran WORSE than it did on my El Capitan 2013 Macbook. High Sierra is a dog on the macbook. It was so slow I installed InDesign 2015 and it was way better. But I had already opened a bunch of docs and resaved them in 2018, edited a few FCP X videos that won't open on older FCP X, so there's no going back.

I did actually yesterday spend 1/2 a day wiping out my 2013 macbook, reinstalling El Capitan, and the 2015 Creative Cloud apps, and was going to soldier on with my old setup another year to see what the next macbook pros are like.

Then I got to thinking...I had to buy 4 or 5 dongles, a memory card reader, longer thunderbolt cables, the Belkin dock only had 2 rear facing USB A ports, and my old wired keyboard and mighty mouse used those up, nowhere for my iPhone dock to plugin, or my new 3 port SD card/hub I had to buy. And I had cables EVERYWHERE on my desk.

All that work and money, right around $4K for the macbook pro, monitor, dock and cables/accessories.

And it was no faster really than my 5 year old stuff. And the 4K monitor was ugly too. And wouldn't wake up from sleep all the time. And was very hard to shut off with a hidden power button that was a toggle switch too.

It was frustrating. I wasted 3 days stressing over the $4k I just spent, and ended up with zero improvement in the end.

I was boxing it all up to return to BestBuy. And then on the way to the store tonight I remembered this thread. And how MicroCenter was out of the iMac Pro when I called last week just for fun. I started really, really thinking about how nice an all-in-one would be for me. Insane power, killer 5K screen, killer new keyboard/mouse with no wires, a card reader, TONS of usb-c/thunderbolt and USB A ports, a speaker out on the back, and I got a big smile on my face.

I found a micro-center about 30 minutes away, didn't even know they existed. And got there tonight within 15 minutes of closing. They had 9 new ones, and I walked out the door with a total of $4299.00 spent. No extra cables, docks, nothing.

I hooked it up, downloaded the CC 2018 apps, fcp x, etc. And am shocked at the speed and power this thing has.

Seriously. My too slow on the MBP 2017 is now opens in seconds. No beach balls! The screen is beyond beautiful. The glare isn't even an issue...it has kept me from buying an iMac.

Would I have paid $5400 for it (tax included)? no. But $3999.00 just seems okay. Especially when a MacBook pro with 512K HD is $3000 with tax. Actually a few bucks more than $3000.

I am not a casual user. I am a self-employed graphic designer, web developer, video producer, photographer and do lots with Logic Pro for music production. I use my macs all day, 5 days a week.

The times I took my MacBook off my desk is realistically a few times a month at best. The rest of the time it sat here in clamshell mode. The iMac Pro has been completely SILENT! It's the first new mac I've had in a decade that felt really, really special. Apple got this one right. The color, the ports, the power, enough ram, hd and gpu on a base model to actually be perfect for most people. No more "better come up with another few hundred to buy more ram!". Just take it out, plug it in, and go. If this is any indication of where Apple is heading with the MacPro and hopefully a future MacBook Pro, we are all going to be better off.

And Price is not the end of the story. My first Mac was the SE30 something or other. It was $5000 decades ago.

The power is real. $4000 for this computer is not crazy. It's a killer deal, and MicroCenter is awesome for this deal. I don't care their motivation for doing it. I haven't found one single online or retail store offering beyond a few hundred off.

So in my opinion, this is a winner. The new macbook pro? Not a winner. Just not much faster or better than the last generation. The touch bar is useless to me, as I don't use it opened up much, the dongles are horrible, no sd card a pain, and no magsafe? Not better for me. For some, it's great I'm sure.

So go buy one! If you need it. I just can't see how anyone could be disappointed.
 
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Are any owners able to provide the exact dimensions & weight of this item when it arrived?

I've found someone who can get it to Oz (yay!), but they can't give me exact shipping costs in their quote -as they don't know the exact dimensions/weight.

I think they're wanting to arrange it with UPS (I need to double-check that)...
Plz can you lemme know ASAP, their quote expires in ~24hr (though it says it can be reactivated).

Thank-you!
 
Its back in stock at the Houston store. FYI. But only $700 in discount.
[doublepost=1516631759][/doublepost]
jalyst said:
Are any owners able to provide the exact dimensions & weight of this item when it arrived?

I've found someone who can get it to Oz (yay!), but they can't give me exact shipping costs in their quote -as they don't know the exact dimensions/weight.

I think they're wanting to arrange it with UPS (I need to double-check that)...
Plz can you lemme know ASAP, their quote expires in ~24hr (though it says it can be reactivated).

Thank-you!
Click to expand...

You can go to amazon.com and find a 27inch imac. They'll list the box dimensions. The box is identical to the regular imac.
 
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SynterX said:
I actually ran out and bought one. I just finished setting it up and WOW! I haven't had this feeling in years and years of buying new Macs. I've been buying them every few years since 1990 or so. I've been through them all. And finally, this monster feels like a whole 'nother ballgame.

Not that anyone cares, but I have been using a late 2013 macbook pro with a Thunderbolt 1 Belkin Dock connected to a Apple 23" Cinema Display. The monitor has been my favorite for 10+ years that I've had it. But it's looking fuzzy, and keeps crapping out, I have to buy used powersupplies on ebay and hack them.

So I got goofy and went to BestBuy last week and bought a new 2017 15" macbook pro, the $2799.00 model. That started a crap storm - I bought the Thunderbolt 3 Belkin Dock so I could go 1 cable to monitor. But that old monitor just felt wrong, so I bought an LG 4K 27" monitor. It was fairly mac-like, white and silver, matte finish, quite nice.

But Adobe CC 2018 ran WORSE than it did on my El Capitan 2013 Macbook. High Sierra is a dog on the macbook. It was so slow I installed InDesign 2015 and it was way better. But I had already opened a bunch of docs and resaved them in 2018, edited a few FCP X videos that won't open on older FCP X, so there's no going back.

I did actually yesterday spend 1/2 a day wiping out my 2013 macbook, reinstalling El Capitan, and the 2015 Creative Cloud apps, and was going to soldier on with my old setup another year to see what the next macbook pros are like.

Then I got to thinking...I had to buy 4 or 5 dongles, a memory card reader, longer thunderbolt cables, the Belkin dock only had 2 rear facing USB A ports, and my old wired keyboard and mighty mouse used those up, nowhere for my iPhone dock to plugin, or my new 3 port SD card/hub I had to buy. And I had cables EVERYWHERE on my desk.

All that work and money, right around $4K for the macbook pro, monitor, dock and cables/accessories.

And it was no faster really than my 5 year old stuff. And the 4K monitor was ugly too. And wouldn't wake up from sleep all the time. And was very hard to shut off with a hidden power button that was a toggle switch too.

It was frustrating. I wasted 3 days stressing over the $4k I just spent, and ended up with zero improvement in the end.

I was boxing it all up to return to BestBuy. And then on the way to the store tonight I remembered this thread. And how MicroCenter was out of the iMac Pro when I called last week just for fun. I started really, really thinking about how nice an all-in-one would be for me. Insane power, killer 5K screen, killer new keyboard/mouse with no wires, a card reader, TONS of usb-c/thunderbolt and USB A ports, a speaker out on the back, and I got a big smile on my face.

I found a micro-center about 30 minutes away, didn't even know they existed. And got there tonight within 15 minutes of closing. They had 9 new ones, and I walked out the door with a total of $4299.00 spent. No extra cables, docks, nothing.

I hooked it up, downloaded the CC 2018 apps, fcp x, etc. And am shocked at the speed and power this thing has.

Seriously. My too slow on the MBP 2017 is now opens in seconds. No beach balls! The screen is beyond beautiful. The glare isn't even an issue...it has kept me from buying an iMac.

Would I have paid $5400 for it (tax included)? no. But $3999.00 just seems okay. Especially when a MacBook pro with 512K HD is $3000 with tax. Actually a few bucks more than $3000.

I am not a casual user. I am a self-employed graphic designer, web developer, video producer, photographer and do lots with Logic Pro for music production. I use my macs all day, 5 days a week.

The times I took my MacBook off my desk is realistically a few times a month at best. The rest of the time it sat here in clamshell mode. The iMac Pro has been completely SILENT! It's the first new mac I've had in a decade that felt really, really special. Apple got this one right. The color, the ports, the power, enough ram, hd and gpu on a base model to actually be perfect for most people. No more "better come up with another few hundred to buy more ram!". Just take it out, plug it in, and go. If this is any indication of where Apple is heading with the MacPro and hopefully a future MacBook Pro, we are all going to be better off.

And Price is not the end of the story. My first Mac was the SE30 something or other. It was $5000 decades ago.

The power is real. $4000 for this computer is not crazy. It's a killer deal, and MicroCenter is awesome for this deal. I don't care their motivation for doing it. I haven't found one single online or retail store offering beyond a few hundred off.

So in my opinion, this is a winner. The new macbook pro? Not a winner. Just not much faster or better than the last generation. The touch bar is useless to me, as I don't use it opened up much, the dongles are horrible, no sd card a pain, and no magsafe? Not better for me. For some, it's great I'm sure.

So go buy one! If you need it. I just can't see how anyone could be disappointed.
Click to expand...

This maybe just from the from the Ram size increase. The other specs help to. On my early 2011 MacBook Pro I7 with 16GB Ram and SSD, I was always running out of Ram. That’s why I was waiting for Apple to release a MacBook Pro with 32GB of Ram. Since that didn’t happen this year I started to look at the iMacs or go back to Windows. Saw this deal and bought one last Saturday. Now when I check Activity Monitor I’m using 19 to 24 GB of Ram and my machine doesn’t slow down anymore. I really need 64GB so I can run Windows on Parallel. So I’ll wait awhile and do an upgrade to 128GB since I don’t want to open this unit more than once. I’m waiting for OWC to see what else is upgradable. Should be able to upgrade the CPU and SSD if you can get compatible parts. Depending on price of course. But probably do the Ram upgrade in 6 months or so.

I’m really enjoying this unit. Macs just work. My Windows machines at work just love to Lock up or crash for no reason. All nicely speced out to, one is a dual Xeon with 64GB Ram Quadro card, ones an I7 with 32GB Ram, and I use a I5 Surface Pro 8Gb Ram. The Surfase used to suck until the latest update.
 
norbinhouston said:
You can go to amazon.com and find a 27inch imac. They'll list the box dimensions. The box is identical to the regular imac.
Click to expand...

Googled "Amazon iMac Pro" & this was my top hit...
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-iMac-Desktop-Space-MQ2Y2LL/dp/B07895T7BW

This is everything on that page when doing a keyword search for "weight" & "dimension" (excluding the "compare to similar items" section):

Shipping Weight 41.5 pounds
Item Weight 21.5 pounds
Product Dimensions 8 x 25.6 x 20.3 inches
Item Dimensions L x W x H 8 x 25.6 x 20.3 inches

Some conflicting info on weight there....

According to Everymac it's also 21.5 pounds, plus the above dimensions:
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...ht-core-3.2-xeon-27-inch-late-2017-specs.html

Any owners able to confirm that weight & dimensions, when it's all still in the packaging?

Also, anyone know what Apple Au Support is typically like for items sourced from other countries.
It's mixed bag for MS premium products, but I vaguely recall it not being an issue for premium Apple ones.
i.e. I can expect full "local" warranty/support, regardless of it being sourced/bought from US?
I'll call them tomorrow to be sure, but if anyone's confident of the answer I'd be grateful for your rationale.

~2am+, yikes, thanks again/GN!
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
norbinhouston said:
Its back in stock at the Houston store. FYI. But only $700 in discount.
[doublepost=1516631759][/doublepost]

You can go to amazon.com and find a 27inch imac. They'll list the box dimensions. The box is identical to the regular imac.
Click to expand...

I just measured mine. 11" D at base, 31" Wide and 25.5" high. This is the Dimension of the Brown shipping box that the iMac Pro was shipped to Microcenter was in. The shipping label on it say 21.0 LBs

Here's what Fedex had on the package from tracking number
Dimensions 31x26x11 in.
Weight 20.8 lbs / 9.43 kgs

FYI it shipped form
Tech Data
13472 Marlay Ave, Fontana, CA 92337 on 1-5-2018 Shipped Fedex Ground
arrived at MicroCenter on 1-9-2018, 8 of 10
 
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Saw this tread last night, and drove to Microcenter this morning. Website said 5 in stock. Was disappointed to see that the price went up $300 during my drive. Wouldn’t honor the 1000 off, only 700 off. I didn’t pull the trigger.

But that floor model was *fast*. I think it ruined me for all other Mac hardware.
 
This isn't for all Micro Center stores is it? Might kill my impending plans to use a broker service to get it to Oz.
Just not -quite- worth all the extra costs & effort, if it's now only $700 off. :(
 
Yes, I just checked and Micro Center's price is now $4,299 instead of the $3,999 that myself and many other purchased it for with them for last week. Still a great deal compared to other Mac retailers or buying direct from the Apple Store.

I am very impressed with the quality, quietness, and with the speed the base model 8 Core iMac Pro has, even when running single core apps. The memory and built in SSD are FAST! Mutli-core video encoding uses all 16 threads (maybe at 20-30% utilization each) using Screenflow 7.2 for H.264 encoding. If you afford it, pull the trigger on the iMac Pro. You won't be disappointed!

I forgot to mention previously that the new upgraded Facetime HD 1080p built in web camera is excellent quality and auto light correcting. I can now do web videos much easier with the built in iMac Pro Facetime HD camera. Very few reviewers mention the improved camera, built in microphones, and speakers. But if you VLOG, this machine will make you look like a pro on YouTube.
 
adamw said:
But if you VLOG, this machine will make you look like a pro on YouTube.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that (haha) ... Pro Youtubers shoot with Red cameras that look a lot better! But yes, that being said, this is the best FaceTime camera I have seen on a Mac by far. It is very good, about iPhone 7/8/X quality.
 
anticipate said:
I wouldn't say that (haha) ... Pro Youtubers shoot with Red cameras that look a lot better! But yes, that being said, this is the best FaceTime camera I have seen on a Mac by far. It is very good, about iPhone 7/8/X quality.
Click to expand...

Yeah... I just did a Zoom videoconference with my co-workers yesterday with mine, for the first time. Looks great. But FWIW, the Logitech C920 HD USB webcam looks just about as good. (That's the one I used to use with my 2013 Mac Pro workstation for videoconferencing.)
 
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