The price of a loaded 18-core iMac will be less than you think (if you want).

[Steve Expat]

I've seen way too many reports about the supposed cost of the 18-core iMac and I'm getting sick out it. The reports I've been reading all say that the fully loaded configuration is expected to cost nearly $17,999. That's borders on propaganda if you let it . I will buy an 18-core iMacPro(and later a Mac Pro for my host/slave) but I WILL NOT be spending $18k on one.

First, anyone in the know, (buyers who understand corporate and university buying practices, creative professionals such as audio professionals, video editors and other content creators, and IT Admins that summit the purchasing proposals for the groups they support), they NEVER order a workstation style Mac (Mac Pro or iMac), completely loaded from the Apple store (unless they want to spend that money to keep the yearly budget inflated. I would know. I was a senior Network Admin for 10 years, (at Apple, Motorola and other companies and universities, and now including my own businesses).

As a former Network Admin and now the owner of a film scoring studio who uses multiple Mac Pros, I would buy the 18-core iMac with the bare minimum RAM, the bare minimum amount flash drive, (no fusion drive -in any iMac not talking about the Pro), and because our music software does not take advantage of the GPU, I'll order the the smallest GPU I can get with the 18-core.

I don't care that the RAM will not be user serviceable, nor the flash drives, Although the iMac is not exactly much fun too take apart, it's not that bad. Ans to help out, it's easy to become a memory reseller (it's easy to do) - I get the same memory Apple uses, and it's sometimes possible to buy flash SSDs at a bit of a discount.

Assuming the 18-core iMac with minimum RAM, flash drive and GPU is about $8000 (perhaps a high estimate not knowing exactly how much Apple plans on marking up the CPU this time around), and then assuming the memory a few months after release for these particular machines will decrease some, (4x32GB) I'll estimate it at $1200 (some will say that's low, I don't believe so). The two 2TB m.2 drives during sales should be around the $1,800 mark. That all comes to $11,000 (+/- $100-$150), and that's a LOT LESS that the $17,000 that everyone seems to be freaking out about.

CHECK THIS OUT: I've been doing this for 25-35 years. Two years ago I bought a mint conditioned used 2009 Mac Pro, upgraded the firmware to 5,1, installed a pair of Westmere x5690s (12-core at 3.46GHz), 88GBs of RAM, a PCIe carrier board for (4) 512GB Samsung SM951s in slot 2 (for full speed - formatted for RAID 0 with sustainable read speeds over 5000MB/s, that 5GB/s), then another single SM951 in PCIe slot 3 as a boot drive, a USB 3,0 card, and (4) 3TB HDDs, and an AMD Radeon R9 280X FOR LESS THEN $3000. Yes, that's right. And it's fast. The Geekbench score equaled or exceeded the 6,1 12-core MacPro by just a bit, but cost 25% less, (although no Thunderbolt).

If you're wanting an 18-core iMac, or even a 10-core iMac, heed my advice. Ignore the naysayers. And remember the resale value will be tremendous so ignore the, "you're stuck without an upgradable machine."

Be smart. Good luck.

 

[tyche]

The price difference between a 12 core and 18 core is significant. It could easily add $5k to your guess price.

 

[Steve Expat]

The price difference between a 12 core and 18 core is significant. It could easily add $5k to your guess price.

You’re missing the point. First of all there are no 18-core CPUs available for the 2009 Mac Pro, and apperently there are no 12-core CPUs available for the new Mac Pro.

I’m telling people who wish to buy an 18-core iMac Pro to go ahead and get the high core count, but to save money buy cutting out everything else and to install it youself. Yeah the 6,1 12-cores were more expensive than the 8-core. But not by $5000. A CPU with 6 more cores usually has a slower clock speed. They’re not going to be $5k more!

 

[MacGizmo]

No sense in getting worked-up about a few bloggers' guesses about what configs and prices will be available when the iMac Pro ships. Despite Apple announcing this or that, it would not be unprecedented for Apple to ship something different.

 

[alien3dx]

...

Yeah, i see some advert sell old mac 32GB ram and a lot of upgradeable with less 1 grand.. but i still buy 1 grand base model 21. I Prefer warranty for long term instead of risky the day it will die.

 

[theluggage]

I will buy an 18-core iMacPro(and later a Mac Pro for my host/slave) but I WILL NOT be spending $18k on one.

You could be right, but at the moment your speculation is every bit as good/bad as the $18k speculation (the truth lying somewhere between would be a good bet).

• Apple could charge what they like for 18 cores - there's no precedent.
• We don't know what CPU/GPU combinations Apple will offer - you might have to get the best GPU to get the 18 core.
• We don't know what RAM and SSD options Apple will offer - we do know that the minimum will be 32GB/1TB) the 18 core might start higher: remember that (unlike the RAM in the nMP and the current 5k iMac) the RAM and SSD in the iMac Pro are not officially upgradeable, so Apple could reasonably decide that nobody would want an 18 core machine without maxed-out RAM.
• We're assuming that the screen comes off like a regular iMac - but apart from that it looks like the innards are totally re-designed and have no idea how accessible the RAM and SSD are.

• AFAIK we don't know if compatible SSD is going to be available from third parties - and we're only kinda guessing that the RAM and SSD are socketed based on some (probably) computer-rendered publicity images. Of course, Apple would never solder in the RAM or SSD in a "Pro" branded machine... Oh, wait!

Two years ago I bought a mint conditioned used 2009 Mac Pro, upgraded the firmware to 5,1, installed a pair of Westmere x5690s (12-core at 3.46GHz), 88GBs of RAM, a PCIe carrier board...

That's on a Mac Pro classic which was a fully modular, user-upgradeable, full sized PCIe-bus-based machine with socketed everything that practically begged you to open it up and tinker. We all miss it. Its almost completely irrelevant to the no-user-servicable-parts-inside iMac.

 

[dazzer21-2]

$13K

 

[PickUrPoison]

And the OP can get the 18-core system he wants with minimum RAM, SSD and graphics config for $7,399.

Of course, some posters will state with authority that iMac Pro isn’t pro because it’s “not upgradable.” Or that pros don’t want iMac style workstations. Or they’re only suitable for “prosumers.”

Meanwhile OP know his DAW software loves cores and will be buying multiples.

 

[jerwin]

base model: 5000
base model with 18 core: 7400.

However, many computer applications require a certain amount of RAM per core. Adobe products tend to make this explicit.

consider this. You have some sort of computing problem. All the data associated with computing this task fit into 4 GB of RAM. When the task is done, it loads the next dataset, which takes about 4GB to process.

Now, parallelize that. 18 cores. For maximum efficiency, assuming that the problem can be efficiently partitioned, you'd need 72 GB of Ram. Otherwise, you're going to get 18 processes trying to engage in I/O.

(Most problems aren't as trivially paralellizable as that. It depends on what programs you're trying to run...

 

[William Payne]

The prices aren't crazy compared to the competition. I for curiosity sake just priced an HP Z series workstation and picked the closest parts to what is in the iMac pro that I could and the price was pretty much the same as the iMac and that was not including the screen on the HP.

Most PC prices comparisons I see don't compare part for part, they choose lower end cheaper parts as substitutes.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Full loaded is a total $13000 as far as my math takes me.

 

[William Payne]

Full loaded is a total $13000 as far as my math takes me.

same as a similarly specced HP Z workstation with no screen.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

same as a similarly specced HP Z workstation with no screen.

Yeah spec for spec macs cost the same as any other high end computer the Apple tax is a myth, where Apple are a killer is their tight control of supply and pricing, PC’s drop in price rapidly in the consumer market macs stay the same until a new model is released and even then don’t drop much. When looking at workstation and high end business models though it’s all much the same price wise.

 

[William Payne]

Yeah spec for spec macs cost the same as any other high end computer the Apple tax is a myth, where Apple are a killer is their tight control of supply and pricing, PC’s drop in price rapidly in the consumer market macs stay the same until a new model is released and even then don’t drop much. When looking at workstation and high end business models though it’s all much the same price wise.

The problem is the people these machines are aimed at are those who can recover the costs through their business and have it written off really quickly. Those people just go out and buy it without complaint.

My day job is in an engineering shop, we recently toured a factory that was being closed down as my employer wanted to buy up some of their equipment. I saw a factory that was filled with millions of dollars worth of equipment being sold for practically scrap value. Hundred thousand dollar machines going for a few thousand. Tooling being practically given away.

Why? people ask, all the equipment had long since been written off and paid for so was worth nothing to the company and it was more hassle to sell it at full value then it was to just bargain bin it all.

Not all businesses are in a financial position to work that way, but people buying these super expensive computers probably operate in a similar way.

Same people who buy mega tens of thousands of dollars worth of hasselblad or phase one medium format gear and RED 8k cinema cameras.
[doublepost=1513327358][/doublepost]In fact re sale value is never really talked about in any of the businesses or industries I have worked for. Its all about return on investment and how quickly the investment can be written off.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

The problem is the people these machines are aimed at are those who can recover the costs through their business and have it written off really quickly. Those people just go out and buy it without complaint.

My day job is in an engineering shop, we recently toured a factory that was being closed down as my employer wanted to buy up some of their equipment. I saw a factory that was filled with millions of dollars worth of equipment being sold for practically scrap value. Hundred thousand dollar machines going for a few thousand. Tooling being practically given away.

Why? people ask, all the equipment had long since been written off and paid for so was worth nothing to the company and it was more hassle to sell it at full value then it was to just bargain bin it all.

Not all businesses are in a financial position to work that way, but people buying these super expensive computers probably operate in a similar way.

Same people who buy mega tens of thousands of dollars worth of hasselblad or phase one medium format gear and RED 8k cinema cameras.

I agree totally, you should see what gets thrown out when laboratories close down.

There is also a very good point buried in here, I see a lot of posts about price by people buying for their work, if your work is making you enough money then you should have capital replacement budgets for new hardware every few years, if $10,000 is not available to you every 3 years to upgrade the computer you do all your work with then it’s probably time for a new career or some advice on how you run your business.

 

[William Payne]

I agree totally, you should see what gets thrown out when laboratories close down.

There is also a very good point buried in here, I see a lot of posts about price by people buying for their work, if your work is making you enough money then you should have capital replacement budgets for new hardware every few years, if $10,000 is not available to you every 3 years to upgrade the computer you do all your work with then it’s probably time for a new career or some advice on how you run your business.

I agree completely about having money put away for business expenses as part of any business operating budget.

However I will also say that I understand that there are various levels of business say those starting out, those with very tight margins, one man bands, all the way up to multi employee companies.