When Apple unveiled the new iMac Pro at WWDC this week, not only was it the most powerful Mac ever made, it was also one of the most pricey ever.
At $5,000 for the baseline model, the iMac Pro is aimed at the most professional of Pro users, but according to a new price analysis on competing super-powered PC, the iMac Pro might actually be a killer deal.
Apple isn’t known for giving customers cheap prices on stellar hardware, however, during the WWDC 2017 keynote the company said the new iMac Pro is a good deal. Especially when you compare it to similar systems by HP.
Photo: Apple
To find out if the iMac Pro’s price really is sweet, PC Gamer decided to build a system with comparable specs. After the final tally came in, the home-built option was just barely cheaper than Apple’s new machine.
Building the iMac Pro yourself will only save you about $313 depending on what kind of deals you find. PC Gamer’s impressive build cost a grand total of $4686.71.
Here’s the list of parts you need:
- CPU: Intel – Xeon E5-2620 V4 2.1GHz 8-Core Processor ($408.99)
- CPU Cooler: NZXT – Kraken X62 Liquid CPU Cooler ($158.99)
- Motherboard: Asus – X99-E-10G WS SSI CEB LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($649.00)
- Memory: Crucial – 32GB (1 x 32GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory ($253.81)
- Storage: Samsung – 960 EVO 1TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($479.99)
- Video Card: Zotac – GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Founders Edition ($678.99)
- Case: Silverstone – TJ04B-EW ATX Mid Tower Case ($151.90)
- Power Supply: SeaSonic – PRIME Titanium 1000W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($242.89)
- Operating System: Microsoft – Windows 7 Professional ($134.99)/li>
- Monitor: LG – UltraFine 5K Display 60Hz Monitor ($1299.95)
- Other: ASUS Model ThunderboltEX 3 Expansion Card ($69.99)
- Keyboard: Apple – MB110LL/B Wired Standard Keyboard ($49.00)
- Mouse: Apple – MB829LL/A Bluetooth Wireless Laser Mouse ($79.99)
- Speakers: Logitech – Z130 5W 2ch Speakers ($18.99)
- Card reader: Kingston – Digital MobileLite G4 USB 3.0 card reader ($9.24)
Of course, going with a home-built option means you won’t get the space gray keyboard and mouse that come with the iMac Pro. You also would have to install Windows 7 or Windows 10. Might as well pay the extra bucks and get the iMac Pro that also comes with a great warranty and customer service.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
14 responses to “iMac Pro’s insane price tag is actually a great deal”
that’s true.
Now why can’t the MBP be as killer of a deal?
That’s not an equal comparison. You picked the most expensive parts that are actually more powerful than the iMac pro.
Are you sure about that? The RAM, SSD, Display, Thunderbolt card and (possibly) speakers all seem to be lower performing parts. I’ll grant that the CPU, motherboard and power supply are likely superior (since the CPU is a desktop part). I’m not sure how the GPU’s stack up, since the Vega line is actually workstation class, but Nvidia generally has a performance edge within the same class. Since we don’t know which Xeon Apple will use, I don’t know that I could even commit on the CPU being superior and the motherboards are going to very hard to compare.
If you want Windows and the ability to customize and perform future upgrades to the hardware, then certainly the PC custom build makes more sense, but I don’t see that this is an unfair comparison by any means. The discrepancy will be much higher, in favor of a custom build, when you start adding upgrades to the iMac Pro. However, I think the base model is a solid deal for what you get, especially considering the vendor’s propensity for maximizing profit.
The CPU used in the comparison build is much much less powerful that what will actually come shipped in the iMac Pro. Even Apple’s outdated Mac Pro can come shipped 8 core processor more powerful than the one listed in the build above.
It’s not a great deal because it doesn’t enable you to do anything differently.
Not upgradable like a PC so as time wears on the PC is much more valuable than the iMac Pro
Apple products retain their value like crazy even 4 or 5 years down the line so I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Want to upgrade your Apple device? Sell it for not much less than what you bought it for and then buy the new one, easy.
it is not a great deal if it costs more than parts combined. It would be great deal if it would cost less than parts combined.
Jesus Christ!
CPU: AMD R7 1700 = 299.99 $ (3.0 GHz – 3.8 GHz OC always, smaller, more efficient). If Apple has picked up this one be positive is because it costs them way less
CPU Cooler: 0 $ Comes bundled with the CPU and cools better. Kraken X62?? WTF?? The new iMac is not water cooled, this is so shady
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero = 253 $ Dude, are you out of your mind?? Your pick for whatever fanboyan reason is a 650 $ mobo? Getting shady and shady… Here is the most expensive ASUS variant for the X370 chip. Still you managed to picked a mobo w/o thunderbolt in it so you can charge that ridiculous 70 $ for Thunderbolt. For instance ASUS LGA2011-v3 has Thunderbolt 3 included and costs half of that
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB 2666 MHz = 235 $ Little savings only quicker
SSD: 480 $ That SSD NVMe is capable of 3200 MB/s reads and 1900 MB/s writes. Do you know is this the component inside the iMac Pro or at least the speeds is capable of? Anyways I’ll keep the price tag
Graphics Card: 400 $ aprox. (1070 equivalent in Vega) The one inside the iMac Pro is Vega arthitecture based and until this date absolutely nobody knows how powerful, or more important to the subject, how expensive it is but you can bet your ass the 1080 Ti competitor will cost less than the 1080 Ti itself. This card also drains power and produces heat like crazy and also you picked a full grown desktop version which is unlikely to be the case of the Vega card inside the iMac Pro
Case: Be quiet! Silent Base 600 = 110 $ Way lower noise, better materials (metal on the sides), better designed
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G2 = 86 $ You are kidding right? 1000 Watts Titanium certified PSU?? Flat out ridiculous, Probably won’t be needing more than 500 W I’ll get some to spare. You understand it has to fit in the ridiculous space of the iMac right? The actual one in there won’t be more than 650 you can quote me on that. Also is very unlikely that the efficiency will be above 90+ (Gold)
OS: Microsoft – Windows 7 Professional = 135 $ I’m lost here, why Win 7? Anyways Windows 10 is free in PC, you get the 8 from whoever you want and then upgrade for free. Still plenty of offers for around 50 $. But just to get to the point I’ll maintain your weird choice
Monitor: HP Z27qPhilips = 848 $ If it has to be 5K, but if 4K isn’t much of a shame when showing to your buddies at Starbucks you can have 43″ with Philips BDM4350UC = 720 $ In the iMac though you don’t get a full on monitor, you get a panel or at then at least take the case away from the price, how many enclosures are you gonna charge for? This apply to the speakers but whateva
Thunderbolt Expansion Card: 0 $ I explained it before. In the case of the AM4 socket there is no Thunderbolt because Intel does not allow it. Price would not vary more than 20 dollar if they did, there is no need for a 630 $ mobo for that
Speakers: ??? OG The monitor you listed (LG – UltraFine 5K) has speakers, my suggestion doesn’t. I’ll keep the price but God this is awkward
Keyboard, mouse, some card reader I cannot understand: I guarantee you no PC that costs 5000 $ will have those choices of KW and mouse but yeah I’ll keep that amount of money
TOTAL = 3000 $ Probably the cost for Apple of the iMac Pro is way lower than that tho
This article is a nuke to anything journalism is good for and probably also unnecessary. No one buys the iMac for the power, the affordability, or because how great of a deal it is. In those three categories are a myriad of better options
Have you deleted my comment? Let me try again:
Jesus Christ!
CPU: AMD R7 1700 = 299.99 $ (3.0 GHz – 3.8 GHz OC always, smaller, more efficient). If Apple has picked up this one be positive is because it costs them way less
CPU Cooler: 0 $ Comes bundled with the CPU and cools better. Kraken X62?? WTF?? The new iMac is not water cooled, this is so shady
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero = 253 $ Dude, are you out of your mind?? Your pick for whatever fanboyan reason is a 650 $ mobo? Getting shady and shady… Here is the most expensive ASUS variant for the X370 chip. Still you managed to picked a mobo w/o thunderbolt in it so you can charge that ridiculous 70 $ for Thunderbolt. For instance ASUS LGA2011-v3 has Thunderbolt 3 included and costs half of that
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB 2666 MHz = 235 $ Little savings only quicker
SSD: 480 $ That SSD NVMe is capable of 3200 MB/s reads and 1900 MB/s writes. Do you know is this the component inside the iMac Pro or at least the speeds is capable of? Anyways I’ll keep the price tag
Graphics Card: 400 $ aprox. (1070 equivalent in Vega) The one inside the iMac Pro is Vega arthitecture based and until this date absolutely nobody knows how powerful, or more important to the subject, how expensive it is but you can bet your ass the 1080 Ti competitor will cost less than the 1080 Ti itself. This card also drains power and produces heat like crazy and also you picked a full grown desktop version which is unlikely to be the case of the Vega card inside the iMac Pro
Case: Be quiet! Silent Base 600 = 110 $ Way lower noise, better materials (metal on the sides), better designed
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G2 = 86 $ You are kidding right? 1000 Watts Titanium certified PSU?? Flat out ridiculous, Probably won’t be needing more than 500 W I’ll get some to spare. You understand it has to fit in the ridiculous space of the iMac right? The actual one in there won’t be more than 650 you can quote me on that. Also is very unlikely that the efficiency will be above 90+ (Gold)
OS: Microsoft – Windows 7 Professional = 135 $ I’m lost here, why Win 7? Anyways Windows 10 is free in PC, you get the 8 from whoever you want and then upgrade for free. Still plenty of offers for around 50 $. But just to get to the point I’ll maintain your weird choice
Monitor: HP Z27qPhilips = 848 $ If it has to be 5K, but if 4K isn’t much of a shame when showing to your buddies at Starbucks you can have 43″ with Philips BDM4350UC = 720 $ In the iMac though you don’t get a full on monitor, you get a panel or at then at least take the case away from the price, how many enclosures are you gonna charge for? This apply to the speakers but whateva
Thunderbolt Expansion Card: 0 $ I explained it before. In the case of the AM4 socket there is no Thunderbolt because Intel does not allow it. Price would not vary more than 20 dollar if they did, there is no need for a 630 $ mobo for that
Speakers: ??? OG The monitor you listed (LG – UltraFine 5K) has speakers, my suggestion doesn’t. I’ll keep the price but God this is awkward
Keyboard, mouse, some card reader I cannot understand: I guarantee you no PC that costs 5000 $ will have those choices of KW and mouse but yeah I’ll keep that amount of money
TOTAL = 3000 $ Probably the cost for Apple of the iMac Pro is way lower than that tho
This article is a nuke to anything journalism is good for and probably also unnecessary. No one buys the iMac for the power, the affordability, or because how great of a deal it is. In those three categories are a myriad of better options
I will get one. I am a pro user on both Mac and PC… I wouldn’t trade my mac for a PC.
If you plan to buy a similar PC because of upgrades, after 2-3 years is junk anyway since most parts will have different connectors already, CPU, socket, PCIe etc.
Macs retain value like crazy, I sold my 2012 rMBP and bought the 2015 model for a difference of 500$, so I would rather “sell-upgrade” and have an awesome machine, than going to fiddle again with parts.
I doubt the iMAC has a twin radiator Kraken X62 inside to cool a 85W CPU. Moreover the Radeon Pro Vega is less expensive than the 1080 Ti. Also don’t need such a ridiculous motherboard just to get 10G.