You can now order the rack-mountable Mac Pro

[midian182]

In brief: Apple’s very expensive Mac Pro launched last month, and now the rack-mountable version of the computer designed for server rack setups is available to order.

Starting at $6,499, this rack-mounted Mac Pro is $500 more expensive than the tower version, despite featuring the same internal hardware and specs. You do get a set of stainless steel mounting rails for the extra half-a-grand, though, which ship in a separate box.

The main difference is the case, which still has the cheese grater ventilation holes and handles, and the ports and rear connections are the same. It can be easily mounted in server racks and comes with a removable lid. And as it’s rack-mounted, buyers can save money by forgoing the $1,000 Pro Stand and $400 wheels.

The possible configurations are the same for both versions of the Mac Pro. Processors start with a 3.5GHz, 8-core Intel Xeon W and go up to a 2.5GHz, 28-core Xeon W, which adds $7,000 to the price. RAM ranges from 32GB to 1.5TB (an extra $25,000), and the graphics cards begin with a Radeon Pro 580X GPU with 8GB of DDR5, while the top option is dual Radeon Pro Vega II Duo GPUs with a total 128GB of HBM2 memory (add $10,800). Finally, storage ranges from 256GB and goes up to 8TB (another $2,600).

As with the tower option, maxing out the latest Mac Pro with the top specs is going to cost an eye-watering $50,000+. But some professionals and enterprises will doubtlessly consider the price to be worth it.

The rack-mounted Mac Pro can be ordered now, with shipping dates ranging from January 23 to February 13.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/83557-you-can-now-order-rack-mountable-mac-pro.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Yeah, over the years we've seen a number of servers and rack mounted devices that simply defy logic in their costs. It appears that it has been an opportunity for businesses to take advantage of other businesses and really doesn't make a lot of sense. Mind you there are many servers out there that are worth every dime because of their power and diversity, but this one appears to be another Apple money grab with very little added benefits to justify the costs .....

 

[Polvoish]

Apple lost their minds with this machine... I'm a motion graphics designer, used to be hard core Apple but switched to PCs several years ago... I was really looking forward to see what they would do with the new Pro, but with no NVIDIA option and a max 28-core chip renders this machine almost useless for people in my industry... all the major GPU renderers (Octane, Redshift, Arnold) use NVIDIA's CUDA tech and with AMD just releasing the 64-core 3990X Threadripper for $4K that will leave that 28-core Xeon in the dust? Unless you really have to have Final Cut or Logic, this machine makes zero sense for visual FX or motion graphics users. Needless to say, as soon as I saw this announced, I knew I was holding out for the 3990X. I don't see Apple making another "Pro" after this one

 

[mbrowne5061]

Apple lost their minds with this machine... I'm a motion graphics designer, used to be hard core Apple but switched to PCs several years ago... I was really looking forward to see what they would do with the new Pro, but with no NVIDIA option and a max 28-core chip renders this machine almost useless for people in my industry... all the major GPU renderers (Octane, Redshift, Arnold) use NVIDIA's CUDA tech and with AMD just releasing the 64-core 3990X Threadripper for $4K that will leave that 28-core Xeon in the dust? Unless you really have to have Final Cut or Logic, this machine makes zero sense for visual FX or motion graphics users. Needless to say, as soon as I saw this announced, I knew I was holding out for the 3990X. I don't see Apple making another "Pro" after this one

I thought the same thing; wrong CPU lineup, wrong GPU lineup.

Yeah, over the years we've seen a number of servers and rack mounted devices that simply defy logic in their costs. It appears that it has been an opportunity for businesses to take advantage of other businesses and really doesn't make a lot of sense. Mind you there are many servers out there that are worth every dime because of their power and diversity, but this one appears to be another Apple money grab with very little added benefits to justify the costs .....

I'm betting these things get priced by someone who just searches "server" on google, sees the prices of the competitors, and just matches them. Never mind that most of the competitors did exactly the same thing, and its only the extremely specialized and extremely versatile ones that really should command those eye-watering prices. Then, these things get bought by other managers who don't know what it is that they're looking at - 'validating' the prices.

Meanwhile, everyone who actually understands computer hardware just shakes their heads.

 

[Zorak]

This... doesn't make much sense to me on another level.

If the case uses the same ventilation setup as the desktop unit I can only imagine how sucky the cooling will be in a closed rack unit. It won't even fit aesthetically with almost everything on the market! Server-class rack mounted stuff usually runs for a long periods of time, if you don't even have a dust filter for the intake (which is what this setup uses to cool all it's components) you'd need to take it out to clean it up, scratching the friggin cheesegrater up (if you don't shell out for fancy extendable rails). The maintenance would be "fun". And if you close it in a rack that doesn't have a glass door you won't even be able to show your "Apple Server" off to anybody!

I guess the option to mount it horizontally is... nice? But at what cost! I can imagine somebody buying a couple of those and running them in a cluster for a team of Apple artists, but honestly it's hard for me to find an example of a company that needs multiple Macs Pro for work like that.

I guess it's just another Apple thing at this point.

 

[Polvoish]

This... doesn't make much sense to me on another level.

If the case uses the same ventilation setup as the desktop unit I can only imagine how sucky the cooling will be in a closed rack unit. It won't even fit aesthetically with almost everything on the market! Server-class rack mounted stuff usually runs for a long periods of time, if you don't even have a dust filter for the intake (which is what this setup uses to cool all it's components) you'd need to take it out to clean it up, scratching the friggin cheesegrater up (if you don't shell out for fancy extendable rails). The maintenance would be "fun". And if you close it in a rack that doesn't have a glass door you won't even be able to show your "Apple Server" off to anybody!

I guess the option to mount it horizontally is... nice? But at what cost! I can imagine somebody buying a couple of those and running them in a cluster for a team of Apple artists, but honestly it's hard for me to find an example of a company that needs multiple Macs Pro for work like that.

I guess it's just another Apple thing at this point.

This is most likely where they’re thinking it will go...

Apple let the idea of a Mac server go a long time ago when they pretty much all but abandoned the Server app, so they’re thinking more recording studio or edit bay for video