Cheaper Alternatives To the New Mac Pro

Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. If you're considering getting the new MacPro but the price tag is a little high here are some alternatives.

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There's no doubt about it. The new MacPro is a great machine. But the price tag is a little high for individual users. But if you want a pro level Mac, Apple has several alternatives for you that cost less. You just have to go above the baseline specifications for some of these models.

Here's the new MacPro, the base model. You get 3.5GHz 8-core intel Xeon W processor. You have a 580X GPU with 8GB of memory. You have 32GB of regular memory. It only comes with a 256GB SSD. We're going to stick with this base model. Just use $6000 as our base price. So let's compare that with Apple's other Pro desktop. The iMac Pro.

The iMacPro's design is a little old but probably not due for an update anytime soon. It comes with a slightly slower processor, 3.2GHz 8-core. You get a different type of GPU. You get the Radeon Pro Vega 56 but it has 8GB of memory as well. The base model comes with 32GB of memory just like the MacPro. But the base model for the iMac Pro comes with 1TB SSD. So you actually get a bonus. For this you're paying $1000 less. So maybe not as good of a processor or GPU but a bigger hard drive and of course you get a bonus with the iMac Pro with a nice big 5K screen.

But you don't have to get the iMac Pro. You can get a regular iMac and add something to it to get it pretty close.  So here's the current 27-inch iMac. With the base model you get a 3.0GHz 6-core i5. The GPU is the Radeon Pro 570X and it only has 4 GB of RAM. You get only a base of 8GB of memory and you get a 1TB drive but it's a Fusion Drive. So a combination of a hard drive SSD. Now for this you pay a low price of $1,799. If you want to get this closer to the Pro you want to pay extra $900 which will get you up to a 3.6GHz 8-core i9. This same $900 also adds a 580X with 8GHz. So the same basic GPU as what you get on the MacPro. If you want to boost the memory to 32GB you're going to pay $600 more and if you if you go to an SSD you have to go and add $100 and you get the 512GB SSD which is actually twice the size of what you get on a MacPro. So you come pretty close to an iMac Pro and even the MacPro but you're only paying $3,400 for it.

Now one thing to consider is getting the previous generation of MacPro. This is what I've got and I'm sure you still be able to find these for awhile. If Apple doesn't sell them new they're going to sell the refurbished and some resellers may have some. Also you can grab one used. You can still order one custom from Apple. Then the base model is a 3.5GHz 6-core and you get a FirePro D500 which is a much older card. But you get two of them 16GB memory is what comes standard and you get 256GB drive so the same as now. But for that you only pay $3000 although refurbished might be less, resellers may be less, or they might become more as demand may  increase for this model. Now if you boost it up to an 8-core Xeon E5 and then you go with the fast D700 with 6GB of RAM you're still not quite up in terms of the processor and GPU but you're closer. Then add 32GB of RAM, a little bit older and slower RAM and you stick with that same drive then the base price goes to $4,400 or it may vary depending upon what you can find.

Well, there's one more Pro model that Apple sells of course. That's the MacBook Pro. If you want to take a look at the new 16 inch MacBook Pro and think of that as an alternative to getting a MacPro here's what you end up with. So the base model is only a 2.6GHz 6-core i7. It comes with a 5300M, that M for mobile, GPU, with only 4GB of memory and 16GB of RAM but you do get a bigger hard drive. 512GB SSD. For that you're only paying $2400. Now you take that closer to a MacPro the best you can do is a 2.4GHZ 8-core i9. But you can get the 5500M GPU, with 8GB of memory. You go to 16GB of RAM and by going to the 8-core i9 processor you're going to get a 1TB drive so bonus drive space. For all of that you're going to pay $3500. Not bad considering, of course, this model will also then be portable and has it's own screen and it's the newest Mac that's out there besides the MacPro itself.

There's one last contender. That's the Mac mini. It may surprise you how powerful a Mac mini can get. So if you go with the base level Mac mini you don't get much. You get a 3.6GHz Quad-Core i3. Much slower than the MacPro. A GPU, you get none. There's no GPU in it. Well there's the integrated graphics GPU so it's going to use regular memory for graphics. So you get that which doesn't help you in a lot of cases although some Apple software like Final Cut Pro is actually pretty optimized for this so it's still usable. 8GB of RAM is what you get for the base and only 128GB SSD. It doesn't sound good until you look at the price and see that it's only $800. 

Now if you want to bring this closer to a Pro you can go all the way up to a 3.2GHz 6-core i7. Still not that great compared to a MacPro but better. Then you have to go with an external GPU. It's not as bad as it sounds because you can get a $400 external GPU that will allow you to hookup  three screens and actually be pretty decent. You can go with 32GB of RAM of course and boost the drive to be the same as the MacPro. For this you're only paying $2300. Which is quite a bargain considering a lot of people in the market for a MacPro actually really could do pretty well with that machine.

Now there are a lot of other things to consider besides what I just showed you. You have to look at the number and type of ports that are on each Mac. They're going to be different than a MacPro. Also the number of displays that can be supported by each of these. It's going to be a little bit different. If you want to keep your current display then getting an iMac or an iMacPro or a MacBook Pro probably isn't the right choice for you. The new MacPro is extremely expandable with all these slots and everything like that. Other Macs you're going to have to add external peripherals to it.

Future proofing is a big deal especially if you're looking at getting, say, the old Mac Pro which is 2013. So you can expect that it probably will run the next version of macOS but maybe not past that. Whereas one of the newer models is going to be running versions of macOS for five to eight years into the future. Also, of course, you're probably going to want to look at better specs than what I just showed. This was comparing the base level MacPro. Inparticular that 256GB SSD was probably a little light. So you're probably want to compare prices with a 1TB SSD.

So here's  a wrap-up. You can see the MacPro at the top end $6000 and then you goe down from there. $5000 for an iMac Pro is pretty good plus you get a screen and a bigger drive. You've got a regular iMac at $3400 and the same thing with the screen and the slightly bigger drive. The older Mac Pro is a pretty good machine but you have to consider that it only has Thunderbolt 2 and, of course, it's old which means it may not be getting macOS updates for that much longer. A 16 inch MacBook Pro is a pretty good deal at $3500 especially considering it has its own screen, of course, and it's portable. For some people that makes it the only choice here. Then the Mac mini is a great budget choice giving you something that's borderline pro level with an external GPU at only $2300.

So if you're in the market for a top level Mac which one of these options are you considering.