Apple Is Discontinuing the IMac Pro – Now What?
That’s right: Apple is done with its current versions of the iMac Pro, and if you want to get your hands on one – a spoiler, no, but more on that in a minute – you’ll be stuck shopping for limited configurations. “As long as there are reserves.”
In fact, at the time of this writing, there isonly one configuration available from Apple – the $ 5,000 iMac Pro, which includes:
- Intel Xeon W 10-core processor @ 3.0 GHz
- Turbo Boost up to 4.5 GHz
- 32GB 2666MHz ECC memory configurable up to 256GB
- 1TB SSD¹
- Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB HBM2 memory
- 10 Gbps Ethernet
- Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
- 27-inch Retina 5K 5120 × 2880 P3 display
The absolute last thing you want to do is grab your iMac Pro now and repent. That it would be a waste of money. The specs you’re looking at are pretty much identical to what you’d get if you purchased the same iMac Pro when it debuted in late December 2017, with the exception of the 2019 update that allowed desktops to support up to 256GB. memory. … You can certainly find other iMac Pros, and maybe even cheaper iMac Pros, from third-party retailers. Avoid this too.
Reasons why it should be obvious to everyone who has paid attention to Apple in the past six months: M1. Apple’s dedicated chip is slowly making its way through Apple’s product lines and I have no doubt that you will be able to buy an iMac, and ultimately an iMac Pro with an integrated M1 chip – maybe even an M2 or M3, depending on how long it takes Apple. to update the product line.
While I’m not very up to date on my workstation knowledge, a quick look at the Geekbench benchmark charts allows Apple’s new chip to outperform four-year-old Intel Xeon W-2150B processors in single-core performance:
And apparently even the older 10-core Xeon W chip outperforms the M1 in multi-core:
But here’s the thing. These diagrams compare the new Mac Mini — a simpler all-in-one desktop setup — with a desktop workstation . It’s apples and oranges, and even then, Apple’s $ 700-800 system shows pretty solid performance over the $ 5,000 iMac Pro. I wouldn’t use a Mac Mini to, say, render my latest 8K movie masterpiece, but that’s 20-35% of the performance of an Apple iMac Pro (using Geekbench scores) for less than a fifth of the price.
If you’re looking for a system close to the performance of a Pro-caliber iMac right now, your best bet is to simply pick one of Apple’s regular iMacs . As you’ll see in the charts, the mid-2020 update to the 27-inch iMac Retina delivers iMac Pro-like performance for about half the price. If those 256GB of storage are absolutely unnecessary for your working setup (versus the iMac’s 128GB max), or those two additional Thunderbolt ports aren’t a decisive point for you, the iMac Pro should be more than sufficient.
With that said, I wouldn’t buy an iMac right now. Rumors have it that Apple’s event will take place later this month, you can at least wait a few weeks to see if Apple has any news on the updated iMac with M1 chips. I doubt you will see the iMac Pro announced, but I’m sure there will be one in the future.
In Apple’s performance technology chips, if its current MacBooks and Mac Minis are any indication, it would be a shame to just skip because you couldn’t wait a month. If you can wait months (or quarters) to see its M1 chips stack up into a more powerful PC, even better.