
A $43,859.00 Refurbished Mac Pro - OMGCable
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G0ZKLLL/A/Refurbished-Mac-Pro-25GHz-28-core-Intel-Xeon-W-Two-Radeon-Pro-Vega-II-Duo-Apple-Afterburner?fnode=ddfef9711ebff9c3686c9d8f2b8b376582fd30d4098d53e076f89d582c7f243d30713b75d2986d1204478d10b2181062178feb9bfca3146a54bb295793b48a78f5d960bb139b07d4d00f1fa74cfa0b53
======
1000100_1000101
I'm reminded of the time someone actually put the "you could build an
identical PC cheaper yourself" to the test back in 2013.

[https://www.extremetech.com/computing/173695-apples-new-
over...](https://www.extremetech.com/computing/173695-apples-new-
overpriced-10000-mac-pro-is-2000-cheaper-than-the-equivalent-windows-pc)

While I'm sure AMD's latest high-core count chips may be giving us new cheaper
options, high priced Macs have typically been reasonably priced for their
specs.

More recently when the 27" 5K iMacs came out, I looked at the price of a 27"
5K IPS DCI-P3 monitor on Dell... it was only $100 less than the iMac, despite
the Mac having a full computer in it, in addition to the display. People still
complained that they were expensive.

~~~
techntoke
Because you're looking at manufacturers that primarily cater to enterprise.
There is a big difference if you look at MSI or Acer for monitors generally
and build your own PC.

~~~
denkmoon
Except typical MSI and Acer monitors are not remotely on par with the
professional monitors mentioned prior. MSI and Acer's professional monitors
that are approximately the same specification, amazingly, cost approximately
the same price.

~~~
techntoke
Yes they are. Once you look at the actual specs beyond the name brand, you can
get much better deal. Dell and Apple monitors are also going to usually be
higher response time and lower hz as well, so worse performance for more
money.

~~~
denkmoon
Response time and frequency are not the metrics that are most important for
professional monitors. Colour accuracy, colour space and panel uniformity are
the important metrics.

Sony can sell 1080p, 60hz monitors with 5ms response time for $3k because
their colour accuracy, colour space support and panel uniformity are
unparalleled outside of that price bracket.

Consider
[https://pro.sony/en_AU/products/broadcastpromonitors/lmd-a24...](https://pro.sony/en_AU/products/broadcastpromonitors/lmd-a240-v3.0#ProductSpecificationsBlock-
lmd-a240-v3-0) and
[https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1029229-REG/sony_lmda...](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1029229-REG/sony_lmda240_lmd_a240_24_lcd_production.html/overview)
, Sony doesn't even list the pixel response time because it's not important
for the market.

------
gabagool
Going through Apple's buy site, the previous owner maxed out _every single
configuration_ except for storage (2TB not 8TB) and then skimped on purchasing
a Magic Trackpad, opting solely for a Magic Mouse 2. If they were going to
spend all this, they should have gone all in!

Pretax cost as configured: $51,999 Cost fully maxed out: $53,948

BTW, this refurbished Mac Pro represents a savings of 15% off of $51,999.

~~~
firloop
We don’t know if the previous owner got the trackpad or not. For example, if
there were a problem with the computer and it was swapped for a new one, Apple
probably wouldn’t ask for the Magic Trackpad. Or even if it was returned, I
imagine those two products have different pools of stock.

~~~
rileytg
Or prefers a mouse for desktop (like me)

~~~
culturestate
I do too _for most stuff_ , but I decided to try out a Magic Trackpad for a
while and now I actually keep both on my desk. Having full gestures available
right next to (or in my case directly above) the mouse makes for a
surprisingly pleasant experience in macOS.

------
_bxg1
It was terrifying to click this link and have it open up in the Apple Store
app, with my payment info already available, and a big blue "Add to Bag"
button under my thumb.

~~~
jdavis703
The bank would immediately decline a $43,000 purchase on my card. Not only is
this way over my debit card’s daily anti-fraud limit, it also exceeds my bank
balance. I would recommend keeping a small balance in any account used for
online purchasing.

~~~
readme
I never purchase items with a debit card. A credit card always beats a debit
card if you are able to pay it off every month.

If there's a wrong transaction with a credit card, the company will 99.99% of
the time immediately take your side, and all you have to do is click dispute,
and the money is instantly credited to your account.

With a debit card, in the past I have had to go through a week or so long
process to get fradulent charges removed.

Plus other benefits, there are perks like automatically extended warranty on
purchases like this one (amex), and all sorts of discounts.

~~~
m463
I purchased something with a credit card, and returned it, but it was "lost"
in shipping even though they signed for it. It took a while to notice, then it
took a while to investigate and then a specified time period had elapsed and
my cc company wouldn't reverse the charge. I cancelled the card.

~~~
readme
I'll stop blanket recommending credit cards now.

Amex it is.

~~~
m463
Ha, it was amex. Yes, credit card are better than debit cards but I thought I
would have more options.

------
kowsheek
Might look outlandish to everyday consumers but it's not unreasonable in my
line of work (VFX, 3D, real-time graphics) to require this kind of specs.

~~~
jimbob45
I’m pretty sure you could escape for under 10k if you built this yourself in a
PC.

~~~
omarchowdhury
The two video cards alone cost $10k.

~~~
jimbob45
It seems like they’re maybe Apple-exclusive so it’s possibly they’re
drastically marked up. The Titan RTX is $2500 apiece and seems somewhat
comparable.

~~~
foxrob92
The Titan RTX is a consumer GPU, not a workstation GPU. The cards are designed
for different workloads, so are not really comparable.

~~~
indrax
What parts of the chip do they burn off for the consumer version?

~~~
judge2020
It has ecc memory, more memory, and the design allows for 4 stacked together,
making it ideal for deep learning workflows.

------
gdubs
If I’m not mistaken, this was roughly the price point of an SGI Indigo II
workstation — in 1995 dollars. Seems to be targeting a similar niche. Machines
like the Onyx were even more, if I remember correctly — could be north of
$100k. A license to something like Alias PowerAnimator was another ten to
fifteen grand.

------
mrtnmcc
>> Afterburner is a hardware accelerator card built with an FPGA, or
programmable ASIC. With over a million logic cells, it can process up to 6.3
billion pixels per second.

Interesting -- didn't realize FPGAs were commonly used in graphics development
flows. Does anyone know what software is used to customize the FPGA to
accelerate tasks in macOS?

~~~
kevingadd
Doesn't really count as 'an FPGA', how it's implemented is really a minor
detail. Lots of consumer and prosumer hardware out there is based on FPGAs,
but programming it isn't something you're allowed to do. At least two pieces
of hardware hooked up to my PC are powered by FPGAs.

Part of the logic here is that if you're only gonna sell 20000 units, it's
probably better to just slap an FPGA in there than build out a fully custom
board with a bunch of dedicated chips. The FPGA is easier to update after
release, too.

~~~
julienfr112
I'm interested. What are the two pieces of hardware you are talking about ?

~~~
kevingadd
Video capture hardware and audio interface

------
milkytron
Personally I do not need this, and I imagine most people don't. But I wonder
what Apple's return policy on this machine was, and what happened?

Did someone buy this and then not find it good enough?

Did someone want to test it and then get their money back?

Was something broken?

This is an expensive machine, comparable in price to a nice, new car. I'd want
a history report if I were buying this.

~~~
c22
Maybe they just ran their compute then sent it back. Like leaving the tag
tucked into the fancy shirt you only need to wear once.

~~~
mxcrossb
I’m imagining someone on the white board comparing time to solution with
various setups while taking into account shipping time

~~~
snowwrestler
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling
down the highway." — Andy Tanenbaum

------
yellowapple
It's only 500GB away from being able to load the entirety of the SSD's
contents into RAM.

Of course, I say "only" when that difference alone is nearly 16× the amount of
RAM I have in this here Threadripper rig on which I'm typing this comment.

~~~
rovr138
This reminded me of running Linux on RAM and being amazed at the speed.

Knoppix, damn small Linux, puppy Linux, slax, and a few, even older, firewalls
and router distros that existed (exist?)

------
FreakyT
For that price, I could buy nearly 3 of those $15,000 first-gen Apple watches!

 _Note: for anyone wondering why it 's so expensive, look at the amount of RAM
it has_

------
jp0d
When I create an EMR cluster with 10 nodes with 16 cores each. I get 10 cpu
nodes with 1.3 terabytes of RAM. Costs $10 per hour! I use it to run Spark to
process and analyse data. Amazon has the option to have GPU based nodes too!
If I run it for a whole month then it'd cost me around $7.5K. Running it for 6
months will cost the same as this machine. Although not an Apple to apple
comparison. This seems like a reasonably priced machine, especially for
Machine Learning/Data science folks (Only if it had nVidia GPU) :D. For
someone who needs that kind of power, it's not overpriced. Especially for the
quality of hardware you get.

------
kevindong
For reference, the new version of that model would be $51,599.

[https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-
pro/tower#](https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-pro/tower#)

------
mgkimsal
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict you'd still get those beach
ball spinners even with this setup.

~~~
wtallis
It's definitely a machine optimized more for throughput than latency. Though
1.5TB of RAM can go a long way toward hiding storage latency for some
workloads.

------
jvolkman
"Quality products at great prices"

Express delivery to my location is an additional $8.

~~~
billforsternz
But at least there's a power cord already included in the box. And a mouse.

------
disillusioned
Doesn't even include the wheels!

------
taf2
Remember that app when the App Store was still new - it was $1000 and was just
named something simple like “I’m rich”. This sort of reminds of that

~~~
abrowne
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich)

~~~
taf2
Thanks good memories

------
SllX
New, this configuration would be $51,599.00 before tax.

EDIT: Ninja’d like 5 times over. I see I wasn’t the only one that rushed to
figure out what kind of discount the buyer is getting on this.

------
romes
A 5$ option

[https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Grater-Stainless-
Parmesa...](https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Grater-Stainless-Parmesan-
Vegetables/dp/B01FNR4REY?ref_=s9_apbd_otopr_hd_bw_b16yl3&pf_rd_r=8NJMKDMJ86ZV1P5ADYSC&pf_rd_p=ad3c712d-5c2c-577a-914b-076ea6d01c50&pf_rd_s=merchandised-
search-11&pf_rd_t=BROWSE&pf_rd_i=16439861)

------
KiDD
Apple has a very generous return policy. There are so many refurb Mac pros due
to return for incompatible peripherals or whatever reason it was returned.

------
dschuetz
Why buy an expensive new/refurbished Mac now if there are completely new
models with ARM available in a couple of years? I'd wait 1 year or so for
Intel Macs' prices to drop to half or lower, because Apple will not be able to
sell them anymore, and then buy and install Linux on them.

~~~
grzm
One reason is that you might need a machine now, as opposed to in a couple of
years.

~~~
dschuetz
That's the beauty of Macs: they are (or were) reliable for at least a decade,
unless Apple decides to drop software support for them. Waiting was never a
problem for Macs. It's the architecture transitions that kills them.

The new Mac Pro is not even shipped, it's basically obsolete now. Or in two
years, if Apple keeps their _promise_.

~~~
grzm
The new Mac Pro has indeed shipped. It was released in December 2019, and
people started receiving them months ago. And “it’s basically obsolete now”
stands in apparent contradiction to “they are reliable for at least a decade,
unless Apple decides to drop software support for them”, which Apple has made
clear they’re not looking to do with the transition to Apple Silicon.

Reliability doesn’t necessarily play a role here at all. For some users, the
trash can Mac Pro did not meet their needs. The 2019 Mac Pro is a completely
different beast. The last machine I’d argue that was comparable was the 1st
generation, which no longer supported the most recent versions of macOS.

~~~
dschuetz
Would you still buy software for "the beast" knowing that software support
will be dropped anyway? I did that once, being naïve enough to believe that
Rosetta (powerpc on intel) will be there forever as an option in MacOSX. Man
was I dumb. Apple literally burnt $15k worth of hardware and software in front
of my eyes when they announced to drop PowerPC and then Rosetta later. No.
Screw that. Don't buy news Mac now. Don't make the same mistakes.

~~~
grzm
The economics may not make sense for you, but they may make sense for others
for the work they’re doing. If having a fast $10K machine now will allow
someone to make $500K over the next two years, that’s money well spent. If
that’s not the business another is in, it may not be. And both are fine.

------
junar
Even if you needed these specs and macOS, you could easily save thousands by
buying the RAM yourself. You could save even more with by using the W5700X GPU
(or even off-the-shelf 5700 XT).

------
AndrewKemendo
What does this do that a much cheaper computer doesn't?

~~~
ponker
You are color grading a $200 million movie and want to apply various tweaks to
the video and see the effect in real time. With a regular PC you have to
render and then view... with something like this you could render in real time
at 8k.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
In which case 50k seems like a pretty reasonable price.

It's surprising that there are enough of those kinds of use cases to justify
an entire production of a product like this. Something about the depth of
certain markets being way bigger than they appear.

~~~
TimTheTinker
There are a _lot_ of production studios around the world, of which only a
fraction produce movies that end up in theaters or sold on Amazon or iTunes.

------
imagetic
My last Mac Pro cost $3499. I did professional video work on it for 8 years.
And now I can't justify / afford one. What a world.

------
seshagiric
I like it that it has stainless steel with feet.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I wonder if the number of people who would are willing and able buy a
refurbished Mac Pro is higher or lower than the number of people who are
willing and able to buy a used Bugatti.

It seems that once you have the kind of money to be getting those items, you
would want to get it new and customized exactly how you want it.

~~~
ascorbic
A Bugatti is bought as a status symbol. This Mac Pro was bought for high end
video editing. They were willing to pay $50k because it's for editing
multimillion dollar projects. They'll probably be paying thousands of dollars
per day for this editing work. The refurbished one does the job just as well
as the new one.

------
syspec
It seems to me the ECC ram, maxed out is really the driving factor of the
cost.

------
person_of_color
If a single SKU costs 50k, what are the development costs?

Insane.

------
heyitsguay
Seems pretty pricey given the specs. How much would it cost to put together a
new Linux box with the same/functionally equivalent components?

~~~
sdan
$5k max

~~~
ggcdn
Can you even buy half the ram for that cost?

> 1.5 TB DDR4 ECC Ram

~~~
Sebguer
No, that much RAM is over 10k alone.

------
triangleman
When did Apple stop making the "trash can" style Mac Pros? This link is
surprising to me.

------
kasey_junk
What is the cheapest desktop you can build with 1.5 TB of ddr4 ram?

~~~
SethTro
It's pretty standard to have 8 slots [1] on motherboards and rarely 16 slots
[2]

64 gig DDR4 modules cost ~$300 [3] 128 gig DDR4 server modules can cost as
little as ~$800 [4]

8x64 = 0.5 TB of DDR4 ram = 8 _300 = $2,400 16x128 = 1.5 TB of DDR4 ram = 16_
800 = $12,800

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/TRX40-AORUS-PRO-Fins-Array-
Motherboar...](https://www.amazon.com/TRX40-AORUS-PRO-Fins-Array-
Motherboard/dp/B081JCCGQR/?tag=li-org-main-20) [2]
[https://hothardware.com/news/gigabyte-mz31-amd-
epyc-7000-mot...](https://hothardware.com/news/gigabyte-mz31-amd-
epyc-7000-motherboard-16-dimm-slots) [3]
[https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007611%20601275379](https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007611%20601275379)
[4]
[https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007952%20601324426](https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007952%20601324426)

~~~
msbarnett
That’s just the RAM cost, though. The threadripper TRX40 platform supports
256GB max RAM, and the epyc you linked tops out at 1TB. Just finding a cpu and
mobo that will host 1.5 TB is a multi-thousand dollar expense all on its own.

------
tibbydudeza
No wheels ??? :).

------
nix23
That is a ripoff, not even the wheels are interluded.

------
kords
I wonder what's the price for a new one

~~~
crooked-v
For this configuration, $51,599.

------
feathj
-1 doesn't have $700 wheels

------
jijji
i would go for a 48-core dell poweredge r820 with 1.5TB of ram for 7k on ebay,
albeit missing the GPU cards

------
jppope
Apple's prices are starting to get out of control.

~~~
jppope
Ok. I learned my lesson... don't make fun of Apple on HN.

