What Makes the iMac Pro a Good Value Purchase?

Question

I need a powerful Apple computer as it's mandatory for my profession. I am on a limited budget though. What makes the iMac Pro a worth purchase?

Answer 1

The iMac Pro is a worthwhile investment since its display, camera and audio together with the performance can now be reached at a much lower price than when it was first introduced. Considering that lower memory configurations can be bought for nearly $2000 and new higher ones range around $3000 to $4000, it is great value for money for a person looking for a high performance system which is not the latest of the lot. Furthermore, it is a more complete bundle, meaning that additional expenses on external devices like a monitor, keyboard, or mouse will be avoided.

Comments

Recently bought a base model iMac Pro for $1200 on Craigslist. Best money I’ve ever spent on a computer.

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Another important thing to consider when buying old tech is how many more OS upgrades are possible. Apple typically provide OS upgrades for 6 to 7 years. So, buying a computer from 2019 should give you OS upgrades up until 2025/26. This means you'll get 3-4 years worth of upgrades before the computer is officially unsupported. Also, since Apple have ended their reliance on Intel, it's just a matter of time before they officially stop supporting it in some macOS in the future. This could mean you might not get 4 years worth of OS upgrades on an Intel platform. I wouldn't consider anything older than 2019, as the older the computer, the less time is left before it's unsupported.

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Good day, all. I would like to share my experience with "high-end iMac". I bought a 27'' ( regular iMac ) in October 2021 just a few months before they stop selling it and before they introduced mac studio with m1max. The spec of my iMac was, intel i7, 64 gigs of RAM and that fancy Radeon card with 16 gigs of VRAM. Just 6 months after purchase, Apple changes my display because of heating vapour marks on it. One year after, the replaced display started to show those marks again. I went back to Apple and they gave me a mac studio with m2 max as a replacement. All I was doing with that iMac when it comes to graphics is playing Xplane 11 on average details. IMac could not cool properly and all that heat damaged both displays.

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Got a little secret tip I'm sure the audience of this content will appreciate :) So I'm using a 2019 iMac that is far from being as muscled up as the one in the content but that's for a very good reason. It has a ram slot and a fusion drive. Remember those sandwich drive abominations that apple had the audacity to sell until 2019? Yes one of those. It is a 1TB spinning hard drive and a very small (32GB I think) ssd in the same casing. This thing is an absolute disgrace in terms of speed, however the 2019 iMac supports Thunderbolt 3 protocol through all its usb C type connectors. Its 40Gbps speed is the way out of the situation. Install the os on a Thunderbolt 3 drive and you'll see immediately what I'm on about. :) Use the ram slot as intended, so load around 128gb compatible ram in for the fraction of the price Apple sells the same and you've made a pretty good deal on your iMac.

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I thought about this very thing myself but felt that the studio with ultra was better in the long run. I did talk to Apple about using my old imac as a monitor and they did seem to indicated that this was possible. So buying a iMac pro with a Studio would be a great idea if it actually works. Maybe you should test that.