6 ms·

Are there really people willing to pay $5,000 for a computer built in to a monitor? If you want to run 2 screens, then they won’t match.

mf2hd 9y ago
You can always buy two :)
r0fl 9y ago
It's for people who don't want to run 2 screens. I know a couple people who ordered one this morning and do no intense editing whatsoever. They just like having the latest and most expensive toys from Apple.
kemiller2002 9y ago
Honestly the first thing that came to mind when I saw that was, "It's a laptop that I can't move, and it's more expensive."
- icedchai 9y ago
  I'd love a 10 core Xeon laptop with 128 gigs of RAM.
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    I'd be more impressed by somebody fitting a 27" screen in a laptop.
  - roryisok 9y ago
    that would be awesome. and heavy
- ssijak 9y ago
  Why cant you move it? Is it cemented to your desk? And it is much more powerful than any mac laptop..
- AndrewStephens 9y ago
  I guess it is a glass half-full/half-empty situation but I see a high-spec workstation that you can easily move and is about the same price (compared to other high-spec workstations).
Veen 9y ago
$5000 is the base price. Fully specced it's north of $13,000. I can't imagine who would consider that a good deal, especially with the release of the new Mac Pro expected early next year.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  I'm willing to bet a low-end Mac Pro matched to a 5K 27" display will not start at 5K...
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    The 2013 Mac Pro launched at $3000 (4 core) and $4000 (6 core), and the LG Ultrafine Display (closest thing to an official Apple 5K monitor) is $1300. $5000 is about the right ballpark.
    - rbanffy 9y ago
      I think it'll either start at a slightly lower spec or a slightly larger price so not to cannibalize too much of the iMac Pro. I suspect it'd be a dual socket machine, so Xeon W is not an option, leaving E5 or E7 as possibilities. It'd be awesome if Apple pulled off the technically amazing feat of having a Xeon Phi as the only CPU, but I am not sure it could even be done (and with no virtualization support for it, if it's even desirable). Still would be cool to a level only Apple uses to do.
- Anechoic 9y ago
  > expected early next year. Those users are likely to be disappointed since Apple did not commit to shipping it in 2018. All they said was that the new Mac Pro would not ship in 2017.
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    Exactly. Early 2018 is insanely optimistic, since we've heard nothing about it since the pre-announcement. If I had to bet, I'd say 2nd-half 2018 at the absolute earliest.
bbx 9y ago
I bought the 27-inch iMac in 2011. I don't mind the single screen, it helps focus actually. I think it was the last version before Retina screens and SSDs, and that's why it's really heavy: 30.5 pounds (13.8 kg)! When I moved abroad, it was a massive pain to transport. The video card gave up last year, and now I can't be bothered to repair it. A laptop is just so much more convenient. And they're not as expensive and underpowered as their desktop counterparts anymore. I'll probably never gonna by a desktop PC or Mac ever again.
- melling 9y ago
  A $100 video card would make a desktop PC usable. High-Sierra bricked my 2010 27" iMac. Not sure whether it's worth fixing. Not as pretty but I miss PC hardware. I'd leave the case open so I could save a few minutes when I'd add/change memory, hard drive, video card, CPU... For me, a 7 year old PC would be turned into a Linux box.
icedchai 9y ago
Sure. In 2014, I paid $3500 for the original iMac 5K. It's the best desktop I've owned. At the time, the display was unbeatable. I have another monitor on mine and it doesn't bother me that they don't match.
dasloop 9y ago
The price, compare with a similar PC, is quite competitive. But that other systems are modular, no need to buy all the RAM at the same time for example. I will pass and continue waiting for the Mac Pro.
rbanffy 9y ago
Early next year you'll probably be able to get a matching display from Apple. 27" is a lot of real estate on your desk. Not everyone have the space to have two of these.
dogma1138 9y ago
If you going to build the same exact spec it's not that far off from the actual BOM for the parts, in fact going for the exact same build will cost you more that that what Apple is charging. So Vega Pro 64 (Vega FE equivalent) 8 core Xeon-W build from Apple is $5599 If you would build the same PC it would be: ~$1200 for the CPU (Xeon W-2145, not available to the public yet) ~$400 for 32GB ECC 2666mhz RAM from a good vendor ~$500 for a Xeon-W workstation motherboard ~$480 for 1 TB PCIE SSD like the Samsung 960 Pro ~$1000 for VEGA Frontier Edition ~$250 for a good case ~$220 for a good power supply ~$120 for CLC water cooling for the CPU ~$100 for case fans ~$1300 for a professional 4K monitor This comes out to the total of ~$6870 Sure you can build an almost comparable PC from other parts at a fraction of the price but if you want to replicate the build in the iMac it will cost you much more. Also AFAIK you can connect a second screen the TB ports do support Thunderbolt displays and DisplayPort.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > This comes out to the total of ~$6370 Except that you don't have to throw it up when you want to upgrade a couple of parts.
  - roryisok 9y ago
    This. I'm not going to shell out $3k for a desktop computer that can't be upgraded. That's just stupid, even if it does look nice.
    - dogma1138 9y ago
      I didn't said you should, but in all honesty upgrade-ability is so overrated in the PC world. Other than storage I haven't upgraded a single PC I've owned in the past decade if not more simply because at the point when upgrade was needed it was pointless. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't buy this iMac, I don't need it, and I don't want it, and I would buy a PC, but Apple is pretty far from skinning people on prices this time around.
      - 9y ago

mf2hd 9y ago

You can always buy two :)

r0fl 9y ago

It's for people who don't want to run 2 screens. I know a couple people who ordered one this morning and do no intense editing whatsoever. They just like having the latest and most expensive toys from Apple.

kemiller2002 9y ago

Honestly the first thing that came to mind when I saw that was, "It's a laptop that I can't move, and it's more expensive."

icedchai 9y ago
I'd love a 10 core Xeon laptop with 128 gigs of RAM.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  I'd be more impressed by somebody fitting a 27" screen in a laptop.
- roryisok 9y ago
  that would be awesome. and heavy
ssijak 9y ago
Why cant you move it? Is it cemented to your desk? And it is much more powerful than any mac laptop..
AndrewStephens 9y ago
I guess it is a glass half-full/half-empty situation but I see a high-spec workstation that you can easily move and is about the same price (compared to other high-spec workstations).

Veen 9y ago

$5000 is the base price. Fully specced it's north of $13,000. I can't imagine who would consider that a good deal, especially with the release of the new Mac Pro expected early next year.

rbanffy 9y ago
I'm willing to bet a low-end Mac Pro matched to a 5K 27" display will not start at 5K...
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  The 2013 Mac Pro launched at $3000 (4 core) and $4000 (6 core), and the LG Ultrafine Display (closest thing to an official Apple 5K monitor) is $1300. $5000 is about the right ballpark.
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    I think it'll either start at a slightly lower spec or a slightly larger price so not to cannibalize too much of the iMac Pro. I suspect it'd be a dual socket machine, so Xeon W is not an option, leaving E5 or E7 as possibilities. It'd be awesome if Apple pulled off the technically amazing feat of having a Xeon Phi as the only CPU, but I am not sure it could even be done (and with no virtualization support for it, if it's even desirable). Still would be cool to a level only Apple uses to do.
Anechoic 9y ago
> expected early next year. Those users are likely to be disappointed since Apple did not commit to shipping it in 2018. All they said was that the new Mac Pro would not ship in 2017.
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
  Exactly. Early 2018 is insanely optimistic, since we've heard nothing about it since the pre-announcement. If I had to bet, I'd say 2nd-half 2018 at the absolute earliest.

bbx 9y ago

I bought the 27-inch iMac in 2011. I don't mind the single screen, it helps focus actually. I think it was the last version before Retina screens and SSDs, and that's why it's really heavy: 30.5 pounds (13.8 kg)! When I moved abroad, it was a massive pain to transport. The video card gave up last year, and now I can't be bothered to repair it. A laptop is just so much more convenient. And they're not as expensive and underpowered as their desktop counterparts anymore. I'll probably never gonna by a desktop PC or Mac ever again.

melling 9y ago
A $100 video card would make a desktop PC usable. High-Sierra bricked my 2010 27" iMac. Not sure whether it's worth fixing. Not as pretty but I miss PC hardware. I'd leave the case open so I could save a few minutes when I'd add/change memory, hard drive, video card, CPU... For me, a 7 year old PC would be turned into a Linux box.

icedchai 9y ago

Sure. In 2014, I paid $3500 for the original iMac 5K. It's the best desktop I've owned. At the time, the display was unbeatable. I have another monitor on mine and it doesn't bother me that they don't match.

dasloop 9y ago

The price, compare with a similar PC, is quite competitive. But that other systems are modular, no need to buy all the RAM at the same time for example. I will pass and continue waiting for the Mac Pro.

rbanffy 9y ago

Early next year you'll probably be able to get a matching display from Apple. 27" is a lot of real estate on your desk. Not everyone have the space to have two of these.

dogma1138 9y ago

If you going to build the same exact spec it's not that far off from the actual BOM for the parts, in fact going for the exact same build will cost you more that that what Apple is charging. So Vega Pro 64 (Vega FE equivalent) 8 core Xeon-W build from Apple is $5599 If you would build the same PC it would be: ~$1200 for the CPU (Xeon W-2145, not available to the public yet) ~$400 for 32GB ECC 2666mhz RAM from a good vendor ~$500 for a Xeon-W workstation motherboard ~$480 for 1 TB PCIE SSD like the Samsung 960 Pro ~$1000 for VEGA Frontier Edition ~$250 for a good case ~$220 for a good power supply ~$120 for CLC water cooling for the CPU ~$100 for case fans ~$1300 for a professional 4K monitor This comes out to the total of ~$6870 Sure you can build an almost comparable PC from other parts at a fraction of the price but if you want to replicate the build in the iMac it will cost you much more. Also AFAIK you can connect a second screen the TB ports do support Thunderbolt displays and DisplayPort.

ekianjo 9y ago
> This comes out to the total of ~$6370 Except that you don't have to throw it up when you want to upgrade a couple of parts.
- roryisok 9y ago
  This. I'm not going to shell out $3k for a desktop computer that can't be upgraded. That's just stupid, even if it does look nice.
  - dogma1138 9y ago
    I didn't said you should, but in all honesty upgrade-ability is so overrated in the PC world. Other than storage I haven't upgraded a single PC I've owned in the past decade if not more simply because at the point when upgrade was needed it was pointless. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't buy this iMac, I don't need it, and I don't want it, and I would buy a PC, but Apple is pretty far from skinning people on prices this time around.
    - 9y ago