At $54K, rack-mounted Mac Pro is the most expensive computer Apple has ever made

By Alex Blake Published January 14, 2020

When it was released in December 2019, Apple’s all-new Mac Pro caught the tech world’s attention for its incredible power and sky-high price tag. While the original version came with either legs or wheels and was designed to be used on office floors, Apple’s rack-mounted variant has now been released.

Hoping Apple might shave some of the price off for this version of the Mac Pro? You’re out of luck, as this variant actually costs $500 more than the standard Mac Pro model. When you absolutely max it out — including going for its Apple Afterburner card — the final cost tops out at $53,899, making it Apple’s most expensive computer ever.

Recommended Videos

That’s $500 more than a maxed-out Mac Pro with feet, or $100 more than a maxed-out Mac Pro with wheels. While version with feet originally cost $52,599 if you chose all of its top-end components, the price now actually hits $53,399, as Apple has released an additional $2,600 8TB SSD upgrade.

The rack-mounted version of the Mac Pro is intended for use in a server rack setup, which means its case is slightly different. There are no feet or wheels (no surprises there), and the Mac Pro’s distinctive “cheese grater” top panel and handles have been relocated to the front to aid in removing the computer from its rack-mounted location.

The signature twist handle on the standard Mac Pro case is gone, replaced with two lock switches that allow the case to be removed and the internal components to be accessed. You still get the two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a power button, albeit in a different arrangement. Apple also includes rack-mounting rails (in a separate box) and, strangely, a mouse and keyboard, which is rare for a rack-mounted computer.

While all this sounds like an insanely expensive computer — and it is — it’s also insanely powerful. Well-known YouTubers Marques Brownlee, Jonathan Morrison and iJustine recently put it through its paces with some incredibly high-end workloads, and declared it one of the most powerful machines they’d ever used. If you’ve got the cash to pay for it, there’s no doubting you’re getting one of the most impressive computers on the market.

Computing Writer

Alex Blake has been working with Digital Trends since 2019, where he spends most of his time writing about Mac computers…

Topics

Computing

Microsoft has begun rolling out Copilot Code for building apps with natural language

The workplace-focused vibe coding tool can pull context from emails, documents, meetings, and chats.

Microsoft introduced Code last month as one of the three core parts of its revamped Copilot app. The app was pitched as an easy-to-use coding agent that lets users describe what they want to build in natural language, like an app, a tracker, a dashboard, an automation, or a workflow, and Copilot would build it for them.

Essentially, it's a workplace-focused vibe-coding app that turns existing work into a functional app, and Microsoft has begun rolling it out through the Frontier program.

Computing

AI agents are acting like rogues and causing a huge headache for US banks

US banks block AI agents over fears they could make unauthorised financial moves

Banking

US banks are facing a new kind of digital headache: artificial intelligence agents attempting to access customer accounts and perform actions that may go beyond what users intended. As AI tools become more capable of navigating websites and carrying out tasks independently, financial institutions are scrambling to prevent them from crossing security boundaries.

According to a report published by Axios on October 22, major US banks have detected third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts without authorisation. Some agents reportedly appeared to attempt actions independently of user instructions. The banks involved have not publicly detailed every incident, and there is no evidence that the reported activity resulted in widespread theft of customer funds.

Computing

Canva enters the AI image generation race with Craft, and it’s thinking beyond pretty pictures

The new model plans layouts before generating images, with precise editing and support for 30 aspect ratios.

Canva Craft Featured Image

AI can generate all kinds of pretty pictures, but getting it to spell a headline correctly or keep a poster's layout intact can be another story. Canva wants to fix that with Canva Craft, its first in-house image generation model. Rather than focusing primarily on photographs, Craft is designed around the posters, presentations, social media graphics, and other visual content people actually create. The goal is simple: spend less time fixing AI's mistakes and more time making something useful.

Canva Craft plans before it generates