Apple's Mac Pro goes on sale; top-end model costs $9,600

The new workstation costs $3,000 for the basic but still powerful model, but upgrading the processor, storage, and graphics quickly raises the price.

The Mac Pro is a compact cylinder, but its design won't be so sleek after people plug in power cords, video capture hardware, external storage systems, Ethernet cables, or other devices.

(Credit: Apple)
The $3,000 entry-level configuration of Apple's new Mac Pro is nothing to sneeze at -- but if you want more horsepower, the price goes up rapidly as high as $9,600.
Apple's distinctively glossy black and cylindrical Mac Pro just went on sale Thursday, with a ship date of December 30. Apple teased customers for more than a year about the new machine, which replaces a much bulkier and now quite elderly Mac Pro. Mac Pros are geared for people with demanding computing chores, with video editing at the top of the list: each step up in computing power means that editors can add new effects, experiment with more looks for a scene, or share rough cuts sooner.

The basic model of the distinctive workstation includes a 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with a 10MB memory cache, 12GB of 1866MHz DDR3 error-correcting memory, dual AMD FirePro D300 graphics chips with 2GB of video memory each, and a 256GB SSD whose flash memory is connected via the PCI Express bus for faster performance than ordinary SATA-connected SSDs.

It's also got four USB 3.0 ports, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, an HDMI 1.4 port, two gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless networking, a headphone jack, a digital or analog audio output jack, and a built-in speaker.

If you have another $1,000 to spend and you don't want a new MacBook Air, you can pick a higher-end Mac Pro configuration. It's got a six-core Xeon E5 with 12MB of cache, 16GB of memory, and dual AMD Firepro D500 graphics chips.

t's also got four USB 3.0 ports, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, an HDMI 1.4 port, two gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless networking, a headphone jack, a digital or analog audio output jack, and a built-in speaker.

If you have another $1,000 to spend and you don't want a new MacBook Air, you can pick a higher-end Mac Pro configuration. It's got a six-core Xeon E5 with 12MB of cache, 16GB of memory, and dual AMD Firepro D500 graphics chips.

The Mac Pro is built in the US.

(Credit: Apple)
For the higher-end Mac Pro, moving to the 3.0GHz 8-core chip with 25MB of cache adds $1,500.00, and the 2.7GHz 12-core chip with 30MB of cache adds $3,000.
Upgrading the basic configuration to 16GB of memory costs another $100, 32GB costs $500 more, and 64GB costs $1,300 more. Upgrading the higher-end model to 32GB costs $400 more, and to 64GB costs $1,200 more.

For graphics upgrades, the lower-end starter model offers two upgrades: dual AMD FirePro D500 graphics chips with 3GB video RAM for another $400, or dual D700 graphics chips with 6GB of VRAM for another $1,000. The higher-end Mac Pro offers only the latter upgrade, which costs another $600.

Adding Apple's mouse or trackpad costs another $69, and adding the company's wireless keyboard also costs $69.
The Mac Pro doesn't have a monitor, of course, but you can add an Apple 27-inch Thunderbolt display for $1,000 or a 32-inch Sharp PN-K321 4K display for $3,595.
Shipping is free, though.

The upgrade options for the Mac Pro quickly push up the workstation's price from its base-model $1,000 configuration. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)