Update Dec. 14: Apple’s new iMac Pro is now available for order starting at $4,999. If you are in the market for the top-of-the-range iMac Pro, with 18-core Intel Xeon processor, 4TB of solid-state drive storage, 128GB of ECC RAM and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 graphics with 16GB of HBM2 memory you will need to part with an eye-watering $13,199 (ships in six to eight weeks). There are also software add-ons like the new Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X. Apple confirmed at a private media briefing Wednesday that the iMac Pro will be available at Apple Stores by mid next week.

The new iMac Pro was teased earlier this year at Apple Inc.’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, with the company boasting that it was the “fastest and most powerful Mac ever created.”

Apple also said the new iMac Pro would be available before the end of the year and with a few weeks to spare, the new machine finally goes on sale Thursday.

Earlier this year, Apple broke its usual veil of secrecy and spoke with a group of journalists about its plans for a major rethinking of its desktop Mac Pro and iMac. Apple has faced accusations in the past by professional Mac users who have felt the company focuses more on the design of new computers, rather than processing power. With Microsoft Corp. designing iMac Pro competitors such as the Surface Studio, Apple had to up its game to keep its Pro users happy.  

If early reviews are anything to go on, Apple has definitely focused on power. “I’ve seldom seen a jump this dramatic before on any new generation of Macs – 20%-30% speed increases are the norm … NOT 200%-300% increases. That’s SIGNIFICANT,” wrote one reviewer, Vincent Laforet. Another, Thomas Grove Carter, said, “It’s by far the fastest Mac I’ve ever used. And in conjunction with #FCPX 10.4 you can do some pretty astonishing things with it!”    

Here’s a look at the new iMac Pro, including design, price and its powerful specs:

Design

The 5K 27-inch display iMac Pro with 5,120 x 2,880 resolution supports up to a billion colors. It sticks with its iconic all-in-one design, but comes in the company’s new Space Gray color scheme. The iMac Pro also includes a 1,080p FaceTime HD camera.

All the accessories also come in the new color scheme, including a new Magic Keyboard with a numeric keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2.  

The iMac Pro comes with four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, four USB 3 ports, an SDXC card slot with support for UHS‑II, a 3.5mm headphone jack and support for up to 10-gigabytes Ethernet.

Under the hood

The iMac Pro comes in a choice of an 8-core, 10-core or 18-core Xeon processor, with between 32-gigabytes and 128GB of RAM and up to a 4-terabyte solid-state drive storage.

Confirmed by Cabel Sasser, one of the lucky early reviewers of the iMac Pro is that the next-generation device includes a brand new T2 chip. Apple introduced the T1 chipset last year with the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and support for Touch ID.

④ New Chip. This seems big. The iMac Pro features new apple custom silicon: the T2 chip. It integrates previously discrete components, like the SMC, ISP for the camera, audio control, SSD control… plus a secure enclave, and a hardware encryption engine.

— Cabel Sasser (@cabel) December 12, 2017

Considering the T2 chip will handle all of these components, this frees up the iMac Pro’s primary processor to devote more of its power to core computing tasks such as video and graphics rendering.

The top-of-the-range iMac Pro comes with a powerful 18-core Xeon processor, 128GB of memory, 4TB of storage and an incredibly hefty price tag still to be announced.

Virtual reality

At WWDC, Apple finally announced it was ready to embrace virtual reality and introduced Metal 2, the new version of its hardware-accelerated graphics applications programming interface, which offers native VR support.

The iMac Pro sports the Radeon Pro Vega graphics chip, which is three times faster than the previous graphics processing unit, according to Apple.

The new GPU, “lets you do more than just immerse yourself in VR worlds. It lets you create them from scratch,” writes Apple.

Price and availability

Obviously, the iMac Pro doesn’t come cheap, with a starting price of $4,999. This base model sports an eight-core Xeon processor, 1TB of storage and 32GB of RAM. Apple is yet to unveil detailed pricing for the other models.  

Preorders start on Thursday with the 8- and 10-core machines shipping this year, while the 18-core (and a possible 14-core) iMac Pro will ship early next year.   

The Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse, both in Space Gray, are included with the purchase of the iMac Pro.

Images: Apple