Rack-mount Mac Pro now available, starts at US $6500

Apple’s Mac Pro has been available for a little over a month ago, but only as a traditional desktop tower. Those waiting for a Mac Pro in a rack-mountable form factor had to wait until this week. As of yesterday, Apple has started selling a rack-mountable Mac Pro, albeit at a slightly higher cost.

The rack-mountable Mac Pro is internally the same as the standard Mac Pro. Configurations start with an 8-core Intel Xeon W CPU clocked at 3.5 GHz with 32 GB of RAM, a 256 GB PCIe SSD, and a Radeon Pro 580X GPU. Like the tower Mac Pro, this version can be specced out with the exact same options, all the way up to a 2.5 GHz 28-core Xeon W CPU, 1.5 TB of DDR4 ECC RAM, 8 TB of SSD storage, and dual Radon Pro Vega II Duo GPUs.

The key differentiator between the two Mac Pro models is design. As its description suggests, the rack-mountable Mac Pro doesn’t have any legs (or expensive wheels). Rather, this form factor has stainless steel rails that allow it to slide into a server rack. The top panel (where the side panel would be on the standard tower) can be removed to access the internals.

Another difference between the two models is the price. Buyers have to shell out an additional US $500 for the rack mount form factor, regardless of the selected internals. That means the rack-mounted Mac Pro starts at US $6499 and goes all the way up to $51,899 (sans peripherals and extra software). Purchases will begin shipping out between January 23 and February 13.

What do you think of the rack-mounted Mac Pro? Are those rails worth the extra $500? Let us know in the comments.