The Top Mac Pro Costs ... You Don't Want to Know

The new Mac Pro tower is available and starts at $5,999—off the charts, right? Well it's nothing compared to this: Buy a fully pimped-out version and you'll lay down $52,599, or 56% more than the median annual US income of $33,700, CBS News reports. Apple says its new offering was "created to let a wide range of professionals push the limits of what is possible," meaning game designers, coders, animators, and other creative agencies are the intended targets. The eye-watering price tag will get you—among other things—a 2.5GHz 28-core processor ($7,000), 4TB of SSD storage ($1,400), 1.5TB DDR ECC memory ($25,000), and two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo graphics cards ($10,800).

And that doesn't include a monitor, which can run up to $5,999. But in an age of handheld video-watching and Steven Soderberg movies shot on iPhones, who needs mega-computer that resembles a cheese grater? "The people in the business of cool, that's who," writes Will Jeakle at Forbes. "The price is a feature, not a bug." Jeakle argues that like a Tesla, the Mac Pro is conspicuous consumption—proof that you're "keeping up with the Rockefellers." Less cynically, Mobile Syrup says it's for "massive companies like Disney-owned Industrial Light and Magic" making "the next Marvel blockbuster." In the words of Digital Trends, "It might not be made for you, but it was never supposed to be." (More Apple stories.)