I Bought A Brand New 2013 Mac Pro in 2020

The pinnacle of Apple’s obsession with form over function

I have been collecting Macs for a few years, but it’s rare to pick up a computer for my collection that can still run modern software. So after writing an article for The Startup on creating a workspace for my hobbies, I had this bright idea to find a collectible computer that would still work with my new drawing monitor. Then it dawned on me that I haven’t owned a Mac Pro in over a decade; my last one was a G5 tower. So, I planned to buy one of the last-model cheesegrater Mac Pros (5,1) since I had been watching a lot of videos on how to max them out. In the end, I wound up buying a 2013 Mac Pro instead.

The 2013 Mac Pro has always appealed to my design aesthetics. It’s a beautiful computer yet entirely impractical for professionals, exactly like the G4 Cube. The Cube is one of my favorite Mac designs of all time, but the 2013 Mac Pro is something entirely different. I almost bought one a few years back, but the price versus value never made any sense. So, with the idea in my head to get a new Mac for my collection, I started scouring eBay for deals. I was surprised to see there were none to be had for the Mac Pro 5,1 or the 2013 model. My original budget was under $1k, including any CPU and GPU upgrades. But, I quickly had to increase my budget to get…