2-year-old chip? 5-year-old design? Here's why the Mac Pro still reigns supreme

The Mac Pro isn't as upgradable as it once was, but it's still a sleeper pick for pro users.

- THIAGO TREVISAN

The Mac Pro has garnered staunch criticism from the crowd that would usually buy one-and in most cases, it's warranted. The Mac Studio (fave.co/44RXssy) is alarmingly good for much less money.

I, too, bought into the critique of the Mac Pro being a bad buy. But the Mac Pro does have value-a lot of it. As a fan of the 2019 Intel Mac Pro (fave.co/3CtrWIV), I tried the M2 Max MacBook Pro and Mac Studio, but I found that the Mac Pro has advantages that can't be overlooked.

The Mac Studio may be as fast as the Mac Pro, but it comes with a few extra friends on your desk.

HIDDEN COSTS OF OTHER MACS

When I tried to switch over to a MacBook Pro as my primary Mac, the problems started almost immediately as I attempted to mimic the hefty storage and port options that I had on my 2019 Mac Pro. I need more than the three Thunderbolt/ USB 4 ports on the MacBook Pro, so I required a Thunderbolt dock (fave.co/3h1wVoY). The Mac Studio has more ports, so I fared better with it, but I still needed a Sonnet Thunderbolt 4 Dock to support all the external devices I use.

The cost savings of the Mac Studio quickly start to dwindle when accounting for the expense of the external devices needed. There's the hub, all the cables needed to connect to the hub, and the enclosures I had to buy to house the items that were internally installed in my Mac Pro. If no enclosure was available, I had to buy external replacements.

You'll likely need a Thunderbolt Dock to support more devices without a Mac Pro.