Apple has teased the prospect of a more affordable GPU upgrade for the Mac Pro for months, and now it’s finally here. Apple is giving customers the option to pick either one or two Radeon Pro W5700X GPUs (with 16GB of VRAM) instead a single-card configuration will run you $600, while the dual config is $1,600.
It’s unclear why Apple is charging only $600 for the first card, but (effectively) $1,000 for the 2nd, but clearly, the company feels this is the best path forward. If you do decide to go with a single W5700X when building your Mac Pro for the first time, but later realize you need a bit more power, you aren’t out of luck. Apple is happy to sell you a second standalone card as a separate purchase for $1,000.
The Radeon Pro Vega II is more powerful overall with 14.1 teraflops (versus 9.4) and twice the RAM. If you rely on GPU-heavy tasks, it’s still the best choice. However, the W5700X is arguably a much better value with most of the performance at a quarter of the upgrade price.
