iMac Pro Teardown
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- We can’t think of a better way to ring in the new year than starting it off with a good ol’ fashioned teardown, so we spent all of our Christmas money to take apart the new (very expensive) iMac Pro.
Get the tools we used in this video:
iMac Pro Memory Maxxer Kit
www.ifixit.com...
Pro Tech Screwdrivers
www.ifixit.com...
iMac Opening Wheel
www.ifixit.com...
iMac Service Wedge
www.ifixit.com...
Subscribe to our channel for all our latest teardown and repair videos!
www.youtube.co...
Follow us on Twitter: / ifixit
Check us out on Facebook: / ifixit
It would be nice if you showed us how to put it back together
Vinay S. Shah Hence the reason they have a website.
true tho
Wow! I am impressed, this is much more upgradeable and fixable than I thought, I thought everything would just be soldered.
1:00 I can stare at this interior for a whole day
I was, in fact, VERY surprised at how loud and bass the new speaker system is in the iMac Pro. I own a baseline myself. It's a MONSTER!
The contributors to this channel are STEM badasses. Thank you for doing the work you do
I was thinking about putting the components into a mac pro 2009 case
“A major undertaking” compared to the upgrade I did to an old 2011 iMac to give it an SSD, upgrading the RAM in this thing is a walk in the park!
Give us a like on Facebick...
You didn't talk about the T2 :(
The iMac Pro is a lot more modular than I had expected. Sure, you can't replace the GPU, and the SSDs are proprietary, but this is still a level of upgradeability I didn't think Apple would have offered. I just wish they would let you upgrade the RAM on their newer laptops.
Wow Ive never seen the inside of a iMac that was simply awesome thank you.
It looks like people calling it a RAID is a bit off, since each drive blade just has NAND, no SSD controller. It's one controller looking at a split group of NAND chips, so more like a single SSD doing the splits. Performance is just a bit better than their regular 3GB/s SSD, probably from T2 handling encryption too.
Well, its not identical to RAID but the outcome is the same on all SSDs, the more chips you have, the more speed you usually get but if one chip or the controller dies all data is gone.
This time I can't say it's not worth penny! Just like other Mac (in half price of the old Mac ...we can get dope spec gaming PC) but now..! Nope...it has one of the most dope spec ! Damn Xeon and Vega graphics 🔥
Wow you guys made that look way easier compared to Linus tech tips hahahah
Very nice presentation.
nice job, before you buy be ensure everything is enough for your requirements
I love you guys!
Where is air intake? and What is big black circle at the center (behind the fans)? Sorry, I'm not iMac user. 🤣
Hey iFixit, this is guys.
lol
That only works on Austin
Great job
Love your videos and your audio, what kind of microphone do you use?
Happy new year
you cant replace the gpu but you can connect 4 external gpu's!
Thanks for these great videos, these do help a lot.
It seems those hinges (stand) are better now. I hope apple is not using any plastic pieces (washers) to hold those springs any more.
Thank you for video!
Beautiful video! Fml!
when steve jobs was around, i have the first imac with a aluminium frame, and one of the vents on the bottom unscrews so you can swap out the ram.
That's what one thing i like about apple. Beautiful outside as well as inside.
Awesome!!!
You are amazing.
Great video thank you. Curious? Do these teardown units get put back together or are they thrown in the parts bin? Hopefully put back together but had to ask :)
How to get rid off a ANT inside my imac screen, it feels me so annoying. please answer. apple doesnt care for it.
1:22 Is that the Apple A10 chip in between the 2 M.2 SSD?
No Its the T2 its controls the webcam and the SSD raid
Yes. We’ve know it’s there for some time, and it’s expected to power “hey Siri” functionality, but no software exists for it yet.
Wtf? It says T2?
Excellent as always but do you really need background music?
Apple always can make a beautiful computer ❤️
Hey ifixit which device scored near to ten on your score dial, cause every device I have seen doesn't goes more than 6
128GB RAM!
U People R Awesome at Teardown!
not for me.. missing Computer about 10+ years ago...when Upgrading was a Snap! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👍🏼😀
Cool !!
Man, for someone really in to building pc's, that kind of engineering is so incredible, I get goosebumps. To think that all of this parts has to be custom built for apple, there's a reason why their prices are at a premium. I'm curious though, what is this workstation for? I'm not entirely sure who this product is for exactly or what kind of workload would benefit from those kinds of hardware. Sure that's a multicore, xeon cpu, but the ipc is too low for workloads that require higher ipc's. And then there's the rams. Why would anyone need an ECC ram stick for this. Is this for a server? I mean with 128gb, you can pretty much run 128tb of server. Would those thunderbolt ports be able to handle raid?
Nice trap beat
It's true that the GPU is soldered to the board which sucks.. but then again, there's TB3 that can support eGPUs so I don't think that's a huge problem? Or am I missing something here?
That’s very expensive external gpu shrouds are 200+ and the graphics card ,but then if your paying for the iMac pro 400+ is that much
Even Thunderbolt has bandwidth limitations when you are rerouting the gpu back the the display. A Vega 64 would probably already bottleneck a 4 lane display cycled TB3 port so where are you going to go from there? Even if you aren't using the Macs display (which already seems like a crazy thing to give up) you'd still be hitting walls quick.
I will not even touch my imac Pro Gurl Damn!!!!!!!!!
Yay
Apple devices are beautiful from the in- and outside ❤️
I wonder what kind of LGA is that?
How dangerous is that uncovered PSU?
Wow!
Where can you upgrade your ram on a imac pro?
They call this a pro model, the non-pro model 27" has upgradable RAM through a hatch on the back.... It really doesn't make sense to me
Upgradability is NOT the definition of a pro machine.
How brave u r!
what is with the graphics-card ? it's possible to upgrade to a VEGA 64
You can spec it out with a Vega 56 or Vega 64. Non replaceable. Unless you have a spare Imac Pro mobo around.
Is it possible to upgrade the display?
No need to! Its awesome already!
Allan Sh but why?
This is basically the best display you can get.
Do u need more than a custom retina 5k display? Thats the best display yet in an “all in one pc” boi
Allan Sh I mean. Maybe.
I saw T2 chip
Thank you so much
yay
Pretty ballsy that they call this the 'pro'.
When I have worked in enterprise level IT, we regularly wrench on all of our computers. Servers, laptops, desktops and yes Macs. In the olden days I often would cannibalize one Mac Pro to keep another one running. Often because of a mission critical graphics job. In Apple's current model they expect you to take your Mac to them or a service center.
Even in NYC or SF that means 48 hours turnaround at best. Quite a lot longer if they have to order a Logic board.
And this new T2 chip encrypted SSD has me worried that there will be no way to ensure data survives such a repair.
There is e-gpu now! No need to change the one in the interior.
And suffer a 30% performance loss if you're using the internal panel. I don't think it would be worth it, dude. Also I don't think you can repair a gpu by adding an egpu so in general, unless you specifically need some quadro features I don't think you're getting much out of an egpu. At least in high bandwidth situations.
Why i’m whatching this, i don’t even have 5000$ imac..
I certainly hope Apple sent you this for free.
Apple will never do it because Apple don't want customers to repair their devices by themselves.
"The SSDs are modular, but their custom-made by Apple"
Ok their f****** ridiculous how dare Apple to do that
What is BGA soldering?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_grid_array
Wheres the tower?
Do I have to tear down the hole computer to upgrade the RAM?
Yes :)
When people complain about these things I'm always wondering "How often do you plan on upgrading your RAM?"
If you expect this hefty investment to last at least for 4-5 years, that's when you start thinking about RAM upgrades.
every day or so
nah like once in its lifetime. spending a few hours doing this to save a ton of money is definitely worth it
2:57 “Facebic”
How can Apple manage to power a Vega 64 with a 500W system power supply?
They are power hungry but not that power hungry in reality. People often over rate power requirements. Apple also don't have to guess the power requirements of the rest of the system.
#rip linus's imac pro
Wow
So technically, this machine IS upgradeable....but you just have to rip the damn thing completely apart in order to do so. Maybe on the cheaper non Pro iMacs I would upgrade mine on my own, but for a $5000+ machine, I'd rather just buy the one with better specs. I'm not going to risk doing thousands of dollars worth of damage all because I wanted to throw an extra $150 worth of 16 gigs of RAM in the base model, and void my warranty in the process, therefore losing the chance that I would get the machine replaced if anything goes wrong with it in the future. Like I said, other cheaper machines that are easier to upgrade I wouldn't care less about upgrading because the potential loss is nowhere near as high as it would be for this machine.
Just add more external gpus
Forgot to mention that the power supply has no cover so you can really hurt your self.
hey
Damn for $5000 i could make or but a gaming pc that never sweats
Ya the iMac is pretty shitty upgrade wise but I'd give it a 4 Maybeeeeee a 5 but not a 3 as the iMacs repairability score.
It's odd to see them like my comment after 2 months of time passing. Lol
A professional used computer needs a professional cooling.
No all in once device can do this unless they get as fat as CRT monitors.
Thats why i stay with Hackintoshs and an older upgradeable 2010 MacBook Pro
Ed Saucin sleep
One heck of an assembly, have to say it's better than what Microsoft has been complicating with their line up of devices.
I didn't think that was possible.
DO NOT DO THIS!!! If you mess something up you WILL need to FULLY REPLACE the system!
APPLE WILL NOT DO ANY REPAIRS FOR YOU OR AUTHORIZE ANY REPAIR OR SHIPMENT OF PARTS IF YOU OPEN THE SYSTEM, *EVEN IF YOU PAY THEM!!!!!*
Is this legal? It shouldn't be, but it is in fact legal!
they could have make it cost way less.why use that RAM for starts? too expensive and same performance as normal ram.custom made SSD that should be really cheap not expensive...this should be 2000 not 5000.and they woulod still make like 500 per machine.
Protohumans This is workstation grade gear, not consumer.
She said "Facebic"
Apple is actively trying to fight the laws of physics...
...before we have levitating iMacs...
Right! 😅
Apple wont repair this if you opened it at all.
i subscribe
I think the low end iMac Pros are around 5 grand so when you get to the serious monsters you are way way over that price tag.
For me I'd need upgrade ability to spend that kind of cash. If you can't even upgrade the video card then this is a non starter. Just build one.
she said facebig
waow
I think Tim Cook is artificially upping the asking price by 1000. That is my main problem with Apple's new computers. The XEON W 28 core processor is going for 3000 off New Egg. Apple does not use GOLD or PLATINUM, they use OEM W. An Asus Dual SOCKET Motherboard goes for 661.74. That means for 6661.00 I could have a 48 core machine. The Asus only takes 64 GB chip so it maxes at half the new Mac Pro. But for 7200 I could have a 48 core machine with 128GB ram (expandable to 768GB of RAM). Steve Jobs was far more OPAQUE with his pricing architecture. I could rarely JUSTIFY switching over to PC. But, Tim Cook keeps passing failure and price point onto the customer and that isn't the APPLE WAY.
www.newegg.com/p/N82E16819118010?item=9SIA6ZP8U99591&source=region&nm_mc=knc-googlemkp-pc&cm_mmc=knc-googlemkp-pc-_-pla-nothingbutsavings.com-_-processors+-+server-_-9SIA6ZP8U99591&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsrebofjm4wIVj_5kCh2HiwqcEAkYAyABEgI_5fD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
www.amazon.com/ASUS-C621E-Sage-Workstation-Motherboard/dp/B07BHWCGDD/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=asus+dual+socket&qid=1564843154&s=electronics&sr=1-2
www.nemixram.com/64gb-ddr4-2666-lrdimm-4rx4-for-asus-ws-c621e-sage-ml21300-944k1-asu-15104.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_behuvbm4wIVicJkCh1BdQ27EAQYASABEgJKA_D_BwE
Buy a new battery to clock XD
Instal a core i9 inside
Apple have the best engineer designer. Thanks to Steve Jobs attributes to perfection.
For $5k I expect 2 1080ti's in sli, an 8 core cpu, 32gb ram, and everything watercooled.
Kellen Bluestein water cooled screws, water cooled fans, water cooled chassis...
Learn to understand your computer components. These are not consumer-grade components but rather an enterprise one, hence the pro and there are very specific applications for these kinds of hardware. They are so much more expensive than your typical consumer grade components like a 16gb ECC ram is 184usd/ea vs 104usd for the consumer ones. ECC's are mostly used for servers/workstations where systems are meant to run 24/7 and there can't be any rooms for any data corruptions like for financial or scientific computing. If you try to build a similar grade system with the same specs, you would not have room or money for water cooling at all.
Systems are built for specific purposes. It's ridiculous to spend this much money for a simple consumer or small business setup where you don't need any of the capabilities that these systems have as these iMac Pro's are not designed for overclocking. or high clock speed cpus. If you'll only be using the computer for gaming, then sure build one with a water cooling system and use the appropriate components.
It's a real shame that the iMac Pro comes with a soon-to-be-obsolete display that cannot produce HDR10 and is limited to 500 nits of brightness. In the next few months several display manufacturers will be releasing 4K and 5K displays with 600-1000 nit brightness and true HDR capabilities. Regardless of the CPU and RAM upgrades, you cannot upgrade the iMac Pro display. For this price, they really should have included a full HDR10 display.
I'm already getting a LED tan from my iMac Pro. I don't need it any brighter...
Why would you needed to be so bright you’re not taking outside
But those panels probably wont be making it into peoples homes for at least a couple more years.. And it would have just made the price even higher... Those panels will very expensive for awhile.
BLAH BLAH BLAH, they won't be under $5k and they WON'T have a AMD Vega 56/64 graphics card.
Cody M The iMac Pro shouldn’t be making its way into people’s homes either... Workstation computer for well... work. That’s not to say you can’t work at home but this computer is by no means for a consumer.
This costs 5000$???? Is this a joke?
its not a pro if you cant upgrade it, more like pos
Alpha, a professional doesn't just care about can it run the stuff I need without bottlenecking, they also care about downtime due to hardware failure. With a typical desktop like what you see with many of the custom built machines on TH-cam, diagnostics can be ran on an open air test bench, or with the side panel of a case removed for easy component access and stability checks. A complete system replacement can happen in a few hours as opposed to the days or even weeks you'd have to wait the iMac Pro you sent in for repair to get back you, depending on distance to the nearest repair center and nature of the problem.
Plus, when upgrading or replacing, you don't have to toss out that beaut of a display.
Coming out with those facts, and knowledge!
llol
Get a hackingtosh ffs
build a pc
Santarpan Roy oh really? Haven’t seen this comment 582852427 times already. What should I do? Buy this Mac or build a PC?
😂
I wonder if Apple is secretly slowing down the iMac like they did with older iPhones
The reason they are slowing them down is so the older batteries don't die so quickly. And since iMacs don't have a battery, there's no reason why they should be slowing them down
Yeah because they have batteries inside...
They havent‘ a battery inside
Probably not, people typically do not complain about their performance of their macs after updating to the latest OS, plus the battery is much much larger than any battery in an iPhone
No, that's Intel's job.
(Because of the newly found design flaws in their CPUs)
It's a nice looking computer, but for such amount of money you can build a much more powerful and good looking and upgradeable PC and still have money left, and install MacOs on it if you want it so desperately.
You actually cant. You can make a more upgradeable machine that is louder and takes up more space. But part for part you'll maybe save 500 dollars. But when you build you can skip out on 5k screens and such.
Grahamhg man u dumb who tf pays 220 for windows ?? Just search for keyshops.
Good luck getting the AMD Vega 56/64
And not only that (what paradiddlepedro said), but because you will _have to_ upgrade your machine _frequently_ you really aren't even saving "maybe 500 dollars." In fact, you're losing quite a lot of money. For lesser quality.
As someone who built my own PC I hate this argument. People pay to not build something themselves. People pay for something that looks good. People pay for something that has a warranty. Just because you can build a PC doesnt mean everyone wants to or should.
This computer is not $ 5.000 worth
it's definitely worth $5.00 lol
Michael Ba. it is.
Do u own a freaking pc?
It’s very hard to compete price wise with it.
There is a lot of hardware packed behind a 5k screen. Those two things alone are hard to find for a workstation
Believe me, it is!