Turns out the new $6,000 Mac Pro isn't a very good cheese grater

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

Apple is now two for two with its Mac Pro designs: Specifically, it has a perfect record of making Mac Pros that look like everyday household objects, but do not actually function as those objects. In 2013, Apple designed a very sleek, cylindrical Mac Pro that looked like Darth Vader's trashcan. But you couldn't put trash in it! Disappointing, but not as disappointing as this 2019 Mac Pro redesign. This year Apple went back to the tower design, making a system that looks a lot more like a PC and the Mac Pros of old... except with a cheese grater on the front?

The new model was immediately christened the cheese grater Mac Pro thanks to its heavy grille. But today we have proof, thanks to iFixit, that it is a very bad cheese grater. And a very expensive one, at a starting price of $6,000.

An average cheese grater costs about $10, and is very good at grating both cheese and knuckles. The $6,000 Mac Pro, on the other hand, doesn't so much grate the cheese as just slice off chunks of it, which get firmly lodged in the grille.

Presumably this computer is very good at rendering video and doing other things that you need an extreme workstation for. It better be, considering if you fully kit it out, it costs a ludicrous $53,000. But no matter how much you spend it's not good at grating cheese, the one thing it looks like it should be very good at doing. I'm excited to see the next Apple design that keeps this streak going.

Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Latest in Gaming PCs
HP Omen 45L gaming desktop
This Redditor rocked up to Best Buy and bought an RTX 4060 gaming PC for cheaper than its extended warranty, saving $1,195 and their friend from buying a console
A gaming PC with RGB lighting enabled on a desk.
This gaming PC build smashes together the very latest components but if I did it again, I'd do it differently
Skytech Shadow gaming PC on a blue background
Screw waiting for GPU restocks, with an AMD RX 9070 gaming PC going for as cheap as this I'd hop on the pre-built bandwagon
Cobratype RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC on a blue background
This RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC is about as cheap as we've seen so far, and it's got me all nostalgic for PC prices long past
Framework Desktop with AMD Strix Halo mainboard
iFixit has pulled apart Framework's mini PC and it looks to be the AMD Strix Halo-powered desktop device I've been wanting for at least a week and more
Framework Desktop with AMD Strix Halo mainboard
Framework's first desktop PC is giving us the AMD Strix Halo machine we've been craving, and the opportunity to build our own
Latest in News
Silent Hill f transmission trailer screenshots
Silent Hill f is not messing around – now it's been banned in Australia
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 22: A view of Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California, United States on August 22, 2024.
'Google must divest the Chrome browser:' DOJ renews call for Google to sell Chrome, and Android could be next
Victory screen of Big Rigs showing infamous "You're Winner" message under a three-handle gold trophy
One of the worst games ever made is coming to Steam, but we won't know how cruel this joke is until we see the price tag
Sci-fi character from Dune
Dune: Awakening promises us a breath of fresh air, skipping early access for a full launch with no monthly subscription in May
Baldur's Gate 3 Karlach concept art
'The dream of the tech industry is to sell off your company at an overinflated price and retire,' says actor behind Baldur's Gate 3's Karlach, 'And I feel that's being done with game studios right now'
assassin's creed shadows protector's armor
Assassin's Creed Shadows hits 2 million players, putting it on track to be the series' most successful game yet