This Mac Pro rival crushes Apple’s workstation on performance and costs $10,000 less

There was no Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra introduced in March 2023. It never came despite the clamor and the hopes of Apple fans that work in the creative industry and it is no surprise that some of them are planning to move to Windows altogether to ease their transition to newer and faster technology rather than waiting for upgrades that may or may not come. I surveyed the US Windows workstation market, looking at 17 companies, from boutique providers to global brands to find out the best Mac Pro alternative and found one clear winner.

Thinkmate is not a household name (although one might confuse it with Lenovo’s popular Thinkstation brand) but this boutique vendor covers the US, Canada, the UK and the EU. Its VSX R5 760S1 fitted the bill when looking for an alternative to the Mac Pro. What’s more, it is whisper-quiet thanks to a clever choice of components; the chassis is a dual-chamber one which, according to the vendor, “reduces heat and noise by increasing airflow efficiency and isolating the power supply from the rest of the system components”. 

Windows vs Mac: The low down