Apple's unveils new Mac Pro desktop with up to 12 processing cores

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
The long-awaited update to Apple's Mac Pro desktop was announced Tuesday, with the new tower sporting up to 12 processing cores with Intel Xeon processors, making it up to 50 percent faster than its predecessor. The hardware arrives in August.



The new Mac Pro desktops feature the latest quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors, all-new ATI graphics and the option for up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD). The processors run at speeds up to 3.33GHz and use a single die design so they can share up to 12MB L3 cache, improving efficiency while increasing processing speeds.



"The new Mac Pro is the most powerful and configurable Mac we've ever made," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "With up to 12 cores, the new Mac Pro outperforms our previous top-of-the-line system by up to 50 percent, and with over a billion possible configurations, our customers can create exactly the system they want."



The systems include an integrated memory controller for faster memory bandwidth and reduced memory latency; Turbo Boost to dynamically boost processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz; and Hyper-Threading to create up to 24 virtual cores. The Mac Pro now comes with the ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics processor with 1GB of memory and customers can configure-to-order the even faster ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of memory.







For the first time, Mac Pro customers have the option to order a 512GB SSD for the ultimate in reliability and lightning fast performance. With the ability to install up to four SSD drives in the system's internal drive bays, the new Mac Pro can provide ultra high-speed disk bandwidth and random disk performance, two times faster than the average performance of a standard disk drive.







Mac Pro also now features two Mini DisplayPorts and one dual-link DVI port. The additional Mini DisplayPort output allows customers to connect two LED Cinema Displays without an additional graphics card or adapter and the dual-link DVI port supports legacy DVI-based displays up to a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels.



Pricing & Availability



The new Mac Pro will be available in August through the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.



The new quad-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

one 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3530 processor with 8MB of fully-shared L3 cache;

3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 16GB;

ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;

two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);

1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;

18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);

four PCI Express 2.0 slots;

five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;

AirPort Extreme® 802.11n;

Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and

Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.



The new 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $3,499 (US), includes:

two 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 processors with 12MB of fully-shared L3 cache per processor;

6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;

ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;

two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);

1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;

18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);

four PCI Express 2.0 slots;

five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;

AirPort Extreme 802.11n;

Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and

Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

Configure-to-order options include:

one 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3565 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro;

one 3.33 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon W3680 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro;

two 2.66 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5650 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro;

two 2.93 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro;

two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;

one ATI Radeon HD 5870 card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;

up to 16GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the quad-core Mac Pro;

up to 32GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the 8-core Mac Pro;

up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD); or

up to four 1TB or 2TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm;

Mac Pro RAID card;

dual-channel or quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel card; and

up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support.







Accessories include: Magic Trackpad, Apple Battery Charger, wired Apple Mouse, wireless Apple Keyboard, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, the AppleCare Protection Plan; and pre-installed copies of Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server; iWork, Logic Express 9, Final Cut Express 4 and Aperture 3. Complete options and accessories are available at www.apple.com/macpro.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 210
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    Where the hell did this come from? The Apple store hasn't updated the Mac Pro at all. Still shows quad and double quad Xeons.





    http://www.apple.com/macpro/



    Coming August. May want to mention that.
  • Reply 2 of 210
    plovellplovell Posts: 824member
    Tuesday morning and all I can see on the Apple Store are the two Mac Pros that have been there for, well, ages. Quad-core and 8-core.



    Maybe they're selling them internationally first, for a change
  • Reply 3 of 210
    jwsjws Posts: 7member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by plovell View Post


    Tuesday morning and all I can see on the Apple Store are the two Mac Pros that have been there for, well, ages. Quad-core and 8-core.



    Maybe they're selling them internationally first, for a change



    http://www.apple.com/macpro/



    Says coming August
  • Reply 4 of 210
    kindredmackindredmac Posts: 153member
    They are coming out in August.



    BS on the price points and BS on the fact that it is still the same case as 6 years ago!
  • Reply 5 of 210
    WTF?!?!



    You can get a POS 4 core now for $2499
  • Reply 6 of 210
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    12 core starting at $5000!?!?
  • Reply 7 of 210
    huntsonhuntson Posts: 90member
    Anyone know when this is actually coming out - like WHAT DAY?
  • Reply 8 of 210
    joe hsjoe hs Posts: 488member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by huntson View Post


    Anyone know when this is actually coming out - like WHAT DAY?



    "august"
  • Reply 9 of 210
    Lame! I've been waiting for months for the Mac Pro update. I guess I had hoped that the large amount of time between updates meant that something noteworthy would happen in the update. A hackintosh is looking more and more attractive.
  • Reply 10 of 210
    ricmacricmac Posts: 65member
    Sooo.... the rules are that the Apple Haters post first? Is that it?
  • Reply 11 of 210
    svnippsvnipp Posts: 430member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sthenidas View Post


    Lame! I've been waiting for months for the Mac Pro update. I guess I had hoped that the large amount of time between updates meant that something noteworthy would happen in the update. A hackintosh is looking more and more attractive.



    How exactly is this lame?!?! You can now get up to 12 cores, better video, and SSDs straight from Apple. Of course, USB 3.0 would be nice, but what more were you looking for exactly?



    Now, just as soon as I hit the Lotto I'll be able to order me one of these tricked out bad boys. Just imagine 12 cores and 2TB of SSD storage with 32GB of RAM and a top of the line video card.
  • Reply 12 of 210
    seek3rseek3r Posts: 179member
    Interesting, no nvidia cards...
  • Reply 13 of 210
    bdkennedy1bdkennedy1 Posts: 1,459member
    That's one hell of a price increase.
  • Reply 14 of 210
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by svnipp View Post


    How exactly is this lame?!?! You can now get up to 12 cores, better video, and SSDs straight from Apple. Of course, USB 3.0 would be nice, but what more were you looking for exactly?



    Now, just as soon as I hit the Lotto I'll be able to order me one of these tricked out bad boys. Just imagine 12 cores and 2TB of SSD storage with 32GB of RAM and a top of the line video card.



    Keep imagining. Because that's all you'll be doing until you win the 'Lotto.



    £1995 for the base 'pro.'



    :/



    Lemon Bon Bon.
  • Reply 15 of 210
    bdkennedy1bdkennedy1 Posts: 1,459member
    Try 7 years. 2003. And now it will be another year which makes 8 years.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KindredMac View Post


    They are coming out in August.



    BS on the price points and BS on the fact that it is still the same case as 6 years ago!



  • Reply 16 of 210
    Seems like a speed bump for entry level mac pro. Don't need SSD since I don't bounce my towers around. What do you get better for $2499. Read the promos. It sounds like they just came out with this form factor for the first time.
  • Reply 17 of 210
    kishankishan Posts: 732member
    I guess part of what we pay Apple to do is come up with new designs, but for their "workstation" computer, I guess I don't see the need. What glaring deficiency is there in the case design of the MacPro?



    We can (and should) certainly debate about whether BluRay should be an option, whether they really are offering the best available graphics cards and so forth, but the case design seems darn-near perfect.



    Built-in obsolescence is a feature of consumer-level devices and goods (think how dated the "old" iPods from three years ago look, or the white iMacs). I just don't see the need to change what is a very functional design for a professional level machine.
  • Reply 18 of 210
    To me everything looks great, except for the RAM. I usually try to not have very high expectations, but I couldn't help myself this time, so I was expecting it to support up to 128GB RAM - or at the very least 64GB. As there have been motherboards with support for 8 cores and 144GB RAM available for a long time now I expected Apple to support 8GB RAM modules, but apparently they only support 1GB, 2GB and 4GB modules. Anyone know why?



    Hey, I'll be fine with support for up to 32GB RAM for quite some time, but I was hoping my purchase of a Mac Pro could be a seriously long-term investment. Maybe that's why Apple don't support more RAM at the moment.
  • Reply 19 of 210
    damn_its_hotdamn_its_hot Posts: 1,209member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by IronHeadSlim View Post


    Seems like a speed bump for entry level mac pro. Don't need SSD since I don't bounce my towers around. What do you get better for $2499. Read the promos. It sounds like they just came out with this form factor for the first time.



    About not bouncing your Mac around. You are aware, I assume that the SSD's are MUCH faster than a mechanical HD?
  • Reply 20 of 210
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KindredMac View Post


    They are coming out in August.



    BS on the price points and BS on the fact that it is still the same case as 6 years ago!



    It's a workstation machine, it's not very comparable to consumer systems.



    It has a similar shell, but they've changed the inside, front and back a little bit on every update.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SSquirrel View Post


    12 core starting at $5000!?!?



    HP's basic 12 core is $5600:



    Z600 12 core



    In my experience, HP's workstations are pretty well built too.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JoeDyndale View Post


    To me everything looks great, except for the RAM. I usually try to not have very high expectations, but I couldn't help myself this time, so I was expecting it to support up to 128GB RAM - or at the very least 64GB. As there have been motherboards with support for 8 cores and 144GB RAM available for a long time now I expected Apple to support 8GB RAM modules, but apparently they only support 1GB, 2GB and 4GB modules. Anyone know why?



    Hey, I'll be fine with support for up to 32GB RAM for quite some time, but I was hoping my purchase of a Mac Pro could be a seriously long-term investment. Maybe that's why Apple don't support more RAM at the moment.



    Part of it is if there isn't a good supply of them, they have no way to validate them. A lot of times, you'll find that a Mac will work with larger sticks than they say the machine supports.
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