Apple Mac Pro line overhauled with 12 processing cores, arriving in August for $4,999
By Vlad Savov 
posted July 27th 2010 8:34AM
posted July 27th 2010 8:34AM
Perhaps the most welcome upgrade is on the graphical front, where the Radeon HD 5770 takes up the mantle of default GPU, with additional options for a pair of such cards or a step up to a 1GB HD 5870 alternative if you're keen on maxing out those frame rates. Memory isn't neglected either, with choices ranging all the way up to 32GB of RAM, 4TB of conventional HDD storage, or an array of four 512GB SSDs -- though you're probably better off not asking how much that last one will set you back. The comprehensive specs can be found in the full press release after the break.
Apple Unveils New Mac Pro With Up to 12 Processing Cores
CUPERTINO, California-July 27, 2010-Apple® today unveiled a new Mac® Pro line with up to 12 processing cores and up to 50 percent greater performance than the previous generation.* Featuring 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 new Mac Pro continues to deliver amazing performance and expandability for the most demanding consumers and professionals.
"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."
At the heart of the new Mac Pro's performance are next generation quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors running at speeds up to 3.33 GHz. These multi-core processors use a single die design so each core can share up to 12MB L3 cache to improve efficiency while increasing processing speed. These systems feature 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.
Every Mac Pro comes with Apple's innovative Magic Mouse and customers can also order Apple's new Magic Trackpad as an option. The Magic Trackpad brings the intuitive Multi-Touch™ gestures of Mac notebook trackpads to the desktop. With its glass surface, the wireless Magic Trackpad allows users to scroll smoothly up and down a page with inertial scrolling, pinch to zoom in and out, rotate an image with their fingertips and swipe three fingers to flip through a collection of web pages or photos. The Magic Trackpad can be configured to support single button or two button commands and supports tap-to-click as well as a physical click. Magic Trackpad is available separately for $69.
Continuing Apple's commitment to the environment, Apple's desktop lineup is a leader in green design. The Mac Pro meets stringent Energy Star 5.0 requirements and achieves EPEAT Gold status.*** The Mac Pro enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and the interior is designed to be more material-efficient. The Mac Pro uses PVC-free internal cables and components and contains no brominated flame retardants. The new Apple Battery Charger provides a convenient and environmentally friendly way to always have a fresh set of batteries for your Magic Trackpad, Magic Mouse and Wireless Keyboard. The Apple Battery Charger is available as an option for $29 and comes with six long shelf life rechargeable batteries.
Every Mac also comes with Mac OS® X Snow Leopard®, the world's most advanced operating system, and iLife®, Apple's innovative suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. iLife features iPhoto®, with breakthrough ways to organize and manage your photos by who appears in them and where they were taken; iMovie® with powerful easy-to-use features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand® which offers a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar.
Optional Apple professional applications include Aperture®, Final Cut® Express, Final Cut Studio®, Logic® Express and Logic Studio®.
Pricing & Availability
The new Mac Pro will be available in August through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), 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.
*Testing conducted by Apple in July 2010 using preproduction Mac Pro 12-core 2.93 GHz units and shipping Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz units, all configured with 6GB of RAM. Based on render performance of Maxwell Render 2.0.3 using Benchwell's sculpture.mxs. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac Pro.
**Testing conducted by Apple in July 2010 using preproduction Mac Pro 12-core 2.93 GHz units configured with 6GB of RAM, 1TB 7200-rpm hard disk drive and 512GB solid-state drive. Testing conducted using Iometer 2006.07.27 with a 30-second ramp-up, 5-minute run duration, 128KB request size, 8 outstanding IOs, and 150GB test file. Average rotational media performance calculated by creating the test file on the outer, middle and inner sectors of the drive and averaging the results from all three measurements. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac Pro.
***EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
@cubs223425 Honey the biggest fear of professional users of MacPro is not its hefty price tag (expensive but well within the range of high-end workstation), is the feeling that Apple may stop producing them all together.
Thats one hell of a machine.
Dear engadget. Can you please do a nice, and in depth article comparing typical retail class vs workstation class systems for the layman in this forum? It might even be a series of articles cobvering processor differences, mainboard architectures, power and cooling systems, ATX vs BTX, typical workloads, etc.
Clearly, a lot of your readers, especially the ones paying no heed to your recent "posting etiquette" article you had to repost, have any clue as to why this Apple tower costs $2500-5K or more compared to $2K retail desktops. Perhaps listing its direct competition from Dell and IBM and others might be helpful as well. Thanks.
@zelannii +1
@zelannii Agreed.
@zelannii Me too.
I'm not really a Mac fan, but I can understand buying a MacBook. I can understand buying an iMac. But why would anyone buy a Mac Pro? There's none of the convenient being all in one of the iMac, and they're even more overpriced than your usual Mac.
@Yandereboat
It's a workstation, not a PC. The Dell T7500 workstation with the same components as the $4999 base 12 core Mac Pro (minus a few bonuses apple throws in free the Dell does not even offer, like 802.11n at 5GHz, or bluetooth, yet the Dell has a low end Quadro GPU worth about $100 more than the ATI card in the base iMac) it is over $7200.... IBM is even higher. This is not an FPS gaming machine, its a multithreading workhorse. They simply do not compare. 12 cores of Xeon can not be compared to 6 in an i7.
The CPUs alone cost over $2K on New Egg for this machine, before the $600 board, $400 power unit, $400 of RAM, $200 tower, $200 GPU drives, adapters, audio, network, kbd, mouse, OS, software, and more... You can't build that system for $5K. Many today tried and failed.
@Yandereboat this isn't a computer to check email on or play some games. this machine is for high-end, heavy load use.
@zelannii The processors in the current model charge me over $1000 to upgrade what is a $80 upgrade on Newegg. The tower is no chance in hell $200. Another hard drive on the Apple site charges me $200 for a 640GB drive that I could pick up for $60 on Newegg. You don't know what you're talking about.
@Yandereboat
I think it is you who doesn't know what he is talking about.
"The processors in the current model charge me over $1000 to upgrade what is a $80 upgrade on Newegg."
First off, here's the section on Newegg with the Xeons:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008494%2050001157&IsNodeId=1&name=Intel
Nothing even close to 80$, meaning that you didn't even check the right section.
"The tower is no chance in hell $200."
An aluminium case with some nice features is easily 200$, just check some Lian-li.
@Yandereboat
Everyone knows there are 2 things you never buy from Apple:
Ram and HD's
@Atkins I said the current model of Mac Pro (you can't buy this new one yet), and the upgrade from a 2.26GHz to a 2.66GHz costs $1400 from Apple. I did misread Newegg, though--it's a $1,200 upgrade from them. Still too much, though. Also why the hell is a RAID card $700? Oho, and then the mediocre graphics card they jack up the price on--I can get a GTX 460, a far more powerful card for $200. Those cards they sell are so old you can't even buy one on Newegg.
@Yandereboat Well, my points were on the Xeon and the case. For the rest, especially RAM and HDD, no idea - too expensive.
@Atkins Even the Xeons are overpriced, though, and while it's a nice case, you don't need a nice case.
@Yandereboat Well, I guess that's a personal choice, but I love the Mac Pro case. For me not many come closer. Extremely well organized, attention to detail etc. But, yes, expensive. If it was possible to build a Mac, I would gladly pay up to 400$ for such a case. That's what it's worth to me, of course.
What I don't like with Apple, frankly, is not the expensiveness of the products, but the lack of options.
@Yandereboat
You also don't need a well cooled machine that runs silently, but most people prefer that to having a noisy hot plastic behemoth and is made up internally of mostly cable spaghetti.
You need to look at the inside of a Mac Pro sometime.
I'm between this and the Chevy Volt.
http://www.apple.com/macpro/performance.html
So fast that Apple will only tell you that it's faster than THEIR OWN other computers. Well done Apple, well done. Any chance of the raw values on those benchmarks, huh?
@HKCally They always do this. You'll get the independent benchmarks soon after the release.
@Atkins
That doesn't explain why they can't give us the actual benchmark scores. In fact, the only reason not to is if they're not that great, right? You mean to say Apple *wouldn't* publish the absolute values if they were the best? Really?
@HKCally First question: Sure it doesn't. Second one: no idea :)
@Atkins Apple've bin sued once before for claiming that the g5/macpro (cant rememeber which) was the fastest personal computer. maybe they actually learn from mistakes *fingers crossed*
@HKCally: i'm with you on the benchmarks, was looking forward to the cinebench scores.
i've used 3d on a small scale (one cpu, one gpu) for about 10 years, and since apple debuted the g5 (current chassis, and i'm glad they've stuck to that ever since) it has been the first choice for almost everyone i know in the 3d/video/pro photography buisness. many still use their old g5's side by side with the new xeon-based systems. all swear by it.
it's strange that in it's category, the mac pro probably has the best performance/TCO ratio there is. also, most people here take advantage of the fact that the mac pro is the most customisation-friendly mac (probably the only one) out there. any HDD/SSD/RAM can be used as long as they're compliant with the requirements, which saves many people a decent wad of green.
people who haven't seen a renderfarm, a studio, or don't understand why anyone would leave a $5K+ machine running at 100% CPU+100% GPU for weeks on end best stay in the iphone/ipad blogs
@zelanni: Porsche? na, probably a Lambo lol
NO USB 3.0?! It's only 10x faster than USB 2.0. Just a thought.
@shea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel
@uhbhatti and?
@Matt314 and...usb3 is for [future] home use. the mac pro is used more commonly in setups with fibre-optic networked storage and multiple firewire/ethernet devices.
although that doesnt justify it not being there on what is supposed to be a cutting edge machine, it's typical of apple to be ahead of the competition in some areas yet lag behind in others (bluray & hdmi come to mind) . most people i know with macpros and the like use pci express expansion cards for this sort of thing anyway, and are more concerned with how this new hardware integrates with their existing setups. video pros can be quite finnicky
@shea
Firewire 800. Look into it.
Max out those frame rates? on what games??
I just can't imagine there is a very large market for this. For one the price in general. Secondly, if someone is spending that much on a computer, they must know there stuff, in which case, you could get a BEAST setup for that much if you build your own. You could even put OSX on it if you like.
@satbir that doesn't really fly in the professional world where most of these computers will actually be used. no one is buying these things to game on.
$4999?? Lawl.
Nice to know we got the technology though. +1 for 12 cores.
I'm a PC, but I still want one.
Should I get one? I've been wracking my brain about whether to build a new PC or get a Mac lately, mainly to do animation work (Maya, Zbrush, Toonboom). The Mac Pros I've used in college have never seemed that amazing. Are iMacs adequate (I doubt I'll be doing super intensive rendering)?
I dunno man, looks super expensive for 8 core version (3500). Here's what I got from Canada Computers (except mobo, had to look elsewhere):
CPU 2*450 = 900
Mobo is about 500 (140)
Ram 6bg about (3x2) 170 (1570) (mac is NOT 18gb running as triple channel)
Some high end power supply $200 (1770)
5770 160 (1930)
DVD drive = 60 (2000)
nice keymouse = 100 (2100)
HD 200 (2300)
nice case 150 (2450)
osx 250? (2700)
Total= 2700
That's in CAD, and rough. That's almost $800 cheaper ( or 22% cheaper).
Maybe it's not 'server grade' enough for you, whatever that means, but I'd be willing to bet that extra $800 would allow me to crush the mac pro.
You're paying that 20% premium to let Mac solve the problem for you. To people who can do that themselves, they don't think it's worth the cost. This being a ripoff for some people and a great deal to others is not mutually exclusive.
I just think that if Apple didn't make it so hard to sell 3rd party PCs running OSX, you'd all be saving a whole lot of money.
@Aylw
You're not doing a similar comparison. you're not even using the same processors. If you use the SAME PROCESSORS the Mac Pro is using, it will cost you $2200 right off the bat. That's how much they COST. Go to Newegg and look up the X5650 6 core Xeon processors. Not a DIFFERENT processor, the X5650.
You can't say you can build the same machine for cheaper when it uses different processors. If it uses different chips it's not the same machine, is it? This is the problem with all you idiots who think you can build the SAME MACHINE for half the price. You can't.
Cramming two 6 core processors, four 2TB hard drives, two 1GB GPUs, and eight 4GB sticks of RAM into the Mac Pro is about as impressive as cramming 16 cylinders, 4 turbochargers, 1000 horse power, and a 7 speed transmission into a Bugatti Veyron. It's great, but who the fuck has $1.7 million to throw around (or more then $15,000 in the case of the Mac Pro)?
Not to mention the McLaren F1 is far superior as an all around car then the Veyron. Just saying.
GPGPU will make this useless in a couple of months.
@rossmcg
...what? I'm going to guess you've never heard of OpenCL then.
This is a big waste of money! Who the hell needs 12 core processors? The Intel i7 quad cores scream as it is, I cannot imagine anybody needing anymore than that. Even hardcore gamers. Graphics is what matters the most and they put low end crap in them every time. It's like going out here and buying a car with 600 horsepower. What good is it if you can't use it on the highway without getting locked up. Same thing here. You are using 4 cores under extreme conditions and paying for 12 cores.
overpriced !!!!
i'll grab a coolermaster COSMOS case
hot graphics card
crazy motherboard
splash in two of those Intel's Xeon server-class chips
and then buy a legal copy of mac osx but install iDeneb
an BAM !!!! a total price difference for the same thing in a different case :p mac boys flame me now :D i'm on iDeneb right now on my quad core machine think i'll upgrade to a six core AMD HEAVEN !!!!
and i'll still have enough cash left than if i bought the mac pro
Wow! 1500 dollars of hardware in a 3000 dollar Mac! What a waste of money.
YET ANOTHER ROUD OF HUGE PROFITMAKING FOR APPLE THE DID NOR RAKE IN ENOUGH LAUNCHING THE IPAD AND THE IPHONE YET. FREEMASON ILLUMINATI SATANIST STEVE JOBS'S GREED IS OUT OF THIS WORLD. HIS GREED AND STOCKHOLDERS (THE ONE WITH THE LARGE INVESTEMENTS) THRIVE HIM TO THESE IRRATIONAL DECISIONS AS WELL TO HARVEST MORE MONEY FROM YOU SELLING YOU OLD STUFF. THEY DID NOT HEAR FROM ANY ECONOMIC CRISIS THE LIVE IN WEALTH, THEY WHO ARE LIVING IN WEALTH RIGHT NOW ARE THE REAL CRIMINALS OF THE WORLD AND THE REAL ESSENCE TO THE ECONOMIC CRISIS. HARVESTING YOUR MONEY OVER AND OVER AND OVER UNITILL YOU DIE. DECIMATION OF THE CROWD. OTHER PEOPLE WHO DO NOT FEEL THE EFFECTS OF THIS CRISIS ARE WORKING FOR THE ILLUMINATIE, KNOWN OR UNKNOWN. STOP BUYING BRANDS LIKE APPLE AND MICROSOFT AND MANY OTHER OF THE LARGE COMPAGNIES WE KNOW YOU ARE JUST LURED INTO BUYING. AND FACE IT 12? CORES?? AT 2.8GHZ. WHAT HAS REALLY CHANGED APART FROM THE FACT THAT YOU LEAVE MORE PROCESSES OPEN. CAN YOU WORK IN ONLY 2 APPLICATIONS AT THE SAME TIME. RIGHT SO YOU SEE THER IS NO RELEVANCY IN IT AT ALL. EINSTEIN WOULD HAVE TURNED OVER IN HIS GRAVE KNOWING HIS LAW OF RELATIVITY BEEING SO EXPLOITED. WHERE ARE THE TRUE 5GHZ. 6GHZ OR LETS SAY 8GHZ. PROCESSORS BY NOW WE SHOULD BE AT 10GHZ. BUT WE ARE STILL STUCK AT 2.8GHZ. OR 3GHZ. SO WE HOPE TO HAVE INFORMED YOU ALL TO SEE WHAT FRAUD IS GOING ON BY THE ILLUMINATIE SATANISTS WICH INCLUDE WILLIAM H. GATES III; OBAMA, OPRAH, BUFFET, BUSH, THE CLINTONS, THE ROCKEFELLERS, THE ROTSCHILDS THE STEWARTS AND MANY MORE..
MORE OF THIS TO COME.
http://boycotapple.wordpress.com
What part of "IT IS THE SIMILARLY PRICED TO DELL and HP WORKSTATIONS" don't you guys understand?
Yes the MP as well as HP and Dell workstations have some markup over individual components. Lots of the DIY comments neglect any support or warranty value (or resale value - try selling your unit in a year and likely the MacPro would have ended up less expensive).
Do you guys get your panties in a wad when you see someone driving an Acura vs Honda (or Chevy Cobalt?). An Escalade vs Tahoe?
OF COURSE us mac guys know to save $$ don't buy HD or RAM from apple. Pick your own GPU as needed. Same goes for HP and Dell - are you guys frothing at the mouth on those forums?
After reading some of these silly posts - I am all for a 'Mac Tax' - perhaps we can set aside funds for counseling centers whenever a new Apple product is announced . . . Relax folks . . .