Six years after the debacle of the Mac Pro in the form of a wastebasket, Apple has renewed its desktop computer for professional environments.
The new Mac Pro is similar to that first version based on the legendary Power Mac G5, with more options for expansion and configuration. Users can now opt for a Xeon processor of up to 28 cores and up to 1.5 TB of RAM. In addition, it comes with eight 64-lane PCI Express slots, up to 56 teraflops of graphics performance and an Apple accelerator card.
The new Mac Pro weighs 18 kg and has an aluminum housing that can be removed to access the system. The casing comes with a grate in the form of a cheese grater that helps cool the equipment and minimize noise.
The basic model has an eight-core Intel Xeon W processor at 3.5GHz with Turbo Boost up to 4.0 GHz. It comes with 24.5 MB of cache and supports up to 1 TB of 2666 MHz DDR4 ECC memory and has an Intel Xeon W processor with 28 cores at 2.5 GHz and Turbo Boost up to 4.4 GHz. It comes with 66.5 MB of cache and supports 2 TB of DDR4 ECC memory at 2933 MHz, but only fits 12 128 GB DIMM slots.
In terms of graphics, the cheap model carries a Radeon Pro 580X with 5.6 teraflops of power and 8 GB of video memory but can be extended to a Radeon Pro Vega II Duo of up to 28 teraflops and 64 GB. In addition, the Mac Pro supports two MPX modules, so you can use two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo and double the performance up to 56 teraflops and 128 GB of memory.
The Mac Pro also releases the Afterburner accelerator card with a programmable ASIC that can decode up to 6300 million pixels per second. Theoretically, this allows you to view up to three RAW ProRes 8K video streams or 12 RAW ProRes 4K video streams in real time.
Price and availability
The Mac Pro 2019 is aimed at professionals who work by rendering video, mounting 3D environments or analyzing large data sets. The new Mac Pro starts from $6000.
