What better place than a room full of developer — people accustomed to harness as much computing power as they can get their hand on — tounveil a firebrand young Mac Pro ? And so that ’s just what Apple did on Monday , devoting a large constituent of the 2013 WWDC keynote to a product we ’ve long been hoping for — and even predicting . It ’s a newfangled Mac Pro , not at all like the honest-to-god Mac Pro , and it ’s come later on this year .
I got a chance to get my hands on one , albeit briefly , on Monday afternoon . It ’s a gorgeous piece of ironware , though it does somewhat resemble the wastebasket I have in my bedroom . The Modern Mac Pro is a black cylinder dense with eminent technology , from powerful Intel workstation - grad processor to two shockingly fast graphic cards to an array of expansion port .
It was a arresting entry for a product that ’s unlike any computer you ’ve ever interpret . But that surprising design comes with many changes compared to the current Mac Pro . Here ’s a summation of the freehanded questions thatMacworldeditors have heard about the new Mac Pro , along with the answers that my colleague and I know so far.—Jason Snell
When will the new Mac Pro models be available?
Apple has n’t announced a specific date when the new Mac Pro will embark . The company has express only that the computer will be available “ subsequently this class . ” We mistrust that means sometime this declination , but it could be as late as Dec. 31 .
How much will they cost?
Apple similarly has n’t announced prices for the new Mac Pro . Macworldeditors have been take risky guesses around the office , with estimate ranging from $ 2000 to $ 4000 . ( By elbow room of comparison , the current Mac Pro costs $ 2499 for the 3.2GHz Quad - Core Intel Xeon - powered standard configuration and $ 3799 for the 12 - core model with two 2.4GHz Xeon chips . ) On the one script , the new Mac Pro is roughly one eighth the volume of the current Mac Pro , and it uses few internal components , as well ; on the other bridge player , Intel ’s newest processor wo n’t be cheap , and the new Mac Pro utilize pricey solid - state storage andtwohigh - end video card , even on the low conclusion .
What’s up with that design?
Given that the current Mac Pro seem essentially the same as the 2003 Power Mac G5 , any new design would remain firm out , but the new Mac Pro ’s design is dramatically — nay , shockingly — dissimilar . Instead of the traditional blocky “ cheese grater ” tower , the 2013 Mac Pro takes the material body of a bleak cylinder made of urbane atomic number 13 .
It ’s a obtuse , heavy aim , but much pocket-sized than the old Mac Pro : just 9.9 inch tall and 6.6 inches in diameter . you could in reality pick it up — and we did — with one hand by grabbing it by the top . That ’s because while the Mac Pro ’s compositor’s case ends at the top of the piston chamber , the interior housing , made of the same Al material as the exterior , cease an inch or so below that with a circinate outlet above a individual fan . you may grab the top of the external trapping anywhere around the ring and pick it right up .
Underneath that devotee is a key rationality for the Mac Pro ’s unique design : the “ merged thermal core . ” This is Apple ’s name for the gravid , triangular space in the eye of the piston chamber , with its sides made up of the two telecasting lineup and the central processor card — each of which air out its oestrus into that cardinal essence . The top - climb on fan take up coolheaded air from beneath the Mac Pro , pulls it up through that core , where it cools the components , and then blows the warm up air out the top . ( Apple says the fan is very smooth , because it ’s a expectant , single fan with an efficient plan . )
Apple also added some of its distinctive design flourishes to the unexampled Mac Pro ’s design . For example , if you become the tugboat around to connect or disconnect a peripheral — more on that below — the computer automatically senses the movement and illuminates the back panel to make it gentle to see the ports .
Will the new Mac Pro be faster than current models?
It would be difficult for the new ones to be slower than the current models , which ( pocket-sized speed gibbosity aside ) have been for the most part untouched for years . For starters , the 2013 Mac Pro will utilize Intel ’s latest Xeon chipset , theXeon E5 . You ’ll be able to configure the figurer with up to 12 cores of processing index that , in Apple ’s Holy Writ , allow up to 40 GBps of “ PCI Express gen 3 bandwidth and 256 - bit - all-embracing float - point instructions . ” The company claim the raw Mac Pro ’s processors will be up to twice as fast as the current model ’s .
The 2013 Mac Pro will also have significantly libertine memory thanks to a four - channel DDR3 store controller run at 1866MHz . The computer will useECC ( mistake - correcting computer code ) memoryand will offer up to 60 GBps of storage bandwidth ( compared to 30 GBps for the current Mac Pro models ) .
Also getting a big boost is the Mac Pro ’s graphics capableness . Unlike the current tower , the new model come lineage withtwoGPUs , each an AMD FirePro workstation GPU with up to 6 GB of consecrate VRAM . Apple says those two GPUs extend up to 7 teraflops of performance — compare to 2.7 trillion floating point operations per second for the current Mac Pro — and can drive not one , not two , butthree4K - resolution ( 3840- by 2160 - pel ) displays .
reposition should be dramatically faster , as well . Whereas the current Mac Pro uses traditional mechanical hard drives , and most of Apple ’s other information processing system use stock newsflash storage ( either SSD or twinkle memory soldered to the motherboard ) , the new Mac Pro will use next - generation PCI Express photoflash reposition . According to Apple , this raw type of flash storage is up to 2.5 times faster than the fastest SATA - based square - state driving force ( 1250 MBps versus 500 MBps ) ; it ’s up to 10 times profligate than a 7200rpm SATA hard drive ( 110 MBps ) . ( Apple does n’t say how much quicker this new storage engineering science is than the motherboard - found trice storehouse on the current MacBook Pro . ) The other vantage of PCI Express - based flash storage is that you should be able to easily upgrade it . ( More on that below . )
Of course , the new Mac Pro also — in conclusion — take faster connectivity , as well , sportingsixThunderbolt 2 interface ( which are up to doubly as fast as the first - generation Thunderbolt ports on the rest of Apple ’s current computers ) and four USB 3.0 ports , compared to four FireWire 800 and five USB 2.0 ports on the current Mac Pro .
And , at long last , Apple has amend wireless functioning , adding 802.11ac Wi - Fi and give the 2013 Pro the same Bluetooth 4.0 circuitry found in every other current Mac . ( The new model offers the same pair of Gigabit - ethernet port as current simulation . )
How upgradeable is the new Mac Pro?
The novel Mac Pro ’s RAM is situated in four memory slots and can be upgraded easily — you just slide off the reckoner ’s cylindric , metallic element arm , start out the old retentivity , and put in unexampled DIMMs . Apple’stech info about OS X Mavericks ( PDF link)notes that OS X 10.9 — which the new Mac Pro will presumptively ship with — supports up to 128 GB of RAM .
The computer ’s flash computer memory is also upgradeable , as it sits on a small card that unite to a socket on the motherboard ( or in this showcase , it appear , a socket on one of the GPU display board ) . This entail you may pop out that board and supplant it with a unexampled one .
What about expandability? Will I be able to use my old expansion cards?
Apple calls the new Mac Pro the “ most expansible Mac yet . ” Many people might quarrel that contention , considering that the current Mac Pro offers four PCI Express slot , four internal punishing - parkway bay , and two visual - thrust bays , while the 2013 Mac Pro will offer … well , none of those things .
Malus pumila free-base its claim on the fact that with six Thunderbolt 2 port , on three autonomous omnibus , you may connect up to 36 in high spirits - carrying out computer peripheral — each embrasure supports six daisy - chain devices . Apple also says Thunderbolt 2 provide twice the throughput of the original Thunderbolt spec — up to 20 gbps to each connected gimmick ( and up to 25 times fast than FireWire 800 ) . The company points out that those who need PCI Express time slot can add a Thunderbolt PCI - expansion chassis .
Those Thunderbolt port also support Thunderbolt and Mini DisplayPort displays , and you also get an HDMI 1.4 larboard for connecting an HDMI display .
Is there anything else notable about the new Mac Pro?
On the non - technical side , this Mac Pro is move to be assembled entirely in the United States , marking Apple ’s return to American computer fabrication . Apple ’s web site have-to doe with to “ Texas , Florida , Illinois , Kentucky , and over a dozen other states across America ” that have contribute to a product that was , of course of action , designed in California .
Mac Pro Quad-Core/3.7GHz (Late 2013)
Mac Pro 6-Core/3.5GHz (Late 2013)
