Up Close with the New Mac Pro
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 10, 2013 3:15 PM EST
In its keynote this morning, Apple teased its next-generation Mac Pro, due out later this year. Based on Ivy Bridge E, the new system will ship with two AMD FirePro GPUs with up to 4096 SPs and capable of delivering 7 TFLOPS of peak FP performance.
We got a close look at the chassis, which is 1/8 the size of the current Mac Pro. You lose any hope for internal expansion, but Apple outfitted the machine with three Falcon Ridge Thunderbolt 2 controllers to enable expansion via external storage and external Thunderbolt 2 expansion chassis options. Apple won't make any of its own Thunderbolt 2 expansion chassis, but you can expect that others will fill that void. With 20Gbps up/down on Thunderbolt 2, you should have enough bandwidth for any PCIe expansion.
Internally there are four DDR3 memory slots, as well as what looks like a proprietary PCIe SSD connector (I don't think it's M.2 unfortunately). Both GPUs are technically removable, but at least one is mounted as the same card as the PCIe SSD. Apple is putting every single PCIe lane available to use on the new Mac Pro.
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teakettle - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
What offends me the most, as a years long Mac Pro user, is the fact they've obviously ditched the philosophy of the Mac Pro line.Part of the beauty in owning a Mac Pro, apart from the fact it's a mighty machine, beautifully designed which runs a fancy system like OSX, has always been the fact that unlike the toys we call imacs, the mac pro is highly configurable and extendable. You can modify its hardware to your heart's liking, and to me that has always been a sign of respect towards the user - there's nothing I hate more than being treated as a moron incapable of doing anything other than pushing the ON button.
Reading the description of this new design - I can just say one thing: this is not a Mac Pro. I don't know what it is, but a Mac Pro it isn't. It's more like an imac with a testosterone injection, except uglier and taking up more space.
I think Mac Pro just died.
ElvenLemming - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
All indications prior to this were that the Mac Pro line was already dead anyway. This may be a disrespectful consolation to a lot of people, but it's better than nothing.Modern Apple's philosophy has always been elegance and function over user expandability. If anything, the Mac Pro was a striking exception to that rule. I don't see how anyone could be surprised that Apple would go this route.
lukarak - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
What part of extendable with Thunderbolt don't you understand? There are many more things on the back of this Mac Pro aside from the power button, all serving for extending its capabilities.Wolfpup - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
The design is, as typical, striking. But now it shares the same flaw as every other Apple product-it's horrible or impossible to service/upgrade.Apple still needs normal desktop systems at normal prices, and they still need a high end M17x-like notebook. Yes they sell the Macbook Pro at high end prices (it's more expensive than I paid for my GTX 680 equipped M17x), but it's mid range hardware.
maratus - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
M17x-like notebook will always be a niche product, there's absolutely zero point to make a gaming-oriented notebook with Mac OS onboard. I don't care about regular MBP, but MBPR 15" is superior in almost every other aspect but raw GPU power (with CPU performance being more or less equal). It has vastly superior screen, better trackpad, is also much thinner, lighter and has better battery life. All this with state-of-the-art quad core, 16GB Ram and fast mid-range 650M. In fact, GPU is the only real mid-range thing and certainly not because of price issue.Oscarcharliezulu - Friday, July 12, 2013 - link
I want one if it comes with a transparent case.Risas - Thursday, July 18, 2013 - link
Well come to the nighmare machine if you need another PCI-Ex Card for some apps like ProTools, Avid... What's the solution? buy a thunderbolt PCI Ex enclosure and spend $$$ for the design whim. That's the Apple fan way of life...