#Apple mac pro desktop computer upgrade#
#Apple mac pro desktop computer series#

#Apple mac pro desktop computer upgrade#

Like its predecessor, the Power Mac G5, the pre-2013 Mac Pro was Apple's only desktop with standard expansion slots for graphics adapters and other expansion cards.Īpple received criticism after an incremental upgrade to the Mac Pro line following the 2012 WWDC confrence. Post revision, the default configurations for the Mac Pro includes one quad-core Xeon 3500 at 2.66 GHz or two quad-core Xeon 5500s at 2.26 GHz each. The system could be configured at US$2299, much more comparable with the former base-model dual-core G5 at US$1999, although offering considerably more processing power. Previously, Apple featured the base model with the words 'starting at' or 'from' when describing the pricing, but the online US Apple Store listed the 'Mac Pro at $2499', the price for the mid-range model. Original marketing materials for the Mac Pro generally referred to the middle-of-the-line model with 2 × dual-core 2.66 GHz processors. Apple's previous machine aimed at this market, the Power Mac G5, has up to two dual-core processors (marketed as 'Quad-Core'), but lacks the storage expansion capabilities of the newer design. Additionally, the codecs used in these applications are generally processor intensive and highly threadable, which Apple's ProRes white paper describes as scaling almost linearly with additional processor cores.

Although the high-end technical market has not traditionally been an area of strength for Apple, the company has been positioning itself as a leader in non-linear digital editing for high-definition video, which demands storage and memory far in excess of a general desktop machine. The Mac Pro is in the Unix workstation market. As such, the name 'Mac Pro' was widely used before the machine was announced. Apple had dropped the term 'Power' from the other machines in their lineup and started using 'Pro' on their higher-end laptop offerings. The iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook, and MacBook Pro had moved to an Intel-based architecture starting in January 2006, leaving the Power Mac G5 as the only machine in the Mac lineup still based on the PowerPC processor architecture Apple had used since 1994. In June 2005, Apple released the Developer Transition Kit, a prototype Intel Pentium 4-based Mac housed in a Power Mac G5 case, that was temporarily available to developers. The first generation of the Mac Pro featured an aluminium case that was derived from that of the Power Mac G5, with the exception of an additional optical drive bay, and a new arrangement of I/O ports on both the front and the back.Īpple said that an Intel-based replacement for the 2003's PowerPC-based Power Mac G5 machines had been expected for some time before the Mac Pro was formally announced on August 7, 2006, at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). It has up to a 28-core Xeon-W processor, eight PCIe slots, AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPUs, and replaces most data ports with USB-C and Thunderbolt 3. In December 2019, the third-generation Mac Pro returned to a tower form factor reminiscent of the first-generation model, but with larger air cooling holes. Limitations of the cylindrical design prevented Apple from upgrading the second-generation Mac Pro with more powerful hardware. Reviews initially were generally positive, with caveats. Thunderbolt 2 ports brought updated wired connectivity and support for six Thunderbolt displays.

#Apple mac pro desktop computer series#

It had up to a 12-core Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D series GPUs, PCIe-based flash storage, and an HDMI port. The company said it offered twice the overall performance of the first generation while taking up less than one-eighth the volume. In December 2013, Apple released the second-generation Mac Pro with a new cylindrical design. Revisions in 20 revisions had Nehalem/ Westmere architecture Intel Xeon processors. It was replaced on April 4, 2007, by a dual quad-core Xeon Clovertown model, then on January 8, 2008, by a dual quad-core Xeon Harpertown model. Introduced in August 2006, the first-generation Mac Pro had two dual-core Xeon Woodcrest processors and a rectangular tower case carried over from the Power Mac G5. It is one of four desktop computers in the current Macintosh lineup, sitting above the consumer Mac Mini and iMac, and positioned above the Mac Studio.

The Mac Pro, by some performance benchmarks, is the most powerful computer that Apple offers. Mac Pro is a series of workstations and servers for professionals that are designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc.