Mac Pro with 3.7 GHz quad-core Xeon Launches Tomorrow

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Just in time for the holidays.

Apple first introduced us to the Mac Pro back in June. Now, six months later, the Cupertino-based company is getting ready to release its brand new desktop. Set for availability tomorrow, the new Mac Pro features a unique cylindrical design and will cost just shy of $3,000 when it goes on sale tomorrow, December 19.

 

The Mac Pro's glossy, cylindrical design is likely what most will notice first. It's a huge departure from anything Apple has done before and features a 'thermal core' cooling solution in the center. The thermal core is a center component made of a three-sided heatsink, with each side cooling the entire length of each PCB. A single large fan pulls the hot air up and out.

Assembled in the United States, the Mac Pro features a 3.7 GHz quad-core Xeon from Intel. This is working alongside two AMD FirePro D300 GPUs, 12 GB of 1866 MHz DDR3 RAM, 256 GB of PCIe flash storage (read/write speeds of 1.2 GBps/1 GBps) and up to six Thunderbolt 2 ports. Customers can configure their Mac Pro with as much as 64 GB of RAM and 1 TB of flash storage, so while pricing starts at $2,999, you can expect that baseline price to rise if you make changes to the specs.

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Jane McEntegart
48 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rwinches
    Yeah man, So I sold my car so I can get the top model.
    The specs on this are really state of the art, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the real world.
    There is a lot of competition in the workstation market and technology doesn't stand still, I hope they are working on the improved model now.
    Might be interesting if they would ever consider an open version.

    Reply
  • Grandmastersexsay
    I wonder how many design compromises engineers had to make to please the art major hipster douches running this project.

    It was the functional design of the iPod and iPhone that brought back apple, not this artsy fartsy crap.
    Reply
  • bmwman91
    I have to say, I like how much computing power they have packed into such a compact form factor. It is a neat looking product and a really cool idea from a thermal standpoint. Ha, COOL, get it, because it's about the thermals? Anyone? But in all seriousness, it is a neat concept.

    Alas, with the given price, I am not entirely sure who their target market is. Most PD groups that I have worked with, small and large, are rocking "ugly" Dell workstation desktops. For the base price of one of these Mac Pro's, you could get two closely spec'ed ATX towers built. Sure, they would take up 4x the space (or more), but these generally live under the desk anyway.
    Reply
  • Cun Con
    "It was the functional design of the iPod and iPhone that brought back apple, not this artsy fartsy crap."
    You sound uneducated or you actually don't know, dude. Most music recording industry, movie, graphic animation and such played on iPod and iPhone and other media players..are made using Mac software and computers.
    Reply
  • JD88
    The specs are pretty modest for the money, but people will pay just to have access to Mac software. I guess everyone is pretty much used to Apple charging about double what something is worth.
    Reply
  • cburke82
    I cant find the AMD FirePro D300 on any site as far as specs go. Is this a custom part? Anytime a super expensive computer comes out I like to see how much the parts cost to see what I could built the same rig for myself minus the cool design. I have a feeling you could make the same speced computer for well under $2000. And having 2 fire pro cards makes me wonder why Apple is targeting the workstation crowd because you could most likely get 1 AMD/Nvidia card meant for gaming to out perform those 2 cards in anything other than workstation type tasks.
    Reply
  • burkhartmj
    12213587 said:
    I cant find the AMD FirePro D300 on any site as far as specs go. Is this a custom part? Anytime a super expensive computer comes out I like to see how much the parts cost to see what I could built the same rig for myself minus the cool design. I have a feeling you could make the same speced computer for well under $2000. And having 2 fire pro cards makes me wonder why Apple is targeting the workstation crowd because you could most likely get 1 AMD/Nvidia card meant for gaming to out perform those 2 cards in anything other than workstation type tasks.

    D300 and D700 are both custom parts that are essentially scaled down versions of current FirePro cards. A similar computer to the starting model of this would be around 2500 assuming you hit all points. The unusually high PC price is because we're talking workstation and server class parts here, not your standard off the shelf i7 and geforce card.

    Also, yes, a gaming card would outperform a workstation card in gaming, but considering this is a workstation computer meant for things like audio/video production and CAD, I'm not sure gaming performance is a relevant benchmark.
    Reply
  • lamorpa
    So it will make a big difference to the dust mites in the carpet on the floor where it sits under your desk? I'd have more fun buying a workstation with equivalent power and taking the other $1,500, converting it to dollar bills and throwing them up in the air on a windy day.
    Reply
  • Paul Connell
    3 grand for a single quad core? Ouch. Love that it's so small, but that's a lot of money for a system running that CPU.



    Reply
  • bee144
    @cburke82... The AMD FirePro D300 is the AMD W7000 with half the VRAM. It's a $700 card... So $300 away from being 1/3 the price of the computer.
    Reply