AMD Releases Apple Exclusive W6000X Workstation GPUs

AMD announced three new workstation GPUs called the W6000X series that will be designed exclusively for Apple's Mac Pro. As such, these won't be among the best graphics cards, unless perhaps we're talking about the best GPUs for Apple. The lineup consists of the W6900X, W6800X, and the W6800X Duo featuring AMD's latest RDNA 2 architecture and memory configurations of up to 64GB and 128GB for the Duo.

These new GPUs will give the Mac Pro a serious graphical upgrade compared to its current W5000X offerings, with double to nearly quadruple the performance of the current Radeon Pro RX W5700X. To put in perspective how much faster these new GPUs are, the lowest teir card, the W6800X, has nearly double the performance of the W5700X, with 32 Teraflops of performance compared to just 18.9 on the previous flagship W5700X.

The W6800X will be the entry-level card in the W6000X lineup, with specs that look very similar to the Radeon RX 6800 desktop equivalent — it's also basically the same as the Radeon Pro W6800, except with slightly lower clocks to go with the Apple-centric theme. The W6800X features 60CUs making up a total of 3840 Stream Processors with a peak clock speed of 2087MHz. The card will operate on a 256-bit wide memory bus with 32GB of GDDR6 memory and 128MB of Infinity Cache.

The W6900X is the mid-level GPU option with 80CUs and 5120 Stream Processors, similar to that of the RX 6900 XT. Memory remains the same with 32GB of GDDR6 running on a 256-bit wide bus and 128MB of Infinity Cache.

Finally, AMD's highest tier option is the W6800X Duo, the most exotic card in the lineup with a dual GPU configuration operating on a single daughterboard. The W6800X Duo, as the name implies, features two W6800X GPUs linked together with AMD's Infinity Fabric interconnect. As a result of this, stream processor counts and memory are doubled to 120CUs, 7680 Stream Processors, and 64GB of GDDR6 memory. But due to the complexities of running two GPUs on one board, and the lower 400W (versus 300W) TDP, clock speeds have been slightly reduced to a peak clock of 1979MHz.

Because AMD's W6000X GPUs are exclusive to the Mac Pro, these 'graphics cards' will come in an MPX Module. These modules are designed to fit in the Mac Pro's chassis and come with extra connectors on the PCB to allow for multi-GPU configurations and power for the several Thunderbolt 3 ports equipped on each W6000X series GPU.

Speaking of multi-GPU configs, the Mac Pro allows for a maximum of two W6000X MPX modules to be inserted into its chassis. This includes the W6800X Duo as well, meaning you can have a Quad-GPU setup in your Mac Pro.

The cooling solution for each workstation GPU is also custom-designed for the Mac Pro with each MPX module packing a matte black passive heatsink that utilizes the Mac Pro's chassis fans for cooling.

But pricing will be quite steep, as is usual with Apple's offerings. Building the Mac Pro out with a W6800X will charge you an additional $2400 over the baseline Radeon Pro 580X, $5600 for the W6900X, and $4600 for the W6800X Duo. This is not to mention the dual GPU setups which more than double those prices.