Mac Pro

The Mac Pro is the higher-end computer in Apple's product line. The prices range from $2,220 to $27,000.

Description

 * The specifications below are from Apple's "tech specs" page or developer notes, except where noted.

Processors
One 2.8 GHz Quad-Core "Bloomfield" Intel Xeon (W3530) processor with 8 MB of L3 cache or two 2.4 GHz Quad-Core "Gulftown" Intel Xeon (E5620) processors with 12 MB of L3 cache or two 2.66 GHz 6-core "Gulftown" Intel Xeon (X5650) processors with 12 MB of L3 cache Optional 3.2 GHz Quad-Core "Bloomfield" (W3565) or 3.33 GHz 6-core "Gulftown" (W3680) Intel Xeon processors or two 2.93 GHz 6-core (X5670) Intel Xeon "Gulftown" processors

Memory
The original Mac Pro's main memory used 667 MHz FB-DIMMs; its successor uses 800 MHz FB-DIMMs. The current Mac Pro has 3 GB (three 1 GB) for quad- and 6-core models or 6 GB (six 1 GB) for 8- and 12-core models. These modules are installed in pairs, one each on two riser cards. The cards have 4 DIMM slots each, allowing a total of 32 GB of memory (8 x 4 GB) to be installed [.

Hard drives
The Mac Pro has room for four internal 3.5" SATA-300 hard drives. The hard drives are mounted on individual trays (also known as 'sleds') by captive thumbscrews similar to the ones used for the PCIe expansion slots. A set of four drive trays is supplied with each machine. Adding hard drives to the system does not require cables to be attached as the drive is connected to the system simply by inserting it in the corresponding drive slot. A case lock on the back of the system locks the disks trays into their positions. The Mac Pro is also available with an optional hardware RAID card.[20] With the addition of a SAS controller card or SAS RAID controller card, SAS drives can be directly connected to the system's SATA ports. Two optical drive bays are provided, each with a corresponding SATA-300 port and an ATA-100 port. Many optical drives require the older style ATA ports, including those currently shipped with new machines. The Mac Pro has one P-ATA port and can support two P-ATA devices. It has a total of six SATA ports – four are connected to the system's drive bays, and two are not connected. These extra SATA ports can be put into service through the use of after-market extender cables to connect internal Optical drives, or to provide eSATA ports with the use of an eSATA bulkhead connector.[21] However, the two extra SATA ports are currently unsupported and disabled under Boot Camp. At the current time, a built to order Mac Pro can be configured with up to 8 TB of storage (4 × 2TB disks) or 2 TB (512 x4 SSD).

Expansion cards
For internal expansion the Mac Pro has two PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 expansion slots and two PCI Express 1.1 slots, providing them with up to 300 W of power in total. The first slot is intended to hold the main video card, and is arranged with an empty area the width of a normal card beside it in order to leave room for the large coolers modern cards often use. In most machines, one slot would be blocked by the cooler. Instead of the tiny screws typically used to fasten the cards to the case, in the Mac Pro a single "bar" holds the cards in place, which is itself held in place by two "captive" thumbscrews that can be loosened by hand without tools and will not fall out of the case.

The PCIe slots can be configured individually to give more bandwidth to devices that require it, with a total of 40 "lanes", or 13 GB/s total throughput. When running Mac OS X, the Mac Pro currently does not support SLI or ATI CrossFire, limiting its ability to use the latest "high-end gaming" video card products; however, individuals have reported success with both CrossFire and SLI installations when running Windows XP.

The bandwidth allocation of the PCIe slots can be configured via the Expansion Slot Utility included with Mac OS X only on the August 2006 Mac Pro. The Mac Pro (Early 2008) has its slots hardwired as follows.

External connectivity
For external connectivity the system includes five USB 2.0 and four FireWire ports, two of the latter being FireWire 800. Networking is supported with two built-in Gigabit Ethernet ports, while 802.11 a/b/g/draft-n Wi-Fi is supported via an optional AirPort Extreme card. Bluetooth is now standard. Unlike other recent Mac products, the Mac Pro does not include the infrared receiver needed to use the Apple Remote. However, Front Row is available on all Mac Pros running Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) or later, and is accessible using the normal ⌘-Esc key combination. The system also provides both digital (optical) and analogue "headphone jacks" for sound in and out, the latter available on both the front and back of the case.

Case
The exterior of the aluminum case is very similar to 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. The case is somewhat larger than another PC of the same generation, at 20 × 18½ × 8 inches, compared to another desktop PC (the Dell Dimension 9100) at 17½ × 17½ × 6½ inches. Some of the difference in height is due to the "handles" on the top and bottom of the case. The case can be opened by operating a single lever on the back, which unlocks one of the two sides of the machine, as well as the drive bays. All of the expansion slots for memory, PCIe cards and drives can be accessed with the one panel removed, and require no tools for installation.

The Xeon processors generate much less heat than the previous dual-core G5s, so the size of the internal cooling devices has been reduced significantly. This allowed the interior to be re-arranged, leaving more room at the top of the case and thereby allowing the drives to double in number. Less heat also means less air to move out of the case for cooling during normal operations; the Mac Pro is very quiet in normal operation, quieter than the already-quiet Power Mac G5, and proved difficult to measure using common decibel meters.

Specifications
Height: 20.1 inches (51.1 cm) Width: 8.1 inches (20.6 cm) Depth: 18.7 inches (47.5 cm) Weight: 8-core 41.2 pounds (18.7 kg)1 Quad-core 39.9 pounds (18.1 kg)1 Processing

8-core (standard configuration) Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 “Westmere” processors 12MB of fully shared L3 cache per processor Turbo Boost dynamic performance up to 2.66GHz Hyper-Threading technology for up to 16 virtual cores Quad-core (standard configuration) One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3530 “Nehalem” processor 8MB of fully shared L3 cache per processor Turbo Boost dynamic performance up to 3.06GHz Hyper-Threading technology for up to 8 virtual cores Advanced Intel microarchitecture Integrated memory controller 128-bit SSE4 SIMD engine 64-bit data paths and registers Optimized for energy efficiency Configure your Mac Pro now, only at the Apple Online Store.

Processor upgrade options View processor upgrade options chart

Connections and audio

Four FireWire 800 ports (two on front panel, two on back panel) Five USB 2.0 ports (two on front panel, three on back panel) Two USB 2.0 ports on included keyboard Front-panel headphone minijack and internal speaker Optical digital audio input and output TOSLINK ports Analog stereo line-level input and output minijacks Multichannel audio through Mini DisplayPort Graphics and displays

Double-wide, 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot with one of the following graphics cards installed: ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory, PCI Express 2.0, two Mini DisplayPort outputs, and one dual-link DVI port ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory, PCI Express 2.0, two Mini DisplayPort outputs, and one dual-link DVI port Option to install two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards Support for up to six displays2 Support for digital resolutions up to 2560 by 1600 pixels Support for analog resolutions up to 2048 by 1536 pixels Video adapters available for: Additional DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (optional) Additional dual-link DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (optional) VGA output using Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter or DVI to VGA Display Adapter (optional) Memory Dual-processor systems 2.4GHz system: 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM 2.66GHz and 2.93GHz systems: 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM Eight memory slots (four per processor) supporting up to 64GB of main memory using 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB DIMMs Single-processor systems 2.8GHz and 3.2GHz systems: 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM 3.33GHz system: 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM Four memory slots supporting up to 32GB of main memory using 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB DIMMs Communications

Built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking;3 IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible

Bluetooth 2.1 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) wireless technology Two independent 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet (RJ-45) interfaces with support for jumbo frames Environmental Status Report