Apple Announces New Mac Pro with Radical Departure from Current Design

by Eric Reagan on June 10, 2013

in apple

At WWDC today, Apple announced the upcoming Mac Pro, which will be available later this year. The new Mac Pro is clearly a massive change from the Mac Pro form factor we have grown accustomed to really since the aluminum Power Mac G5′s introduction in 2003, which was somewhat refreshed with the first Mac Pro in 2006.

The new Mac Pro stands only 9.9-inches tall and is cylinder-shaped. It will be equipped with next-gen Intel Xeon E5 processors with up to 12 core configurations. Additionally, it will pack in 2 AMD FirePro workstation-class GPUs and feature 4-channel ECC DDR3 RAM at 1866MHz for up to 60GB/s memory bandwidth.

Additionally, it is equipped with PCIe-based flash storage, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, four USB 3 ports and HDMI 1.4. It will drive up to three 4K monitors simultaneously, along with a gaggle of other Thunderbolt peripherals (6 per port).

Mac Pro RAM Slots

Of course, the reduced form factor means little or no internal expansion. It looks like RAM will be user-expandable; however, the GPUs appear to be fixed units with difficult or impossible replacements after initial purchase.
All-in-all, the new Mac Pro looks like a beast of machine in what is sure to be a controversial design. No word on pricing yet; however, you can bet it won’t be cheap with the flash-based design and proprietary components.