Mac Pro: Serious power, fastest Mac ever

Andy Merrett Computers
Share

When it comes to Macs and PCs, I try to stay reasonably impartial on Tech Digest…

Hmmm who am I kidding. I’m a Mac freak fan throughout, which is why I get excited about Steve Jobs keynotes (yeah I know, I know) and the coolness that comes from it.

So anyway, we all knew that a new desktop Mac was coming – and that it would use the Intel processors. And Mac watchers weren’t too surprised to see the online Apple stores close about half-an-hour before Steve’s presentation started yesterday.

Yep, the new Mac Pro is available now, and boy does it kick some ass.

No significant external design changes on the last G5s, but a hell of a lot changed inside.

Two Intel Dual-Core Xeon ‘Woodcrest’ processors running inside the
Apple-clad box, 64-bit processing throughout and up to 3GHz speed. It’s
the fastest Mac ever (around twice the speed of the top-end G5 in
real-world applications) and one of the fastest desktops. Period.

All the core hardware has been built in to a smaller space to allow for
massive expansion possibilities. It can take up to four drives giving
2TB of storage, 8 DIMM memory slots for up to 16Gb RAM, two
SuperDrives, 4 PCI Express slots, and your choice of Graphics Card.

Apple claim that this super-configurable system can be set up in over 4
million different ways. Complicated? Well, it’s Apple, so probably not,
but we guess the major problem will be deciding just how much you dare
put on the plastic.

Prices?

Well, the ‘suggested configuration’ at the Apple UK is a 2×2.66GHz Xeon
processors, 1Gb RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256Mb graphics card, 250Gb
hard drive, and 16x SuperDrive, and that’s going for £1699

Wanna max out? OK, here we go.

2x3GHz Xeon processors, 16Gb RAM, NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512Mb Stereo
3D, 4x 500Gb HDs, 2xSuperdrives, Bluetooth and Airport Extreme (these
aren’t standard, surprisingly), Modem (c’mon)…

Yours for £8294.

OK that was just a bit of fun – not many people are gonna max out
everything in one go. But you can have some fun configuring a new Mac Pro
and pretending you’ve got the money to buy one.

Andy Merrett
For latest tech stories go to TechDigest.tv

2 comments

  • OK ‘learnforyourself’ maybe you’ll actually read my article before you accuse me of lying.

    The title says “fastest Mac ever” – FACT
    In the article I write “one of the fastest desktops”

    It is still ONE OF the fastest desktop machines. I never said it was the fastest.

    So liar I am not. Thanks.

  • The Conroe (Core 2 Duo for pc’s) is actually superiour. In 32-bit mode it’s beating the Athlon by an average of 33%, clock-for-clock. The Athlon X2 benefits much more from the jump to 64-bit (average 63% gain), but the gains for the Conroe are still impressive (average 40% gain). The elder Xeon system is left in the dust; it just can’t compete anymore especially without 64-bit support. The Core 2 Extreme X6800 beats it in 32-bit mode by 80%, and if you compare the X6800 running in 64-bit mode to the Xeon in 32-bit, the performance delta jumps all the way to 160%. Stop lying to your audience.

Comments are closed.