Apple Mac Pro Desktop PC
It is absolutely fair to say that any product of Apple that comes through the door of PC Pro comes out with a hell lot of expectations of industrial design, world class performance and a resulting bank breaking price. Apple stole the month of March from the other PC manufacturers with its latest range of Mac Pro computers. By doing so, Apple boasts to be the first manufacturer to have included Intel’s both Xenon 3500 and 5500 quad core processors. The Mac Pro is a beautiful piece of kit both inside and out.
What is new in the latest processors?
These new processors are a part of the Nehalem family of chips and these set of latest processors offer a number of advancements over its previous Intel Quad core family. Now since all the four cores are on a single die, we can rest assured that the entire 8MB of the L3 cache will be available each and every processing cores. In addition to this, the memory controller is now an on-chip and this facilitates access to the main memory and hence eliminating the latency by about forty percent. Nehalem has also made sure that the Hyper Threading technology of Intel is returned. This technology two virtual cores on each of the physical cores and hence runs two processors on each core. In our case, since there are up to eight cores available across the two quad core CPUs, the technology makes up to sixteen processors run at the same time.
A change in manner of thinking:
One of the latest trends is using the cores to measure the performance of a PC rather than the base speed. This can be a real turning point for someone who really knows how to do the program for the same. But nothing much can be done at this stage because most of the applications are not designed to take advantage of the separate cores. As long as the snow Leopard is kept updated, this trend is put on hold.
Apple Mac Pro: The ultimate
The Apple Mac Pro Personal Computer is a slouch by no means. The Nehalem processor’s Turbo Boost Technology and a custom built to order option increases the processor speed to 2.93GHz. This technology puts the idle processors to rest and hence, gives all its power to the processors at work, increasing their speeds. Apple says that this technology allows a 2.93GHz processor to run at a speed of 3.33GHz.
The Mac Pro Desktop Computer has gained that tag that it is “Apple’s most configurable Mac” with its four hard drive bays, two optical drive bays and four PCI Express 2.0 card slots. This PC also offers a wide range of options for upgrading. When few of Mac Pro’s Configure to order systems are tested, they came out in flying colours with the top score.
Configurations of Mac Pro:
As you know already, the latest Mac Pro comes in two standard configurations. The first one runs on 2.66GHz Quad-Core Xeon processor based on Intel’s Nehalem architecture. It has 3GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 640GB hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce GT 120 graphics card with 512MB of DDR3 memory. The other one, which is the eight core model, features two Quad-Core Xeon processors running at 2.26GHz and it has twice the amount of SDRAM as the other Mac Pro model. This eight core model uses the same Nvidia graphics card and hard drive as its lower priced sibling.
Which option is better?
We know that it is always better to have fewer but faster cores than to have more processors running slower. But if you frequently use the handful of applications that can take complete advantage of multiple core, then the vice-versa quote will sound better to you. Just keep in mind that the next version of the Mac OS, the OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard has a lot of technologies, especially the Grand Central, all are designed to take full advantage of Multiple Cores. This will result in programmers looking for applications that perform faster on the multi-core systems.
A treat for the gamers:
Some of the gaming performance benchmark tests prove that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 does a better job than the Nvidia GeForce GT 120 graphics card in the standard configuration. If we add the optional ATI Radeon HD 4870 card to the 2.93GHz Quad Core Pro and compare it with the system that had only the Nvidia card, it shows that the one with ATI card displays more than twice the number of frames per second. The processor speeds did not affect the games test much. Again, though the second model has twice the RAM (12GB) than the 2.26GHz model with 6GB RAM, the impact is very less.
Performance comparison:
Again, the 8 core 2.93GHz Mac pro that makes use of the quad core processors is about twenty percent faster than the standard 2.26GHz eight core Mac Pro. The custom system with the speedy ATI Radeon graphics card worked considerably faster than the system fitted with Nvidia card. Hence, if you are a hard core gamer an upgrade to your system with the ATI graphics card will work wonders for you. Said that, the Nvidia GeForce GT 120 is not bad for an average gamer.
Mac Pro - An absolute beauty:
Yes, we know that we are late to the part of design this time. As you can see, it is really hard to keep us from jabbering about the internal specifications of this ultimate performer. Apple’s designers have paid a lot of attention to the details and the substantial amount of improvement over the previous model, the Mac G5 is quite obvious. The case design of the Mac Pro is very similar to that of the previous Mac. There is a single lever on the rear of the case that would allow you to rotate it simply and quickly. This gives you easy access to up to four direct attach internal drives that slides into the side of the frames securely without any effort. A double-wide PCI Express slot for the graphics card keeps the other three full-size PCI Express slots free for other uses, and the system RAM is easily accessible via a pair of easily-removed riser cards.
The redesigned interior of Apple Mac Pro Desktop PC is a well organised work station. You need not turn the system to its side or reach into awkward spaces inorder to make any changes. All that you have to do is, just remove the side panel and you would get instant access to everything. Memory can be added by just sliding out the processor tray. Slide out hard drive bays to add storage. Slide a simple bar to change up to four expansion cards at once.
Only a USB keyboard and optical mouse have been offered as accessories. The package does not include a monitor.
Connectivity:
Just below the front mounted power button and light, there are a complete set of I/O ports that includes two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 400, one FireWire 800, and a headphone jack. This set of very handy ports saves us a great deal of time as we need not crawl to back of the device. Another very evident key improvement is the two front panels that allow you to include the dual optical drives. On the rear of the system, you will find anything and everything that relates to the term ports. It has got three more USB ports, an additional pair of FireWire ports out of which, one is 400 and the other is 800. The FireWire ports are joined by S/PDIF optical digital audio in/out, and 1/8-inch line in/out ports. Two Ethernet ports can be used separately, but the Mac Pro also supports link aggregation and VLAN 802.1q tags. The VLAN tags are used to allow 802.1q tunnelling and routing, allowing for a wide range of networking and networked storage options.
Package contents:
The package of Apple Mac Pro 8-core/Quad Core includes Power cord, Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and Mighty Mouse, USB keyboard extension cable, Install/restore DVDs and Printed and electronic documentation
Warranty:
Apple Mac Pro comes with one year limited warranty.
Verdict:
Though Apple is a late comer to the eight core work station market, this Mac Pro will be an elixir to high end 3D and video project professionals. If you are asking us for a financial advice on whether to invest on a single fast core or to get a system working on multiple slow cores, then we would advise you to wait and see how the new Snow Leopard performs before making a big investment. But it is wiser not to think about the price when you are looking at a system that gives you the ultimate performance. The Apple Mac Pro is a pure object of lust that is absolutely hard to beat.
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Apple Mac Pro Desktop PC Computer - Technical Specifications, Features
| Manufacturer | Apple |
| Model Name | Apple Mac Pro |
| Model number | Quad core (MB871LL/A) Eight core (MB531LL/A) |
| Type | Personal computer |
| Form Factor | Tower |
| Desktop type | Work station system |
| Monitor included | No |
| Dimensions (H x W x D) | 20.1″ x 8.1″ x 18.7″ |
| Weight | 8-core: 41.2 pounds (18.7 kg) Quad-core: 39.9 pounds (18.1 kg) |
| Processor Type | 8-core: Two 2.26GHz, 2.66GHz, or 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series processors Quad-core: One 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz Quad-Core |
| Multi-Core processor technology | 8-core |
| 64-bit processor | Yes |
| Max processors supported | 2 |
| Upgradable | Yes |
| Processor’s main feature | Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology |
| OS Provided | Apple Mac OS X 10.5 |
| Cache type | L2 cache |
| Cache memory | 24 MB |
| Main board memory | 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM |
| Memory | 8-core: Eight memory slots (four per processor) supporting up to 32GB of main memory using 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB DIMMs Quad-core: Four memory slots supporting up to 16GB of |
| Graphics card slot | Double-wide, 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot |
| Graphics card | Either NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, PCI Express 2.0, one Mini DisplayPort, and one dual-link DVI port (or) ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB of GDDR5 memory, PCI Express 2.0, one Mini DisplayPort, and one dual-link DVI port |
| Audio output type | Sound card - Integrated |
| Keyboard interface | USB |
| Keyboard features | Built-in two USB 2.0 ports |
| Mouse | USB optical mouse |
| Networking | Network adapter - Integrated |
| Ethernet Ports | 2 x Gigabit Ethernet |
| Data Link Protocol | Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR |
| Compliant Standards | Bluetooth 2.0 |
| Expansion Bays Total (Free) | 4 ( 3 ) x Internal - 3.5″ x 1/3H , 2 ( 1 ) x Front accessible |
| Expansion Slots Total (Free) | 8 ( 6 ) x Memory - FB-DIMM 240-pin , 2 ( 1 ) x PCI Express 2.0 x16 - Full-length , 2 ( 0 ) x Processor , 2 ( 2 ) x PCI Express x4 - Full-length |
| Cables Included | DVI-VGA adapter , USB extension cable |
| Interfaces | 2 x Display / video - DVI-Analog/Digital (dual link) - 29 pin combined DVI 2 x IEEE 1394b (FireWire 800) - 9 pin FireWire 800 ( 1 in front ) 2 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire) - 6 pin FireWire ( 1 in front ) 5 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 pin USB Type A ( 2 in front ) 1 x Headphones - Output - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm 1 x Audio - SPDIF input - TOSLINK 1 x Audio - SPDIF output - TOSLINK 1 x Audio - Line-in - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm 1 x Audio - Line-out - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm 2 x Network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T - RJ-45 |
| Software included | Front Row, Apple iCal, Apple iChat, Photo Booth, Apple Safari, Apple Spaces, Apple Dashboard, Apple QuickTime, Apple Spotlight, Apple iLife ‘09, Apple DVD Player, Apple Quick Look, Apple Address Book, Apple Time Machine, Apple Mac OS X Mail, Apple XCode Developer Tools |
| Package contents | Mac Pro Power cord Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and Mighty Mouse USB keyboard extension cable Install/restore DVDs Printed and electronic documentation |
| EPA Energy Star Compliant | Yes |
| Greenpeace policy rating (Sept 2009) | 4.9 |
| Warranty and support | 1 year Limited warranty Technical support - Phone consulting - 90 days |
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