Items tagged with Mac Pro
Apple is eager to leave Intel behind as the supplier of CPUs for its Mac lineup, but bear in mind that this transition to using Arm-based silicon based on custom home brewed designs in place of Intel's x86 CPUs is not an overnight thing—Apple last year said it would take a couple of years to complete the transition. As such, rumors of a next-gen Mac Pro powered by another Xeon processor are at least plausible. Let's take a step back for a moment. Apple's pending wholesale switch to custom Arm designs is a seismic shift of sorts. The partnership between Apple and Intel dates back to 2006, when the former moved away from PowerPC hardware to the latter's x86 Core processors. But going forward,...
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We've already seen that Apple means business with its custom Arm-based M1 processors, which launched last month with new Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro models. The M1 is a highly integrated SoC that includes an 8-core CPU (4 efficiency cores, 4 performance cores), either a 7- or 8-core GPU, and 8GB or 16GB of RAM integrated onto the die. However, Apple has much more powerful SoCs in the pipeline to fuel its higher-end Macs. A new report from Bloomberg, which is typically quite reliable when it comes to Apple leaks, alleges that the next generation of Apple Silicon will be destined for 16-inch MacBook Pro and iMac models. According to the publication, these could feature...
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The folks over at iFixit were able to get their hands on Apple's all-new Mac Pro, which marks a substantial upgrade over its trash can-styled predecessor. While plenty of jokes have been made in reference to its cheese grater exterior, Apple has worked some of its "magic" here to make the Mac Pro one of its most repairable devices in years. For DIYers out there, getting inside the Mac Pro is a trivial affair, as all you need to do is pull up on and twist a little handle built into the top of the case. You then lift up on the handle which removes the case, giving you immediate access to the interior components. Once inside, you have direct access to the memory slots, and PCIe slots for upgrading....
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The internet made a mockery of Apple's new Pro Display XDR display mere minutes after it was announced. The first hits came after the display's $4,999 price tag was revealed. Then the guffaws grew louder once Apple revealed that the display's stand was optional; meaning that you'd have to fork over an additional $999 just to sit on your desk. If that wasn't enough, Apple is also offering a $999 nano-texture option for the display glass. If you add it all up, you're looking at $7,000 for a fully-spec'd out Pro Display XDR. With regards to the nano-texture glass, it is a matte finish option for those in an "uncontrolled lighting environment." Here's how Apple describes its nano-texture...
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What do Hollywood, Apple users, and Google Chrome share in common? A wave of unbootable MacBooks and Mac Pros. A Google Keystone update was able to damage certain Mac files and shut the affected devices down unexpectedly. This past week, several Hollywood film editors reported that their Mac devices were unable to reboot. Affected Apple users included the video editing team of ABC’s Modern Family. Many of these film editors use Avid Media Composer software and initially believed that a software bug or virus was to blame. Google later confessed that a Chrome update was the real culprit. Google Keystone Bug Most Mac devices include “SIP” or “system integrity protection”....
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When Apple announced its replacement for the “trash can” Mac Pro, the Mac community collectively lost their minds. The previous generation Mac Pro really was hampered due to thermal constraints, which meant that Apple could never really provide enough top-of-the-line CPU and graphics hardware to satisfy hardcore professional workstation types. The new Mac Pro changes all of that with its more modular, thermally-optimized design. While many in the Mac community were no doubt over the moon for the new Mac Pro, PC enthusiasts raised more than a few eyebrows as well. After all, 28-core Xeon processors, support for up to 1.5TB of DDR4-29333MHz ECC memory, and up to two AMD Radeon...
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Forget about the Mac Pro's resemblance to a cheese grater and ignore the price tag for a moment. From a pure hardware standpoint, Apple's latest iteration of the Mac Pro is an impressive collection of hardware, boasting an Intel Xeon foundation with up to 28 cores and 56 threads, a dozen DIMM slots supporting up to 1.5TB of 2933MHz ECC memory, and the list goes on. The question is, how proprietary is the design? We know that Apple is using MPX (Mac Pro Expansion) modules for the graphics, each of which has its own dedicated heatsink, further cooled by the Mac Pro's internal fans. Users have the option of installing a traditional GPU in one of the expansion slots, but without the module's benefits...
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When Apple announced its new Mac Pro desktop computer earlier this month, the machine definitely impressed with its power Intel 28-core Xeon processors and Radeon Pro Vega II graphics. Apple gave up most of the details on the machine but withheld information like detailed pricing of the computer and a specific launch date offering only a vague "Fall" launch window. We now have a more precise launch date thanks to a slip-up by Apple. Eagle-eyed Mac fans noticed that the landing page for the Mac Pro listed "Coming September" at the top of the popup that allows you to sign up to receive updates on the machine. That page says typically, "Coming This Fall." The page has since been changed to state...
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Yesterday, Apple announced its brand-new Mac Pro, which was a long-awaited redesign of its aging and trash can-esque predecessor. While the professional rig is no doubt beastly with up to a 28-core Intel Xeon processor and 1.5TB of system RAM, equally as impressive is its graphics subsystem which comes courtesy of AMD. Base systems ($5,999) come with a Radeon Pro 580X, which doesn't exactly get our hearts racing at this point. But the real magic happens when you step up to one of two Vega 20-based GPUs. The first is the Radeon Pro Vega II, which is a beefier version of the 7nm Radeon VII that was released earlier this year for enthusiasts. Whereas the Radeon VII has a total of...
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After the somewhat disappointing last-generation "trash can" Mac Pro, Apple is back at it again with what is no doubt a knockout performance beast. The all-new Mac Pro has been redesigned from the ground-up and is available in a more traditional tower form-factor; it pays more than a passing resemblance to the beloved "cheese grater" Mac Pro. Unlike its predecessor, this Mac Pro is all about configurability and allows PC-style upgrading and expansion inside. It's available with up to 28-core Intel Xeon processors and support 6-channel memory across 12 DIMM slots. Apple says that the new Mac Pro supports up to a dizzying 1.5TB of 2933MHz ECC memory. Inside, you'll find 8 PCIe slots...
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Apple's "trash can" Mac Pro was heralded as a remarkable achievement in design and performance [by Apple] when it was first announced back in 2013. However, the machine was neglected by Apple, and was hardly updated during its lifecycle. In fact, Apple made the rare admission that the design of the current Mac Pro's chassis wasn’t optimized for the workflows that professionals actually required. “Being able to put larger single GPUs required a different system architecture and more thermal capacity than that system was designed to accommodate," said Apple’s Craig Federighi in April 2017 while speaking to reporters. "And so it became fairly difficult to adjust.” Apple won't...
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As if we needed more examples to demonstrate how outdated Apple’s current Mac Pro line is, a $1500 USD AMD Ryzen R7 1700 powered PC recently smoked a loaded $5500 Mac Pro in a Photoshop benchmark. Tech Guy posted the showdown to his YouTube channel recently as part of a series for content creators to understand the differences between different systems. Mac Pros have maintained a strong reputation among creative professionals despite lacking any revisions since 2013. The two computers tested have more or less analogous CPUs on the surface, each housing 8-cores clocked at 3.0GHz. Both systems are running 250GB solid-state drives and the Mac Pro has four times as much system memory with 64GB of...
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With the launch of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti last month, NVIDIA for the most part surpassed the performance of the Pascal-based Titan X while undercutting the graphics card’s price point by hundreds. Unfortunately for the GTX 1080 Ti, its reign at the top didn’t last long as NVIDIA is ratcheting up the performance potential of Pascal yet again with the new Titan Xp. If you’re looking for the ultimate in graphics performance in a single card on the PC, it doesn’t any better than this. The Titan Xp is more potent than both the original Pascal-based Titan X and the GTX 1080 Ti, as it represent the Pascal GP102 core fully "unlocked". When it comes to specs, you’ll find: 12GB GDDR5X memory operating...
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Apple this week has done two uncharacteristic things for the company: it is apologizing for missteps in its product design/rollout and it is actually pre-announcing upcoming products. Some of those products are at least a year away from release. What’s going on in Cupertino these days? To the first point, Apple is finally admitting to what we have all known for years: the current generation Mac Pro was a mistake. After launching the professional-grade machine in 2013, Apple has done little to upgrade the system, leaving long-time Apple fans upset and without many options with regards to improving performance. However, the main reason for Apple’s failure to upgrade the machine was that it ran...
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If you’re hip to pre-built, small-form factor gaming systems, MSI is now shipping quite a whopper of a PC which it claims is the world’s smallest gaming tower. The Vortex measures just 10.5 inches tall and aims straight for the jugular with an unlocked Intel Core i7 6700K processor paired with either 16GB (2x8GB) or 32GB (4x8GB) of DDR4 2133MHz memory. On the graphics front, you have two choices: you can go with either a dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 GPUs (6GB) or dual GeForce GTX 980 (16GB). The graphics subsystem is 4K-ready and capable of simultaneously outputting to up to six displays. Storage duties are handled by dual PCIe 256GB SSDs in conjunction with a 1TB 7200RPM HDD. Other niceties include...
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Following a rash of user complaints over various video issues, Apple is launching a Repair Extension Program for late 2013 Mac Pro systems manufactured between February 8, 2015, and April 11, 2015. The issue with 2013 Mac Pro models manufactured between those dates is that some of them are running defective GPUs.Apple isn't making much noise about the program—the folks at MacRumors caught wind of it through an internal memo it obtained, and according to that memo, Apple's investigation of the reported problems led them to conclude that faulty GPUs are to blame. Affected systems can see a variety of symptoms, including distorted video or no video at all, system freezes, system restarts and shutdowns,...
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One of the disadvantages to buying an Apple system is that it generally means less upgradeability and flexibility than a system from a traditional PC OEM. Over the last few years, Apple has introduced features and adopted standards that made upgrading or using third-party hardware progressively more difficult. Now, with OS X 10.10 Yosemite, the company has taken another step down the path towards total vendor lock-in and effectively disabled support for third-party SSDs. We say "effectively" because while third-party SSDs will still work, they'll no longer perform the TRIM garbage collection command. Being able to perform TRIM and clean the SSD when its sitting idle is vital to keeping the drive...
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Microsoft could take a few lessons from BOXX in how to poke fun at the competition in a tactful yet hilarious manner. BOXX, which builds high-end workstations and rendering systems for a variety of applications -- film and television, visual effects, game development, simulation, government and defense, and the list goes on -- decided to compare its own professional workstation with Apple's Mac Pro. The result? A comical YouTube video, for one. Having just purchased a cylindrical shaped Mac Pro, Nate eagerly shows it off to his friend Drew, who is less than impressed with the hardware -- or lack thereof -- inside. Things start off well enough when Nate confirms his Mac Pro wields an Intel Xeon...
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You're not bringing home a Mac Pro for less than three large, and when spending that much on a computer, the expectation is that it will work and work well for a long time to come. Fair enough, but eventually you'll either want or need to dive in; it could be out of sheer curiosity or because a stick of RAM went bad. When that time comes, you'll be happy to know that Apple's cylinder shaped powerhouse is mostly easy to take apart. The folks at iFixIt got their hands on Apple's entry-level model priced at $2,999. This is the configuration that comes with an Intel Xeon E5 quad-core processor with 10MB of L3 cache and Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz, 12GB of ECC DDR3-1866 memory (3x4GB), dual AMD FirePro...
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You're not bringing home one of Apple's newly released Mac Pro systems without spending a small fortune -- pricing starts at $2,999 for a quad-core model and $3,999 for a 6-core foundation, both of which are rocking dual graphics cards. There's some seriously powerful hardware inside these machines, but are they worth the asking price? That's up to the buyer to decide, and to help answer that question, Macworld got its hands on an 8-core Intel Xeon E5 (3.0GHz) configuration and put the system through its paces. It also had 32GB of RAM, 512GB of flash storage, and dual AMD FirePro D700 graphics with 6GB of video memory per card. As you might expect, this thing made easy-work out of Macworld's...
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Some big money was raised at a special (RED) charity auction at Sotheby's in New York City over the weekend. One of the hottest items turned out to be a special edition red Mac Pro designed by Jony Ive and Mark Newson, which brought in a generous $977,000. It was the fourth biggest money maker during an auction in which almost $13 million was raised for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The Mac Pro is the same one that Apple will begin selling to the public in December, except it has a red exterior rather than a black one. Non-auction models will have a starting price of $3,000, well south of the $977,000 the red model fetched, which was expected to bring in between $40,000...
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If there's one thing Apple has proven to be quite good at, it's design. Love it or hate it, Apple's design chops have drawn all sorts of attention, and the company's latest foray into the waning desktop world has yet again struck a chord. Pundits suggest that the forthcoming Mac Pro looks about like a black trash bucket that you'd find in any home improvement store, while proponents are hailing it as the biggest leap forward in workstation design history. Regardless of your own personal feelings, the new Mac Pro is an eye-catcher, and if you're really (really!) into the design language, there's another variation you should know about. As Apple has done occasionally in the past, the company is...
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