At least on the outside, the Mac Pro looks very similar to previous models. Your taste may vary, but we still find the sculpted brushed-aluminium chassis one of the most attractive desktop designs out there. Apple has added few external features to the new Mac Pro. The only major difference is a pair of new video ports on the Nvidia GeForce GT 120 graphics card. Instead of a pair of standard DVI ports as in the past, the new card now includes dual-link DVI and Mini DisplayPort outputs. As before, you can add up to three more graphics cards to the Mac Pro for additional display support. Keep in mind that adding those cards will not get you increased 3D graphics performance via Nvidia's SLI or ATI's Crossfire multi-GPU technologies.
Inside the Mac Pro, Apple highlights the benefits of building products within its own hardware and software ecosystem. The interior is segmented into distinct zones for the various hardware components. The optical drives and power supply are concealed behind pull-out metal drawers, and below sits the familiar row of four removable hard-drive trays. Apple has preserved the cable-free hard-drive interface we came to love in the older Mac Pro here in the new model, and indeed we've seen numerous Windows vendors imitate this design in the two years since its debut.
In addition, the expansion card slots, plus the CPUs and memory have also received improved design elements. Rather than relying on the various annoying retainer tabs common to PCI Express graphics slots on PC motherboards, Apple uses a single metal rod that spans across all four expansion slots to hold its cards in place. It's a simple solution to a problem you will only encounter when you add or remove an expansion card, but given the price of the Mac Pro especially, we appreciate that the rod mechanism makes card upgrades that much easier.
For the CPUs and memory, if you recall the older Mac Pro, you'll remember its memory attached to a unique removable tray that fitted into the motherboard like one large expansion card. Apple has taken that concept a step further in this new system, and now you can remove the entire CPU and memory portion of the motherboard via a simple tray design. As with the expansion card rod, this removable tray really only benefits those who will make frequent upgrades or repairs to the Mac Pro. And although you probably pay a premium for it, we don't blame Apple for flexing its design muscle and providing its customers with the sense that the Mac Pro is as much a unique design object as a productivity tool. With Windows PC makers largely reliant on industry standards for motherboards and other components, few, if any, of Apple's competitors are as well-positioned to make such dramatic innovations to their own desktops.
The physical changes to the Mac Pro out of the way, we can now focus on the technology updates. From the last model, Apple has updated the Mac Pro's CPU, memory and graphics card. As with the older Mac Pro, the new model comes in either single-chip quad-core or dual-chip eight-core configurations, but Apple has now upgraded to Intel's Xeon 5500 chips, based on the Nehalem core shared by Intel's Core i7 consumer desktop chips.
With Nehalem comes a few technology upgrades, specifically support for DDR3 memory and the return of Hyper-Threading Technology from the days of Intel's Pentium 4 chips. Hyper-Threading can simulate more processing threads on the CPU, for up to 16 threads in total on our eight-core Mac Pro. Aside from the processing and memory, Apple has also added a 512MB Nvidia GeForce GT 120 graphics card to the new Mac Pro's baseline spec, which amounts to a faster GPU and twice the graphics memory as the older ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT default card. You also get a 640GB hard drive this time around — double the previous model's standard option.
Before we get into our performance tests we should point out that our primary comparison for our eight-core default spec Mac Pro is the eight-core model from the previous generation. Because the new model's triple-channel memory needs to work in groups of three to take advantage of its full 1,066MHz bandwidth, we kept our review unit with its default 6GB of DDR3 RAM. The older model, on the other hand, uses dual-channel DDR2 memory, and so it works fastest in multiples of two. Thus, we tested the older system with 4GB and 8GB to account for both higher and lower memory allotments in relation to the new 6GB system. Interestingly, we saw little difference between our 4GB and 8GB test results, but since we have the scores, we might as well share what we found.
First, it's important to note that the new CPU's core 2.26GHz clock speed is significantly slower than the pair of 2.8GHz chips in the older model. This does not mean that the new Mac Pro is slow across the board, because it still has faster memory and a whole new CPU architecture with a more efficient cache structure. But what it does mean is that for applications that rely heavily on single-core processing speed, such as Photoshop, our review unit actually lags behind both the older model (in 4GB and 8GB configurations), and less expensive Windows desktop from Velocity Micro. We should add that the less expensive four-core version of the new Mac Pro has a single 2.66GHz quad-core chip, which could close the performance gap on these kinds of tests.
We found a much better outlook for the new eight-core Mac Pro on programs that rely on the strength of the system as a whole, such as Apple's Final Cut Studio 2, and on our multitasking and Cinebench tests that split the work between multiple processing cores. Bear in mind that our comparison Mac Pros also have eight CPU cores, and a faster clock speed than the new model, but the new Mac Pro was able to overtake them on all of the above tests.
The gaming prospects of our Mac Pro review unit are less exciting. Yes, the 512MB GeForce GT 120 card provides a marked improvement in 3D performance compared with the older Mac Pros. But our Call of Duty 4 time-demo tests ran at 1,680 by 1,050 and 4x anti-aliasing, both relatively forgiving settings, and the new Mac Pro was unable to hit an even 30 frames per second. Yes, you can purchase a faster 3D card from Apple, but you'd have to pay a minimum of £2,059 to upgrade even the less expensive four-core Mac Pro. If gaming on a Mac is your goal, you still have to pay a disproportionate amount compared with a Windows desktop with the same level of 3D performance. Alternatively, the default graphics card will certainly let you dabble in 3D games, although you're better off with lower resolutions and image quality settings, as well as less demanding titles.
As we've said, our performance results apply only to the new eight-core Mac Pro in its default configuration. Apple offers a 2.66GHz, 3GB four-core model beginning at £1,899, as well various CPU, memory, hard-drive, and other upgrades for our eight-core model. Our review unit will cost you £2,499. At the top end of the scale, you can also buy a 2.93GHz, 32GB, 4TB hard-drive model with a RAID card, four 3D cards and a second DVD burner for £11,259. Incidentally, despite what we said earlier about the new DDR3 RAM working fastest in groups of three memory sticks, Apple also offers 8GB, 16GB and the aforementioned 32GB configuration in groups of four and eight sticks. Apple says it offers this option for customers who might care less about memory speed and more about the sheer amount of RAM.
Like Apple's new iMac, the Mac Pro also has an option for the numeric-keypad-free version of the Apple keyboard, although the default option gets you the standard full-size model. The Mac Pro also has no default wireless networking (not a must-have in a traditional desktop), but you can add an AirPort Extreme card for an extra £40. Other options include various mini DisplayPort adapters, as well as different Fibre Channel PCI Express cards and professional software packages.
In addition to the video ports mentioned earlier, the Mac Pro also gets you a handful of digital and analogue audio jacks, as well as USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 ports on the front and back. We'd still rather see Apple adopt the external eSATA standard for even faster external-hard-drive transfers than FireWire 800.
Finally, our opinion of Apple's service and support policies remains the same throughout its entire desktop line. The one-year parts and labour warranty is standard across the desktop industry, and we find that reasonable enough. But the 90-day limit on phone support stings even on the lowly Mac Mini. Applying that same standard to expensive, professional-grade hardware like the Mac Pro is even harder to stomach. You can always look on Apple's support site, its user forum, or even drag your system in to an Apple Store, but otherwise if you want a longer term for phone-based assistance you need to purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan, which for £195 gets you three years of phone service and also three years of warranty coverage
