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Apple Mac Pro: 9 Ways It Wows
Ignore the haters. Apple's Mac Pro is one amazing machine. Here's why.
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The Mac Pro is available with a 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2 GB of VRAM each, 12 GB of memory, and 256 GB of PCIe-based flash storage, starting at $2,999. It is also available with a 3.5 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3 GB of VRAM each, 16 GB of memory, and 256 GB of PCIe-based flash storage, starting at $3,999. Custom configurations are available with faster 8-core or 12-core Intel Xeon E5 processors, AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6 GB of VRAM, up to 64 GB of memory, and up to 1 TB of PCIe-based flash storage.
The previous-generation Mac Pro, a traditional computer tower, weighed about 40 pounds. The new Mac Pro barely tips the scales at 11 pounds. While this make it easier to move the device without injuring your back, it also makes it much easier to steal.
The new Mac Pro comes with four USB 3.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, an HDMI port, and six Thunderbolt 2 ports, promising potential bandwidth as high as 20 Gbit/s per NAS or SAN device, or 10 Gbit/s to another Thunderbolt-equipped Mac. Each Thunderbolt 2 port supports daisy chains of up to six devices, so you could attach up to 36 Thunderbolt 2 peripherals.
Apple claims the new Mac Pro delivers up to eight times the graphics performance of previous Mac Pro models. But performance depends on the computational task, the application, and other factors. GeekBench last month estimated that the new 4-core model will be between 50% and 75% faster than the old one, while the 12-core model will be between 16% and 32% faster than similar current models. There's more to it than that, though. The new Mac Pro, for example, will be able to drive three 4K displays.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Mac Pro is that it's made in America, or at least assembled in Texas with components made in Illinois and Florida and equipment made in Kentucky and Michigan. Presumably, some elements like semiconductors and memory will still be sourced from fabrication facilities in Asia or elsewhere in the world. Apple isn't the first company to reconsider contract manufacturing abroad. But its decision to do so at a time when the US economy needs more jobs and more manufacturing competency helps burnish a corporate imaged tarred by labor issues at its contract manufacturing partners in China.
Apple's decision to shift Mac Pro manufacturing to the US is bringing thousands of jobs to various states through US facilities run by manufacturing partners like Foxconn and Quanta. In November, the state of Arizona said that a new Apple facility being built in Mesa, Ariz., would create more than 2,000 jobs. There will be jobs for robots, too -- creation of the Mac Pro involves many machines.
If you have ever used a previous Mac Pro, you may recall times when the computer's fan kicked in. It often sounded like a hair dryer. It was really loud. The new Mac Pro's design, amusing though it may be to some, has an important function: The whole cylindrical structure helps keep the Mac Pro cool. The computer may put out lot of heat, thanks to its powerful chipset, but it also emits a lot less noise than you might expect.
Desktop computers won't disappear, but they're likely to become more and more unusual as portable devices become functional stand-ins. When your phone can hold a CPU and all the necessary memory, all that remains for desktop work is a keyboard, a display, and maybe a mouse or gesture-tracking system. Take a good look at the new Mac Pro. It's a beautiful, innovative anachronism.
Desktop computers won't disappear, but they're likely to become more and more unusual as portable devices become functional stand-ins. When your phone can hold a CPU and all the necessary memory, all that remains for desktop work is a keyboard, a display, and maybe a mouse or gesture-tracking system. Take a good look at the new Mac Pro. It's a beautiful, innovative anachronism.
Apple's redesigned Mac Pro became available for order Thursday, arriving at once as a symbol of the company's capacity for innovation and as a reminder of how much the computer business has changed in the past seven years.
When the first Mac Pro debuted in August 2006, Apple was still known as Apple Computer. It would be five months later, in January 2007, that then-CEO Steve Jobs announced his company henceforth would be known simply as Apple, Inc. Among Apple's various product lines at the time -- Mac, iPod, iPhone, and the newly launched Apple TV -- he reasoned that only one represented a computer.
That wasn't entirely accurate. Each of those products contained a CPU. But apart from the Mac, Apple had moved beyond traditional personal computers. Jobs believed people would prefer the more curated, less complicated experience embodied by the iPhone ecosystem, rather than the one offered by computers -- at the time, maintaining a computer and keeping its software updated was onerous. And Apple's subsequent success proved him right.
In its fiscal Q4 2013, Apple made $5.6 billion in revenue selling Mac computers. But that's only about 15% of the company's total revenue during that period. Personal computers just don't matter that much to Apple as a source of revenue.
But they're part of Apple's history and a source of pride. As the company notes in its public relations boilerplate, "Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world." Stung by grumbling from investors about an underwhelming product pipeline and by doubts about CEO Tim Cook's ability to fill the shoes of his iconic predecessor, Philip Schiller, SVP of worldwide marketing, defied Apple's critics in June at the company's developer conference. "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!" he declared, in reference to the company's impending Mac Pro.
Though ridicule was quick to follow -- some likened the unusual cylindrical design to a trash can -- Apple has always been the target of such criticism. Recall departing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comment about the iPhone in 2007: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share." Or Dell CEO Michael Dell's advice to Steve Jobs in 1997 about how to save Apple: "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
The new Mac Pro represents a redefinition of the workstation, at a time when cloud computing can handle many of the number-crunching jobs that used to go to workstations. It remains to be seen whether expensive workstations like this will continue to be viable as high-end applications shift toward cloud delivery.
Apple's latest offering is not the sort of easily expandable, modular, upgradable system that many computing aficionados prefer. That may not please everyone, but Apple has never aspired to be all things to all people. Apple makes choices and insists on some limits to balance form, function, and its business needs -- make a system that's too modular, and customers won't buy new hardware.
The new Mac Pro is a blazing fast desktop computer. If you deal with sophisticated graphics, video editing, data analysis, or you simply have $3,000 or more you want to spend on a striking desktop computer -- Call of Duty: Black Ops, anyone? -- you owe it to yourself to try the new Mac Pro. Now take a closer look at its appeal.
Thomas Claburn is editor-at-large for InformationWeek. He has been writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications such as New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and television. He's the author of a science fiction novel, Reflecting Fires, and his mobile game Blocfall Free is available for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire.
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