Hardware Breakdown Presents: Apple's New Mac Pro
At the annual WWDC 2019, Apple announced its new Mac Pro. Making it six years since the company last introduced the glossy trash can desktop, 2013 to be exact. The latest iteration reverts to the traditional Apple classic cheese grater design. The new Mac Pro interior structure is more modular and flexible in regards to hardware upgrade, addressing one of the biggest problems of the last generation Mac Pro design. The trash can variant had known thermal issues, and it was challenging to upgrade hardware.
Putting the design aside, its all about what's under the hood of the new Mac Pro, the hardware, and I must say, it's pretty impressive. So impressive the new Mac Pro makes this months Hardware Breakdown.
So if you're new to this website Hardware Breakdown examines key components that lend some uniqueness to the device. Let's use the imagination a bit and pull the new Mac Pro apart and take a detailed look at its core components.
The Processor
What is a workstation without having a top flight processor, which the Mac Pro does have. You can configure from an 8-core to an astounding 28-core 2.5GHz Intel Xeon W processor, that has 56 threads Turbo Boost up to the 4.4GHz 66.5MB cache.
The Memory situation
Saying the new Mac Pro has an overkill abundant of RAM is an understatement. You have 12 user-accessible DIMM slots, count em twelve. Allowing users to configure up to 1.5TB of DDR4 ECC memory. Twelve 128GB DIMMs require users to have 24-core or 28-core processor.
GPU Configuration
Apple is launching what they call an MPX Module, which is a custom expansion module that takes full advantage of a dedication Thunderbolt 3 back. The MPX Module is one giant quad-wide PCIe that's constructed to fit two graphics cards, which amazingly have a dedicated heat sink. Now there is no word from Apple if you can install NVIDIA graphics cards, but the company does spec out the machine with AMD's Radeon Pro Vega 2 or Radeon Pro Vega 2 Duo, configurable up to four GPU's and a total of 128GB of HBM2 graphics memory.
Impeccable hardware needs immense power
With all that impressive hardware inside the new Mac Pro, you need a decent amount of wattage output. So it's no surprise the power supply maxes out at 1.4 kilowatts. Users have a choice of going with a 1180W or 1280W power supply. The extra wattage of power will undoubtedly allow any user the freedom to configure and add new hardware to the system as they see fit and still have enough power the spare.
