The anandtech Mac Pro is an Apple high-end desktop computer. It's an incredibly powerful workstation that is capable of running demanding professional applications at a reasonable price. It also has a beautiful appearance.
The chassis is sleek and modern looking, but feels solid. It's also quiet, which can be important for professional workstations.
The desktop is also beautiful, which is something many other desktops cannot claim. This is why I was so excited to be able to review it.
A quick tour of the system
Anandtech mac pro uses a single processor board behind the IO panels. This single board supports Intel's newest Ivy Bridge-EP Xeon processors. This makes it easy to upgrade down the road, as long as you have a good memory upgrade kit and a decent motherboard with PCIe slots.
An optional sled adapter is available for mid-2010 models. A hardware RAID card is also available, although it's not necessary to use it for most users.
You can also easily upgrade the system's RAM with its 16GB DDR3 memory. However, Apple's FB-DIMM memory modules require special heatsinks to maintain a consistent temperature.
Apart from the processor, the main component of the anandtech Mac pro is the graphics card. The dual-GPU design of the new chip is a first for its class. One GPU is dedicated to high-end computing work and one is used for media production. This design, which many people will love, offers the best performance possible for current GPU architectures. Apple has huge potential to future-proof its product lines with this design.
Six-core Mac Pros now run as fast as three-core machines. With the latest Xeons, a twelve core Mac Pro runs faster than a ninecore unit. It's great news if you work with heavy workloads. However, it doesn't give any noticeable boosts to lighter threaded applications such as importing photos to Lightroom or playing back videos.
Those users will likely find that a more affordable option will be better suited for their needs. The anandtech Mac min is, for instance, much more affordable then the anandtech Mac pros.
For that reason, the anandtech mac mini is a good choice for users who don't need a high-end workstation, but who do need a compact desktop. Although it isn't as powerful, the screen is extremely sharp and it is very quiet.
The anandtechmac pro is definitely a higher-end model than the old one and has a great look and feel. The overall design and functionality are not perfect, but the anandtech macpro is great for what it does.
The new Mac Pro design is an important part of this. It strives to be small while still providing high-end functionality. It's not clear if this was always the goal but it is evident that Apple is strongly committed to form factor development, and that the Mac Pro represents a major step forward in that direction.