Apple surprisingly announced the all-new Mac Pro, a completely redesigned, breakthrough workstation for pros who push the limits of what a Mac can do, and unveiled Apple Pro Display XDR, the world's best pro display.
Getting a complete design overhaul, the new powerhouse machine focuses on maximum performance, expansion and configurability. It features powerful Xeon processors up to 28 cores, with 64 PCI Express lanes for tremendous performance and massive bandwidth.
The machine provides over 300W of power, along with a state-of-the-art thermal architecture to allow the processor to run fully unconstrained all the time. Don't worry about memory, the system can be maxed out at a whopping 1.5TB, says Apple, with six-channel memory across 12 DIMM slots.
For the graphic professionals out there, Apple has introduced what it is calling the MPX Module, which can accommodate up to two graphics cards. The MPX Module has its own dedicated heatsink, which is cooled by the Mac Pro's internal cooling fans. You can add a Radeon Pro Vega II (14 TFLOPS) or a Radeon Pro Vega II Duo (28 TFLOPS) with the MPX Module. And if you're feeling lucky, you can add up to two Radeon Pro Vega II Duos, which will give you quad GPUs maxing out at 56 TFLOPS.
Having admitted that its glossy "trash can" Mac Pro of 2013 was a mistake, Apple has long promised that the next update to its most professional computer line would be a return to more modular, less thermally constrained computing.
Although it's a new design, the 2019 Mac Pro is also a throwback to Apple's classic "cheese grater" look. The interior is structured for modularity and flexibility, addressing one of the big pain points of the outgoing Mac Pro design.
"We designed Mac Pro for users who require a modular system with extreme performance, expansion and configurability," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "With its powerful Xeon processors, massive memory capacity, groundbreaking GPU architecture, PCIe expansion, Afterburner accelerator card and jaw-dropping design, the new Mac Pro is a monster that will enable pros to do their life's best work."
Alongside the new Mac Pro, Apple also unveiled the Pro Display XDR, which features the largest retina display yet. The 32-inch LCD panel features 6016 x 3384 Retina 6K resolution with more than 20 million pixels and extreme dynamic range. It has nearly 40 percent more screen real estate than Apple's previous Retina 5K display.
The new Mac Pro is launching this fall with a starting price of $5,999, while the new 32-inch Pro Display XDR will be starting at $4,999.
