The Mac Pro’s use of dual 4-core Zeon processors for a total of 8 cores of processing power makes it one of the highest performing Macs you can currently get your hands on.
The Mac Pro is also one of the easiest computers I have ever worked with when it comes to upgrading or changing internal hardware. The entire case, memory, and PCI expansion slots all use no-tool designs. The four hard drive bays use a plug-in tray design that makes it so easy to change the hard drive configuration you could almost do it on a whim.
If Apple provided more graphics card options, the Mac Pro would earn a full 5 stars.
- 8 processor cores (2.8, 3.0, and 3.2 GHz Intel Zeon processors available)
- 4 hard drive bays
- 4 full-length PCI Express expansion slots
- 1600 MHz dual independent front side buses
- Fully buffered 256-bit-wide memory with ECC (Error Correction Code)
- Only three graphics card options are available from Apple
- Apple-supplied memory upgrades are expensive
- Included keyboard is a love/hate affair; this reviewer hates it
- Available with 2.8, 3, or 3.2 GHz Intel Zeon processors
- 64-bit data paths and registers; supports 64-bit OSes
- 1600 MHz dual independent front side buses
- 800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered memory (FB-DIMM)
- Up to 32 GB of RAM (2 GB in base configuration)
- 4 drive bays
- 16X SuperDrive (DVD+/-R, DL.DVD +/-RW, CD-RW)
- Open optical bay for expansion
- Ships with OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
- 5 USB 2.0 ports, 2 FireWire 800 and 2 FireWire 400 ports, optical and analog audio in/out, headphone jack
The Mac Pro is by far one of the best workstations for professional content creators, application developers, musicians, photographers, and speed freaks.
You can see the Mac Pro’s versatility for yourself by visiting the Apple Store and checking out all of the available configuration options. The Mac Pro has four hard drive bays, so you can start with a single drive or push it to the max with a RAID array tuned for speed or redundancy. The eight memory slots allow you to configure RAM from 2 GB to 32 GB (always in pairs, minimum). Should you need to drive eight or more displays, you can load all four PCI Express slots with graphics card.
The PCI Express expansion bus contains two 16-lane wide PCI Express 2.0 slots. One of the slots is also physically double-wide to accommodate the newer double-wide graphics cards. The two remaining slots are standard 4-lane PCI Express slots.
Surprisingly, the graphics cards available from Apple really don’t do the Mac Pro hardware justice. The base graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT. If you prefer, you can choose a better performing NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600. Generally, third-party graphics cards won’t work with the Mac Pro when running OS X, although they may work fine if you choose to boot into Windows.
My only disappointments with the Mac Pro are in two areas: the lack of additional graphics card options, and the keyboard and mouse supplied by Apple. The keyboard has a love-it-or-hate-it design. I personally hate it, but you might really love it. For that reason, I’m not counting the keyboard against the Mac Pro’s rating for this review. Just be warned that you might want to replace the keyboard.
I can’t recommend the Mac Pro highly enough, although I’d recommend it even more enthusiastically if there were more options available for graphics cards.
