First review: Mac Pro
Apple’s new flagship PC is an instant design classic, but is the mac pro style and substance?
Pedal bin, Darth Vader’s helmet – whatever you think it resembles, there’s no ignoring Apple’s über-computer. We get testing…
After months of seductive pre-hype, Apple’s new top-ofthe-line desktop computer was unleashed on the unsuspecting Christmas-rush public. Looking like Darth Vader’s new plaything, the Mac Pro’s sudden pre-order announcement gave those searching for a power upgrade something to contemplate, and now it’s finally ready to ship.
Armed with an all-new exterior aesthetic that’s hard to ignore, it’s the latest example of Sir Jonathan Ive’s united hardware and software approach to design. The Pro feels premium, its aluminium shell reassuringly pristine, yet is a product built to be divisive. Early images on our social networks led to a variety of comparisons, from biscuit jars to coffee machines, but we’d argue it’s Apple’s most iconic design in years, part Harmon Kardon Soundsticks, part Death Star.
This isn’t style for the sake of it, though. The cylindrical design aids heat dispersal, creating a central triangular vent that the circular base fan uses as high-tech chimney, pushing thermals out of the top and keeping the precious innards cool. The 16.7cm diameter and 25cm height also means its imprint is small, a compact desktop built to do exactly that: sit on top of your desk, rather than be tucked away out of sight.
A solitary power button and a streak of connections are concealed round the back of the cylinder, which can be spun round for ease of access, and which lights up dramatically and usefully when working late. You get four USB 3.0 ports, a whopping six Thunderbolt 2 ports – 20 Gb/s throughput apiece – two Ethernet ports and an ultra-HDMI out.
As is almost universally the way now with Apple, there are no built-in media drives, so it’s a good job there’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 on hand, plus a slim range of pricey professional Thunderbolt 2 accessories; hopefully a few more will appear soon.
It’s possible to run three 4K monitors off of one Mac Pro if you feel the need, and when networked the Pros
look impressively/unsettlingly like a nest of Alien pods. Each “pod” can be opened with a click of the lock switch, the outer metal casing sliding off to reveal a triangular structure of adaptable processors and memory. It may be compact, but there’s 5kg of computing power packed under that gloss-black hood.
That power, of course, will vary massively depending on what setup you’re rocking, as a raft of custom options are available. At the entry level of $3,999 you get a none-tooshabby 3.7GHz quadcore Xeon processor, a pair of AMD FirePro D300 graphics processors with 2GB of VRAM apiece, 12GB RAM and 256GB of flash storage. However, if your wallet’s as deep as your love of raw computing grunt, you can get into eight-core and 12-core setups without breaking sweat.
Our test machine proved to be nearer the top end of the spectrum, with the 3GHz eightcore CPU, AMD FirePro D700, 64GB RAM and 1TB hard drive giving it a total worth of $10,229. At that level, we’re not surprised to report that it’s a bit of a processing beast. It ranked in the top percentile in a wide variety of professional benchmarks tests, proving itself over five times more powerful than the T3 office’s MacBook Pro Retina. Our 64-bit, eight-core rig ranked in Geekbench’s top five performing Mac setups of all time, while Apple’s new 12-core Pro currently sits on top of the pile.
Running the now familiar OS X Mavericks system software out of the box, the basic running speed boost is palpable, with software instantly responsive and lag non-existent. The Mac Pro is able to handle all kinds of professional creative media tasks simultaneously without drawing breath, or making any distinguishable peep. Everything drags and drops with ease, even in performance-intensive applications.
FinalCutProX was specifically upgraded to make the most of the new Mac Pro’s prowess and it’s a dream for film editing, at one point seeing us cut between sixteen 4K videos all in real time, with no rendering or stutter. The dual FirePro graphics cards enable some neat tricks of their own, from instant 11,000% time lapses with a simple click to real-time multiple-effects additions without any waiting time. We were able to export filter-laden 1080p video footage more than ten times faster than from our MacBook Pro; it’s revelatory.
Our gaming hands dabbled with Metro: LastLight, Amnesia and the new Sky Gamblers, with visuals super-smooth and frame rate super-tight. We could get used to instant 1GB Photoshop file opening, too.
To be frank, the Mac Pro swatted away all tasks we could throw at it, even those of our incredibly demanding video team. This is an expensive machine, but the money is