macformat’s matt bolton delves deeper
While the use of non-standard graphics cards and a lack of extra drive space inside had lead to initial concerns over the new Pro’s expandability, it turns out to be much simpler than expected. We’re more than comfortable with the raft of external ports for expansion (the six Thunderbolt 2s alone allow for 36 accessories to be attached) so the only issues here are of tidiness and convenience. These aren’t worth ignoring, but are relatively minor.
Where we do have concern is the maximum 64GB of memory, determined by only four RAM slots. The last Mac Pro supported 128GB simply due to more of these and if you work on extremely complex Photoshop files, this could be troublesome. We hope it’s addressed with RAM sticks of greater size than the current 32GB offerings.
That said, there is an absolutely huge amount of power on offer, but the hardware has to be used properly to unlock it fully. When software is designed to take advantage of the dual GPUs, like FinalCutPro, it flies, but this isn’t universal yet. AdobePremiere, FinalCut’s rival, hasn’t been rewritten and the results offer little speed advantage over the old Pro. Apple needs to help third-party developers harness the power inside.
How to configure your perfect Pro Of the many combinations, the six-core processor currently looks like a sweet spot, offering no penalty on single-core speed compared to the quadcore model, but with good improvement on multi-core tasks for a relatively modest $1,500 upgrade.
For work such as 3D effects and rendering, you’ll want at least the mid-range D500 option (with 6GB of VRAM), and as GPU upgrades are comparatively modest they are likely to be the best value improvement.
The mid-range 16GB RAM is comfortable for many tasks, but pro-level video and image editing will benefit from more. However, Apple RAM upgrades are famously above market rates ($400 to go from 12GB to 32GB) so shop around.
The basic 256GB flash hard drive isn’t very much at all – enough for applications but not really for the data to use in them. Again, Apple’s prices for storage upgrades are quite steep, although the type of solid state drive used here isn’t very common as yet, so an external hard drive may be your best bet.