This is what I have been waiting for. Hoping and dreaming for. Ok, it is way out of the league of my finances, but the fact that Apple has released this new range of Mac Pros has restored my confidence in them.
Here are the things that stand out for me:
High End Commitment
Why? Because I have doubted Apple’s commitment to the more professional user, a commitment that has been dogged my rumors and suspicions about Final Cut Studio’s life. The idea that Final Cut Studio was under threat has been substantiated by the notion that Apple was not committed to the high end market. Which they have debunked now through the release of these beasts.
Power
The new Mac Pros, are truly awesome. Two ”Westmere” 6-core CPUs is all that I can see. 12 Cores of Power or if you want 24 virtual cores with Intel’s Hyper-Threading. Imagine that. The breathing room will be nothing short of phenomenal. It will be interesting to see how 4K Editing, Color Grading and Motion Graphics hold up.
The Graphic Options are:
- ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5
- ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of GDDR5
Memory for the dual architecture is up to 32GB:
- 2.4GHz system: 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
- 2.66GHz and 2.93GHz systems: 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
Memory for the single architecture is up to 32GB:
- 2.8GHz and 3.2GHz systems: 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
- 3.33GHz system: 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
Blue-Ray still Missing
The DVD Drive is still a DVD drive and the option for the second slot is specified as “One open optical drive bay for optional second SuperDrive” not even a mention for an Optional Blu-Ray Drive. Pity. That is the only failure.
[Update]
No USB 3.0 or FW 1600/3200
It was noted on StudioDaily that there is no USB 3.0 or FW 1600/3200 this is unfortunate because all of the very useful USB 3.0 post production product out there. Inserting a USB 3.0 card will probably use up the last PCI slot. One is already taken up by the Graphic Card (would you have two?) and possibly an eSata card.
