Apple announces a modular Mac Pro and it’s a screamer

Apple has unveiled a modular Mac Pro at WWDC 2019 today.

It’s housed inward an aluminum enclosure that resembles the tower Mac Pro models, allowing the user to swap components every bit they run across fit. There’s a stainless steel frame on the within together with the stainless steel handles on the outside. The user has 360-degree access to everything within and, cheers for asking, PCI expansion is directly dorsum to the Mac together with that’s huge!

You lead hold 8 PCI slots within although i is taken yesteryear a built-in I/O bill of fare that gives y'all ii Thunderbolt 3 port out the dorsum along amongst ii USB-A ports together with that dearest 3.5mm sound jack. By the way, y'all too acquire ii 10-gigabit Ethernet ports on this novel Mac Pro. The machine is powered yesteryear a brand-new Intel Xeon processor amongst upward to 28 processing cores together with has 6 retentiveness channels for the fast 2,9333 MHz ECC RAM for a total of 1.5 terabytes of memory.

That said, what actually matters inward a pro desktop is the GPU.

Apple has created something called the Mac Pro Expansion Module, or MPX, for GPU expansions. With fanless design, x16 PCI controller together with multiple GPU options to select from, including the Radeon Pro 580X together with the latest Radeon Pro Vega II (delivering xiv teraflops of compute ability amongst 32GB HBM2 retentiveness together with upward to a whopping i terabyte per 2nd retentiveness bandwidth), the novel Mac Pro volition allow y'all practise to a greater extent than inward creative apps than always before.

This uses Apple’s new Infinity Fabric Link that provides 5 times faster information throughout than the PCI bus.

A dedicated 300-watt ability furnish together with massive estrus sinks cool the GPU together with thus it tin run fully unconstrained all the time. Apple has too created a brand new hardware-accelerated graphics card, called Afterburner, that tin procedure vi billions pixels per 2nd together with allow the user to play unheard-of three streams of 8K video inward the resource-intensive ProREs RAW codec, or a whopping twelve streams of 4K video at the same time, smoothly.

Most importantly, the Afterburner bill of fare lets y'all run amongst the Pro Res codecs straight (say goodbye to proxy workflows).

This would all amount to cipher were it non for third-party software to accept payoff of the novel Mac Pro. Thankfully, Apple’s closely worked amongst developers of some of the top pro apps to build certain this novel machine fills every demand of the company’s pro customers. For instance, Adobe, Autodesk, Serif together with Blackmagic Design all announced back upward for the novel Mac Pro today, amongst BlackMagic delivering real-time effects together with coloring inward 8K resolution.

Side FX , RED, Eopuc together with Avid too unveiled updates making their apps run cracking on the novel Mac Pro, every bit good every bit 3D developers Unity, Pixar, Foudney together with Maxon. Oh, together with the popular Redshift homecoming engine is coming to the Mac, amongst total back upward for the Metal framework, spell Otoy is edifice a version of Octane to present off the machine’s graphics prowess.

All that ability requires some serious wattage together with cooling.

Good thing the novel Mac Pro features a 1.4-kilowatt ability furnish together with 3 enormous fans on the side that run together to create 300 cubes feet of air period of time per minute. Despite that, the machine is every bit placidity every bit an iMac Pro, Apple has said. All that oomph doesn’t come upward cheap.

The novel Mac Pro volition endure available inward the fall, starting at $6,000 for the base of operations model amongst an 8-core Xeon processor, 32GB RAM together with Radeon Pro 580X graphics. There volition too endure a version optimized for rack deployment, but no farther details were given, together with you’ll endure able to acquire a gear upward of optional wheels if y'all demand to easily motion painting it around the office.

Apple too unveiled a novel standalone 31-inch display, called Pro Display XDR.

It back upward the crisp 6K resolution, delivering xl percentage to a greater extent than pixels than the iMac 5K model. It supports the P3 broad color touchstone together with has a 10-bit panel, which agency it tin homecoming upward to a billion colors without dithering. Other perks include a super broad viewing angle together with the selection betwixt the normal anti-reflective coating or something Apple calls nano-texture glass, which reduces glare without dimming the colors.

Speaking of ikon quality, this display features a custom-designed backlighting organization that takes payoff of individually factory-calibrated LEDs to deliver uniform backlight. Apple is too using custom lenses together with reflectors to shape together with command the light, inward add-on to the machine-learning algorithm. The terminate outcome is a display that delivers a chiliad nits of total brightness, but non merely peak brightness, this is constant 1,000 nits of brightness, forever.

As for peak brightness, this display delivers 1,600 nits of it.

The contrast ratio is an incredible 1,000,000:1.

They’ve created a prissy stand upward amongst a built-in counterbalancing arm that makes the display experience weightless together with lets y'all conform its angle amongst a unmarried finger. It maintains the correct angle every bit the display is raised or lowered together with tin endure easily removed to accept amongst y'all inward the field. Best of all, the Pro Stand, every bit they’re calling it, lets y'all rotate the display to portrait mode, which is cracking for coding.

The display volition endure available this autumn starting at $5,000.

If y'all desire that nano-texture encompass glass, the display volition gear upward y'all dorsum $6,000. That Pro Stand is a $1,000 extra (the crowd reacted amongst bewilderment when that pricing slide for the stand upward went up). And final but non least, y'all volition endure able to connect upward to vi of these 6K displays to your Mac Pro for a total of 120 1000000 pixels.

Thoughts?

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