Mac Pro

Important things to know about the new Mac Pro (early 2008) vs. the last version

Memory:

1. RAM between the two different models of Mac Pro cannot be swapped.

2. To maximize performance in the Mac Pro and Xserve you always want to use matched quads! When adding memory always add in matched sets and add to stay in sets of four: either add four, or add a set of two to make a set of four. The rule of thumb is one GB per core, so for heavy processing these new machines really perform best with 8GB.

Graphics Cards and Expansion Slots:

The new Mac Pro Features PCI Express 2.0; the old Mac Pro had PCI Express 1.1... so: The new graphics cards will not work in the old Mac Pros.

Note: The difference between the 8800GT and the FX 5600 for an additional $2,500+ will NOT be worth your money with one exception: if you are running any high-end 3D animation programs such as Maya, 3d Studio Max (in Windows only) or Cinema 3D from Maxxon. If you are an editor and are using Maya for only simple things and not solely as an animation station you don't need the FX5600.

Drives (Options from Apple):

1. Custom-configuring your new Mac Pro with SAS drives will only work when you have (as of right now) the Apple RAID Card. So if you want the 300GB 15000 RPM drives, you must buy the Apple RAID card in addition to the hard drives. Also, the 1TB and 300GB SAS drives are only supported on the new Mac Pro and new Xserve, and will not work with the old Mac Pro, even if it does have the Apple RAID Card installed.

Airport Card:

The new Airport Card will only work with the new Mac Pro... it is different than the Airport card for the old Mac Pro.

Two Other Notes:

1. The Mac Pro uses one Firewire controller for all 400 and 800 Ports. If you are doing video capture from a product like the AJA IO HD, and want to write to another Firewire hard drive instead of the internal drives, then you need to add a third-party Firewire controller card.

2. The Boot Camp version on the new Mac Pro will now support the 64-bit version of Microsoft Vista (There are no plans to support 64-bit versions of Microsoft XP). One of the primary benefits is that the 64-bit version of Vista will have access to the full range of memory installed in the machine, and not be limited to 4GB as it is using the 32-bit version of Vista.

Start your engines. All eight of them.

Up to 2x faster.

Eight-core processing power was once only top-of-the-line. Now it comes standard. This time around, performance is more phenomenal than ever... up to two times faster than the previous standard-configuration Mac Pro. And with the multicore technology enhancements of Mac OS X Leopard, the new Mac Pro is a force to be reckoned with.

More power with less power.

Inside the new Mac Pro is the latest technology from Intel: Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Harpertown" processors. These processors run at blazingly fast speeds up to 3.2GHz. Based on the new 45-nm Intel Core microarchitecture, these processors deliver amazing performance but still maintain outstanding energy efficiency.

Cache count.

A huge amount of L2 cache... 12MB per processor... keeps frequently used data and instructions close to the processor cores and improves overall performance. 6MB of cache is shared between pairs of processor cores, allowing an individual core to use all the available shared cache at any one time.

Built at full tilt.

With the fastest Xeon architecture available, the new Mac Pro features 1600MHz dual independent frontside buses. These 64-bit buses give each processor a direct connection to the system controller and deliver improved processor bandwidth of up to 25.6GB per second... 20 percent greater than the previous Mac Pro. With a new system architecture, speedier system buses, and fast 800MHz DDR2 fully buffered DIMM memory, Mac Pro memory throughput is up to 1.6 times faster than before.

Every Intel Xeon processor features an enhanced SSE4 SIMD engine. Capable of completing 128-bit vector computations in a single cycle, SSE4 is ideal for transforming large sets of data, such as applying a filter to an image or rendering a video effect.

Smarter memory.

The Mac Pro incorporates a 256-bit-wide, fully buffered memory architecture with Error Correction Code (ECC), which corrects single-bit errors and detects multiple-bit errors automatically. These features are especially important in mission-critical or compute-intensive environments. Apple designed a more stringent thermal specification for the Mac Pro FB-DIMMs, so the internal fans spin at slower speeds and keep the system quiet.

Feast your eyes.

All-new high-performance graphics cards from ATI and NVIDIA make Mac Pro graphics technology even more cutting edge. The standard graphics card... an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory, PCI Express 2.0, and two dual-link DVI ports... provides great performance for typical creative applications. And you get dual 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display support out of the box.

For motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, or animation, you'll need the greater graphics horsepower offered by the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and latest-generation NVIDIA GPU technology.

The optional NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 graphics card is the ultimate workstation-class graphics card available, with a massive 1.5GB of GDDR3 memory and a 3D stereo port for stereo-in-a-window applications.

All of these cards feature the latest-generation unified shader model support. Compared to dedicated pixel and vertex shaders, shaders are no longer special-purpose and can now be utilized based on the needs of the graphics application.

PCI Express 2.0.

It's the latest interface technology available for connecting high-performance graphics cards, and it's new to the Mac Pro. A 16-lane dedicated graphics slot now features PCI Express 2.0 with up to twice the transfer rate of PCI Express.

The even bigger picture.
To create an incredible display wall or large-scale visualization, install up to four graphics cards, each with two dual-link DVI ports. You can run up to eight 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays at the same time with just one Mac Pro.

Massive storage.

The Mac Pro comes with four 3.5-inch internal hard drive bays for an enormous amount of internal storage... up to 4TB when you install four 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s drives. Each bay provides its own independent 3Gb/s channel for fast access to data. And thanks to the cable-free, direct-attach installation system, adding (or replacing) hard drives is a surprisingly simple process.

Ultimate SAS.

You can also choose ultrafast 15,000-rpm Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 3Gb/s drives with 300GB of capacity for the highest in disk I/O performance. Together with the Mac Pro RAID Card, these drives provide 250MB/s of RAID 5 disk I/O performance. That's enough data to play back one stream of 10-bit uncompressed HD content. It's the ultimate storage solution for highly demanding data transfer situations like editing uncompressed HD video content or updating ultra-high-resolution images.

Double-layer burner, times two.

Sure it's great to have one 16x SuperDrive at your disposal, but think how much more productive you could be with two. Imagine backing up your data to two double-layer DVDs at once. Or burning Aperture projects to one DVD, while importing music from a CD into your iTunes library. With two optical drive bays in every system, the Mac Pro lets you do exactly that.

Ready to RAID.

Using Mac OS X, you can stripe two, three, or all four hard drives in a RAID 0 array to increase performance and create a massive volume for video editing; or create a RAID 1 mirror for protecting your critical digital media assets against a drive failure. For the ultimate in data protection and enhanced performance, add the optional Mac Pro RAID Card with 256MB of RAID cache, a 72-hour cache-protecting battery, and hardware RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 0+1. Apple's RAID Utility software makes setting up and managing the RAID card easy.

Processing

8-core: Two 2.8GHz, 3.0GHz, or 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors

Quad-core: One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processor

Enhanced Intel Core microarchitecture

12MB of L2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6MB)

• 128-bit SSE4 SIMD engine
• 64-bit data paths and registers
• Energy efficiency optimization

1600MHz, 64-bit dual independent frontside buses

Memory

800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory

Eight FB-DIMM slots on two memory riser cards (four slots per card) supporting up to 32GB of main memory

256-bit-wide memory architecture

Graphics and displays

Double-wide, 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot with one of the following graphics cards installed:

• ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and two dual-link DVI ports
• NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and two dual-link DVI ports
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 with 1.5GB of GDDR3 memory, two dual-link DVI ports, and one stereo 3D port

Multiple graphics card configurations including two, three, or four ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT cards

300W for up to four PCI Express graphics cards

Support for up to eight 30-inch displays

Support for digital resolutions up to 2560 by 1600 pixels

Support for analog resolutions up to 2048 by 1536 pixels

DVI to VGA adapter included

Dual-display support for extended desktop and video mirroring modes

Communications

Two independent 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet (RJ-45) interfaces with support for jumbo frames

Bluetooth 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) up to 3Mb/s

Optional 802.11n AirPort Extreme wireless networking

Optional external Apple USB Modem (RJ-11)

Storage

Four 3.5-inch cable-free, direct-attach hard drive bays with built-in independent 3Gb/s Serial ATA channels; four internal hard drive carriers included

Up to 4TB of internal storage using hard drives in the following capacities:

Hard drive bay 1

• 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 8MB cache
• 500GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
• 750GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 32MB cache
• 300GB Serial Attached SCSI 3Gb/s, 15,000 rpm, 16MB cache

Hard drive bay 2

• 500GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
• 750GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 32MB cache
• 300GB Serial Attached SCSI 3Gb/s, 15,000 rpm, 16MB cache

Hard drive bay 3

• 500GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
• 750GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 32MB cache
• 300GB Serial Attached SCSI 3Gb/s, 15,000 rpm, 16MB cache

Hard drive bay 4

• 500GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
• 750GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 32MB cache
• 300GB Serial Attached SCSI 3Gb/s, 15,000 rpm, 16MB cache

Optional Mac Pro RAID card with 256MB cache and 72-hour cache battery backup

16x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

• Writes DVD+R and DVD-R discs at up to 16x speed
• Writes DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL discs at up to 8x speed
• Writes DVD+RW discs at up to 8x speed
• Writes DVD-RW discs at up to 6x speed
• Reads DVDs at up to 16x speed
• Writes CD-R and CD-RW discs at up to 32x speed
• Reads CDs at up to 32x speed

One open optical drive bay for optional second SuperDrive

Electrical and environmental requirements

ENERGY STAR configurations available

Line voltage: 100-120V AC or 200-240V AC (wide-range power supply input voltage)

Frequency: 50Hz to 60Hz single phase

Current: Maximum of 12A (low-voltage range) or 6A (high-voltage range)

Operating temperature: 50 deg to 95 deg F (10 deg to 35 deg C)

Storage temperature: -40 deg to 116 deg F (-40 deg to 47 deg C)

Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing

Maximum altitude: 10,000 feet

Peripherals and audio

Two FireWire 800 ports (one on front panel, one on back panel)

Two FireWire 400 ports (one on front panel, one on back panel)

Five USB 2.0 ports (two on front panel, three on back panel)

Two USB 2.0 ports on included keyboard

Front-panel headphone minijack and speaker

Optical digital audio input and output TOSLINK ports

Analog stereo line-level input and output minijacks

PCI Express expansion

Three open full-length PCI Express expansion slots

• One PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot
• Two PCI Express x4 slots

All slots provide mechanical support for 16-lane cards

300W combined maximum for all PCI Express slots

Software

Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard (includes Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Photo Booth, Front Row, Xcode Developer Tools)
iLife '08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, and GarageBand)

Size and weight

Height: 20.1 inches (51.1 cm)

Width: 8.1 inches (20.6 cm)

Depth: 18.7 inches (47.5 cm)

Weight (standard configuration): 42.4 pounds (19.2 kg)

In the box

• Mac Pro
• Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse
• DVI to VGA adapter
• USB keyboard extension cable
• Install/restore DVDs
• Printed and electronic documentation

• Free UPS freight!
• Get $75 back on any RAM installed into selected new Macs!