Posts tagged with "mac pro"

Macminicolo Launches Mac Pro Colocation Service→

Macminicolo, the first Mac mini colocation service that has been hosting Mac mini servers for over 9 years, has today announced a Mac Pro colocation service, called MacProColo. The service will allow users to send their new Mac Pros to take advantage of the benefits of a data center to have powerful, dedicated hosting with all the benefits of OS X and the Mac Pro’s advanced technologies.

From the company’s blog post:

We tested the Mac Pro quite a bit in the data center. It performs incredible and there is no issue with heat. The Pro does pull quite a bit more power though. (And in a data center, power is one of the biggest expenses.)

For most people, the Mac mini will easily do the job and will also be less expensive for purchase and for colocation. In my opinion, I think most people will want the Mac Pro on their desk and the Mac mini in the data center.

Speaking to MacRumors’ Jordan Golson, Macminicolo’s Brian Stucki noted that the fan of the new Mac Pro makes it easy to get air through the machine, and he added that heat dissipation won’t be an issue in most data centers.

We’ve been running MacStories on Macminicolo for over a year now, and I couldn’t be more satisfied with the service’s uptime and the company’s support. We’ve changed a few hosting providers over the years, and while setting up a dedicated Mac server for our needs required some time, it was absolutely worth it. We won’t need a Mac Pro upgrade (at least not for the time being), but I can personally vouch for Macminicolo and I’m looking forward to reading about other websites switching to MacProColo.

Details about pricing are available here.

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Dan Frakes On The New Mac Pro→

Dan Frakes:

While older Mac Pro models were appealing to a broad range of demanding users, the 2013 Mac Pro focuses almost entirely on the things true professional users need: multi-core performance, workstation-class GPUs and GPU computing, fast I/O, and the like. Say what you will about the new Mac Pro’s lack of options for internal expansion, but Apple doesn’t appear to have spared much expense when it comes to the components it did include. The result is that the new Mac Pro is the first Mac in a long time that’s clearly—and almost exclusively—for actual professional users.

See also: Dan’s review at Macworld and FCP.co’s first 24 hours with the new Mac Pro and Final Cut Pro 10.1. For video professionals, the tests performed by FCP.co are impressive.

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The New Mac Pro Arrives Tomorrow→

With a press release, Apple today announced that the new Mac Pro, originally introduced at WWDC, will be available tomorrow, December 19. From the PR:

The Mac Pro is available with a 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of VRAM each, 12GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage starting at $2,999 (US); and with a 3.5 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of VRAM each, 16GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage starting at $3,999 (US). Configure-to-order options include faster 8-core or 12-core Intel Xeon E5 processors, AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of VRAM, up to 64GB of memory, and up to 1TB of PCIe-based flash storage.

As we wrote in October:

The new Mac Pro is all about being small, quiet, yet entirely capable of delivering performance for today’s audio and visual professionals. The Mac Pro, unlike desktop towers of old, has been designed into a compact round aluminum canister that sucks heat away from components using a single unified thermal core. While uniquely shaped, components in the new Mac Pro are user accessible, with connectivity to server racks and other peripherals being mitigated through an array of Thunderbolt 2 ports.

The new Mac Pro is Apple’s latest crown jewel, assembled in the US and packing an incredible amount of hardware innovations. More details are available at the Mac Pro’s official webpage.

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(RED) Mac Pro→

“Selected and customised” by Jony Ive and Marc Newson (the duo also behind the special edition Leica M camera).

From the description:

The new Mac Pro is the most powerful, yet radical Mac that Apple has ever designed. Architected around an innovative, unified thermal core, the new Mac Pro features dual workstation graphics cards, the latest Xeon processors, ultra-fast flash storage, and incredibly high performance I/O. A precisely machined and polished enclosure houses this advanced technology in an extraordinary design that stands just 9.9 inches tall and 6.6 inches in diameter. This one-of-a-kind model, made with red anodised aluminium, has been crafted exclusively for the (RED) Auction.

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New Mac Pro Begins Shipping in December for $2999

Previewed during this year’s WWDC Keynote, Phil Schiller already gave us a run down of what to expect with the new Mac Pro. The last piece of the puzzle would be availability, and today it was revealed that the new Mac Pro’s will begin shipping in December, starting at $2999. But what does three grand get you? Here’s a refresher:

Big performance gains in a package 1/8th the size of the current Mac Pro

The new Mac Pro is all about being small, quiet, yet entirely capable of delivering performance for today’s audio and visual professionals. The Mac Pro, unlike desktop towers of old, has been designed into a compact round aluminum canister that sucks heat away from components using a single unified thermal core. While uniquely shaped, components in the new Mac Pro are user accessible, with connectivity to server racks and other peripherals being mitigated through an array of Thunderbolt 2 ports.

The heart of the new Mac Pro consists of an Intel Xeon E5 processor that comes in 4, 6, 8, or 12-core configurations. These processors will have up to 30 MB of L3 cache, and up to 40 GB/s of PCI Express gen 3 bandwidth. On the memory front, Apple’s including up to 64 GB of 1866 MHz ECC memory, all coordinated via a four channel controller which allows up to 60 GB/s of bandwidth. Then there’s those dual GPUs: two AMD FirePro graphics cards with up to 4096 stream processors and up to 12 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. The two cards can deliver a total of 528GB/s of bandwidth. Storage, like recent Mac improvements, is also being bumped into the PCIe-based flash storage realm, with capacities up to 1 TB available. Professionals can expect up to 1.2 GB/s writes and 1.0 GB/s reads.

Connecting the Mac Pro to the outside world is its I/O panel, which features six Thunderbolt 2 ports, 4 USB 3 ports, dual Gigabit ethernet, and HDMI out. Thunderbolt 2 ports support 20 GB/s of throughput, with up to six devices able to connect per port. The Mac Pro’s greatest asset is that it can power up to three 4k single and dual-input displays. Just like the MacBook lineup, 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 for wireless connectivity is standard.

The base configuration Mac Pro at $2999 comes with:

  • 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 with 10 MB L3 cache and Turbo Boost up to 3.9 GHz
  • 12 GB of 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC memory
  • Dual AMD FirePro D300 graphics processors with 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM each
  • 256 GB PCIe-based flash storage

For more information on the new Mac Pro, visit Apple.com.

For more coverage, check out our October 22 news hub and follow @macstoriesnet on Twitter.

Thinking About The New Mac Pro→

Guy English of kickingbear writes:

 I don’t think Geekbench scores for this machine will be terribly meaningful. Benchmarks have the curse of trying to capture how a machine will perform under typical, or extreme, conditions. What they don’t do is give a broad perspective of the actual capabilities of the machine. They’re informed by history. If you do something new history will be less relevant.

Keep reading for the geeky bits.

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Apple Releases New MacBook Airs, Previews New Mac Pro Design

Apple’s line of MacBook Airs received nice spec bumps today, which include Intel’s fourth-generation core processors, Haswell. Haswell chips include the new Intel HD 5000 graphics, which is 40% faster than the previous generation Intel HD 4000. Haswell’s main benefit isn’t just that it’s just a new, better processor, but that it’s built especially for mobile. Intel’s latest chips are designed for power savings, and incorporate smarter low-power states. It’s an extremely efficient chip, resulting in a substantial increase in battery life over the previous generation of MacBook Airs.

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