2011 Apple Mac Pro Desktop PC
Little has changed on Apple’s principal desktop PC in the past seven years. At least, that’s what you’d think, were you to glance at the current Mac Pro, and compare it with the Power Mac G5 of 2003.
A towering beast over half a metre tall, the Power Mac G5 introduced Apple’s aluminium construction, all perforated front and back panels. But outward appearances are particularly deceptive. Yesteryear’s Mac bears almost no resemblance inside -this top-spec tower includes two six-core Intel Xeon processors.
It’s fitted with two workstation-class 2.93GHz hex-cored chips, codenamed Westmere. Altogether, that adds up to 12 physical processor cores, each hyperthreaded to create 24 virtual cores.
These are joined by 12GB of DDR3 memory. For storage there’s a 512GB solid-state disk (SSD) and a two-terabyte (2TB) hard disk. And an ATI Radeon HD 5870 card controls the graphics.
One trick Apple has missed is the SATA bus. While it’s possible to find 6 gigabits per second (Gbps) storage, Apple is sticking with 3Gbps.
We used Cinebench 11.5 to create a festive image of a bauble. It scored 1.13 points, putting it ahead of Intel Xeon 2.92GHz X5670 and 3.2GHz Core i7-960, each at 1.1 points.
With all the processor cores engaged, there’s a significant step up in performance, with Cinebench recording 15.1 points. That’s a multiprocessor speed-up of 13.63x.
Before our regular Windows benchmarks, we tried Xbench. Our 2.4GHz MacBook Pro scored around 120 points in stock configuration, rising to 160 with an SSD and 6GB of RAM. The 12-core Apple Mac Pro pulled ahead more than a little: 350 points.
This Mac Pro is obviously overkill as a gaming machine. In Crysis, the Mac averaged 64fps at ‘High Quality’ settings and 44fps at ‘Very High’. That’s in line with expectation for the rendering power of a 5870.
And in WorldBench 6 test, the Mac Pro scored 167 points. It’s the fastest computer we’ve tested.
Build quality is second to none, and the Mac remained practically noiseless during stress testing.
Verdict
This Mac represents a colossally powerful workstation, as you’d hope at this price. It features some of the fastest components that money can buy. It’s superbly assembled and built to last.
Specification
- 2.93GHz Intel Xeon X5670;
- Apple Mac OS X 10.6;
- 12GB DDR3 RAM;
- 512GB SSD;
- 2TB SATA;
- 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5870;
- 802.11a/b/g/n;
- 2 x gigabit ethernet;
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR;
- 2 x FireWire 800;
- 5 x USB 2.0;
- 18-speed DVD±RW DL;
- Toslink optical audio-in and •out;
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot;
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x4 slot
Price £6,759
Little has changed on Apple’s principal desktop PC in the past seven years. At least, that’s what you’d think, were you to glance at the current Mac Pro, and compare it with the Power Mac G5 of 2003.
A towering beast over half a metre tall, the Power Mac G5 introduced Apple’s aluminium construction, all perforated front and back panels. But outward appearances are particularly deceptive. Yesteryear’s Mac bears almost no resemblance inside -this top-spec tower includes two six-core Intel Xeon processors.
It’s fitted with two workstation-class 2.93GHz hex-cored chips, codenamed Westmere. Altogether, that adds up to 12 physical processor cores, each hyperthreaded to create 24 virtual cores.
These are joined by 12GB of DDR3 memory. For storage there’s a 512GB solid-state disk (SSD) and a two-terabyte (2TB) hard disk. And an ATI Radeon HD 5870 card controls the graphics.
One trick Apple has missed is the SATA bus. While it’s possible to find 6 gigabits per second (Gbps) storage, Apple is sticking with 3Gbps.
We used Cinebench 11.5 to create a festive image of a bauble. It scored 1.13 points, putting it ahead of Intel Xeon 2.92GHz X5670 and 3.2GHz Core i7-960, each at 1.1 points.
With all the processor cores engaged, there’s a significant step up in performance, with Cinebench recording 15.1 points. That’s a multiprocessor speed-up of 13.63x.
Before our regular Windows benchmarks, we tried Xbench. Our 2.4GHz MacBook Pro scored around 120 points in stock configuration, rising to 160 with an SSD and 6GB of RAM. The 12-core Apple Mac Pro pulled ahead more than a little: 350 points.
This Mac Pro is obviously overkill as a gaming machine. In Crysis, the Mac averaged 64fps at ‘High Quality’ settings and 44fps at ‘Very High’. That’s in line with expectation for the rendering power of a 5870.
And in WorldBench 6 test, the Mac Pro scored 167 points. It’s the fastest computer we’ve tested.
Build quality is second to none, and the Mac remained practically noiseless during stress testing.
Verdict
This Mac represents a colossally powerful workstation, as you’d hope at this price. It features some of the fastest components that money can buy. It’s superbly assembled and built to last.
Specification
- 2.93GHz Intel Xeon X5670;
- Apple Mac OS X 10.6;
- 12GB DDR3 RAM;
- 512GB SSD;
- 2TB SATA;
- 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5870;
- 802.11a/b/g/n;
- 2 x gigabit ethernet;
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR;
- 2 x FireWire 800;
- 5 x USB 2.0;
- 18-speed DVD±RW DL;
- Toslink optical audio-in and •out;
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot;
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x4 slot
Price £6,759
