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124-691: Mac Pro is a series of workstations and servers for professionals made by Apple Inc. since 2006. The Mac Pro, by some performance benchmarks, is the most powerful computer that Apple offers. It is one of four desktop computers in the current Mac lineup, sitting above the Mac Mini , iMac and Mac Studio . Introduced in August 2006, the Mac Pro was an Intel-based replacement for the Power Mac line and had two dual-core Xeon Woodcrest processors and

248-503: A $ 12,000 (equivalent to $ 29,000 in 2023) "personal workstation" might be a high-end PC like Macintosh II or IBM PS/2 Model 80 , low-end workstation, or a hybrid device like the NeXT Computer , all with similar, overlapping specifications. One differentiator between PC and workstation was that the latter was much more likely to have a graphics accelerator with support for a graphics standard like PHIGS or X Window , while

372-679: A HDMI 1.4 port, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, four USB 3 ports, and combined digital Mini-TOSlink optical / analog 3.5 mm stereo mini jack for audio output. It also has a headphones mini jack (the two are distinctly selectable within the Sound System Preference panel, Output tab). There is no dedicated port for inputting audio. The system has a low-fidelity internal mono speaker. The Thunderbolt 2 ports support up to thirty-six Thunderbolt devices (six per port) and can concurrently support up to three 4K displays . This design requires two GPUs to support

496-404: A big.LITTLE core includes a high-performance core (called 'big') and a low-power core (called 'LITTLE'). There is also a trend towards improving energy-efficiency by focusing on performance-per-watt with advanced fine-grain or ultra fine-grain power management and dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (i.e. laptop computers and portable media players ). Chips designed from the outset for

620-466: A rack mount configuration. Feet and wheels are not stated by Apple to be user-replaceable and require sending the machine to an Apple Store or authorized service provider, though teardowns show the feet are simply screwed on. It was announced alongside the Pro Display XDR , a 6K display with the same finish and lattice pattern. The 2019 Mac Pro is capable of lights-out management . It is also

744-626: A tariff dispute with US President Donald Trump in late 2019. Trump toured the Mac Pro assembly line in November 2019. Radeon Pro W5700X and W5500X graphics cards were added as options in April and July 2020, respectively. In August 2021, options for RDNA 2 –based Radeon Pro cards (W6800X, W6800X Duo and W6900X) were added. In March 2022, Apple upgraded the base model configuration with the Radeon Pro W5500X and 512 GB SSD, replacing

868-789: A $ 500 premium. The rack-mounted Mac Pro comes with mounting rails to mount it in a server rack, and fits in a 5 Rack Unit (or "U") space. The Apple silicon Mac Pro also comes in a rack version. Workstation Workstations formerly offered higher performance than mainstream personal computers , especially in CPU , graphics , memory, and multitasking. Workstations are optimized for the visualization and manipulation of different types of complex data such as 3D mechanical design, engineering simulations like computational fluid dynamics , animation , video editing , image editing , medical imaging , image rendering, computational science , generating mathematical plots , and software development . Typically,

992-485: A Mac Pro exhibiting those issues could take their affected machine to Apple or an authorized service provider to have both GPUs replaced for free. The repair program ended on May 30, 2018. Customers who owned Mac Pros with FirePro D300 GPUs also complained about problems, but those GPUs were not included in the repair program until July 2018. Customers with FirePro GPUs not manufactured between those dates have complained of issues including overheating and thermal throttling. It

1116-456: A SIMD engine and Picochip with 300 processors on a single die, focused on communication applications. In heterogeneous computing , where a system uses more than one kind of processor or cores, multi-core solutions are becoming more common: Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC has a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 and dual-core ARM Cortex-R5. Software solutions such as OpenAMP are being used to help with inter-processor communication. Mobile devices may use

1240-451: A big factor in mobile devices that operate on batteries. Since each core in a multi-core CPU is generally more energy-efficient, the chip becomes more efficient than having a single large monolithic core. This allows higher performance with less energy. A challenge in this, however, is the additional overhead of writing parallel code. Maximizing the usage of the computing resources provided by multi-core processors requires adjustments both to

1364-413: A combination of cores. Embedded computing operates in an area of processor technology distinct from that of "mainstream" PCs. The same technological drives towards multi-core apply here too. Indeed, in many cases the application is a "natural" fit for multi-core technologies, if the task can easily be partitioned between the different processors. In addition, embedded software is typically developed for

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1488-519: A custom MPX module, which are fanless and use the chassis's cooling system. Apple's Afterburner card is a custom add-on, which adds hardware acceleration for ProRes codecs. Similar to the second generation, the cover can be removed to access the internals, which features eight PCIe 3.0 slots for expansion, making this the first Mac with six or more expansion slots since the Power Macintosh 9600 in 1997. It can also be purchased with wheels and in

1612-448: A given time period, since individual signals can be shorter and do not need to be repeated as often. Assuming that the die can physically fit into the package, multi-core CPU designs require much less printed circuit board (PCB) space than do multi-chip SMP designs. Also, a dual-core processor uses slightly less power than two coupled single-core processors, principally because of the decreased power required to drive signals external to

1736-475: A graphics card. The North Bridge connects to the South Bridge using an Enterprise Southbridge Interface (ESI) and a PCIe link. The South Bridge handles all other connections in the system, including SATA, USB, and networking. All original tower Mac Pro systems were available with one or two central processing units (CPU). As of 2012, there had been models sold with 2, 4, 6, 8, or 12 cores . As an example,

1860-513: A large number of cores (rather than having evolved from single core designs) are sometimes referred to as manycore designs, emphasising qualitative differences. The composition and balance of the cores in multi-core architecture show great variety. Some architectures use one core design repeated consistently ("homogeneous"), while others use a mixture of different cores, each optimized for a different, " heterogeneous " role. How multiple cores are implemented and integrated significantly affects both

1984-411: A megapixel display (roughly 1000×1000 pixels), and one " MegaFLOPS " compute performance (at least one million floating-point operations per second). RFC 782 defines the workstation environment more generally as "hardware and software dedicated to serve a single user", and that it provisions additional shared resources. This is at least one order of magnitude beyond the capacity of the personal computer of

2108-950: A much higher price. Workstations have typically driven advancements in CPU technology. All computers benefit from multi-processor and multicore designs (essentially, multiple processors on a die ). The multicore design was pioneered by IBM's POWER4 ; it and Intel Xeon have multiple CPUs, more on-die cache, and ECC memory. Some workstations are designed or certified for use with only one specific application such as AutoCAD , Avid Xpress Studio HD, or 3D Studio Max . The certification process increases workstation prices. Modern workstations are typically desktop computers with AMD or NVIDIA GPUs to do high-performance computing on software programs such as video editing , 3D modeling , computer-aided design , and rendering . By January 2009, all RISC -based workstation product lines had been discontinued: In early 2018, RISC workstations were reintroduced in

2232-476: A new abstraction for C++ parallelism called TBB . Other research efforts include the Codeplay Sieve System , Cray's Chapel , Sun's Fortress , and IBM's X10 . Multi-core processing has also affected the ability of modern computational software development. Developers programming in newer languages might find that their modern languages do not support multi-core functionality. This then requires

2356-405: A perceived lack of motivation for writing consumer-level threaded applications because of the relative rarity of consumer-level demand for maximum use of computer hardware. Also, serial tasks like decoding the entropy encoding algorithms used in video codecs are impossible to parallelize because each result generated is used to help create the next result of the entropy decoding algorithm. Given

2480-435: A perfect five except for a few issues with software compatibility and the high price for FB-DIMM memory. Apple senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller presented a "sneak peek" of the completely redesigned Mac Pro during the 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. The video revealed an overhauled case design, a polished reflective aluminum cylinder built around a central thermal dissipation core and vented by

2604-509: A personal workstation suitable for 2D CAD costing $ 5,000 (equivalent to $ 12,000 in 2023) to $ 25,000 (equivalent to $ 61,000 in 2023) was available from multiple vendors. Mid-range models capable of 3D graphics cost from $ 35,000 (equivalent to $ 86,000 in 2023) to $ 60,000 (equivalent to $ 147,000 in 2023), while high-end models overlapping with minicomputers cost from $ 80,000 (equivalent to $ 197,000 in 2023) to $ 100,000 (equivalent to $ 246,000 in 2023) or more. By then

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2728-456: A record 2,182 days. The redesigned Mac Pro takes up less than one-eighth the volume of the immediately previous model, being shorter at 9.9 inches (25 cm), thinner at 6.6 inches (17 cm) and lighter at 11 pounds (5.0 kg). It supports one central processing unit (CPU) (up to a 12-core Xeon E5 CPU ), four 1866 MHz DDR3 slots, dual AMD FirePro D series GPUs (up to D700 with 6 GB VRAM each), and PCIe-based flash storage. There

2852-460: A rectangular tower case carried over from the Power Mac G5 . It was updated on April 4, 2007, by a dual quad-core Xeon Clovertown model, then on January 8, 2008, by a dual quad-core Xeon Harpertown model. Revisions in 2010 and 2012 revisions had Nehalem-EP / Westmere-EP architecture Intel Xeon processors. In December 2013, Apple released a new cylindrical Mac Pro (colloquially called

2976-583: A repairability score of 9/10, noting that every part of the machine is user-replaceable. The SSD can also be replaced via Apple official parts, but require an Apple Configurator restore to re-pair it with the T2 chip. On June 5, 2023, Apple announced a Mac Pro based on the Apple M2 Ultra chip, the first model with an Apple silicon chip. Externally, the M2 Ultra Mac Pro uses the same chassis as

3100-661: A series of IBM POWER9 -based systems by Raptor Computing Systems. In October of 2024 System 76 introduces The Thelio Astra an Arm workstation aim for autonomous car industry. Most of the current workstation market uses x86-64 microprocessors. Operating systems include Windows , FreeBSD , Linux distributions , macOS , and Solaris . Some vendors also market commodity mono-socket systems as workstations. These are three types of workstations: A high-end desktop market segment includes workstations, with PC operating systems and components. Component product lines may be segmented, with premium components that are functionally similar to

3224-475: A similar role for technical computing. Sun's thin clients include the Sun Ray product line. However, traditional workstations and PCs continued to drop in price and complexity as remote management tools for IT staff became available, undercutting this market. A high-end workstation of the early 1980s with the three Ms, or a "3M computer" (coined by Raj Reddy and his colleagues at CMU), has one megabyte of RAM,

3348-793: A single FPGA . Each "core" can be considered a " semiconductor intellectual property core " as well as a CPU core. While manufacturing technology improves, reducing the size of individual gates, physical limits of semiconductor -based microelectronics have become a major design concern. These physical limitations can cause significant heat dissipation and data synchronization problems. Various other methods are used to improve CPU performance. Some instruction-level parallelism (ILP) methods such as superscalar pipelining are suitable for many applications, but are inefficient for others that contain difficult-to-predict code. Many applications are better suited to thread-level parallelism (TLP) methods, and multiple independent CPUs are commonly used to increase

3472-843: A single FB-DIMM, the peak bandwidth is 8000  MB/s (1 MB = 1000 B), but this can increase to 16000 MB/s by installing two FB-DIMMs , one on each of the two buses, which is the default configuration from Apple. While electrically the FB-DIMMs are standard, for pre-2009 Mac Pro models Apple specifies larger-than-normal heatsinks on the memory modules. Problems have been reported by users who have used third party RAM with normal size FB-DIMM heatsinks. (see notes below). 2009 and later Mac Pro computers do not require memory modules with heatsinks. The Mac Pro had room for four internal 3.5" SATA-300 hard drives in four internal "bays". The hard drives were mounted on individual trays (also known as "sleds") by captive screws. A set of four drive trays

3596-453: A single die with a unified cache, hence any two working dual-core dies can be used, as opposed to producing four cores on a single die and requiring all four to work to produce a quad-core CPU. From an architectural point of view, ultimately, single CPU designs may make better use of the silicon surface area than multiprocessing cores, so a development commitment to this architecture may carry the risk of obsolescence. Finally, raw processing power

3720-494: A single fan, which pulls air from under the case, through the core, and out the top of the case. The only finish available is black, though a single red-finished unit was produced with Product Red . Apple states that the cylindrical Mac Pro achieves twice the performance of the last model. The model was assembled in Austin, Texas, by Apple's supplier Flextronics on a highly automated line. The announcement six months prior to release

3844-402: A single person sitting at the console. It was introduced in 1959. One peculiar feature of the machine is that it lacks any arithmetic circuitry. To perform addition, it requires a memory-resident table of decimal addition rules. This reduced the cost of logic circuitry, enabling IBM to make it inexpensive. The machine is codenamed CADET and was initially rented for $ 1000 per month. In 1965,

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3968-543: A single physical package. Designers may couple cores in a multi-core device tightly or loosely. For example, cores may or may not share caches , and they may implement message passing or shared-memory inter-core communication methods. Common network topologies used to interconnect cores include bus , ring , two-dimensional mesh , and crossbar . Homogeneous multi-core systems include only identical cores; heterogeneous multi-core systems have cores that are not identical (e.g. big.LITTLE have heterogeneous cores that share

4092-565: A specific hardware release, making issues of software portability , legacy code or supporting independent developers less critical than is the case for PC or enterprise computing. As a result, it is easier for developers to adopt new technologies and as a result there is a greater variety of multi-core processing architectures and suppliers. As of 2010 , multi-core network processors have become mainstream, with companies such as Freescale Semiconductor , Cavium Networks , Wintegra and Broadcom all manufacturing products with eight processors. For

4216-413: A system's overall TLP. A combination of increased available space (due to refined manufacturing processes) and the demand for increased TLP led to the development of multi-core CPUs. Several business motives drive the development of multi-core architectures. For decades, it was possible to improve performance of a CPU by shrinking the area of the integrated circuit (IC), which reduced the cost per device on

4340-558: A total of six SATA ports – four were connected to the system's drive bays, and two were not connected. The extra SATA ports could be put into service through the use of after-market extender cables to connect internal optical drives, or to provide eSATA ports with the use of an eSATA bulkhead connector. However, the two extra SATA ports were unsupported and disabled under Boot Camp . The 2008 model had two PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 expansion slots and two PCI Express 1.1 slots, providing them with up to 300 W of power in total. The first slot

4464-557: A totally redesigned Mac Pro. The design of the cylindrical Mac Pro has received mixed reviews, and has been compared to a trash can, rice cooker , R2-D2 , or Darth Vader 's helmet. On September 18, 2018, the Mac Pro surpassed the Macintosh Plus 's production life record for an unchanged Mac model, with the Plus having remained on sale unchanged for 1,734 days. It was discontinued on December 10, 2019, after being on sale unchanged for

4588-423: A traditional operating system and perform computations locally, with storage on a remote server . These are intended to reduce the initial system purchase cost, and the total cost of ownership , by reducing the amount of administration required per user. This approach was first attempted as a replacement for PCs in office productivity applications, with the 3Station by 3Com . In the 1990s, X terminals filled

4712-399: A variety of specialty cores to run modular software scheduled by a high-level applications programming interface. [...] Atsushi Hasegawa, a senior chief engineer at Renesas , generally agreed. He suggested the cellphone's use of many specialty cores working in concert is a good model for future multi-core designs. [...] Anant Agarwal , founder and chief executive of startup Tilera , took

4836-684: A workstation in the modern sense), is the Alto developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. Other early workstations include the Terak 8510/a (1977), Three Rivers PERQ (1979), and the later Xerox Star (1981). In the early 1980s, with the advent of 32-bit microprocessors such as the Motorola 68000 , several new competitors appeared, including Apollo Computer and Sun Microsystems , with workstations based on 68000 and Unix . Meanwhile, DARPA 's VLSI Project created several spinoff graphics products, such as

4960-432: Is a 3× MIMO antenna system for the unit's 802.11ac WiFi networking interface, Bluetooth 4.0 to facilitate close-range wireless functions such as music transfer, keyboards, mice, tablets, speakers, security, cameras, and printers. The system can simultaneously support six Apple Thunderbolt Displays , or three 4K resolution computer monitors . The cylindrical Mac Pro has a redesigned configuration of ports . It has

5084-510: Is a significant ongoing topic of research. Cointegration of multiprocessor applications provides flexibility in network architecture design. Adaptability within parallel models is an additional feature of systems utilizing these protocols. In the consumer market, dual-core processors (that is, microprocessors with two units) started becoming commonplace on personal computers in the late 2000s. Quad-core processors were also being adopted in that era for higher-end systems before becoming standard. In

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5208-571: Is based on Unix. Although the high-end technical market has not traditionally been an area of strength for Apple, the company has been positioning itself as a leader in non-linear digital editing for high-definition video , which demands storage and memory far in excess of a general desktop machine. Additionally, the codecs used in these applications are generally processor intensive and highly threadable , which Apple's ProRes white paper describes as scaling almost linearly with additional processor cores . Apple's previous machine aimed at this market,

5332-457: Is believed Apple has not enabled a satisfactory cooling fan profile in order to properly remove heat from the system. Users have had to resort to using third-party apps to manually increase the fan speed to prevent the GPUs from overheating. In April 2018, Apple confirmed that a redesigned Mac Pro would be released in 2019 to replace the 2013 model. Apple announced this new Mac Pro on June 3, 2019 at

5456-421: Is described by Amdahl's law . In the best case, so-called embarrassingly parallel problems may realize speedup factors near the number of cores, or even more if the problem is split up enough to fit within each core's cache(s), avoiding use of much slower main-system memory. Most applications, however, are not accelerated as much unless programmers invest effort in refactoring . The parallelization of software

5580-623: Is largely a function of software . The bandwidth allocation of the PCIe slots can be configured via the Expansion Slot Utility included with Mac OS X only on the August 2006 Mac Pro. The Early-2008 and later Mac Pros had PCIe slots hardwired as in the accompanying table. For external connectivity, the Mac Pro included five USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire 400 and two FireWire 800 (Late 2006 until Early 2008), respectively four FireWire 800 (Early 2009 until Mid 2012) ports. Networking

5704-630: Is not the only constraint on system performance. Two processing cores sharing the same system bus and memory bandwidth limits the real-world performance advantage. The trend in processor development has been towards an ever-increasing number of cores, as processors with hundreds or even thousands of cores become theoretically possible. In addition, multi-core chips mixed with simultaneous multithreading , memory-on-chip, and special-purpose "heterogeneous" (or asymmetric) cores promise further performance and efficiency gains, especially in processing multimedia, recognition and networking applications. For example,

5828-455: The IBM 1130 scientific computer became the successor to 1620. Both of these systems run Fortran and other languages. They are built into roughly desk-sized cabinets, with console typewriters. They have optional add-on disk drives, printers, and both paper-tape and punched-card I/O. Early workstations were generally dedicated minicomputers , a multiuser system reserved for one user. For example,

5952-618: The PDP-8 from Digital Equipment Corporation , is regarded as the first commercial minicomputer. Workstations have historically been more advanced than contemporary PCs, with more powerful CPU architectures, earlier networking, more advanced graphics, more memory, and multitasking with sophisticated operating systems like Unix. Because of their minicomputer heritage, from the start workstations have run professional and expensive software such as CAD and graphics design, as opposed to PCs' games and text editors. The Lisp machines developed at MIT in

6076-545: The Power Mac G4 Cube in 2000. It comes bundled with a new Magic Keyboard with black keys in a silver chassis, and a black Magic Mouse 2 or Magic Trackpad 2 with a silver underside. Initial reviews were generally positive. The only pre-release review models of the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR were provided to YouTube tech vloggers Justine Ezarik , Marques Brownlee , and Jonathan Morrison, rather than reviewers from traditional news outlets. iFixit gave it

6200-516: The Silicon Graphics 3130 . Target markets were differentiated, with Sun and Apollo considered to be network workstations and SGI as graphics workstations. RISC CPUs increased in the mid-1980s, typical of workstation vendors. Competition between RISC vendors lowered CPU prices to as little as $ 10 per MIPS, much less expensive than the Intel 80386 ; after large price cuts in 1987 and 1988,

6324-619: The World Wide Developers Conference . It returns to a tower design similar to the Power Mac G5 in 2003 and the first-generation model in 2006. The design also includes a new thermal architecture with three impeller fans, which promises to prevent the computer from having to throttle the processor so that it can always run at its peak performance level. The RAM is expandable to 1.5  TB using twelve 128 GB DIMMs. It can be configured with up to two AMD Radeon Pro GPUs, based on RDNA architecture, which come in

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6448-453: The form factor is that of a desktop computer , which consists of a high-resolution display, a keyboard , and a mouse at a minimum, but also offers multiple displays, graphics tablets , and 3D mice for manipulating objects and navigating scenes. Workstations were the first segment of the computer market to present advanced accessories, and collaboration tools like videoconferencing . The increasing capabilities of mainstream PCs since

6572-492: The operating system (OS) support and to existing application software. Also, the ability of multi-core processors to increase application performance depends on the use of multiple threads within applications. Integration of a multi-core chip can lower the chip production yields. They are also more difficult to manage thermally than lower-density single-core designs. Intel has partially countered this first problem by creating its quad-core designs by combining two dual-core ones on

6696-732: The same integrated circuit die ; separate microprocessor dies in the same package are generally referred to by another name, such as multi-chip module . This article uses the terms "multi-core" and "dual-core" for CPUs manufactured on the same integrated circuit, unless otherwise noted. In contrast to multi-core systems, the term multi-CPU refers to multiple physically separate processing-units (which often contain special circuitry to facilitate communication between each other). The terms many-core and massively multi-core are sometimes used to describe multi-core architectures with an especially high number of cores (tens to thousands ). Some systems use many soft microprocessor cores placed on

6820-464: The "bus" frequency is relative to the CPU chipset, and upgrading a CPU is not bottlenecked by the computer's existing architecture. The original Mac Pro's main memory uses 667  MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMMs ; the early 2008 model uses 800 MHz ECC DDR2 FB-DIMMS, the 2009 and onward Mac Pro use 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC DIMMs for the standard models, and 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC DIMMs for systems configured with 2.66 GHz or faster CPUs. In

6944-471: The "trash can Mac Pro"). Apple said it offered twice the overall performance of the first generation while taking up less than one-eighth the volume. It had up to a 12-core Xeon E5 processor, dual AMD FirePro D series GPUs, PCIe-based flash storage and an HDMI port, but lacked PCIe expansion slots. Thunderbolt 2 ports brought updated wired connectivity and support for six Thunderbolt Displays. Reviews initially were generally positive, with caveats. Limitations of

7068-450: The 2006 Mac Pro, calling it a solid "multiplatform device" and rating it 9 out of 10. CNET praised the design and value, although did not think it provided the flexibility of other systems. They gave it an 8 out of 10. Sound on Sound , an audio recording technology magazine, thought it was a "great machine" for musicians and audio engineers. Architosh, an online architectural design magazine focused on mac technology, would have scored it

7192-520: The 2019 Intel model. Internally, it features a redesigned Apple silicon logic board that includes six internal PCIe 4.0 slots for expansion. It does not support discrete GPUs over PCIe. The internal SSD is upgradeable, but the GPU and memory are not. According to Bloomberg 's Mark Gurman, Apple developed a chip for the Mac Pro combining two M2 Ultra chips into one package but cancelled it because of cost and manufacturing concerns. The Verge ' s review of

7316-520: The 8-core standard configuration Mac Pro 2010 uses two 4-core Intel Xeon E5620 CPUs at 2.4  GHz , but could be configured with two 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 CPUs at 2.93 GHz. The 2006–2008 models use the LGA 771 socket, while the Early 2009 and later use the LGA 1366 socket, meaning either can be removed and replaced with compatible 64-bit Intel Xeon CPUs. A 64-bit EFI firmware was not introduced until

7440-529: The CPU and the BIOS emulation which Apple has provided on top of EFI. Installing any additional operating system other than Windows is not supported directly by Apple. Though Apple's Boot Camp drivers are only for Windows, it is often possible to achieve full or nearly full compatibility with another OS by using third-party drivers . According to Apple, all of these models are obsolete. 2× PCIe 2.0 16x slots (1 single-wide, 1 double-wide) Ars Technica reviewed

7564-506: The IC. Alternatively, for the same circuit area, more transistors could be used in the design, which increased functionality, especially for complex instruction set computing (CISC) architectures. Clock rates also increased by orders of magnitude in the decades of the late 20th century, from several megahertz in the 1980s to several gigahertz in the early 2000s. As the rate of clock speed improvements slowed, increased use of parallel computing in

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7688-757: The M2 Mac Pro Exist?", and found the Mac Pro and Mac Studio performed almost identically in testing despite the Mac Pro's much larger cooling system. High-performance cores: 192 KB L1i, 128 KB L1d Energy-efficient cores: 128 KB L1i, 64 KB L1d On November 5, 2010, Apple introduced the Mac Pro Server, which officially replaced the Xserve line of Apple servers as of January 31, 2011. The Mac Pro Server includes an unlimited Mac OS X Server license and an Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz quad-core processor, with 8 GB of DDR3 RAM. In mid-2012,

7812-531: The MCP can run instructions on separate cores at the same time, increasing overall speed for programs that support multithreading or other parallel computing techniques. Manufacturers typically integrate the cores onto a single IC die , known as a chip multiprocessor (CMP), or onto multiple dies in a single chip package . As of 2024, the microprocessors used in almost all new personal computers are multi-core. A multi-core processor implements multiprocessing in

7936-528: The Mac Pro Server was upgraded to an Intel Xeon 3.2 GHz quad-core processor. The Mac Pro Server was discontinued on October 22, 2013, with the introduction of the cylindrical Mac Pro. However, the OS X Server software package can be purchased from the Mac App Store. The redesigned Mac Pro released on December 10, 2019 has a rack-mount version, available in the same configurations as the standard Mac Pro for

8060-449: The Mac Pro praised its performance, saying it "vastly outperforms Intel models from 2019," but criticized the inability to upgrade memory and the lack of support for graphics cards. It also criticized the Mac Pro's $ 3,000 (+75%) price premium over a similarly configured Mac Studio with the same performance, with the Mac Pro's only advantage being the addition of PCIe slots and better cooling. YouTuber Marques Brownlee headlined, "Why Does

8184-553: The Mac Pro was formally announced on August 7, 2006, at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). In June 2005, Apple released the Developer Transition Kit, a prototype Intel Pentium 4 –based Mac housed in a Power Mac G5 case, that was temporarily available to developers. The iMac , Mac Mini , MacBook , and MacBook Pro had moved to an Intel-based architecture starting in January 2006, leaving

8308-620: The Mac Pro was now lacking in functionality and power, it having not been updated since 2013, and it was past time for Apple to update it. Apple later revealed in 2017 that the thermal core design had limited the ability to upgrade the Mac Pro's GPUs and that a new design was under development, to be released sometime after 2017. On February 5, 2016, Apple identified problems with FirePro D500 and D700 GPUs manufactured between February 8, 2015 and April 11, 2015. Issues included "distorted video, no video, system instability, freezing, restarts, shut downs, or may prevent system start up." Customers who owned

8432-702: The MacPro3,1, earlier models can only operate as 32-bit despite having 64-bit Xeon processors, however this only applies to the EFI side of the System, as the Mac boots everything else in BIOS Compatibility mode, and operating systems can take advantage of full 64 bit support. The newer LGA 1366 sockets utilize Intel's QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) integrated into the CPU in lieu of an independent system bus ; this means

8556-585: The Power Mac G5 as the only machine in the Mac lineup still based on the PowerPC processor architecture Apple had used since 1994. Apple had dropped the term "Power" from the other machines in their lineup and started using "Pro" on their higher-end laptop offerings. As such, the name "Mac Pro" was widely used before the machine was announced. The Mac Pro is in the Unix workstation market as its operating system

8680-402: The Power Mac G5, has up to two dual-core processors (marketed as "Quad-Core"), but lacks the storage expansion capabilities of the newer design. Original marketing materials for the Mac Pro generally referred to the middle-of-the-line model with 2 × dual-core 2.66 GHz processors. Previously, Apple featured the base model with the words "starting at" or "from" when describing the pricing, but

8804-505: The Power Mac G5, the pre-2013 Mac Pro was Apple's only desktop with standard expansion slots for graphics adapters and other expansion cards. Apple received criticism after an incremental upgrade to the Mac Pro line following the 2012 WWDC conference. The line received more default memory and increased processor speed but still used Intel's older Westmere-EP processors instead of the newer Xeon E5 series. The line also lacked then-current technologies like SATA III, USB 3, and Thunderbolt ,

8928-411: The Power Mac G5, with the exception of an additional optical drive bay, a new arrangement of I/O ports on both the front and the back, and one less exhaust vent on the back. The case could be opened by operating a single lever on the back, which unlocked one of the two sides of the machine, as well as the drive bays . All of the expansion slots for memory, PCIe cards and drives could be accessed with

9052-637: The Quadra 700 was an intriguing option at a fraction of the cost" as resource-intensive software such as Infini-D brought "studio-quality 3D rendering and animations to the home desktop". The Quadra 700 can run A/UX 3.0, making it a Unix workstation. Another example is the Nvidia GeForce 256 consumer graphics card, which spawned the Quadro workstation card, which has the same GPU but different driver support and certifications for CAD applications and

9176-587: The Radeon Pro 580X graphics and 256 GB SSD previously offered. The 2019 Mac Pro was discontinued in June 2023 following the announcement of the Apple silicon Mac Pro. The 2019 Mac Pro was the last Intel-based Mac sold by Apple. The 2019 Mac Pro returns to a tower form factor and features a prominent lattice pattern on its front and rear. The lattice design was purportedly originally developed by Jony Ive for

9300-662: The alternatives. An especially strong contender for established markets is the further integration of peripheral functions into the chip. The proximity of multiple CPU cores on the same die allows the cache coherency circuitry to operate at a much higher clock rate than what is possible if the signals have to travel off-chip. Combining equivalent CPUs on a single die significantly improves the performance of cache snoop (alternative: Bus snooping ) operations. Put simply, this means that signals between different CPUs travel shorter distances, and therefore those signals degrade less. These higher-quality signals allow more data to be sent in

9424-531: The case. On the original Mac Pro introduced in August 2006, the PCIe slots can be configured individually to give more bandwidth to devices that require it, with a total of 40 "lanes", or 13 GB/s total throughput . When running Mac OS X , the Mac Pro did not support SLI or ATI CrossFire , limiting its ability to use the latest "high-end gaming" video card products; however, individuals have reported success with both CrossFire and SLI installations when running Windows XP , as SLI and CrossFire compatibility

9548-535: The chip. Furthermore, the cores share some circuitry, like the L2 cache and the interface to the front-side bus (FSB). In terms of competing technologies for the available silicon die area, multi-core design can make use of proven CPU core library designs and produce a product with lower risk of design error than devising a new wider-core design. Also, adding more cache suffers from diminishing returns. Multi-core chips also allow higher performance at lower energy. This can be

9672-449: The companies that make the products tend to have comprehensive repair/replacement plans. As the distinction between workstation and PC fades, however, workstation manufacturers have increasingly employed "off-the-shelf" PC components and graphics solutions rather than proprietary hardware or software. Some "low-cost" workstations are still expensive by PC standards but offer binary compatibility with higher-end workstations and servers made by

9796-546: The consumer models but with higher robustness or performance. A workstation-class PC may have some of the following features: Microprocessor core A multi-core processor ( MCP ) is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit (IC) with two or more separate central processing units (CPUs), called cores to emphasize their multiplicity (for example, dual-core or quad-core ). Each core reads and executes program instructions , specifically ordinary CPU instructions (such as add, move data, and branch). However,

9920-430: The count can go over 10 million (and in one case up to 20 million processing elements total in addition to host processors). The improvement in performance gained by the use of a multi-core processor depends very much on the software algorithms used and their implementation. In particular, possible gains are limited by the fraction of the software that can run in parallel simultaneously on multiple cores; this effect

10044-447: The cylindrical design prevented Apple from upgrading the cylindrical Mac Pro with more powerful hardware. The 2019 Mac Pro returned to a tower form factor reminiscent of the first-generation model, but with larger air cooling holes and a new opening mechanism. It has up to a 28-core Xeon-W processor, eight PCIe slots, AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPUs, and replaces most data ports with USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 . The 2023 Mac Pro carried over

10168-456: The design of the 2019 model and is based on the Apple M2 Ultra chip. It is the first model with an Apple silicon chip. Its introduction completed the Mac transition from Intel to Apple processors , first announced in June 2020 and started in November that year. Apple said that an Intel -based replacement for the 2003's PowerPC -based Power Mac G5 machines had been expected for some time before

10292-507: The developer's programming skills and the consumer's expectations of apps and interactivity versus the device. A device advertised as being octa-core will only have independent cores if advertised as True Octa-core , or similar styling, as opposed to being merely two sets of quad-cores each with fixed clock speeds. The article "CPU designers debate multi-core future" by Rick Merritt, EE Times 2008, includes these comments: Chuck Moore [...] suggested computers should be like cellphones, using

10416-531: The early 1970s pioneered some workstation principles, as high-performance, networked, single-user systems intended for heavily interactive use. Lisp Machines were commercialized beginning 1980 by companies like Symbolics , Lisp Machines , Texas Instruments (the TI Explorer ), and Xerox (the Interlisp-D workstations). The first computer designed for a single user, with high-resolution graphics (and so

10540-449: The early 2000s, this difference largely disappeared, since workstations use highly commoditized hardware dominated by large PC vendors, such as Dell , Hewlett-Packard , and Fujitsu , selling x86-64 systems running Windows or Linux . Workstations are older than the first personal computer (PC). The first computer that might qualify as a workstation is the IBM 1620 , a small scientific computer designed to be used interactively by

10664-908: The enclosure. The CPU is not soldered to the riser card and can be replaced with another LGA 2011 socket processor, including processor options not offered by Apple. The type of RAM modules that Apple supplies with the late-2013 Mac Pro in the default configuration are ECC unbuffered ( UDIMM ) on the up to 8 GB modules (shown on each module as PC3-14900 E ). Apple offers as an optional upgrade 16 GB modules are ECC registered ( RDIMM ) modules (shown on each module as PC3-14900 R ). The higher-capacity 32 GB modules that some third-party vendors offer are also RDIMM. The UDIMM and RDIMM module types cannot be mixed. Apple publishes recommended configurations to use. Apple's Boot Camp provides BIOS backwards compatibility, allowing dual and triple boot configurations. These operating systems are installable on Intel x64-based Apple computers: Reception of

10788-637: The first Macintosh computer to feature 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports equipped as standard in all configurations. After initial reports that the Mac Pro would be assembled in China, Apple confirmed in September 2019 it would be assembled in Austin, Texas , at the same facility as the previous-generation Mac Pro, making it the sole Apple product assembled in the United States. The production was the subject of

10912-452: The first generation as the " cheese grater " Mac Pro. The Mac Pro comes with EFI 1.1, a successor to Apple's use of Open Firmware (and the then wider industry's use of BIOS ). Apple's Boot Camp provides BIOS backwards compatibility, allowing dual and triple boot configurations. These operating systems are installable on Intel x86 –based Apple computers: This is made possible by the presence of an x86 Intel architecture as provided by

11036-457: The form of multi-core processors has been pursued to improve overall processing performance. Multiple cores were used on the same CPU chip, which could then lead to better sales of CPU chips with two or more cores. For example, Intel has produced a 48-core processor for research in cloud computing; each core has an x86 architecture. Since computer manufacturers have long implemented symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) designs using discrete CPUs,

11160-421: The former usually depended on software rendering or proprietary accelerators. The computer animation industry's needs typically caused improvements in graphical technology, with CAD using the same improvements later. BYTE predicted in 1989 "Soon, the only way we'll be able to tell the difference between traditional workstations and PCs will be by the operating system they run", with the former running Unix and

11284-416: The increasing emphasis on multi-core chip design, stemming from the grave thermal and power consumption problems posed by any further significant increase in processor clock speeds, the extent to which software can be multithreaded to take advantage of these new chips is likely to be the single greatest constraint on computer performance in the future. If developers are unable to design software to fully exploit

11408-457: The issues regarding implementing multi-core processor architecture and supporting it with software are well known. Additionally: In order to continue delivering regular performance improvements for general-purpose processors, manufacturers such as Intel and AMD have turned to multi-core designs, sacrificing lower manufacturing-costs for higher performance in some applications and systems. Multi-core architectures are being developed, but so are

11532-484: The large clear plastic air deflector used as part of the cooling system in the Power Mac G5. Less heat also meant less air to move out of the case for cooling during normal operations; the Mac Pro was very quiet in normal operation, quieter than the much noisier Power Mac G5, and proved difficult to measure using common sound pressure level meters. The front of the case, which has small perforated holes across its entire surface area, has caused Macintosh enthusiasts to refer to

11656-454: The last of which had been added to every other Macintosh at that point. An email from Apple CEO Tim Cook promised a more significant update to the line in 2013. Apple stopped shipping the first-generation Mac Pro in Europe on March 1, 2013 after an amendment to a safety regulation left the professional Mac non-compliant. The last day to order was February 18, 2013. The first-generation Mac Pro

11780-468: The late 1990s have reduced distinction between the PCs and workstations. Typical 1980s workstations have expensive proprietary hardware and operating systems to categorically distinguish from standardized PCs. From the 1990s and 2000s, IBM 's RS/6000 and IntelliStation have RISC -based POWER CPUs running AIX , and its IBM PC Series and Aptiva corporate and consumer PCs have Intel x86 CPUs. However, by

11904-443: The late 2010s, hexa-core (six cores) started entering the mainstream and since the early 2020s has overtaken quad-core in many spaces. The terms multi-core and dual-core most commonly refer to some sort of central processing unit (CPU), but are sometimes also applied to digital signal processors (DSP) and system on a chip (SoC). The terms are generally used only to refer to multi-core microprocessors that are manufactured on

12028-529: The latter becoming available on both the front and back of the case. Unlike other Mac computers, the Mac Pro did not include an infrared receiver (required to use the Apple Remote ). In Mac OS X Leopard , Front Row could be accessed on the Mac Pro (and other Macs) using the Command (⌘)- Escape keystroke . From 2006 through 2012, the exterior of the Mac Pro's aluminum case was very similar to that of

12152-598: The latter running OS/2 , classic Mac OS , and/or Unix. Many workstations by then had some method to run increasingly popular and powerful PC software such as Lotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Word . The magazine demonstrated that year that an individual could build a workstation with commodity components with specifications comparable to commercially available low-end workstations. Workstations often featured SCSI or Fibre Channel disk storage systems, high-end 3D accelerators , single or multiple 64-bit processors , large amounts of RAM , and well-designed cooling. Additionally,

12276-467: The most important being those securing the GPUs and CPU riser card to the thermal core. According to Apple, not tightening screws to the mandatory torque values may result in damage or malfunction. A lock switch on the aluminum housing allows for easy access to the internals, as well as fitting a security lock with its own cable, and components are secured with Torx screws. The flash storage and GPUs use proprietary connectors and are specially sized to fit into

12400-473: The new design was mixed, initially receiving positive reviews, but more negative in the long term, due to Apple's failure to upgrade the hardware specs. The performance had been widely lauded, especially handling video tasks on the dual GPU units, with some reviewers noting the ability to apply dozens of filters to realtime 4K resolution video in Final Cut Pro X . Drive performance, connected via PCIe ,

12524-444: The online US Apple Store listed the "Mac Pro at $ 2499", the price for the mid-range model. The system could be configured at US$ 2299, much more comparable with the former base-model dual-core G5 at US$ 1999, although offering considerably more processing power. Post revision, the default configurations for the Mac Pro includes one quad-core Xeon 3500 at 2.66 GHz or two quad-core Xeon 5500s at 2.26 GHz each. Like its predecessor,

12648-497: The operating system of the network device. In digital signal processing the same trend applies: Texas Instruments has the three-core TMS320C6488 and four-core TMS320C5441, Freescale the four-core MSC8144 and six-core MSC8156 (and both have stated they are working on eight-core successors). Newer entries include the Storm-1 family from Stream Processors, Inc with 40 and 80 general purpose ALUs per chip, all programmable in C as

12772-408: The opposing view. He said multi-core chips need to be homogeneous collections of general-purpose cores to keep the software model simple. An outdated version of an anti-virus application may create a new thread for a scan process, while its GUI thread waits for commands from the user (e.g. cancel the scan). In such cases, a multi-core architecture is of little benefit for the application itself due to

12896-415: The original and 2008 models, these modules are installed in pairs, one each on two riser cards . The cards have 4 DIMM slots each, allowing a total of 32  GB (1 GB = 1024 B) of memory (8 × 4  GB ) to be installed. Notably, due to its FB-DIMM architecture, installing more RAM in the Mac Pro will improve its memory bandwidth, but may also increase its memory latency. With a simple installation of

13020-418: The other hand, on the server side , multi-core processors are ideal because they allow many users to connect to a site simultaneously and have independent threads of execution. This allows for Web servers and application servers that have much better throughput . Vendors may license some software "per processor". This can give rise to ambiguity, because a "processor" may consist either of a single core or of

13144-488: The problem, for example using a coordination language and program building blocks (programming libraries or higher-order functions). Each block can have a different native implementation for each processor type. Users simply program using these abstractions and an intelligent compiler chooses the best implementation based on the context. Managing concurrency acquires a central role in developing parallel applications. The basic steps in designing parallel applications are: On

13268-735: The resources provided by multiple cores, then they will ultimately reach an insurmountable performance ceiling. The telecommunications market had been one of the first that needed a new design of parallel datapath packet processing because there was a very quick adoption of these multiple-core processors for the datapath and the control plane. These MPUs are going to replace the traditional Network Processors that were based on proprietary microcode or picocode . Parallel programming techniques can benefit from multiple cores directly. Some existing parallel programming models such as Cilk Plus , OpenMP , OpenHMPP , FastFlow , Skandium, MPI , and Erlang can be used on multi-core platforms. Intel introduced

13392-587: The same instruction set , while AMD Accelerated Processing Units have cores that do not share the same instruction set). Just as with single-processor systems, cores in multi-core systems may implement architectures such as VLIW , superscalar , vector , or multithreading . Multi-core processors are widely used across many application domains, including general-purpose , embedded , network , digital signal processing (DSP), and graphics (GPU). Core count goes up to even dozens, and for specialized chips over 10,000, and in supercomputers (i.e. clusters of chips)

13516-476: The same as the consumer market, and the price differential narrowed. For example, most Macintosh Quadra computers were originally intended for scientific or design work, all with the Motorola 68040 CPU, backward compatible with 68000 Macintoshes. The consumer Macintosh IIcx and Macintosh IIci models can be upgraded to the Quadra 700 . "In an era when many professionals preferred Silicon Graphics workstations,

13640-422: The same vendor. This allows software development to take place on low-cost (relative to the server) desktop machines. Workstations diversified to the lowest possible price point as opposed to performance, called the thin client or network computer . Dependent upon a network and server, this reduces the machine to having no hard drive, and only the CPU, keyboard, mouse, and screen. Some diskless nodes still run

13764-889: The seven display outputs (HDMI and six Thunderbolt). The I/O panel illuminates itself when the unit senses it has been moved to make it easier for the user to see the ports. Unlike the previous model, it has no FireWire 800 ports, dedicated digital audio in/out ports, a SuperDrive , DVI port, 3.5-inch drive bays for replaceable storage drives, or changeable internal PCIe slots. Instead, there are six Thunderbolt 2 ports to connect high-speed external peripherals, including enclosures for internal PCIe cards. Apple's website mentions only RAM and flash storage as user-serviceable, though third party tear-downs show nearly all components can be removed and replaced. However, special tools only available from Apple are necessary for proper dismantling and reassembly. Apple has also specified mandatory and recommended tightening torque values for nearly every screw, with

13888-405: The side panel removed and no tools were required for installation. The Mac Pro's Xeon processors generated much less heat than the previous 2-core G5s , so the size of the internal cooling devices were reduced significantly. This allowed the interior to be re-arranged, leaving more room at the top of the case and doubling the number of internal drive bays . This also allowed the elimination of

14012-462: The single thread doing all the heavy lifting and the inability to balance the work evenly across multiple cores. Programming truly multithreaded code often requires complex co-ordination of threads and can easily introduce subtle and difficult-to-find bugs due to the interweaving of processing on data shared between threads (see thread-safety ). Consequently, such code is much more difficult to debug than single-threaded code when it breaks. There has been

14136-404: The system developer, a key challenge is how to exploit all the cores in these devices to achieve maximum networking performance at the system level, despite the performance limitations inherent in a symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) operating system. Companies such as 6WIND provide portable packet processing software designed so that the networking data plane runs in a fast path environment outside

14260-486: The time. The original 1981 IBM Personal Computer has 16 KB memory, a text-only display, and floating-point performance around 1  kFLOPS ( 30 kFLOPS with the optional 8087 math coprocessor. Other features beyond the typical personal computer include networking, graphics acceleration, and high-speed internal and peripheral data buses. Another goal was to bring the price below one " megapenny ", that is, less than $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 28,000 in 2023), which

14384-463: The use of numerical libraries to access code written in languages like C and Fortran , which perform math computations faster than newer languages like C# . Intel's MKL and AMD's ACML are written in these native languages and take advantage of multi-core processing. Balancing the application workload across processors can be problematic, especially if they have different performance characteristics. There are different conceptual models to deal with

14508-448: Was achieved in the late 1980s. Throughout the early to mid-1990s, many workstations cost from $ 15,000 to $ 100,000 (equivalent to $ 200,000 in 2023) or more. The more widespread adoption of these technologies into mainstream PCs was a direct factor in the decline of the workstation as a separate market segment: Since the late 1990s, the workstation and consumer markets have further merged. Many low-end workstation components are now

14632-408: Was also available with an optional hardware RAID card. With the addition of a SAS controller card or SAS RAID controller card, SAS drives could be directly connected to the system's SATA ports. Two optical drive bays were provided, each with a corresponding SATA port and an Ultra ATA/100 port. The Mac Pro had one PATA port and could support two PATA devices in the optical drive bays. It had

14756-508: Was also widely mentioned as a strong point. Technical reviewers praised the OpenCL API under which the machine's powerful twin GPUs and its multi-core CPU can be treated as a single pool of computing power. However, in late 2013 through early 2014, some reviewers had noted the lack of internal expandability, second CPU, serviceability, and questioned the then-limited offerings via Thunderbolt 2 ports. By 2016, reviewers started to agree that

14880-504: Was double wide and intended to hold the main video card , arranged with an empty area the width of a normal card beside it to leave room for the large coolers modern cards often use. In most machines, one slot would be blocked by the cooler. Instead of the tiny screws typically used to fasten the cards to the case, in the Mac Pro a single "bar" held the cards in place, which is itself held in place by two "captive" thumbscrews that can be loosened by hand without tools and will not fall out of

15004-427: Was removed from Apple's online store following the unveiling of the redesigned cylindrical Mac Pro at a media event on October 22, 2013. According to an Apple developer note, the system architecture is based on a North Bridge and South Bridge design: The North Bridge has two front-side bus (FSB) connections, one for each processor. The North Bridge also drives one x16 PCI Express (PCIe) link, typically connected to

15128-661: Was supplied with each machine. Adding hard drives to the system did not require cables to be attached as the drive was connected to the system simply by being inserted into the corresponding drive slot. A case lock on the back of the system locked the disks trays into their positions. The Mac Pro also supported Serial ATA solid-state drives ( SSD ) in the 4 hard drive bays via an SSD-to-hard drive sled adapter (mid-2010 models and later), and by third-party solutions for earlier models (e.g., by an adapter/bracket which plugged into an unused PCIe slot). Various 2.5-inch SSD drive capacities and configurations were available as options. The Mac Pro

15252-855: Was supported with two built-in Gigabit Ethernet ports. 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi support ( AirPort Extreme ) required an optional module in the Mid 2006, Early 2008 and Early 2009 models, whereas in the 2010 model and later Wi-Fi was standard. Bluetooth also required an optional module in the Mid 2006 model, but was standard in the Early 2008 and newer models. Displays were supported by one or (optionally) more PCIe graphics cards. More recent cards featured two Mini DisplayPort connectors and one dual-link Digital Visual Interface (DVI) port, with various configurations of on-card graphics memory available. Digital ( TOSlink optical) audio and analog 3.5 mm stereo mini jacks for sound in and out were included,

15376-405: Was unusual for Apple, which typically announces products when they are ready for market. It was released on December 19, 2013. The cylindrical thermal core was unable to adapt to changing hardware trends and left the Mac Pro without updates for over three years, leading Apple to make a rare admission of a product's failure in April 2017 when it detailed the issues surrounding the design and promised

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