Mac Pro Discontinued: Reflecting on 20 Years of Apple's Desktop Tower

Apple this week announced that it has discontinued the Mac Pro, with caller configurations nary longer disposable and nary further models planned.


Below, we bespeak connected astir 2 decades of the Mac Pro.

2006 to 2013

In August 2006, Apple introduced the archetypal Mac Pro, which was an Intel-based follow-up to the PowerPC-based Power Mac G5 that debuted a fewer years earlier.

Mac Pro was the last Mac exemplary to modulation from PowerPC to Intel processors.

"Apple has successfully completed the modulation to utilizing Intel processors successful conscionable 7 months—210 days to beryllium exact," said Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs, successful a property merchandise announcing the archetypal Mac Pro. "And what amended merchandise to implicit it with than the caller Mac Pro, the workstation Mac users person been dreaming about."


The archetypal Mac Pro was powered by 2 dual-core Intel Xeon processors, making it up to doubly arsenic accelerated arsenic the Power Mac G5, according to Apple. It could beryllium configured with up to 2TB of storage—the astir ever successful a Mac astatine the time—and up to 16GB of RAM. The machine was equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics card.

Like the Power Mac G5, the Mac Pro featured an aluminum operation with a perforated beforehand panel, which earned it the nickname "cheese grater Mac Pro." The machine was equipped with a assortment of FireWire and USB-A ports, and it had PCI Express enlargement slots. In the U.S., the archetypal Mac Pro started astatine $2,499.

The classical Mac Pro went connected to person faster Intel processors and different spec bumps until 2012.

2013 to 2019

"Can't innovate anymore, my ass," Apple's erstwhile selling main Phil Schiller infamously joked, erstwhile unveiling the redesigned Mac Pro successful June 2013.

"The caller Mac Pro is our imaginativeness for the aboriginal of the pro desktop, everything astir it has been reimagined and determination has ne'er been thing similar it," said Schiller, in a property release announcing the second-generation Mac Pro.


The alleged "trash can" Mac Pro featured a cylindrical plan with a polished achromatic aluminum decorativeness and a "unified thermal core." The machine was visually striking, but Apple aboriginal admitted that it was thermally constrained, and it had mediocre upgradeability. Instead of interior slots, Apple pushed enlargement via six Thunderbolt 2 ports.

Other specs included up to a 12-core Intel Xeon processor, dual AMD FirePro GPUs, up to 64GB of RAM, and up to a 1TB SSD. In the U.S., pricing started astatine $2,999.

Overall, Apple prioritized the Mac Pro's compact size, thermal efficiency, and quiescent operation, erstwhile astir pro users simply wanted the astir performant and expandable Mac possible. Then, the Mac Pro went years without receiving upgrades, starring immoderate to question whether Apple was inactive committed to the high-end Mac market.


The disapproval yet led Apple to marque the uncommon and astonishing determination of publicly apologizing to Mac users and ensuring that it remained committed to the Mac. Apple besides pre-announced that it was moving connected a "completely rethought" Mac Pro with a modular design, on with what became the iMac Pro and Pro Display XDR.

"I deliberation we designed ourselves into a spot of a thermal corner, if you will," said Apple's bundle engineering main Craig Federighi, astatine the time. "We designed a strategy with the benignant of GPUs that astatine the clip we thought we needed, and that we thought we could good service with a 2 GPU architecture. That that was the thermal bounds we needed, oregon the thermal capableness we needed. But workloads didn't materialize to acceptable that arsenic broadly arsenic we hoped."

So, Apple went backmost to the drafting board.

2019 to 2023

In December 2019, the third-generation Mac Pro arrived. As promised, it fixed galore of the problems that arose with the "trash can" model.

With this Mac Pro, Apple returned to a modular plan with an aluminum lodging that lifts disconnected for "360-degree access" to the full system. The machine had a "state-of-the-art thermal architecture" and 8 PCI Express enlargement slots.

"We designed Mac Pro for users who necessitate a modular strategy with utmost performance, enlargement and configurability," said Schiller, successful a property merchandise astatine the time. "With its almighty Xeon processors, monolithic representation capacity, groundbreaking GPU architecture, PCIe expansion, Afterburner accelerator paper and jaw-dropping design, the caller Mac Pro is simply a monster that volition alteration pros to bash their life's champion work."


This was the last Intel-based model, with up to a 28-core Xeon processor disposable alongside up to 1.5TB of RAM and up to an 8TB SSD. It could beryllium configured with AMD's Radeon Pro Vega II Duo, which Apple said was the world's astir almighty graphics paper astatine the time. Other specs included 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports and an Apple Afterburner accelerator paper that enabled playback of 3 streams of 8K ProRes RAW video simultaneously.

In the U.S., pricing started astatine $5,999, which was overmuch higher than the erstwhile models.

2023 to 2026

In June 2023, the Mac Pro entered the Apple silicon epoch erstwhile it received the M2 Ultra chip.

Mac Pro was the last Mac to modulation from Intel to Apple silicon, overmuch similar the archetypal Mac Pro was the last Mac to power from PowerPC to Intel.

Apple stuck with the aforesaid wide plan arsenic the erstwhile generation, but the M2 Ultra spot with unified graphics and representation freed up a batch of interior abstraction compared to the Intel model, resulting successful a "hollow" appearance. And connected the exterior, the Mac Pro gained 8 Thunderbolt 4 ports, up from 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports previously.

Other specs included up to 192GB of unified representation and up to an 8TB SSD. In the U.S., starting pricing roseate to a steep $6,999.


By the clip the Mac Pro moved to Apple silicon, Apple had already released the Mac Studio, different desktop machine that is smaller than a Mac Pro but beefier than a Mac mini. It is presently powered by M4 Max oregon M3 Ultra chips, and configurations with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips are expected to motorboat aboriginal this year.

The superior crushed to acquisition the latest Mac Pro implicit the Mac Studio was PCI expansion, but the Mac Pro's starting terms was thousands of dollars higher than the Mac Studio, truthful the penning was connected the partition that the Mac Pro's days were astir apt numbered.

Indeed, the Mac Pro was yet discontinued this week, marking the extremity of an era.
This article, "Mac Pro Discontinued: Reflecting connected 20 Years of Apple's Desktop Tower" archetypal appeared connected MacRumors.com

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