It’s really real: Apple unveils the all-new Mac Pro

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Today, Apple announced a new Mac Pro desktop computer—the first new product in that line since 2013.

The machine will start at $5,999 for a configuration that includes an eight-core Intel Xeon processor, 32GB of 2666MHz memory, a 256GB SSD, and AMD Radeon Pro 580X graphics. If that price tag doesn't make it obvious, this is very much not a device for casual consumers. Apple says the Pro will be available to order later this fall.

The new Mac Pro offers a vastly different design than the oft-maligned "trash can" design of the previous Mac Pro, which released nearly 2,000 days ago. This new model has more of a traditional tower design that is a closer analogue to the "cheese grater" Mac Pro models that existed before the latest machine. Its housing is largely made of aluminum, with stainless steel handles for moving the device as needed as well as a set of "feet" on the bottom. It can be configured with a small set of wheels for easier transport, too. Apple says both sides of the device are openable for user access. The whole thing measures about 21 inches tall and 8.5 inches wide and weighs a shade under 40 pounds.

Ports, power, graphics

As you might expect from a desktop computer designed primarily for professional needs, Apple is touting the new Mac Pro as "the most powerful Mac [it] has ever created." The company says it is using a "brand new" Intel Xeon W processor with up to 28 cores and can use six-channel 2933MHz ECC memory with 12 DIMM slots. The device is configurable with up to 1.5TB of system memory and up to 4TB of SSD storage. It can put out more than 300 watts of power and comes with a large heat sink for cooling that Apple says will allow the device to "run fully unconstrained all the time."

There are eight internal PCI Express slots, including four double-wide slots, three single-wide slots, and a final slot that is populated with an I/O card. That includes two Thunderbolt 3 ports, two 10Gb Ethernet ports, and two USB-A ports. There's a 3.5mm audio jack, too, and two more Thunderbolt 3 ports at the top of the tower.

For graphics, the new Mac Pro starts with the Radeon Pro 580X but can be configured with AMD's new Radeon Pro Vega II, which Apple says carries 14 teraflops of compute performance and 32GB of memory with 1TB/s of memory bandwidth. A model with a Radeon Pro Vega II Duo GPU, which doubles that performance, will also be available, as will a configuration that includes two of those Vega II Duo GPUs. That means the machine can max out with four GPUs, 56 teraflops of graphics performance, and 128GB of HBM2 graphics memory. That's a lot!

Pushing these along is a new graphics architecture dubbed the Apple MPX Module, a quad-wide PCIe card that includes its own heat sink and Thunderbolt 3 connector. Apple says the card can push more than 500W of power. Missing in all of this is any word on Nvidia GPU support, though.

The company is promoting video editing performance in particular, touting a new video card called "Afterburner" that Apple claims can decode more than 6 billion pixels per second. The company says this can allow the new Mac Pro to play back up to 12 streams of 4K ProRes RAW video or up to three streams of 8K video in real time.

The system runs on a 1.4kW power supply, which is, again, a ton. But behind its aluminum grille are three large fans at the front of the device. There is a blower as well, though Apple claims the device won't be any louder than an iMac Pro when it's up and running.

Alongside the new Mac Pro, Apple launched a new 32-inch display called the Pro Display XDR, which itself will start at $5,000 when it becomes available in the fall.