“Apple’s early adoption of Intel’s latest quad-core, 64-bit ‘Nehalem’ Xeon 5500 processor does represent a significant step forward for a machine [Mac Pro] that’s only had one other upgrade since its launch back in 2006,” Stephen Dean reports for Register Hardware.
“The inside of the Mac Pro is immaculate – there’s not a cable in sight, and the Ram and PCIe slots sit neatly in front of you waiting for upgrades to be installed. The sheer size of the heatsink on the Xeon chip is a bit alarming, but the heatsink never became too hot to touch while we were testing it, and the cooling fan in the base of the unit hums away quietly without making too much noise at all,” Dean reports.
“The Mac Pro might seem expensive to most of us, but it’s not going to faze people who have paid the best part of £1500 for high-end applications such as Adobe’s Creative Suite or Apple’s own Final Cut Server. Those users will jump at the chance to get their hands on a workstation as powerful as this. The only real question for those users is whether to go the whole hog with this eight-core, twin-Xeon model, or to opt for the less-expensive quad-core, single-Xeon version,” Dean reports.
“If you’re running applications such as the Final Cut video editor, which is capable of juggling multiple audio and video streams simultaneously, then this twin-Xeon Mac Pro will be a godsend. However, lesser mortals who just want to run Photoshop really quickly will probably manage perfectly well with the single-Xeon version, or even one of the faster iMac models,” Dean reports.
There’s much more in the full review, including benchmarks vs. other Mac models, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
