OS X 10.8.3 beta supports AMD Radeon 7000 drivers, hinting at Apple's new Mac Pro

Apple's first beta of OS X 10.8.3 has quietly added support for the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series of graphics cards, hinting that they could be featured in the company's designed Mac Pro desktop.

Support for the AMD Radeon HD 7XXX series was discovered by Netkas.org this week, following the launch of the first beta of OS X 10.8.3. Specifically, the Mac operating system supports the Radeon HD 7900 series, codenamed "Tahiti," which includes the Radeon HD 7970 and 7950.

Both of those cards feature 3 gigabytes of GDDR5 memory, and are based on a 28-nanometer chip manufacturing process. The cards are the first products to feature AMD's "Graphics Core Next" compute architecture.

Support for the dedicated desktop graphics card series could signal that AMD's latest GPUs may be headed for an updated Mac Pro. Apple's lone tower computer was quietly updated in June with a modest speed bump featuring a two-year-old Intel Xeon E5645 chip.

After users expressed frustration over that update, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook quickly confirmed that his company was working on an overhaul of the Mac Pro. He indicated that the updated desktop would be released sometime in 2013.

"Don't worry as we're working on something really great for next year," Cook said to a customer in an e-mail. An unnamed executive also indicated to The New York Times that an updated Mac Pro was on pace for release next year.

Signs of a sixth-generation Mac Pro appeared in internal configuration files found in the Mountain Lion operating system earlier this year. The "MP60" is expected to be a significant overhaul of the current Mac Pro model, which has had the same basic aluminum box design introduced for the 2005 PowerMac G5.

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211 Comments

curtis hannah

said about 11 years ago

What we know USB3, Thunderbolt. We also know nearly garenteed smaller no optical drive, faster possibly cheaper, could be featured with new OS X release date 2013

macmanfelix

said about 11 years ago

New case design doesn't matter—the current case is amazing. USB 3, whatever; Thunderbolt would be a welcome addition, still not critical. It doesn’t need to be smaller, and yes, it could still use an optical drive (or two!) because it’s a big [I]professional[/I] machine. People don't buy MacPros for anything but work: scientific, design, audio, video, whatever. The MacPro is not a web-shopping appliance. I love my iPad—I’m glad Apple sells millions of them—but I can't use it to do my job. Pros don’t worry about constant redesigns. Pros don’t care that the new tower looks the same as the previous model—it's a different market than the iPhone. But when professional products—like Xserve—drop from production, it’s [I]terrifying.[/I] The only thing that matters to us is that Apple [I][U]keeps making a MacPro tower[/U][/I]. Versatility and expandability are critical for serious (meaning: we get paid for this) content creation. For example, PCI audio is the way it works in professional recording: http://www.motu.com/products/pciaudio/HD192 In our studio, we’d sell our PCI gear and use a 4 track tape machine like the Beatles (the results were outstanding, would you not agree?) before we’d switch to Windows. Or I guess we could build a beast of a Hackintosh…

philboogie

said about 11 years ago

[quote name="Curtis Hannah" url="/t/154628/os-x-10-8-3-beta-supports-amd-radeon-7000-drivers-hinting-at-apples-new-mac-pro#post_2237339"]What we know USB3, Thunderbolt. We also know nearly garenteed smaller no optical drive, faster possibly cheaper, could be featured with new OS X release date 2013[/quote] If history is any indication it won't be cheaper. Usually same price with newer hardware. [quote name="MacManFelix" url="/t/154628/os-x-10-8-3-beta-supports-amd-radeon-7000-drivers-hinting-at-apples-new-mac-pro#post_2237340"]New case design doesn't matter—the current case is amazing.[/quote] Fully agree! I would simply love for them to release a new MP with the same case design. Will look great next to all my older MP's; becoming more like a museum. [quote]Pros don’t worry about constant redesigns. Pros don’t care that the new tower looks the same as the previous model[/quote] Oops, guess that doesn't make me a Pro then. [quote]The only thing that matters to us is that Apple [I][U]keeps making a MacPro tower[/U][/I]. Versatility and expandability are critical...[/quote] Well, definitely great to have the expandability!

dsdevries

said about 11 years ago

As a pro, I definitely don't want my present day mac pro to look like a g4 or a g3 or any atx case. These cases may have looked state of the art back in the 90's, but they look horribly outdated nowadays. The only reason the mac pro case still looks okay is because you haven't seen anything more advanced than that. Apple has made a habit of throwing out new designs that you and I cannot even think of and make the old design look terribly old. I agree with you that change for the sake of change is never a good thing, Revolution that triggers change might be a good thing, Evolution that triggers change certainly is.