Mike Wuerthele
On Wednesday morning, Apple was granted FCC approval for the forthcoming Mac Pro, with historical precedent suggesting strongly that preorders for the unit will start very soon.
The report doesn't have anything more than Apple has shared about the Mac Pro at first glance other than the A1991 identifier. US Federal Communications Commission approval is required before a piece of consumer electronics goes on sale.
As expected, Apple has requested that the commission withhold block diagrams, schematics, and other procedures "indefinitely."
Typically, the FCC publishes Apple's applications the day of release. The Mac Pro was announced in July, similar to how the iMac Pro debuted before shipping. When the FCC documentation was released for the iMac Pro, pre-orders began less than two days later.
Apple debuted the Mac Pro on June 3. In the new Mac Pro, Apple is using a new Intel Xeon processor with up to 28 cores and 64 PCI Express lanes. The Mac Pro uses six memory channels, with 2933 MHz ECC RAM, in 12 slots, with up to 1.5 TB of system memory.
PCI-E has been restored to the system, with eight PCI-E slots. Four double-wide slots are available, with three single-wide ports. Two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and two USB-A ports occupy the eighth slot. Two more Thunderbolt 3 slots are on the top of the enclosure.
Two of the PCI-E slots are MPX modules. Each MPX-compatible bay can support one full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slot and one full-length, double-wide x8 gen 3 slot in MPX bay 1, or two full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slots.
Up to 4TB of SSD storage can be installed at the time of purchase. Post-purchase options aren't clear at present. All storage is encrypted with Apple's T2 chip.
Networking is provided by a pair of 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Bluetooth 5.0 is also available.
The enclosure is 20.8 inches tall without wheels. It is 17.7 inches deep, and 8.58 inches wide. For comparison, the 5,1 Mac Pro was 20.1 inches tall, 8.1 inches wide, and 18.7 inches deep.
Other processor options are a 12-core 3.3 GHz Xeon with a 31.25MB cache, a 16-core 3.2GHz Xeon with 38MB cache, a 24-core with 57MB cache, and a 28-core 2.5Ghz Xeon. The eight-core Turbo Boost frequency is 4.0GHz, with the remaining options having a 4.4GHz boost speed.
Mac Pro models with an eight-core Xeon, 32GB of RAM, and the Radeon Pro 580X will start at $5999, and will be available in the fall. There will be a version optimized for rack deployment, also available in the fall.
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27 Comments
I've decided to wait a while until the dust settles on this machine. I have all too often jumped in too early. I've just bought an i9 iMac 5K with the upgraded GPU and 64 GB of third-party RAM to work alongside my 2013 Mac Pro for now. I have a sneaky feeling by 2021 there will be a significant revision of the new Mac Pro. Not an issue for a commercial set up like I used to have where it will have earned the cost back in no time anyway but now these things are a hobby for me so I am happy to wait a while longer.
I don't think that it is a coincidence that the Adobe MAX creative conference starts next Monday on November 4. Perhaps we will see the new Mac Pro ripping through Premier content and the rumored 16" MacBook Pro doing the same with PhotoShop.
I looked for a request asking them to keep information hidden until a certain date. I seem to recall that they did this so they could get ahead of the announcement and release. This is different because we do know about it, but I thought there might be some other information therein.
I hope this means that we don't have to wait until April 2020. I think Apple stated a 2019 release year so I assume that's still going to happen.