Apple's Mac Pro gains new Radeon Pro MPX graphics card options

Recent macOS updates have added support for the latest Radeon Pro graphics card modules to the Mac Pro and eGPU installs on Intel Macs. Customers can add these graphics cards when configuring a new Mac Pro, and a few hours after debut, made them available for upgraders as well.

New PCI-E and MPX module graphics cards available for the Mac Pro at time of purchase.

• Radeon Pro W6800X with 32GB of GDDR6 memory costs $2,400
• Two Radeon Pro W6800X with 32GB of GDDR6 memory each costs $5,200
• Radeon Pro W6900X with 32GB of GDDR6 memory costs $5,600
• Two Radeon Pro W6900X with 32GB of GDDR6 memory each costs $11,600
• Radeon Pro W6800X Duo with 64GB of GDDR6 memory costs $4,600
• Two Radeon Pro W6800X Duo with 64GB of GDDR6 memory each costs $9,600

Upgraders costs are $2800 for a Radeon Pro W6800X MPX module, $5000 for the W6800X Duo, and $6000 for the W6900X.

The Mac Pro uses standard PCI-E connections, so customers are able to purchase graphics cards separately at a lower cost. Though, due to market conditions, customers may find it difficult to locate Radeon Pro GPUs at retailers at regular price. However, the street price for two 6900XT video cards is still notably less than Apple's MPX module with the pair of GPUs.

AMD broke down some of the advantages of the new Radeon Pro graphics cards, citing the 7nm manufacturing and RDNA 2 architecture.

"We developed the AMD Radeon PRO W6000X series GPUs to unleash professionals' creativity and help them bring more complex and compute-intensive projects to life, from animating 3D film assets to compositing 8K scenes to game development," said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit at AMD. "The new AMD Radeon PRO W6000X series is packed with remarkable energy efficiency, enhanced compute units and a new visual pipeline, enabling Mac Pro users to do more in less time across a broad range of pro applications."

The company boasts that the GDDR6 memory has a speed of up to 512GB/s for data-intensive professional apps. The Radeon Pro W6900X is capable of operating at 22 teraflops alone, and the Radeon Pro W6800X can achieve up to 30.2 teraflops when used in the duo configuration.

The update was first spotted by CNN Underscored editor Jake Krol. He notes that the new graphics cards will provide as much as 23% faster performance in DaVinci Resolve and 84% performance improvements in Octane X.