Product Reviews

We never saw a 'PowerBook G5' because the PowerPC processors belted out too much heat to be fitted in a notebook, and that was one of the driving forces behind Apple's move to Intel chips. However, while Apple's notebook lines quickly received the Intel treatment, the flagship Power Mac line retained the G5 processor.

That has all changed, though, and we're glad we waited. Intel does have a desktop chip in its current range. Codenamed Conroe, it's the desktop equivalent of the Merom laptop processor used by Apple in its iMac range, but Apple apparently made the decision that this wasn't good enough, and instead plumped for Woodcrest. This chip - known by the official name of Xeon, specifically the 5100 series - is a true workstation chip, and it and the motherboard that supports it are the best you'll find across the entire computer market.

As if that's not enough, all the configurations in the Mac Pro line have two of these processors, and because they're each dual-core chips, you actually get four processor cores in each Mac Pro. This is power indeed.

In fact, referring to 'all the configurations' is a little misleading. Apple makes only one standard configuration available on its store based around the middle-spec 2.66GHz processor option. However, we congratulate the company on realising that most users for whom the Mac Pro is a realistic option want to configure their perfect Mac precisely. This also means we've left behind Apple's old approach to its pro Mac desktop range, whereby it restricted the entry-level model to a less-capable motherboard. There's no such thing as an entry-level model any more; indeed, the one configuration offered as standard is nothing more than one particular mix of hardware that Apple thinks suits the widest range of people possible out of almost five million possible such configurations.

The most obvious change you can make is with the processor. Apple offers 2GHz, 2.66GHz and 3GHz options; you can step down by £200 or up by a stonking £540 to the two processor speeds either side of the 'default' 2.66GHz model.

As is so often the case, unless you absolutely, positively can't live without the very fastest computer money can buy, you'd be better going for the 2.66GHz processor and using the extra money to upgrade other components.

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That said, upgrading the Mac Pro's Ram is a very expensive business, so you won't get much for your £540. Again, however, you can save money by buying from third parties: maxing out the Mac Pro to its full 16GB costs £2640 with Crucial, a saving of £1200 on Apple's prices.

Similarly, Apple itself only offers 500GB drives to fill the four drive bays in the case and charges you £270 for each one after upgrading the standard 250GB drive. Filling the Mac Pro from Apple will cost £940 and give you 2TB of storage, but buying four 750GB drives from third parties, increasing the storage ceiling by 50% to 3TB, costs only £30 more. We know where our money's going.

Particularly as it's such an absolute joy to upgrade. The aluminium case looks visually almost identical to the G5's, but inside it's a very different matter. The much more power-efficient Woodcrest chips don't need the same unforgettable nine fans of the G5s, and there's more room to fit expansion cards easily (one of the slots is double height to allow you to fit modern graphics cards without losing a slot), hard disks, Ram and optical drives.

Hard disks simply screw onto caddies and slot into place, Ram is fitted onto two riser boards that easily slip out, and even the optical drive caddy (with one spare bay) just slots out for easy upgrading.

The standard graphics card can drive two displays. One of the two DVI ports is dual-link, so one of the monitors can be the behemoth 30in Cinema Display. And should you wish to add sufficient graphic cards to drive eight 1920 x 1200 pixel monitors, it only costs £300 for the additional Nvidia GeForce 7300GTs. Like the £170 ATI Radeon X1900 XT, the top-of-the-range Quadro FX 4500 can drive two 30in Cinema Displays, although the card alone will set you back £1120, never mind the £3098 for the two monitors.

These are certainly capable machines: Raid together three of the four drives for data storage, keeping the fourth as a boot drive, and you have enough processor power and data throughput to tile 12 HD streams on screen at once.

The sheer flexibility of the Mac Pro gives it a healthy measure of future-proofing. An investment in one now should grow with you for some years to come.

That said, this flexibility comes at a price, and it's a simple financial one. Yes, the standard-configuration Mac Pro is good value for money, but few people will see much performance increase over the very capable iMac. The Mac Pro is all about customisation and creating the perfect machine for the job, now and in years ahead, but the iMac is now very aggressively priced, and, of course, you get a great-quality screen with it, too.

The Mac Pro will delight professionals - indeed, anyone with deep enough pockets - but be absolutely certain that you really need all this power, and can't add peripherals using, say, FireWire, in place of dedicated PCI cards.