Product Reviews

The original Mac Pro was the first dual-Xeon workstation reviewed in PC Pro, in issue 146, and was at the time the fastest PC we'd seen.

Its latest revision, now with a pair of 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeons, again breaks new ground on the processor front. It's not the first eight-core workstation we've seen, but it's the first to use Penryn 45nm processors, with their huge 12MB L2 cache.

As you'd expect, these powerful chips drove the Mac Pro to a highly respectable performance in our benchmarks. Its 2D graphics and multitasking scores were particularly good, but its overall score was dragged down to 1.68 by an unremarkable performance in the office applications test.

That's still not a score to be ashamed of, but it means the Mac Pro is no longer a world-beater, as several systems (see below) have scored higher in recent months.

Outwardly, the new Mac Pro looks and feels identical to earlier models. It's an aluminium monolith that exudes solidity and understated power. It hasn't obviously changed inside, but that's no bad thing: the neat, compartmented design is great for airflow, and makes maintenance a breeze as well.

The designers have clearly put some thought into internal accessibility. Each of the four slide-out drive cages has an integrated SATA connector which has been connected to the motherboard for you, so you don't need to worry about cable mess when adding new drives. Eight RAM slots are mounted on a daughter-card that also simply pulls out, allowing easy upgrades.

Another nice touch is the gap that's been left between two

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of the Mac Pro's four PCI-Express slots, so you can install a double-height graphics card without sacrificing a slot.

Yet while the Mac Pro's innards look familiar, Apple has made a few technical improvements. The twin front side buses have been boosted from 1.33GHz in the previous model to 1.6GHz, though the Mac Pro still uses the more reliable (and more expensive) FB-DIMMs rather than regular DDR2. The RAM limit has been upped to an extravagant 32GB. Two of the four PCI-Express expansion slots now support PCI-Express 2.0 (one 16x, one 4x).

To fill those slots there's an updated range of graphics cards on offer. The new standard is a 256MB ATi Radeon HD 2600 XT -a respectable card for the desktop, but so underwhelming for 3D that ATi has already retired it from retail.

For 3D you might therefore prefer the optional upgrade to an Nvidia 512MB GeForce 8800 GT, or a Nvidia Quadro FX 5600, which boasts a huge 1.5GB of GDDR3 - though the extra £1,799 means it's only for those who need an ISV-certified workstation card for working with professional 3D packages such as 3ds and AutoCAD.

That's not the only price shock. On the face of it, £1,488 for an eight-core Penryn system looks like a bargain, especially given the Mac Pro's excellent build quality. But that price includes just 2GB of RAM, a single 320GB hard disk and an obsolete graphics card - hardly a high-end workstation for 2008.

Upgrade to 4GB, a 1TB SATA hard disk and a GeForce 8800 GT and the price leaps to over £2,000, and that's before you even think about a monitor. You can get a faster, better specified Windows system for distinctly less - such as the £1,446 Chillblast Fusion Photo OC II.

Yet price isn't the key consideration when you're choosing a workstation, and it certainly isn't if you're considering a Mac. Apple has repeatedly proved that customers will pay a premium for a high quality product, and for a workstation role the Mac Pro's emphases on usability and reliability go a long way toward justifying the price.

Even if the first thing you do is wipe Mac OS X and install Windows, the Mac Pro remains a rock-solid workstation and a strong performer.