Apple's new tower of power.
There's one thing we'll truly miss about the Power Mac: its name. Power Mac is - was - a damn cool name, much more commanding than the Mac Pro moniker. But in the whole scheme of things, a name change is a minor lamentation; the Power Mac is already fading from our memory because we've discovered the ultimate Macintosh in the new Mac Pro. It's a burly engineering masterpiece that blazes new territory in Mac history.
Chances are that you've read all about the two dual-core Xeon 5100 processors, the FB-DIMM RAM, and the other specifications, and you've seen the industrial design (if you haven't, go find your Oct/06 copy of MacAddict and turn to p18). Be sure to look at the blue specifications box at the end of this review to see what kind of Mac Pro we tested; we're going to focus this review on our hands-on experience with the Mac Pro.
While lifting our Mac Pro out of its box, we discovered that it's one hefty machine: It weighs in at 42 pounds. Our first thought was to write a thank-you note to Apple for the additional front USB port; the front FireWire 800 port is a nice touch, as well. However, the included keyboard, with its two USB 1.1 ports and weak power output (it can't provide enough juice for some flash and micro hard drives), is outdated. Time to update this overlooked piece of hardware, Steve.
When we first opened up the Mac Pro, we took a moment to marvel at its spiffily uncluttered interior design. True, the Power Mac wasn't a rat's nest, but its G5 processors needed king-sized cooling devices that were space hogs - the Quad Core Power Mac, for example, had nine fans and a liquid cooling system; the Mac Pro has a mere four fans. And whenever you ran intensive tasks on the Power Mac, it sounded like a plane was taking off from under your desk. The Mac Pro's fan noise was always at a consistent level; the fan from the Mac Pro's power supply made the most noticeable noise, which we could hear when the Mac Pro was under our desk. Audible, yes, but nowhere near the noise level of the Quad Core Power Mac. Also, the Xeon processors don't require liquid cooling like the G5 processors in the top-of-the-line Power Macs do.
Everything's in its proper place.
BONUS TIP: Coupled Pairs
Apple says you'll get better performance when you add RAM in coupled pairs. For example, if you install 2GB of RAM, you should use four 512MB FB-DIMMs. Install a pair in the first bank of the top riser card, and install another pair in the first bank of the bottom riser card. Why does Apple use a single pair of 512MB FB-DIMMs in the core Mac Pro configuration? Because 256MB FB-DIMMs aren't available.
Adding PCI Express cards proved to be a tricky task due to some tight quarters, but it's no different from adding cards into a Power Mac. Adding a full-length card such as the nVidia Quadro FX 4500 video card (a $1,650 option) requires finesse and patience, but it'll fit. And we absolutely love the lock-down bracket with built-in screws that secure your PCI Express cards. No more dropped screws rattling around in the processor bay. Hooray!
Another feature that we absolutely love: the four SATA hard-drive bays. Compared to the Power Mac's bays (which always confounded us with their slide-in-and-up design), the new bays are much more accessible, making it easier to swap and add drives. The latch that releases the Mac Pro's side cover also releases the hard drive bays; you simply attach a chassis to a drive (they're numbered 1 to 4 so you can keep your drives in order) and slide it into the bay until the connector clicks into place. When you replace the side cover and close the latch, the hard drives are secured. Fortunately, you get four drive chassis even if you buy your Mac Pro with a single hard drive.
The Mac Pro comes with two bays for optical drives, one with a 16x, double-layer SuperDrive preinstalled. The chassis for the drives fits snugly at the top of the Mac Pro; pull it out, and you'll find a pair of ATA/100 connectors and a pair of power connectors. All you have to do is screw in your drive, attach the connectors, and slide the chassis back in its slot. Easy enough. Like the hard-drive chassis, the optical drive chassis locks into place when you close the rear latch.
The RAM installation is another example of user-friendly Apple design. The Power Mac had RAM slots directly on the motherboard, and it wasn't hard to reach in and install RAM - though for ham-handed folks, the space may have been cramped. However, the riser cards that the Mac Pro uses make a world of difference; it's more convenient to pull out a riser card and access the RAM slots out in the open (the riser cards are located in line with two fans located at the front of the Mac Pro; air travels through the processor bay, over the RAM, and out the back).
Plenty of places to stick whatever you want stuck.
BONUS PORTS: Easy Access, Front and Back
Front: Below the power button is a headphone jack, two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 400 port, and a FireWire 800 port. Back: Connections galore! Three USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, optical audio-in and -out, microphone and audio-out jacks, and two Ethernet ports.
It's important to note that Apple uses FB-DIMMs that have different cooling requirements than standard, third-party FB-DIMMs. Apple says that if you decide to use standard FB-DIMMs instead of FB-DIMMs that meet Apple's specs, you run the risk of your RAM running too hot, resulting in more fan noise and your RAM clocking down its access speed in order to maintain a proper temperature, which could affect the performance of your Mac Pro. To see what would happen when using standard FB-DIMMs, we installed standard FB-DIMMs from Crucial (www.crucial.com).
We didn't notice an increase in fan noise, nor did we experience any systems crashes, despite performing several intensive tasks. We did notice that our Adobe Photoshop CS2 results with 2GB of RAM were 5 percent slower compared to our results with FB-DIMMs that fit Apple's specifications. Crucial does sell FB-DIMMs designed for the Mac Pro, as do Other World Computing (http://eshop.macsales.com) and Trans International (www.transintl.com).
To gauge the speed of the Mac Pro, we ran a comprehensive series of application-based tests. We used Universal versions of iLife '06, Final Cut Studio HD 5.1.1, Compressor, Motion 2, and Aperture 1.1.2. We ran all our tests on the Mac Pro and the Quad Core 2.5GHz Power Mac G5, which both had 2GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a 512MB nVidia Quadro FX 4500 video card. The Power Mac had its processor performance set to Highest.
In out Final Cut Studio HD 5.1.1 render test, the Mac Pro was 13 percent faster than the Power Mac. When encoding a video in Compressor, the Mac Pro was 7 percent faster. In our Motion 2 RAM preview test, the two Macs had similar speeds. When we used QuickTime Pro to convert a digital video file to a H.264 QuickTime movie, the Mac Pro was 3 percent faster. In Aperture we ran two tests, a 175 RAW file import and a 175-file TIFF export, and in both tests, the Mac Pro was 19 percent faster than the Power Mac. If you feel disappointed by the marginal speed gains with pro applications, consider that an Apple spokesperson assured us that the company is working hard to further optimize its code for the Intel Macs. Chances are good that we'll see new software revisions that will provide bigger boosts.
The new hard drive chassis and individual drive drawers (pictured) provide easy access to the Mac Pro's internal drives.
BONUS TIP: More SATA-faction
You can install up to four SATA hard drives in the Mac Pro, but there are actually two more SATA buses, for a total of six. The two mystery SATA buses, like the four known SATA connectors, are connected to the Mac Pro's southbridge I/O device and disk controller. But the two other buses don't have drive bay connectors. Sounds like a third-party opportunity - albeit a difficult one to implement.
In most of our iLife '06 tests, the Mac Pro left the Power Mac in the dust. When applying the Black & White video effect in iMovie HD, the Mac Pro was an impressive 56 percent faster than the Power Mac. In our iPhoto photo-import test, where we brought 198 high-resolution JPEGs into iPhoto, the Mac Pro was 65 percent faster than the Power Mac. The Mac Pro was 11 percent faster than the Power Mac when we performed GarageBand's Send To iTunes function. And when we converted 11 WAV files ripped from our Slammin' All-Body Band music CD to AAC format, the Mac Pro was 17 percent faster than the Power Mac. These aren't just marginal differences - these gains are significant.
In two of our iLife '06 tests, we found no speed difference between the two Macs. We weren't surprised that this happened in our iDVD test that creates a OneStep DVD from a movie; the SuperDrive proves to be the bottleneck in this task. The two Macs also had identical speeds when applying a Quartz Composer Sepia Tone video effect in iMovie HD. When we ran other Quartz Composer video effects in iMovie HD (Bloom, Color Monochrome, Crystallize, and Exposure Adjust), both Macs continued to finish at the same time. The reason for the identical performance: Both Macs were using the same 512MB nVidia Quadro FX 45000 video card. An Apple spokesperson told us that Quartz Composer speed is dependent on the graphics processor; we used the same card in both Macs, which explains the identical results.
We also tested the Mac Pro's speed with non-Universal apps to see how much of an effect Rosetta (Apple's technology that lets you run apps that don't use Intel-native code) has on performance. In earlier testing, we've found that with the iMac, Mac mini, MacBook, and MacBook Pro, an Intel-based Mac can run slower than a comparable PowerPC-equipped Mac when running a non-Universal application. As we expected, the Quad Core Power Mac was faster than the Mac Pro - 27 percent faster when performing our Photoshop CS2 Action test on a 100MB file, 23 percent faster when exporting a file in Adobe InDesign CS2 as a PDF, and 33 percent faster in our Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 Auto Smart Fix test.
We then took our Rosetta testing one step further. We boosted the RAM in both Macs from 2GB to 4GB to test the theory that with more RAM for Rosetta to use, the Mac Pro's Photoshop speed would improve. At 4GB, we adjusted Photoshop's memory usage (Photoshop > Preferences > Memory & Image Cache) to 1,382MB (45 percent), so that it closely matched the memory allocation we used at 2GB (1,372MB, or 70 percent). Making this adjustment ensured that the added memory was available for Rosetta to use. Boosting the memory made a small difference - the Mac Pro reduced the Power Mac's lead a measly 3 percent. You could add more RAM beyond 4GB and possibly see improved Photoshop performance, but then you start to drift into cost considerations. For example, to upgrade from 4GB to 8GB, you have to shell out an extra $1,400 to $1,600. With a Universal version of Photoshop CS3 coming out next year, you could decide to wait for the new software to arrive and just grin and bear Photoshop CS2, instead of buying a ton of RAM. Though, if Photoshop is where you make your living, then you've already considered adding more than 4GB of RAM.
We also used Doom 3's benchmark tool to gauge the gaming performance of the Mac Pro. Considering that the Mac Pro and the Power Mac that were used for testing had the exact same video card, the results are remarkable. The Mac Pro's average framerate was 122 frames per second, which blew away the Power Mac's 53 frames per second. What's great about this result is that it not only illustrates the power of Intel-native code on Intel processors, but also demonstrates the improvements in processing power of the Xeon CPUs.
The bottom line. Not only does the Mac Pro have a lot to offer now, but it has the potential to pay fat future dividends once pro applications are Intel-icized. When it came to rolling out Intel-based Macs, Apple saved the best for last.
Special thanks to MacAddict Contributing Editor Helmut Kolber and Maximum PC Senior Editor Gordon Mah Ung, who contributed to this review.
COMPANY: Apple
CONTACT: 800-692-7753 or 408-996-1010, www.apple.com
PRICE: $2,499, base model; $5,478, as tested
SPECIFICATIONS: (as tested) two 3GHz dual-core Intel Xeon processors, 4MB shared L2 cache per processor, 1.33GHz dual independent frontside buses, 2GB 667MHz DDR2 fully buffered DIMM ECC RAM, 500GB 7,200 rpm Serial ATA hard drive, 16x double-layer SuperDrive, 512MB nVidia Quadro FX 4500 video card, Bluetooth 2.0
Impressive performance with Universal applications. Elegant industrial design inside and out. Easy-to-access hard drive bays. More front panel ports.
Performance hit using nonnative apps with Rosetta. Heavy. Noticeable fan noise.
