The anandtechmac pro is an Apple high-end computer. It's a highly-powered workstation capable running demanding professional apps at a fair price. It also looks very good.
It has a modern, sleek look and feels very solid. It also is very quiet, which is important for a professional workstation.
What's more, it's very aesthetically pleasing, something that a lot of other desktops on the market can't say. This is why I was so excited to be able to review it.
A quick tour of the system
Anandtech mac pro uses a single processor board behind the IO panels. This single board supports Intel's newest Ivy Bridge-EP Xeon processors. It's very easy to upgrade, provided that you have an adequate motherboard with PCIe slot slots and a memory upgrade kit.
An optional sled adapter is available for mid-2010 models. It is possible to purchase a hardware RAID card, but it is not required for most users.
You can easily upgrade the system's memory, too, as it comes with 16GB of DDR3 RAM. To maintain a constant temperature, Apple's FB DIMM memory modules need special heatsinks.
Aside from the CPU, the other major component of the anandtech mac pro is the graphics card. The new chip includes a dual GPU. One dedicated to high end compute work and one for high resolution media. This design is loved by many people and allows Apple to achieve the highest possible performance for its current GPU architectures. It also gives Apple the opportunity to future-proof its product line.
Six-core Mac Pros are now as fast a three-core Mac Pro, and a new GPU makes a twelve-core Mac Pro even faster than a nine core unit. It's great news if you work with heavy workloads. However, it doesn't give any noticeable boosts to lighter threaded applications such as importing photos to Lightroom or playing back videos.
Those users will likely find that a more affordable option will be better suited for their needs. Anandtech Mac mini, by comparison, is much cheaper than the anandtech Mac pro.
The anandtech Mac mini is a great choice for users that don't need a very powerful computer, but want a small, portable desktop. Although it isn't as powerful, the screen is extremely sharp and it is very quiet.
The anandtechmac pro is definitely a higher-end model than the old one and has a great look and feel. While I don't think the overall design and functionality for the new anandtech pro are perfect for all professional uses it is still very useful for what it does.
The new Mac Pro design is an important part of this. It strives to be small while still providing high-end functionality. It's not clear if this was always the goal but it is evident that Apple is strongly committed to form factor development, and that the Mac Pro represents a major step forward in that direction.