Mac Pro: Built for Creativity
By Mike Agerbo
January 28, 2014
Product Discovery
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I own a content marketing agency where we produce rich media assets, including video, for clients. Editing video and doing it efficiently requires a powerful computer. Naturally, when Apple announced the new Mac Pro, our editors started campaigning for these new state-of-the-art systems right away. We agreed to spring for the new systems and they finally arrived this week. The arrival of the new computers was met with a lot of excitement, and even a couple of Facebook posts from the editors.
So what’s the big deal?
Well, first off, the Mac Pro is one-tenth the size of its predecessor, which was a rectangular tower that was quite heavy and took up a lot of space. This new model fits nicely on a tabletop and sports a sleek cylindrical design. It’s also significantly lighter than the old Mac Pro at only 11 lbs. A fan inside the draws cool air through the bottom of the computer and sends it up and out through the top of the cylinder. The fan is amazingly quiet and this system is much more efficient than the old silver tower we’ve become accustomed to.
The base model of the Mac Pro has a quad-core 3.7GHz Intel Xeon processor, 12GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, and AMD D300 FirePro graphics. The beefed-up version has a six-core 3.5GHz Intel Xeon processor, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, and AMD D500 FirePro graphics. They both have 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports that can accommodate up to three 4K displays at once. It also has 4 USB 3 ports and an HDMI 1.4 UltraHD port. What all these numbers add up to is impressive performance that’s worthy of a professional editor.
The Mac Pro can play multiple streams of 4K video and allows multiple layers of 4K effects to be applied in real time. Yes, that’s right, no rendering time! Importing and exporting video files is also remarkably quick on this machine. With its flash storage and multi-core processors, the Mac Pro makes design and animation tasks speedy. Working in 4K also means being able to see projects in extreme detail, making photography and design projects a joy to work on.
While the Mac Pro would make a phenomenal desktop for the average user, it’s better suited to a creative professional. The average user likely wouldn’t get the use out of the advanced specs of this system. That being said, it’s sleek design, impressive specs, and amazing graphics performance are hard to resist.
So what’s the big deal?
Well, first off, the Mac Pro is one-tenth the size of its predecessor, which was a rectangular tower that was quite heavy and took up a lot of space. This new model fits nicely on a tabletop and sports a sleek cylindrical design. It’s also significantly lighter than the old Mac Pro at only 11 lbs. A fan inside the draws cool air through the bottom of the computer and sends it up and out through the top of the cylinder. The fan is amazingly quiet and this system is much more efficient than the old silver tower we’ve become accustomed to.
The base model of the Mac Pro has a quad-core 3.7GHz Intel Xeon processor, 12GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, and AMD D300 FirePro graphics. The beefed-up version has a six-core 3.5GHz Intel Xeon processor, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, and AMD D500 FirePro graphics. They both have 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports that can accommodate up to three 4K displays at once. It also has 4 USB 3 ports and an HDMI 1.4 UltraHD port. What all these numbers add up to is impressive performance that’s worthy of a professional editor.
The Mac Pro can play multiple streams of 4K video and allows multiple layers of 4K effects to be applied in real time. Yes, that’s right, no rendering time! Importing and exporting video files is also remarkably quick on this machine. With its flash storage and multi-core processors, the Mac Pro makes design and animation tasks speedy. Working in 4K also means being able to see projects in extreme detail, making photography and design projects a joy to work on.
While the Mac Pro would make a phenomenal desktop for the average user, it’s better suited to a creative professional. The average user likely wouldn’t get the use out of the advanced specs of this system. That being said, it’s sleek design, impressive specs, and amazing graphics performance are hard to resist.