Apple Unveils Insanely Powerful Mac Pro Alongside New Pro Display XDR

This year’s WWDC event wasn’t just all about software. Apple officially took the wraps off of its long-awaited and highly anticipated Mac Pro redesign. And for pro users who demand power, flexibility and customization from their machines, it looks like the wait may have been worth it.

Mac Pro Specs and Features

The all-new Mac Pro, as expected, is the most powerful computer that Apple has ever made. But unlike the iMac Pro, the new Mac mixes that power with user configurability and expandability.

1. It’ll come equipped with a new Intel Xeon processor with up to 28 cores.
2. With six different memory channels, the Mac Pro can be configured with up to 1.5 TB of 2933 MHz ECC RAM system memory.
3. The Mac Pro will sport up to 300W of power and some serious cooling capabilities, allowing to run “unconstrained at full power at all times.”
4. Graphically, the Mac Pro will support a variety of options. Users will be able to spec out the new computer with AMD’s Radeon Pro Vega 2 or Radeon Pro Vega 2 Duo graphics cards. If configured with two of the latter, it’ll give users a total of GPUs with 128GB of HBM2 graphics memory.
5. There are also eight PCI Express slots, with four of those being double-wide slots.
6. As far as the rest of the I/O, the 2019 Mac Pro will have two Thunderbolt 3 ports and two USB-A ports.
7. A separately sold I/O module will allow users to add two more Thunderbolt 3 ports, two more USB-A ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Apple also custom-built a new Afterburner card specifically for video editing, letting users edit 6 billion pixels per second, 3 streams of 8K or 12 streams of 4K.

It features a new design that still manages to be a throwback to Apple’s older Mac Pro devices. While there are fans and a blower, the company says the machine will run quietly — and will come with optional wheels for workspace mobility.

Even if you don’t understand all of the technical capabilities of the Mac Pro, the bottom line is pretty simple. This is a beast of a machine.

The Mac Pro starts at $5,999. But that bottom-tier spec comes with a respectable 32GB of memory, an octa-core Intel Xeon CPU, Radeon Pro 580X graphics and a 256GB SSD. It’ll be available in the fall.

Pro Display XDR

Alongside the new Mac Pro, Apple also teased a brand new, first-party display that is also aimed at the professional community.

The so-called Pro Display XDR is a 32-inch LCD display with a 6016 x 3384 6K native resolution and more than 20 million pixels. It features specifically calibrated blue LEDs that allow for ultra-realistic HDR viewing. Thermally, the Mac Pro’s design allows it to run at 1000 nits of brightness indefinitely. Peak brightness is 1600 nits.

It also features a new polarized filter that offers color and contrast accuracy at super-wide viewing angles and a specialized, nano-texture glass option for low reflectivity in certain environments.

Even the stand, which is sold separately and costs $999, has been designed from the ground up with the pro in mind. There’s also an optional VESA mount available for $199.

The Apple Pro XDR Display will be available n the fall and will cost $4999 for the standard model or $5999 for the specialized nano-texture variant.