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When Apple announced the release of its new Mac Pro on the 10th of December, 2019. I knew it was a high-end computer. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw that the basic specs started at $5,999. It was obvious that this beast of a machine was built for the biggest professional users.
The Mac Pro was the first from Apple since it released the cylinder-shaped Mac Pro in 2013. The 2013 Mac Pro was seen as a failure by many users, as it never got fresh updates. It was affected when the dual GPS was no longer in vogue and focus moved to the high-powered single GPS option.
The Mac Pro 2019 showed that Apple learned from its 2013 mistakes.
Before we analyze if the Mac Pro 2019 is what you really need. Let us take a look at its specs.
Screen and Display
Apple released a brilliant monitor with its Mac Pro 2019. The monitor is called the Pro Display XDR. It is a 32-inch Retina 6K monitor. You will be amazed at its brightness of 1,600 nits, while it can sustain 1,000 nits of brightness indefinitely. This kind of high output is so impressive and is made possible due to the monitor rear being heavily vented. It means the guts cannot overheat.
The venting at the back makes use of the cheese-grater pattern which is the same as the Mac Pro. This allows a good level of visual synchronicity. The hinge mechanism is unique and it makes it possible for adjustments in the angles and height. It allows a portrait-mode orientation of 90 degrees.
The Pro Display XDR has a contrast ratio of 1 million: 1. This feature puts it in the class of the highly-rated “reference displays”.
Performance
The base model for the Mac Pro 2019 comes with an 8-core model, 256-GB of a solid-state drive. And RAM size of 32GB. However, you can upgrade its configuration up to 1.5 TB of RAM and the 28-core model. At first, Apple offered only an upgrade up to 4TB of SSD. But you can now upgrade the SSD up to 8 TB.
The Mac Pro 2019 delivers greatly when it comes to its graphics and processor power. It will comfortably handle 4 AMD Radeon Pro Vega II graphics cards. According to Apple, it will offer you enough power to simultaneous play three streams of 8K video. However, upon optimization, you will not be able to play up to six streams of 8K videos simultaneously.
Apple has spoken about the release of the Afterburner. It is a new hardware acceleration card and said to be the source of the Mac Pro’s power to play six 8K ProRes RAW footage simultaneously. This level of power is what the RED camera and high-end cameras offer to professional filmmakers.
The graphics card handles video playback and this allows the remaining primary CPU cores to control creative effects and the remaining processing tasks.
Ports
The Mac Pro has two ports that are USB-A and has a speed of about 5Gb/s. It has two Thunderbolt 3 ports with a speed of up to 40Gb/s and supports DisplayPort. It also has two ports of 10Gb Ethernet which is available via an I/O card which you will find in the half-length PCI Express slot.
At the top of the Mac Pro enclosure, there are two more Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Now, let’s see if you really need the Mac Pro 2019 computer
Apple made it obvious that they only catered for the needs of high-end professional users with the Mac Pro 2019. However, the base model isn’t the best for these ‘high-end users’, while the probe is ridiculously high at $6,000.
For instance, if you want to edit a 4K video, you will need the 64 GB ram at least and the graphics card must be Vega II at the least. This will cost you about $8,000-10,000 and it doesn’t include the monitor. The 32-inch 6K monitor from Apple costs $5,000, and you will have to pay an additional $1,000 for a stand.
Final Verdict
The Mac Pro 2019 is a beast computer that will serve the needs of the high-end professional users but it will come at a cost. For the basic user that forms a large base of Apple’s customers, it is an overpriced machine with unnecessary hype. Imagine needing to buy a monitor for an extra cost after spending so much on the machine.
There are better and cheaper options for basic users. However, if you love Apple and can spend the money, go ahead and trade in your computer for the new Mac Pro.
