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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2616 in Personal Computers
• Brand: Apple
• Model: Z0EM2

Features

• Fastest Mac ever with two of Intel's new 45 nanometer Quad-Core Xeon 5400 processors running at 3.2 GHz
• 2 GB RAM (expandable up to 32 GB), 320 GB hard drive (expandable to 4 TB), 16x Double-Layer SuperDrive
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and two dual-link DVI ports; Bluetooth 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR)
• Peripheral connections: 5 USB (with 2 more on keyboard), 2 FireWire 800, 2 FireWire 400, 2 Gigabit Ethernet, optical digital audio input and output
• Pre-installed with Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, and iLife '08; includes Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse

Amazon.com Product Description
Boost your productivity with the Apple Mac Pro desktop PC--the fastest Mac Apple has ever made. Combining two of Intel's new 64-bit, 45-nanometer Quad-Core Xeon 5400 processors running at 3.2 GHz, the Mac Pro is an unbelievably powerful workstation that can handle even the most intensive graphics rendering. Its industrial-style enclosure offers improved functionality with a cable-free installation process and massive upgrade ability--up to 32 GB of 800 MHz RAM and four hard drive bays for up to 4 TB (that's right--terabytes) of storage under the hood. And while it comes standard with a 16x SuperDrive (compatible with burning DVD±R/RW and CD-R/RW discs), you can also add a second writing SuperDrive.

Additionally, this Mac Pro features a 320 GB hard drive, 2 GB of installed RAM, and the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (two dual-link DVI ports) graphics card with 256 MB of video RAM, both FireWire 400 and 800 slots, optical digital audio input and output, Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, and iLife '08. The Mac Pro also includes a DVI to VGA adapter and an Apple keyboard and Mighty Mouse.

Smart design makes installing massive amounts of memory, adding expansion cards, and increasing storage surprisingly simple.

Processor
Based on Intel's next-generation Core micro-architecture, the two 3.2 GHz 64-bit quad-core Intel Xeon 5400 processors are based on state-of-the-art 45nm Intel Core microarchitecture. With a new high-bandwidth hardware architecture, 12 MB of L2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6 MB), and dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses, the new Mac Pro achieves a 61 percent increase in memory throughput. These 64-bit buses give each processor a direct connection to the system controller and deliver improved processor bandwidth of up to 25.6GB per second--20 percent greater than the previous Mac Pro. Every Intel Xeon processor features an enhanced SSE4 SIMD engine. Capable of completing 128-bit vector computations in a single cycle, SSE4 is ideal for transforming large sets of data, such as applying a filter to an image or rendering a video effect.

Because Intel designed this dual-core Xeon to be more efficient, it consumes less power than similar workstation-level processors, so your system fans don't have to work as hard to keep them cool. Working with Mac OS X Leopard, it also continues the tradition of enabling 64-bit computation. Ideal for scientific applications, the 64-bit Intel Xeon processors can express the extreme precision needed for floating-point mathematics and to express integers up to 18 billion.

The Mac Pro incorporates a 256-bit-wide, fully buffered memory architecture with Error Correction Code (ECC), which corrects single-bit errors and detects multiple-bit errors automatically. These features are especially important in mission-critical or compute-intensive environments. Apple designed a more stringent thermal specification for the Mac Pro FB-DIMMs, so the internal fans spin at slower speeds and keep the system quiet.

Graphics
This Mac Pro comes standard with the new, high-performance ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256 MB of GDDR3 memory, PCI Express 2.0, and two dual-link DVI ports. GDDR3 (Graphics Double Data Rate, version 3) is a graphics card-specific memory technology that's better able to deliver fluid frame rates for even the most advanced games and applications. It provides great performance for typical creative applications, and you get dual 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display support out of the box. With support for up to four graphics cards, the new Mac Pro can drive up to eight 30-inch displays at once for advanced visualization and large display walls.

Hard Drive
This Mac Pro (model MA970LL/A) comes loaded with a single 320 GB hard drive. It comes with four 3.5-inch internal hard drive bays for an enormous amount of internal storage--up to 4 TB. These bays are direct-attach and cable free, so it's easy to add or remove drives. Just attach the drive carrier to either a Serial ATA 3Gb/s or Serial Attached SCSI 3Gb/s drive, and slide the drive into place. There are no connectors or cables to contend with. Lock the drives with the side door latch, and you're done.

You can also choose ultrafast 15,000-rpm Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 3Gb/s drives with 300GB of capacity for the highest in disk I/O performance. Together with the Mac Pro RAID Card, these drives provide 250MB/s of RAID 5 disk I/O performance. That's enough data to play back one stream of 10-bit uncompressed HD content. It's the ultimate storage solution for highly demanding data transfer situations like editing uncompressed HD video content or updating ultra-high-resolution images.

The Mac Pro is loaded with connectivity options.

Using Mac OS X, you can stripe two, three, or all four hard drives in a RAID 0 array to increase performance and create a massive volume for video editing; or create a RAID 1 mirror for protecting your critical digital media assets against a drive failure. For the ultimate in data protection and enhanced performance, add the optional Mac Pro RAID Card with 256MB of RAID cache, a 72-hour cache-protecting battery, and hardware RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 0+1. Apple's RAID Utility software makes setting up and managing the RAID card easy.

Memory
While this Mac Pro comes loaded with just 1 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 RAM--which is satisfactory--this Mac Pro has two memory riser cards with four fully buffered DIMM slots each. Just slide out the riser cards and snap in the memory. You don't have to dig around inside the computer or wrestle with wires or cables. With a total of eight DIMM slots available, you can install up to 32GB of 800MHz ECC fully buffered DIMM memory.

Expansion and Connectivity
The Mac Pro features four full-length expansion slots, including a high-performance PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot, with up to twice the bandwidth of PCI Express. The graphics slot is double-wide, so it doesn't cover up an adjacent slot. In addition, three available expansion slots, one PCI Express 2.0 and two PCI Express, provide room to grow. And thanks to a tool-less PCI bracket, you can take out cards as fast as you put them in.

• Two FireWire 800 ports (one on front panel, one on back panel)
• Two FireWire 400 ports (one on front panel, one on back panel)
• Five USB 2.0 ports (two on front panel, three on back panel)
• Two USB 1.1 ports on included keyboard
• Front-panel headphone minijack and speaker
• Optical digital audio input and output Toslink ports
• Analog stereo line-level input and output minijacks

Preloaded with Leopard, you'll enjoy enhanced productivity and a clutter-free desktop (thanks to the redesigned 3-D Dock with Stacks).

Preloaded with Leopard and iLife '08
The biggest Mac OS X upgrade ever, the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system features over 300 new features, including:

• Time Machine, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac
• A redesigned Finder that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs
• Quick Look, a new way to instantly see files without opening an application
• Spaces, an intuitive new feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them
• A brand new desktop with Stacks, a new way to easily access files from the Dock
• Major enhancements to Mail and iChat

Leopard's new desktop includes the redesigned 3-D Dock with Stacks, a new way to organize files for quick and easy access with just one click. Leopard automatically places web, e-mail and other downloads in a Downloads stack to maintain a clutter-free desktop, and you can instantly fan the contents of this and other Stacks into an elegant arc right from the Dock. The updated Finder includes Cover Flow and a new sidebar with a dramatically simplified way to search for, browse and copy content from any PC or Mac on a local network.

Time Machine lets you easily back up all of the data on your Mac, find lost files and even restore all of the software on their Mac. With just a one-click setup, Time Machine automatically keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on the Mac. In the event a file is lost, you can search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file.

The Mac Pro also comes with the iLife '08 suite of applications that make it easy to live the digital life. Use iPhoto to share entire high-res photo albums with anyone who's got an e-mail address. Record your own songs and podcasts with GarageBand. Break into indie filmmaking with iMovie and iDVD. Then take all the stuff you made on your Mac and share it on the Web in one click with iWeb.

Dimensions
It measures 20.1 x 8.1 x 18.7 inches, and weighs 42.4 pounds.

What's in the Box
Mac Pro, Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse, DVI to VGA adapter, USB keyboard extension cable, install/restore DVDs, printed and electronic documentation

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Customer Reviews

very nice, overpriced
The Appleheads are right: This is a great machine with a nice operating system. The Apple OS, though flawed, is better than MS, especially Vista.

The Appleheads are wrong: It is probably not worth double the price of a comparable PC. There are almost as many weird crashes and oddball things that don't work as with XP. One reason I got it was Vista is getting such a bad rap and XP will not be supported forever.

My bottom line: If prices were roughly equivalent (or if money is no object for you), I would recommend the Apple over the PC. As it is I am not so sure. I think Appleheads overstate the advantages. For the most part the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other, in my view, with a slight edge to Apple. Hopefully MS will get it together with Windows 7.

It would have been nice if Apple had licensed its operating system to other vendors. Their hardware is good, but not always the best out there. Most of their parts come from the same place as the PC parts. Some of their design concepts are useful and superior, others are just "look cool" nonsense. If other computer manufacturers could offer the Apple OS the competition would leave us all be better off.

Hi, I'm a Mac :)
I've decided to retire my second generation G4 (8.5 years old) as it has served its purpose. Never complaining or crashing unlike WinTurd machines I've used at work and home. But video wasn't great in a web browser and I couldn't upgrade to the latest OS or use the latest Adobe suite.

The new Mac arrived and in a few minutes I slapped in another 8 gigs of ram (4 x 2) and two 1TB drives. This machine SMOKES faster than anything I've ever used. Photoshop CS3 opens in like 2 seconds. I could start up and shut down 5 times before my Winturd machine will fully boot.

And what people say about silence is true. When you walk into a room there's virtually no sound, it's whisper silent. Of course when you use a DVD you can hear the drive spinning the disc.

This Mac ROCKS, just buy it.

Great workstation at great price with few flaws
I know how you always here how apple products are much more expensive then a like minded pc. well, when it comes to workstations, it just isn't true. If you look at the competition (dell) and look at a similarly specced Precision, the price of the dell is higher. Plus, with Apple, you get the option of running other OS as well as OS X. I run os x, windows xp, vista business, and ubuntu on my macbook pro and i couldn't ask for more flexiblity from a laptop that most people who aren't familiar with the real Apple experience would just say is some type of trend or status symbol.
There is no doubt this is the real deal when it comes to workstation use.
The only things about the Mac Pro i can find to criticize are the lack of a higher level video card in the stock machine. You can get it configured with an 8800gt from apple but the nvidia card just can't match the core performance. ATI now offers the hd3870 which is a big step above the 2600xt and a nice performer in os x and windows . i wish apple would have specced the HD a little higher, but the price you are paying for this machine is for the two cpus, the motherboard with a little profit for apple. If you are looking for a workhorse, this is it. Of all the pcs i have ever built for gaming, work, and everything else, i am much more happier with the Mac Pro. If you get this, i would highly recommend bumping the ram up to at least 8gb, the kits are fairly cheap these days, and you get 4x2gb sticks to give you the full output performance of the memory system (2 sticks just doesn't cut it).
oh, the only other thing is don't strain your back picking the box up, it's amazingly heavy for a computer.