Apple's is quite an impressive machine. It doesn't look like any other computer; it's a work of art with its sleek, cylindrical body. It's fast, fast, fast. And it's expensive. The Mac Pro isn't for everybody, and not just because it's Apple's highest-priced computer. It is made to excel with a certain type of app: professional software that uses multiple processing cores, like software commonly used by videographers, photographers, animators, designers, scientists, and musicians.

If that describes what you do on a daily basis, then you'll benefit from a Mac Pro - you'll make your money back in time saved. This guide takes a look at the Mac Pro's specifications, design, and performance.

If you're in the market for a Mac Pro and you're not sure which model to buy, this guide will help you sort it all out. Specifications Apple offers two standard configurations. You can pick one of the standard configurations, but the Mac Pro is all about custom configurations.

Think of the standard configurations as a starting point, and you can then customize your order to better suit your needs. Questionable Value I’ve done a lot of real-world benchmarking with current gen hardware, as I make hardware purchases for high-end media production and have recently bought a lot of systems. My results: The Mac Pro is a good buy for Final Cut Pro Pro-Res editing (software is tuned to those OpenCL cards). It can also be valuable for aesthetic purposes if you want to look cutting-edge to clients. For everything else, it’s not a very good value. For our normal sub-$4,000 stations, the 27” iMac far outperforms the Mac Pro, especially in single-core but even in multi-core (Mac Pro doesn’t give you many cores until the price tag jumps up). The iMac is great for video editing, sounds design, and iOS development.

For our expensive stations where we need tons of horsepower (3D, VR, IMAX, Color Correction), HP Z440/Z640/Z840 workstations offer far more performance per dollar. You have more CPU choices (as well as v3 Xeons), and you can use monster Quadro cards or even GeForce if you’re willing to go outside qualification (I’m currently buying GeForce GTX 980s for their virtual reality latency-reduction features). Since almost every pro app we use is OS agnostic (Avid/Pro Tools/Unity/Adobe/Maya), I go with HP to give users the most power. Given what Apple has done to Shake, Color, and Aperture, I’m not sure why professionals are still loyal to OSX. I’m not an Apple hater, as I buy their hardware often. Just not for high-end use. I find the Mac Pro to be a strange beast, so I highly discourage it outright in our environment.

I'm also sad there's no longer a good hardware choice for a Mac server. I welcome feedback, as I try hard to consider every user when I make recommendations. I am still using my 2009 Mac Pro - and honestly my huge regret is getting the 4 core version instead of the 8 core version - in every other respect it is absolutely great. For one thing I can currently use 27 TB of internal data (4 x 6TB HDs, + 3 x 1TB PCIe SSDs). I am of course booting off one of the SSDs for Yosemite. Not to mention a SuperDrive + a Blu-ray disc. I heavily need large capacity, so the current machines, plus external HD & SSD displays that can be large, quiet and fast enough, as elegant as the Mac itself, and not costing a fortune of cash makes the 2009 Mac Pro superior to the current one for me.

If I had a time machine I would just have bought the top of the line 8 core back in 2009. Depends what card you have. The D300 is not great. The D700 is insane. Also depends if the flight sim (which one?) is compatible 100% / takes full advantage of the card?

Any Core 2 Rumor For Macbook Pro

But it's certainly cheaper to build a great gaming PC Than a Mac Pro. But well I'd happily do that for games. I certainly wouldn't want to work in windows. Well it might be compatible with 5k monitors - people have tested them an the current ones cheat. They require 2 thunderbolt cables direct from a machine as the monitors have 2 controllers and create a dual screen on a single if that makes sense. The retina iMac has a special controller they built as no single fast controller existed.

I suspect the 2015 Mac pros will be 5k compatible and there will be some 5k screens. Hopefully 30'! I remember a few tech site tried to build a comparable pc with the Mac pro when it came out and they concluded that the Mac pro is cheaper for the same performance. Did that change? - D700s are nothing more than a HD7970 with ECC memory. You can get HD7970s off eBay for well under $200. The internals were already getting long in the tooth when this machine was released.

PC world has already moved on to DDR4 and LGA2011-3 CPUs. I do appreciate that the machine looks amazing and is whisper quiet, but its far from a good deal in 2015, and good looks dont pay the bills when i can get a far more powerful pc build for the same price or even lower. Hopefully they can put some more pep in the refresh and keep these machines competitive for the coming years. Really don't want to see another wait like we did between 5,1-6,1 Mac pros. I remember a few tech site tried to build a comparable pc with the Mac pro when it came out and they concluded that the Mac pro is cheaper for the same performance. Did that change?