The Mac Pro is a discontinued series of workstation computer and servers made by Apple from 2006 to 2026. The Mac Pro served as the high-end personal computer in Apple's lineup. Introduced in August 2006, the Mac Pro is the successor of the Power Mac line, using Intel Xeon rather than PowerPC processors. It shipped in a tower case carried over from the Power Mac G5. Updates added faster processors, memory, and graphics, alongside changed I/O and built-to-order options. In 2013, Apple released a significant revision to the Mac Pro, housing the computer components in a smaller, cylindrical design that eschewed internal expansion. Limitations of the cylindrical design prevented Apple from upgrading the cylindrical Mac Pro with more powerful hardware. The 2019 Mac Pro returned to a tower form factor reminiscent of the first-generation model.
The 2023 Mac Pro was the last Apple computer to migrate from Intel processors to Apple's own M-series chips. It was criticized for its lack of GPU support or user-expandability compared to prior models, and for its high price premium compared to the similar performance configurations of the professional-oriented Mac Studio. Apple discontinued the Mac Pro line on March 26, 2026, and positioned the more compact Mac Studio as its successor.
First tower series (2006–2012)
Apple announced their computers would transition from PowerPC processors to x86 processors in 2005. In June Apple released the Developer Transition Kit, a prototype Intel Pentium 4 Prescott–based Mac housed in a Power Mac G5 case, that was temporarily available to developers. The Mac Pro was formally announced on August 7, 2006, at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), as the last Mac to transition to Intel processors.
The first generation of the Mac Pro featured an aluminium case that was derived from that of the Power Mac G5; the few external differences included a second optical drive bay, new I/O port configurations, and a rearranged power supply and fan arrangement in the rear of the machine. The case is the same external dimensions, but is two pounds lighter. Internally, the machines are very different. Without the hot G5 processor to cool, the interior has room for four 3.5-inch hard drive bays and two optical bays—two and one more, respectively, than the Power Mac G5. Each hard drive is attached via screws to a sled, that slides into place and requires no cables. Random access memory (RAM) was installed in eight fully-buffered memory module (DIMM) slots distributed across two riser cards. Each DIMM came with its own heat sink. The 2008 model had two PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 expansion slots and two PCI Express 1.1 slots, providing them with up to 300 W of power in total. The first slot was double wide and intended to hold the main video card, arranged with an empty area the width of a normal card beside it to leave room for the large coolers modern cards often use. In most machines, one slot would be blocked by the cooler. Instead of the tiny screws typically used to fasten the cards to the case, in the Mac Pro a single "bar" held the cards in place, which is itself held in place by two "captive" thumbscrews that can be loosened by hand without tools and will not fall out of the case. On the original Mac Pro introduced in August 2006 and the April 2007 refresh, the PCIe slots can be configured individually to give more bandwidth to devices that require it, with a total of 40 "lanes", or 13 GB/s total throughput.
For external connectivity, the Mac Pro includes five USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire 400 and two FireWire 800 ports. Networking was supported with two built-in Gigabit Ethernet ports. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support requires an optional module. Digital (TOSlink optical) audio and analog 3.5 mm stereo mini jacks for sound in and out were included, the latter becoming available on both the front and back of the case.
The Mac Pro initially shipped in a single configuration, with consumers able to customize the machine when ordering online. This "suggested configuration" had two 2.66 GHz dual-core Xeon "Woodcrest" 5100 processors (CPUs), 1 GB of fully-buffered DDR2 memory (RAM), a Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT graphics card (GPU), and a 250 GB hard drive. The processor could be downgraded to slower-frequency chips, or upgraded to Xeons running at 3 GHz. In 2007, the line was updated with a higher-end 3.0 GHz Xeon 8-core processor option initially exclusive to Apple.
In January 2008, Apple updated the Mac Pro. The new line featured quad-core Xeon "Harpertown" 5400 series CPUs as standard. Unlike the original Mac Pro, the 2008 revision could support two video cards running at x16 speeds, and locked the PCIe lane configurations. Bluetooth now came standard, and new video card options were offered.
A more substantial redesign of the Mac Pro came in 2009.
The Mac Pro line was updated in 2010 with "Westmere" Xeon processors. As the Xserve was discontinued, a Mac Pro Server model was also offered.
The Mac Pro line received a small update at the 2012 WWDC conference in June. The line received more default memory and increased processor speed but still used Intel's older Westmere processors instead of the newer Xeon E5 series.Chris Foresman, "Mac Pro gets minor update with standard 12-core option, no Xeon E5" , ArsTechnica, June 11, 2012 The line also lacked then-current technologies like SATA III, USB 3, and Thunderbolt, the last of which had been added to every other Macintosh at that point, and was criticized heavily by users, leading Apple to remove the "new" badge on the Mac Pro from the online store. An email from Apple CEO Tim Cook promised a more significant update to the line in 2013.Jordan Kahn, "Andy Hertzfield: The only thing that's still high-end about Mac Pro is the bloated price" , 9to5 Mac, June 11, 2012 Apple stopped shipping the Mac Pro in Europe on March 1, 2013 after an amendment to a safety regulation left the professional Mac non-compliant.
Reception Ars Technica reviewed the 2006 Mac Pro, calling it a solid "multiplatform device" and rating it 9 out of 10. CNET praised the design and value, although did not think it provided the flexibility of other systems. They gave it an 8 out of 10.
Sound on Sound, an audio recording technology magazine, thought it was a "great machine" for musicians and audio engineers. Architosh, an online architectural design magazine focused on mac technology, would have scored it a perfect five except for a few issues with software compatibility and the high price for FB-DIMM memory.
Specifications Model Mid 2006 Early 2008 Early 2009 Mid 2010 Mid 2012 Released August 7, 2006April 4, 2007 January 8, 2008 March 3, 2009December 4, 2009 July 27, 2010 June 11, 2012 Discontinued January 8, 2008 March 3, 2009 July 27, 2010 June 11, 2012 October 22, 2013 Order number MA356 MA970 MB871 MB535 MC560 MC250 MC561 MD770 MD772 MD771 Processor Two 2.66 GHz 2-core Intel Xeon Two 2.8 GHz 4-core Intel Xeon One 2.66 GHz 4-core Intel Xeon Two 2.26 GHz 4-core Intel Xeon One 2.8 GHz 4-core Intel Xeon Two 2.4 GHz 4-core Intel Xeon Two 2.66 GHz 6-coreIntel Xeon One 3.2 GHz 4-core Intel Xeon Two 2.4 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon Cache 4 MB L2 12 MB L2 8 MB L3 12 MB L3 8 MB L3 12 MB L3 Option System bus 1333 MHz 1600 MHz 4.8 GT/s (4-core models only) or 6.4 GT/s 4.8 GT/s (4-core models only), 5.86 GT/s (8-core models only) or 6.4 GT/s 4.8 GT/s (4-core models only), 5.86 GT/s (12-core models only) or 6.4 GT/s Memory 1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM 3 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC DIMM 6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC DIMM 3 GB 1066 or 1333 MHz ECC DDR3 SDRAM 6 GB 1066 or 1333 MHz ECC DDR3 SDRAM 6 GB 1066 or 1333 MHz ECC DDR3 SDRAM 8 GB 1333 MHz ECC DDR3 SDRAM 12 GB 1333 MHz ECC DDR3 SDRAM Graphics Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT with 256 MB GDDR3 SDRAM ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256 MB GDDR3 SDRAM (two dual-link DVI ports) Nvidia GeForce GT 120 with 512 MB GDDR3 SDRAM ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1 GB GDDR5 memory Storage 250 GB with 8 MB cache 7200-rpm SATA Hard drive 320 GB SATA with 8 MB cache 7200-rpm SATA Hard drive or 15k-rpm SAS hard drive 640 GB with 16 MB cache 7200-rpm SATA hard drive 1 TB SATA with 32 MB cache 7200-rpm SATA hard drive or solid-state Drive Optical drive16× SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)18× SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) Connectivity Bluetooth 2.0+EDR Wi-Fi 4 (802.11a/b/g/n)2× Gigabit EthernetBluetooth 2.1+EDR Peripherals 5× USB 2.02× FireWire 4002× FireWire 800Built-in mono speaker1× Audio-in mini-jack2× Audio-out mini-jack1× Optical S/PDIF (Toslink) input1× Optical S/PDIF (Toslink) output 5× USB 2.04× FireWire 800Built-in mono speaker1× Audio-in mini-jack2× Audio-out mini-jack1× Optical S/PDIF (Toslink) input1× Optical S/PDIF (Toslink) output Expansion slots4× PCIe 1.0 slots (3 single-wide slots, 1 double-wide slot)2× PCIe 1.1 single-wide 4x slots, 2× PCIe 2.0 16x slots (1 single-wide, 1 double-wide)4× PCIe 2.0 slots (2 single-wide 4x slots, 1 single-wide 16x slot, 1 double-wide 16x slot) Dimensions 20.1 in (51.1 cm) height x 8.1 in (20.6 cm) width x 18.7 in (47.5 cm) depth Weight 42.4 lb (19.2 kg) 39.9 lb (18.1 kg) (quad-core)41.2 lb (18.7 kg) (8-core) Initial operating system Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Maximum operating system Mac OS X 10.7 Lion if at least 2 GB RAM installed, otherwise Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS X 10.11 El Capitan macOS 10.14 Mojave with a Metal-capable GPU, otherwise macOS 10.13 High SierraApple introduces macOS Mojave . Apple.
Cylindrical Mac Pro (2013)
The minor 2012 update to the Mac Pro was received negatively, leading Apple to remove the "new" badge on the Apple Store denoting the update, and for Tim Cook to send an email to a customer promising Apple was "working on something really great for later next year." Apple senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller presented a "sneak peek" of the completely redesigned Mac Pro during the 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. The video revealed an overhauled case design, featuring a cylindrical case much smaller than the previous Mac Pro. In the introduction, Schiller made reference to critics saying the company could not produce new products; "Can’t innovate anymore, my ass!" he quipped. The announcement six months prior to release was unusual for Apple, which typically announces products when they are ready for market.
The cylindrical Mac Pro is one-fourth the weight and one-eighth the volume of the previous tower model, with a diameter of and height of . It supports one central processing unit (CPU) (up to a 12-core Xeon E5 CPU), four 1866 MHz DDR3 slots, dual AMD FirePro D series GPUs (up to D700 with 6 GB VRAM each), and PCIe-based flash storage. There is a 3× MIMO antenna system for the unit's 802.11ac WiFi networking interface, Bluetooth 4.0 to facilitate close-range wireless functions such as music transfer, keyboards, mice, tablets, speakers, security, cameras, and printers. The system can simultaneously support six Apple Thunderbolt Displays, or three 4K resolution computer monitors.