Apple Mac Pro (Late 2013) vs Apple Mac Pro (Mid 2012)

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Mac Pro (Late 2013) compared with Mac Pro (Mid 2012)

	AppleMac Pro (Late 2013)	AppleMac Pro (Mid 2012)
Overview
Released
Released	December 2013	June 2012
Performance
Processor
Processor	Intel Xeon E5-1620 v2, Intel Xeon E5-1650 v2, Intel Xeon E5-1680 v2 or Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2	Intel Xeon W3565, 2 × Intel Xeon E5645, Intel Xeon W3680, 2 × Intel Xeon X5650 or 2 × Intel Xeon X5675
CPU cores
CPU cores	4, 6, 8 or 12	4, 6 or 12
CPU threads
CPU threads	8, 12, 16 or 24	8, 12 or 24
Graphics
Graphics	Dual AMD FirePro D300 (2 GB GDDR5 each), Dual AMD FirePro D500 (3 GB GDDR5 each) or Dual AMD FirePro D700 (6 GB GDDR5 each)	ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1 GB GDDR5), ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1 GB GDDR5) or 2 × ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1 GB GDDR5 per card)
Memory
Memory	12 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB or 64 GB	6 GB, 8 GB, 12 GB, 16 GB, 24 GB, 32 GB, 48 GB or 64 GB
Storage
Storage	256 GB to 1 TB	512 GB to 2 TB (better)
CPU
CPU	3.7 GHz quad-core, 3.5 GHz six-core, 3.0 GHz eight-core or 2.7 GHz twelve-core Intel Xeon E5. Exact identities are E5-1620 v2, E5-1650 v2, E5-1680 v2 and E5-2697 v2, cross-checked against Geekbench device records and Ars hardware testing; Intel specifications supply thread counts and maximum Turbo frequencies.	Standard single 3.2 GHz quad-core Xeon W3565 (up to 3.46 GHz Turbo Boost) or two 2.4 GHz six-core Xeon E5645 processors (up to 2.67 GHz; twelve physical cores and 24 threads in total). Apple offers a single 3.33 GHz six-core processor or two six-core processors at 2.66 or 3.06 GHz; EveryMac identifies these original factory options as W3680, X5650 and X5675 respectively. Processor count in configurations means physical sockets, with chip figures per processor.
GPU
GPU	Dual AMD FirePro D300 with 2 GB GDDR5 per GPU, D500 with 3 GB per GPU, or D700 with 6 GB per GPU. Memory is specified separately for each GPU, rather than pooled. All graphics options are available by upgrading the original quad-core base configuration.	ATI Radeon HD 5770 or HD 5870 with 1 GB GDDR5; optional two HD 5770 cards with 1 GB each. Both cards have two Mini DisplayPort outputs and one dual-link DVI port. Graphics memory is per card.
Memory type
Memory type	Four user-accessible slots for 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC memory; 12 GB (three 4 GB modules), 16 GB (four 4 GB), 32 GB (four 8 GB) or 64 GB (four 16 GB)	Single-processor systems have four slots and maker-supported memory up to 32 GB; dual-processor systems have eight slots and up to 64 GB. DDR3 ECC SDRAM at 1066 MHz with the 3.2 GHz CPU and 1333 MHz with the other listed CPUs; 1, 2, 4 or 8 GB DIMMs.
Storage type
Storage type	PCIe-based SSD; 256 GB, 512 GB or 1 TB. No internal hard-drive bays or optical drive.	Four 3.5-inch cable-free drive bays with independent 3 Gb/s SATA channels and included carriers. Each factory bay can hold a 1 or 2 TB 7200 rpm hard drive with 32 MB cache, or a 512 GB SSD. Listed configurations describe one selected drive; optional extra drives can bring total hard-drive capacity to 8 TB. One 18x double-layer SuperDrive is standard, with an optional second optical drive.
Expansion slots
Expansion slots	No internal PCIe card slots; peripherals and compatible external expansion chassis connect through Thunderbolt	One double-wide PCI Express 2.0 x16 graphics slot and three further full-length slots (one x16 and two x4); 300 W combined maximum. All slots mechanically accept x16 cards. Optional dual- or quad-channel 4 Gb Fibre Channel card.
Display
Screen
Screen	None built in	None built in
Connections
Ports
Ports	4 × USB-A, 6 × Thunderbolt 2, 2 × Ethernet, HDMI, headphone jack	5 × USB-A, 2 × Ethernet, headphone jack
Ethernet
Ethernet	1 Gb/s	1 Gb/s
External displays
External displays	Up to 6	–
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi	802.11ac	802.11n
Bluetooth
Bluetooth	4.0	2.1 + EDR
Front ports
Front ports	–	Two USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire 800 ports and a headphone minijack
Back ports
Back ports	Four USB 3 USB-A ports, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, HDMI 1.4 Ultra HD, 3.5 mm headphone jack with headset support, and a separate combined optical digital audio output/analogue line-out minijack. Thunderbolt ports are divided across three controllers, as explained in Macworld and Ars reviews.	Three USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire 800 ports, two independent Gigabit Ethernet ports with jumbo-frame support, optical TOSLINK audio input and output, and analogue stereo line input and output. Graphics outputs vary by card; FireWire and DVI are described here because the main port list has no fields for them. Included keyboard has two additional USB 2.0 ports, excluded from chassis counts.
External displays
External displays	Apple's current support specifications allow six Thunderbolt displays or three dual-cable 5K displays. The launch announcement specified support for three 4K displays; the later 5K statement should not be read as launch-day capability.	Up to three displays with one graphics card, or six with two HD 5770 cards. Digital resolution up to 2560 × 1600 and analogue up to 2048 × 1536; optional Mini DisplayPort/DVI/VGA adapters. Multichannel audio through Mini DisplayPort.
Speakers
Speakers	Built-in speaker; HDMI supports multichannel audio output	Internal speaker and front headphone output; optical and analogue audio input/output
Keyboard and mouse
Keyboard and mouse	Keyboard, mouse and display sold separately	Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and Magic Mouse; optional Apple Wireless Keyboard, Apple Mouse or Magic Trackpad
Design and power
Type
Type	Compact	Tower
Weight
Weight	5 kg	–
Width × depth × height
Width × depth × height	167 × 167 × 251 mm	206 × 475 × 511 mm
Operating system
Operating system	macOS	macOS
Size and weight detail
Size and weight detail	Cylindrical enclosure; 251 mm high and 167 mm in diameter, with 5 kg weight from Apple's Japanese specification sheet. Weight varies by configuration and manufacturing process.	Quad-core standard configuration weighs 18.1 kg; standard twelve-core configuration 18.7 kg. Actual weight varies by configuration and manufacturing process, so a shared weight is omitted.
Power supply
Power supply	100–240 V AC, 50–60 Hz, single phase; maximum continuous power 450 W	AC input 100–120 V or 200–240 V, 50–60 Hz; maximum current 12 A at low voltage or 5 A at high voltage
Noise
Noise	Apple's overview reports 12 dBA operator-position sound pressure at idle, while the acoustic table reports 14 dB at idle and 14.5 dB during wireless web. These are conflicting maker statements; no single noise value is selected.	Apple gives operator-position sound pressure of 26 dB for the 3.2 GHz model and 25 dB for the 2.4 GHz dual-processor model at idle or during hard-drive access; 42 dB during optical-drive access. Corresponding sound power is 3.7/3.5 B at idle and 4.7/5.1 B during optical access.
Materials
Materials	Highly recyclable enclosure; BFR-free and PVC-free, with regional exceptions for the power lead	Recyclable aluminium enclosure; BFR-free and internal cables PVC-free
In the box
In the box	Mac Pro and power lead. Launched with OS X Mavericks; the current support page describes the later macOS Mojave release. Original standard configurations were quad-core with 12 GB memory and D300 graphics, and six-core with 16 GB and D500. The current support sheet also lists an eight-core standard configuration with 16 GB and D700. Configurations below include independent processor, memory, graphics and storage upgrades of the original quad-core base, so 12 GB or D300 with a higher-core processor represents a customised base model.	Mac Pro, power cord, keyboard, Magic Mouse, USB keyboard extension cable and documentation. Current maker sheet describes OS X Mountain Lion and iLife; the generation was introduced before Mountain Lion. Apple also offered a server configuration with OS X Server, 8 GB memory and two 1 TB drives, supplied without keyboard or mouse; its distinct bundled software and drive arrangement are described here.