Mac Pro Updated by Apple without Fanfare

Apple has quietly updated their Mac Pro desktop series without any fanfare. This long-overdue hardware update for this high-end desktop series may bring little joy as these desktops still offer USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 connections, while support for Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 are still absent.

The basic configuration of a quad-core Mac Pro still offers the same 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Xeon CPU (Nehalem). It currently features 6GB DDR3-1066 memory modules with ECC with official support up to 32GB of RAM. The standard 12-core model has the most changes with its processor upgraded to a pair of 6-core 2.4GHz Intel Xeon E5645 processors (Nehalem) with 12GB of DDR3-1333 RAM with ECC (upgradeable to 64GB). The server model is similar to quad-core Mac Pro but the former features Mac OS X Lion Server OS with 8GB of memory and a pair of 1TB HDDs.

This is the first upgrade for the Mac Pro series since 2010; however, it wasn't mentioned in the announcements made during the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Its stark absence (and lack of new features after the upgrade) from any keynote announcements made during this important conference, may herald its impending end-of-life fate (but that's just a hunch for now).

(Source: Apple)

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