The Mac Pro Review (Late 2013)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 31, 2013 3:18 PM ESTCPU Performance
I like to have large historical databases of performance so I can put new products in perspective. The Mac Pro and its funny lineage make this a little difficult. For starters, I simply haven't reviewed all of the Mac Pro CPU combinations that have existed over the years. Then there's also the fact that not all of my Mac suite applies well to a 12-core/24-thread Mac Pro. I'm going to try my best to put the new Mac Pro's performance in perspective, but it's going to require a couple of subsections.
Let's first start with a look at the historical performance of the Mac Pro. I really have to thank @elfurberino and @tapbot_paul for lending their time (and their Mac Pros) to help flesh out this comparison. With their help I managed to put together performance data for almost every single generation of Mac Pro.
We'll start with Cinebench R10's single threaded test. Unfortunately the benchmark crashes on Macs with 16+ threads so single threaded performance is all we'll be able to look at:
That's right, I still have my old PowerMac G5 Dual 2.5GHz (upgrade from my original 2.0 model). It's interesting to note that single threaded performance has only improved by 2.8x over that 2.5GHz dual G5 machine from around a decade ago. If we were able to also look at multithreaded performance we'd see a much larger gap. The dual G5's multithreaded performance is actually lower than the single threaded performance of the new Mac Pro's IVB-EP (3346 vs 5187). And the new Mac Pro has 12 of those cores.
Here you can see a very healthy increase in single threaded performance over the 2010/2012 12-core system. The 34% increase in performance is because the Mac Pro never got the Sandy Bridge bump. All previous Mac Pros topped out at Nehalem/Westmere. Couple all of the Sandy Bridge improvements with the much higher peak clock speeds (3.5GHz vs. 3.0GHz) and the performance gains make sense.
The 8C system from early 2009 gives us an example of how it's very possible to have a newer Mac Pro actually perform worse than its predecessor. Apple has done a relatively good job this round of keeping the core count/frequency tradeoffs sensible, but you still have to align your silicon choices to your workload.
Moving on to Cinebench 11.5, we lose the PowerMac G5 comparison but we gain a more modern benchmark. Once again we'll start with the single threaded numbers:
There's that healthy single threaded performance bump again. It is pretty incredible to me just how far we've come in single threaded performance since the mid-2000s. What's even crazier is that 2.0GHz Mac Pro from 2006 is only about 40% faster than a Bay Trail tablet with an Atom Z3770.
The multithreaded story is more evolutionary for sure, especially compared to the previous generation 12-core model. Here we're showing a 20% gain over the previous 12-core design. If you're migrating from a machine with fewer cores you can expect a corresponding increase in multithreaded performance. What is most surprising here is that a 2.3GHz 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display (Late 2013) actually offers better multithreaded performance than the 8-core 2.66GHz Mac Pro from early 2008 in the chart above. The new 15-inch rMBP scores a 6.62 here compared to the 6.58 of that old Mac Pro.
I also shared my Firefox build test with Adam and Paul, who helped me fill out the chart below:
There isn't much of an advantage to having 12 cores here, but the new Mac Pro does deliver an amazingly quick build time compared to anything else. The new Mac Pro is good for around a 24% improvement in build performance compared to the outgoing 12-core model.
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wallysb01 - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
Actually, you can upgrade the CPU. What you can’t do is replace the monitor.Liquidmark - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
You can attach external monitors to the iMac.Liquidmark - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
"The problem with saying Apple's pricing isn't out of touch with reality is that you can't only compare this to high end workstation's from other companies..."This is a workstation. It has workstation components and is formally classified as such, so you kinda have to compare it to *gasp* OTHER workstations and match their spec as closely as possible to see if the price of the Mac Pro is reasonable or not. Anand is absolutely correct in comparing this to a HP Z420 which is HP's mid-range workstation right now.
"this is Apple's only desktop-ish device."
Ever heard of the Mac Mini?
"Apple doesn't provide options for people who want a high end notebook or desktop for normal use.."
Ever heard of the Macbook Pro or iMac?
You can't discount the fact that the Mac Pro has Xeons under the hood just because you don't like the other options Apple offers. If the Mac Pro has Xeons under the hood, then you have to factor that into the price of the device. You don't get to ignore the engine in a Bently to claim that a Bently is thus overpriced when compared to a Toyota Corolla. You don't get to say that it should have an engine from a Toyota Corolla and that theuy shouldn't have the luxury features and hand-crafted attention to detail that come with a bently. If you want a Toyota corolla, go buy a Toyota Corolla. If you want a Dodge viper, go buy that. Don't tell Bently to make a Toyota Corolla or a Dodge viper and don't expect to buy a bently at the cost of a toyota corolla or dodge viper either because you seem to dismiss the facts that there are differences between the three.
"it's at least 2x as expensive as it should be for it's base unit"
Not according to actual price comparisons it isn't..
Bobs_Your_Uncle - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
I'm still wondering how that Nokia Lumia 1020 review is coming along !?p51mustang6 - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
You should really do research, just a little, prior to making a review like this, you make a bold statement saying how the Mac Pro is so great and for so cheap, yet you compared it to two companies far from known for making anything professional. Try comparing the Mac Pro to The Origin Genesis Pro-X2 from Origin PC. It starts out with considerably higher specs with a LOWER price tag. They also offer up to dual Intel Xeon E5-2697 Dodeca-core processors (that's 12 cores each CPU for those of you who couldn't handle that) for a total of 24 cores (or twice that of the Mac Pro), up to dual 12GB NVIDIA Quadro K6000s (Apple doesn't even offer anything even closely comparable lol), up to 256GB of RAM (Apple offers up to 64GB), up to 4TB of SSD storage (compared to Apple's 1TB, granted PCI), comes standard with liquid cooling (Apple does not offer), up to an additional 12GB NVIDIA Tesla K40 (once again Apple offers nothing of the sort), Origin comes with one year warranty upgradable to 3 years but also comes standard with LIFETIME support with 24/7 United States based support (I wonder where Apple's support that you get 90 days of is based...lol) The starting price of the Origin is $3,712 compared to $3,999 of the Mac Pro which does not come with dual processors. The trash can is a complete rip off which requires you to go out and use their thunderbolt ports in order to do any real upgrading so you will have random things sitting on your desk, the Origin perhaps bigger, but at least all the goods will always be inside of it. Instead of spending all their time trying to make a computer a cylinder maybe Apple should have tried to compete with the real heavy hitters such as Origin PC.Louiek - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
Hi, I am currently myself trying to compare a maxed out mac pro ~ $10k CAD with other OEM workstations of similar spec. I looked into origin but I can't seem to build a similar spec'd (i.e. single Xeon E5-2697v2 etc) that will cost under $11k CAD. Is there something I am missing as your comment leads me to believe that I can build a cheaper PC with origins with similar specs.Liquidmark - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
You can't the Origin machine only offers extreeeeme options that are ideal for gaming with neon lights. Its solution to things is to throw more cores at it and throw more ram at it even though the ram is slower...stingerman - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
Sorry dude, triedto configure a comparable system and it costs more than the Mac Pro...Liquidmark - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
Ok, I'll bite...Mac Pro:
2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache
32GB (4x8GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
256GB PCIe-based flash storage
Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM each
User's Guide (English)
$8000 and weighs roughly 11 pounds
GENESIS Pro-X2
ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS
Dual ORIGIN FROSTBYTE 120 Sealed Liquid Cooling Systems
Dual Intel XEON E5-2630 v2 Hex-Core 2.6GHz (3.1GHz Turbo) 15MB Cache (That's 12 cores at a lower clock than the Mac Pro build)
1000 Watt Corsair RM1000
Dual 6GB NVIDIA Quadro 6000 (Non-SLI)
32GB Kingston ECC 1600MHz (4x8GB)
Genuine MS Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit Edition
250GB Samsung 840 Evo Series
ASUS 24X CD/DVD Burner
On Board Audio
Onboard Network Port
ORIGIN Wooden Crate Armor
1 Year Part Replacement and 45 Day Free Shipping Warranty with Lifetime Labor/24-7 Support
ORIGIN Recovery USB3.0 Flash Drive
ORIGIN PC G8 T-Shirt XL
Microsoft Internet Explorer
$11,017 and weighs over 70 pounds.
Now, before anyone says anything, the tee shirt was free and the water cooling was the only offer plus they give a free games offer that I didn't take. Tho I probably should since apparently workstations are all about pro gaming, neon lights and being extreeeeeme.
Liquidmark - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
Also, if anyone wants to argue that you can get dual 12-core on the origin machine, I'll simply point out that, at spec, I'd almost be able to buy two 12 core Mac Pros. Just saying.