Mac Pro (Early 2008)
Eight Harpertown Xeon cores as standard.
Overview
The Early 2008 Mac Pro refreshed the 2006 tower with Penryn-class "Harpertown" Xeon processors. The base model carried two quad-core chips at 2.8 GHz, for eight cores in total, with options up to two 3.2 GHz processors.
Memory went up to 32 GB of FB-DIMM, graphics came from an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT or the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT or Quadro FX 5600, and expansion consisted of two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots and two x4 slots. Bluetooth became standard and the base hard disk grew to 320 GB.
It shipped with Leopard, which ran on this machine up to OS X El Capitan.
Why it mattered
It made eight cores the baseline for the Mac Pro and set up the DDR3 redesign that followed.
At a glance
- Announced
- January 8, 2008
- Released
- January 8, 2008
- Discontinued
- March 3, 2009
- Launch price
- $2,799
- Chip / processor
- Dual quad-core Intel Xeon, 2.8 GHz
- Storage
- 320 GB
- Status
- Vintage
Highlights
- Two quad-core Xeons at 2.8 GHz
- Up to 32 GB of memory
- Two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots
- Bluetooth built in
Tech specs
Specifications as published at launch. Some values (like battery life) are manufacturer estimates.
Chip
- Chip
- Two quad-core Intel Xeon (Harpertown), 2.8 GHz (options to 3.2 GHz)
- CPU cores
- 8
Memory
- RAM
- 2 GB FB-DIMM DDR2, expandable to 32 GB
- Storage options
- 320 GB SATA standard; options up to 1 TB
Graphics
- GPU
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, 256 MB
Expansion
- Slots
- Two PCIe 2.0 x16 and two PCIe x4 slots
Connectivity
- Ethernet
- 2 Gigabit Ethernet
- Bluetooth
- Built in
Software
- Launch OS
- Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
- Latest supported OS
- OS X 10.11 El Capitan
Availability
- Announced
- January 8, 2008
- Released
- January 8, 2008
- Discontinued
- March 3, 2009
- Launch price
- $2,799
Colors
- Finishes
- Aluminum
How it compares
More in the Mac Pro family
Mac Pro (2006)
The Power Mac G5 case with two dual-core Xeons: the Mac Pro is born.
Mac Pro (Early 2009)
Nehalem Xeons and DDR3 memory arrive in the Mac Pro.
Mac Pro (Mid 2010)
Westmere Xeons bring a 12-core Mac Pro.
Mac Pro (Mid 2012)
A modest update that was the end of the aluminum cheese-grater tower.
Mac Pro (Late 2013)
A black cylinder with two workstation GPUs and a single fan.
Mac Pro (2019)
The tower returns, modular and with a 1.4 kW power supply.
Mac Pro (2023)
The last Mac Pro: an M2 Ultra tower with PCIe slots but no GPU upgrades.