Photo: mareklug/User:Mareklug/Marek Wojciech Ługowski (Lugowski) / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons · source
Mac Pro (Late 2013)
A black cylinder with two workstation GPUs and a single fan.
Overview
The 2013 Mac Pro was Apple's boldest desktop experiment. A polished black cylinder 9.9 inches tall housed a unified thermal core: three heat-sink faces carried the Xeon E5 processor and two AMD FirePro GPUs, and a single fan pulled air straight through the chimney.
The base model carried a quad-core 3.7 GHz Xeon E5, 12 GB of DDR3, 256 GB of PCIe flash and two FirePro D300 GPUs. Up to a 12-core processor, 64 GB of memory, 1 TB of flash and dual D700 graphics were available. Expansion happened externally through six Thunderbolt 2 ports, four USB 3 ports, HDMI 1.4 and two Gigabit Ethernet jacks.
Its compact size impressed, but its closed design and thermal limits made upgrades difficult, and in 2017 Apple said it had boxed itself in. It was replaced by the 2019 tower.
Why it mattered
It was a daring rethink of the pro desktop whose limits taught Apple lessons that shaped the next Mac Pro.
At a glance
- Announced
- June 10, 2013
- Released
- December 19, 2013
- Discontinued
- December 10, 2019
- Launch price
- $2,999
- Chip / processor
- Intel Xeon E5 quad-core, 3.7 GHz
- Storage
- 256 GB flash
- Status
- Vintage
Highlights
- Cylindrical 9.9-inch design
- Dual AMD FirePro GPUs
- Six Thunderbolt 2 ports
- Up to 12-core Xeon E5
Tech specs
Specifications as published at launch. Some values (like battery life) are manufacturer estimates.
Chip
- Chip
- Intel Xeon E5-1620 v2 quad-core, 3.7 GHz (options to 12-core 2.7 GHz)
- CPU cores
- 4 to 12
Memory
- RAM
- 12 GB DDR3 ECC 1866 MHz, up to 64 GB
- Storage options
- 256 GB PCIe flash; options up to 1 TB
Graphics
- GPU
- Dual AMD FirePro D300, 2 GB each (D500 or D700 options)
Ports
- Ports
- 6 Thunderbolt 2, 4 USB 3.0, HDMI 1.4, 2 Gigabit Ethernet, headphone and audio
Connectivity
- Wi-Fi
- 802.11ac
- Bluetooth
- 4.0
Design
- Dimensions
- 25.1 cm tall, 16.8 cm diameter (9.9 x 6.6 in)
- Weight
- 5 kg (11 lb)
Software
- Launch OS
- OS X 10.9 Mavericks
- Latest supported OS
- macOS 12 Monterey
Availability
- Announced
- June 10, 2013
- Released
- December 19, 2013
- Discontinued
- December 10, 2019
- Launch price
- $2,999
Colors
- Finishes
- Black
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 2008)
Eight Harpertown Xeon cores as standard.
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 (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.