Mac Pro

The Mac Pro (not to be confused with MacBook Pro) is an Intel Xeon-based workstation computer manufactured by Apple Inc. The Mac Pro, in most configurations, is the fastest computer that Apple offers, and is one of three desktop computers in the current Macintosh lineup, the other two being the iMac and Mac Mini. The machine is also the basis for the Mac Pro Server, which bundles the Mac Pro hardware with Mac OS X Server as a replacement for the Xserve line of servers.

Outwardly, the Mac Pro resembles the last version of the Power Mac G5, and has similar expansion capabilities. An Intel-based replacement for those machines had been expected for some time before the Pro was formally announced on August 7, 2006 at the annual Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference. The first Mac Pro was based on dual Dual-core Xeon Woodcrest processors. This was replaced by a dual Quad-core Xeon Clovertown model on April 4, 2007, and again on January 8, 2008 by a dual Quad-core Xeon Harpertown model.

The current model Mac Pro was announced on July 27, 2010 and features Intel Xeon processors based on the Nehalem/Westmere architectures. A "speed bumped" version was released in 2012. These systems offer options of up to 12 processing cores, up to four optional 2TB hard disk drives/512GB solid state drives and ATI Radeon HD 5770/5870 graphics.

The original 2006 Mac Pro and its 2007 update are not officially supported to run OS X Mountain Lion, which will only run on 2008 and newer Mac Pros. However, people have had success booting Mountain Lion on early Mac Pros using newer video cards and the Chameleon bootloader.