Apple’s iMac Pro Is An Intel Xeon And AMD Vega Graphics Powerhouse
Cupertino reveals the most powerful iMac ever
Apple has taken its iMac and given it a shot the arm, with boosted processing and graphics power to create a workstation-level all-in-one machine.
At Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2017, the Cupertino company revealed the iMac Pro for people who need more power than a standard iMac or MackBook Pro, both of which have been given a minor tweaks in the form of Intel’s 7th generation Kaby Lake processors, with the former gaining upgraded displays with a 43 percent hike in brightness.
iMac Pro
Slated for December, the iMac Pro’s specifications start at an eight core Intel Xeon processor, 32GB of ECC memory, a 1TB solid state drive and a graphics card featuring AMD’s upcoming Vega architecture; a 27in Retina display running a 5K resolution tops off the spec list.
That specification will set buyers back by $4,999 (£3,870), higher specifications which include 10 and 18 core Xeon chips and up to 128GB or ECC memory, will push that princely sum up another notch.
On the outside the iMac Pro resembles its less gutsy brethren but features Apple Space Grey colour scheme rather than the silvery white associated with iMacs.
The iMac Pro is also not short on ports, with it sent to feature four Thunderbolt 3.0 ports and a 10GB Ethernet port, all to aid rapid data transfer and connectivity.
Touted as the most powerful iMac Apple has ever created, the iMac Pro appears to be aimed squarely at macOS power users, say creative professionals who have to work with graphical programmes that require a significant amount of compute power or want to run machine learning algorithms locally.
Support for virtual reality is also on offer, something Apple was keen ti impress with its new Metal 2 application programming interface (API) found in the new version of macOS, named High Sierra,
With the introduction of such a powerful iMac, speculation is open as to whether Apple will refresh its Mac Pro desktop as its rumoured to be doing, or if it will scrap the machine in favour of a powerful all-in-one desktop lineup.
