Apple Mac Pro goes on sale tomorrow, yours for £2,500

Apple has finally set a launch date for its radically redesigned Mac Pro desktop and, in a move typical of the company, it’s tomorrow: the Mac Pro will go on sale in Apple stores and online at Apple.com.

If you have a spare £2,499 lying around and want a shiny new computer in time for Christmas, the Mac Pro is one of the most powerful Desktop systems available to buy. At its base specification, the Mac Pro ships with 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, twin AMD FirePro D300 workstation graphics cards, 12GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage, but customers can upgrade the CPU to a 12-core Xeon E5, add up to 64GB of RAM and up to 1TB of PCI-express flash storage if their budget stretches that far.

Apple has ditched the chunky tower chassis of the old Mac Pro in favour of a compact cylinder design that’s one eighth the volume of the previous generation. All the internal components are connected around a single heatsink, which is cooled by a radial fan that blows through the entire system. It’s an incredibly sleek design that proves workstation computers don’t need to be bulky monsters that take up an entire desk.

With six Thunderbolt ports, the Mac Pro can run multiple 4K resolution displays – Apple clearly expects it to be the workhorse for many computer animators, video editors and graphic designers, rather than an everyday work machine for everyone. That, after all, is what the iMac is for.

Apple will open its doors (figuratively in the case of online and literally for its physical stores) to customers tomorrow, although you can get all the details right now at http://www.apple.com/uk/mac-pro/.