Apple has this morning claimed to redefine pro computing, with the launch of the all-new Mac Pro.

Designed around a unified thermal core, the Mac Pro features the latest Intel Xeon processors with up to 12 cores, dual workstation-class GPUs, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, PCIe-based flash storage and ultra-fast ECC memory.

Packing a revamped performance in a refreshed design, the product starts at recommended retail price NZD$4,999 inc. GST and will be available in December.

“The new Mac Pro is our vision for the future of the pro desktop, everything about it has been reimagined and there has never been anything like it,” says Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

“The new Mac Pro packs up to 12-core Xeon CPUs, dual FirePro GPUs, ultra-fast ECC memory, new PCIe flash storage, Thunderbolt 2 expandability and more into a radical new design that is one-eighth the size of the previous generation Mac Pro.”

Schiller says the all-new Mac Pro is architected around a unified thermal core that allows the system to efficiently share thermal capacity across all the processors.

An innovative fan draws in air efficiently and makes the new Mac Pro as quiet as a Mac mini, with the result being a pro desktop with unprecedented performance packed into a design that is just 25.1 centimetres tall and one-eighth the volume of the previous Mac Pro.

Reinvented from the inside out, Mac Pro is designed to tackle even the most demanding workflows according to Schiller, featuring 4-core, 6-core, 8-core or 12-core Intel Xeon processors running at Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz that deliver double the floating point performance of the previous generation Mac Pro.

Two workstation-class AMD FirePro GPUs with up to 12GB of video memory provide up to seven teraflops of compute power and up to eight times the graphics performance of the previous generation Mac Pro.* OpenGL and OpenCL are optimised in OS X Mavericks to leverage the full computing power of the Mac Pro CPU and dual GPUs.

The new Mac Pro also features PCIe-based flash storage that delivers read speeds up to 1.2GBps and is up to 10 times faster than conventional desktop hard drives.

Featuring six Thunderbolt 2 ports, each with up to 20Gbps of bandwidth per device, the device "completely redefines desktop expandability" according to Schiller.

Finally, Cupertino claims the new Mac Pro provides unparalleled power for Apple’s professional apps, including Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X and Aperture.

The new Mac Pro ships with OS X Mavericks and is available for free from the Mac App Store.

or more information or to download Mavericks click here.

Pricing & Availability

The all-new Mac Pro will be available in December through the Apple Online Store and select Apple Authorised Resellers.

The Mac Pro is available with a 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of VRAM each, 12GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage starting at recommended retail price NZD$4,999.

And with a 3.5 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of VRAM each, 16GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage starting at recommended retail price NZD$6,599.