Mac Pro D. Core Xeon 5150 x2 2006

The first Intel-based tower Mac, the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.66 features two 2.66 GHz dual core Intel Xeon 5150 processors with 4MB of shared L2 cache per processor, a 128-bit SSE3 vector engine, and 1.33 GHz "64-bit dual independent frontside buses." Also offered, via custom configuration, were two 2 GHz Dual Core Xeon 5130 processors, two 3 GHz Dual Core Xeon 5160 processors, or starting April 4, 2007, two 3 GHz Quad Core Xeon X5365 (Clovertown) processors.

The standard configuration featured 1.0GB of 667 MHz DDR2 ECC "fully-buffered" FB-DIMM memory (with a heatsink design that is a bit different from generic FB-DIMMs), a 250 GB (7200 RPM) 3 Gb/s Serial ATA hard drive, a double-layer 16X "SuperDrive", and a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT video card with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM, one dual-link DVI port and one single-link DVI port.

Expansion includes two external 5.25" "optical" bays (one occupied by default), four internal 3.5" "cable-free, direct attach" hard drive bays (three available by default), and four PCIe slots (three free with one graphics card installed). Port selection includes dual Gigabit Ethernet, five USB 2.0 ports, two Firewire "400" ports, two Firewire "800" ports, and optical digital audio in/out, and more. AirPort Extreme (802.11g/n), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, and a modem are optional.

As the first Mac Pro to feature Intel's powerful Xeon processors within the iconic aluminum tower case inherited from the Power Mac G5, this model garnered significant attention. [22] Its two 2.66 GHz dual-core processors demonstrated performance that far surpassed the previous generation of PowerPC-based systems in professional applications. [42] The ease of internal access, cable-free HDD bays, and expandability via PCIe slots earned it immense support from professional users. [13, 22] Despite being the inaugural model, its design was remarkably refined, establishing it as a celebrated machine that laid the groundwork for future "cheese grater" Mac Pros. The NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT was adopted as the standard graphics card. [13, 25]