Mac Pro Mid-2010

The Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.8 (Mid-2010/Nehalem) features a single 2.8 GHz Quad Core 45-nm Xeon W3530 (Nehalem) processor with a dedicated 256k of L2 cache for each core and 8MB of "fully shared" L3 cache. Through custom configuration, it also could be configured with a single 3.2 GHz Quad Core "Nehalem" Xeon (W3565) processor or a single 3.33 GHz Six Core "Westmere" Xeon (W3680) processor.

The standard configuration featured 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM, a 1TB (7200 RPM, 32 MB cache) 3Gb/s Serial ATA hard drive, an 18X dual-layer "SuperDrive" and an ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory.

Expansion includes two external 5.25" "optical" bays (one available by default), four internal 3.5" "cable-free, direct attach" hard drive bays (three available by default), and four PCIe 2.0 slots (one free PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and two free PCIe 2.0 x4 slots with the default single graphics card installed).

Port selection includes five USB 2.0 ports, four Firewire "800" ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet, two Mini DisplayPorts and a dual-link DVI port, and more. AirPort Extreme (802.11a/b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR comes standard.

While the "Mid-2010" models share virtually identical external appearance as the "Early 2009" models, all "Mid-2010" models are equipped with faster graphics and notable technical enhancements exist for the higher-end "Westmere" model too with faster processors and as many as twelve cores (two six core processors) via custom configuration.

As the base model for the Mid 2010 Mac Pro, this 2.8 GHz quad-core model inherited the architecture of its 2009 predecessor while benefiting from an upgraded graphics card. [7, 10, 32] The standard ATI Radeon HD 5770 was significantly more powerful than the older NVIDIA GeForce GT 120, providing a smoother experience in many creative tasks. [7] Its single-socket Nehalem Xeon processor offered ample processing power for many professionals and was praised for its excellent cost-performance ratio. [16, 30] While it didn't have the same level of expandability as the higher-end Westmere models, the robust design and ease of upgrades characteristic of the MacPro5,1 generation remained, solidifying its position as a workstation that could be relied upon for years. [16, 36]