Mac Pro Mid-2012

The Mac Pro "Quad Core" 3.2 (Mid-2012/Nehalem) features a single 3.2 GHz Quad Core 45-nm Xeon W3565 (Nehalem) processor with a dedicated 256k of L2 cache for each core and 8MB of "fully shared" L3 cache.

By default, it is configured with 6GB 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.

Please note that the "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models practically are identical to the "Mid-2010" models before them, but there are some differences in terms of specs and identifiers and EveryMac.com has documented them as distinct models, accordingly.

Despite its "Mid-2012" model year, this Mac Pro was essentially the same hardware as the 2010 model, constituting only a minor refresh. The lack of modern ports like USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt drew criticism from some users. [21] On the other hand, the MacPro5,1 design had already reached a state of maturity, and its robustness, quiet operation, and unparalleled expandability were still highly praised. [4, 45] The 3.2 GHz Nehalem processor provided ample power for many professional tasks, and numerous users kept the machine in service for many years by upgrading the GPU and storage. [21] Ultimately, this model is remembered as the final evolution of the "cheese grater" Mac Pro, celebrated for its reliability and flexibility.