Mac Pro Mid-2010

The Mac Pro "Six Core" 3.33 (Mid-2010/Westmere) was offered as a custom configuration of the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.8 (2010/Nehalem). However, this system has significant technical differences and is documented as its own model, accordingly.

The Mac Pro "Six Core" 3.33 (Mid-2010/Westmere) features a single 3.33 GHz Six Core 32-nm Xeon W3680 (Westmere) processor with a dedicated 256k of L2 cache for each core and 12MB of "fully shared" L3 cache.

By default, it is configured with 3GB of 1333 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 higher-end "Westmere" models too with faster processors and as many as twelve cores (two six core processors) via custom configuration.

As the pinnacle of the single-processor configurations for the Mid-2010 Mac Pro, this 6-core 3.33 GHz model was widely regarded as the "sweet spot" for many professionals. [40] The 32nm "Westmere" architecture not only increased the core count over the previous Nehalem generation but also improved power efficiency. [30] This model struck an exquisite balance between multi-threaded capability and high single-threaded performance, demonstrating its prowess across a wide range of fields, from video editing to audio production and graphic design. Equipped with the legendary expandability and reliability of the MacPro5,1, this machine continued to be cherished by many users for years, even after the release of the subsequent cylindrical model. [46]