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Silver Tower Mac Pro (Dual Optical) Q&A - Published June 3, 2013
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How fast are the "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models compared to one another? How fast are the "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models compared to the "Mid-2010" models replaced? Are they actually faster?
The "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models are such a minor revision that Apple did not even issue a press release heralding their introduction.
However, in other promotional copy, Apple did reveal that the fastest custom configuration "Mid-2012" Mac Pro -- the Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 3.06 (2012/Westmere) -- is between 1.2 and 1.5 times faster than the fastest custom configuration "Early 2009" Mac Pro -- the Mac Pro "Eight Core" 2.93 (2009/Nehalem).
First, it is worth noting that this official comparison is a synthetic performance test using the "STREAM" 5.8 benchmark, and is a comparison with the much earlier "Early 2009" line rather than the previous, and effectively identical, "Mid-2010" Mac Pro line.
Obviously, a comparison between the "Mid-2012" and the "Mid-2010" Mac Pro lines will be much less impressive, but is necessary for objectivity.
Photo Credit: Apple, Inc. (Mac Pro)
General Performance Overview
For a solid overview of the performance difference between the "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models as well as earlier Mac Pro systems, EveryMac.com's own Ultimate Mac Comparison makes it quick to compare side-by-side 32-bit-and 64-bit Geekbench benchmark averages with all other G3 and later Macs for thousands of possible performance comparisons.
The Geekbench benchmark shows that the custom configured six-core model -- the Mac Pro "Six Core" 3.33 (2012/Westmere) -- is roughly 43% faster than the entry-level quad core model -- the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 3.2 (2012/Nehalem). The standard twelve-core model -- the Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 2.4 (2012/Westmere) -- is a massive 79% faster than the entry-level model and a significant 25% faster than the six-core model.
Geekbench also shows that the custom configured twelve-core models -- the Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 2.66 (2012/Westmere) and "Twelve Core" 3.06 (2012/Westmere) -- are 15% and 25% faster than the standard twelve-core model. The fastest twelve-core model is a whopping 125% faster than the entry-level quad core model.
Compared to the "Mid-2010" line, Geekbench shows that the "Mid-2012" systems are between 0% and 38% faster than the model each roughly replaced (Apple consolidated six models to five):
| Mid-2010 Mac Pro | Mid-2012 Mac Pro | Percent Faster |
| "Quad Core" 2.8 / 3.2 | "Quad Core" 3.2 | 14% / Identical |
| "Six Core" 3.33 | "Six Core" 3.33 | Identical |
| "Eight Core" 2.4 | "Twelve Core" 2.4 | 38% |
| "Twelve Core" 2.66 | "Twelve Core" 2.66 | Identical |
| "Twelve Core" 2.93 | "Twelve Core" 3.06 | 2% |
Other Benchmarks & Real-World Test Results
Geekbench provides a convenient overview of overall performance, but other benchmarks and real-world tests still can be useful.
Because the "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models were such a modest update, most of the blogosphere declined to perform any detailed testing, but the industry-standard Macworld was the exception. In its testing, the publication found:
The new quad-core 3.2 GHz Mac Pro is 16 percent faster overall than the 2010 quad-core 2.8 GHz Xeon Mac Pro, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at. The new system is 8 percent faster than the 2010 eight-core 2.4 GHz Xeon Mac Pro. Going back further, the new system is 44 percent faster than the 2009 low-end quad-core 2.66 GHz Xeon Mac Pro. While the file duplication test results are pretty much identical between the new low-end and the 2010 low-end Mac Pro, some tests were considerably faster on the new system, helped by a 14 percent faster processor and twice the RAM. Photoshop, for example, is 31 percent faster than the 2010 quad core model.
The new 12-core 2.4 GHz Mac Pro is 10 percent faster overall than the 2010 eight-core 2.4 GHz Xeon Mac Pro, and 31 percent faster from the 2009 eight-core 2.26 GHz Xeon Mac Pro.
Although Macworld primarily used application tests -- which can be more precise for "real world" evaluation than the theoretical Geekbench benchmark -- the variation between "pretty much identical" and as much as 31% faster still is apparent.
Performance Summary
Ultimately, although the "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models provide a bit more value and a bit more performance than the "Mid-2010" models replaced, they clearly have aged architecturally and provide little reason for someone with a "Mid-2010" or even "Early 2009" Mac Pro to buy a new model compared to simply upgrading their existing systems.
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