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Cylinder Mac Pro Q&A - Published March 24, 2014
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How fast are the "Late 2013" Gray Cylinder Mac Pro models compared to one another? How fast are these Mac Pro models compared to the Silver Tower "Mid-2012" models replaced? How fast are they compared to the iMac?
In the official company press release, Apple boasts that the "Late 2013" Cylinder Mac Pro models provide "double the floating point performance" and "up to eight times the graphics performance" of the previous generation "Mid-2012" Mac Pro.
Photo Credit: Apple, Inc. (Left - Tower Mac Pro, Front; Right - Cylinder Mac Pro, Back)
Official Test Results
In promo copy more detailed than the press release, Apple compares the top-of-the-line custom configured Cylinder Mac Pro -- the Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 2.7 (Late 2013) with dual AMD FirePro D700 graphics -- to the previous top-of-the-line custom configured Tower Mac Pro -- the Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 3.06 (Late 2012/Westmere) with ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics.
In a surprising sign of fairness from a marketing department, the company also equipped the older Mac Pro with a fast 512 GB SSD rather than its much slower default 1 TB hard drive.
Among other tests, Apple reported that the Cylinder Mac Pro was between 2.6 and 4.4 times faster using the Final Cut Pro X video editing application, as much as 8.4 times faster in 3D CompuBench Graphics tests, and between 1.5 times and 1.9 times faster in the Aperture 3 photography application.
Although these official test results are impressive, the applications are carefully selected and the hardware is the highest-end, and most expensive, option available rather than the standard configurations. For these reasons, and more, other benchmarks and test results certainly can be quite useful.
Unofficial General Performance Overview
For a solid overview of the performance difference between the "Late 2013" Cylinder Mac Pro models as well as earlier Mac Pro and iMac 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.
It might be a surprise that the entry-level model -- the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 3.7 -- is actually the fastest on single core tasks, if only by a little. On the other hand, the most expensive custom configured Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 2.7 is the slowest on single core tasks, and significantly so, given its comparatively slow clockspeed, but it smokes the rest of the line on multicore tasks given its multitude of cores.
The Geekbench benchmark does an excellent job demonstrating the performance difference between single core and multicore tasks.
Late 2013 Mac Pro Models Compared to Each Other
This chart shows approximately how much slower or faster each system is compared to the model immediately before it:
| Late 2013 Mac Pro | Single Core Tasks | Multicore Tasks |
| "Quad Core" 3.7 | Fastest | Slowest |
| "Six Core" 3.5 | 0.10% Slower | 43% Faster |
| "Eight Core" 3.0 | 0.20% Slower | 24% Faster |
| "Twelve Core" 2.7 | 11% Slower | 28% Faster |
On a direct comparison between the entry-level model and the highest-end custom configured model, the entry-level Mac Pro "Quad Core" 3.7 is roughly 12% faster than the high-end Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 2.7 on single core tasks. On multicore tasks, though, the high-end model is 127% faster than the entry-level one.
Late 2013 Mac Pro Models Compared to their Predecessors
Compared to the "Mid-2012" Silver Tower Mac Pro models replaced, 64-bit Geekbench 3.0 benchmarks show that the "Late 2013" Cylinder Mac Pro models are significantly faster than the model each roughly replaced (Apple consolidated five models to four):
| Mid-2012 Mac Pro | Late 2013 Mac Pro | % Faster (Multicore Tasks) |
| "Quad Core" 3.2 | "Quad Core" 3.7 | 51% |
| "Six Core" 3.33 | "Six Core" 3.5 | 33% |
| "Twelve Core" 2.4 / 2.66 | "Eight Core" 3.0 | 16% / 2% |
| "Twelve Core" 3.06 | "Twelve Core" 2.7 | 25% |
The performance gains are significant across the board, but it should be noted that the highest percentage gains are at the low-end.
Late 2013 Mac Pro Models Compared to iMac Models
64-bit Geekbench benchmarks comparing the "Late 2013" Cylinder Mac Pro line to the much less expensive "Late 2013" iMac models available at the time the Cylinder Mac Pro was introduced might not be as you expect.
This chart shows the custom configured fastest 21.5-Inch iMac as well as the two standard 27-Inch iMac models and the custom processor-equipped 27-Inch model, too. The "Single Core" and "Multicore" columns show just how much slower or faster the Mac Pro is compared to the equivalently listed iMac:
| Late 2013 iMac | Late 2013 Mac Pro | Single Core | Multicore |
| "Core i7" 3.1 21.5" | "Quad Core" 3.7 | 8% Slower | 2% Faster |
| "Core i5" 3.2 27" | "Six Core" 3.5 | 1% Slower | 80% Faster |
| "Core i5" 3.4 27" | "Eight Core" 3.0 | 5% Slower | 116% Faster |
| "Core i7" 3.5 27" | "Twelve Core" 2.7 | 19% Slower | 124% Faster |
Clearly, the Mac Pro models slaughter the iMac line in multicore tasks, but are actually slower in single core ones.
In particular, it also is worth noting that the high-end custom configured iMac -- the iMac "Core i7" 3.5 27" -- is roughly 9% faster in single core tasks and 2% faster in multicore tasks than the entry-level Mac Pro -- the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 3.7 -- but costs around 27% less.
This price-to-performance ratio makes the iMac a comparatively good value (and it includes a "free" display, even).
Other Benchmarks & Real-World Test Results
Geekbench provides a helpful overview of overall performance, but other benchmarks and real-world tests also can be useful.
In a pair of articles, the industry-standard Macworld reviewed both the entry-level Mac Pro "Quad Core" 3.7 and standard Mac Pro "Six Core" 3.5 model and reported:
Compared to the previous entry-level Mac Pro ["Quad Core" 3.2]. . . the [entry-level] Late 2013 Mac Pro was 77 percent faster, overall. The new Mac Pro was faster across the board, but graphics tests really stood out, with frame rates in the high-resolution Heaven and Valley benchmark 10 times as high as the 2012 Mac Pro. The PCIe-connected flash storage was able to copy 6 GB of data in less than 25 seconds, while the [hard drive-equipped] old Mac Pro took two minutes and 27 seconds. . . It should come as no surprise that the entry-level Mac Pro didn't perform as well as the high-end $3999 stock Mac Pro, which was 11 percent faster overall. . .
Our 2013 CTO 27-inch iMac ["Core i7" 3.5] posted a 12 percent higher Speedmark 9 score than the new entry-level Mac Pro.
The always detailed AnandTech compared the high-end Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 2.7 to four previous Mac Pro generations and even an old school Power Mac G5 2.5 DP.
In particular, using the Cinebench R10 1CPU benchmark, the author recorded a "34% increase in performance" between the Late 2013 Mac Pro and its almost top-of-the-line Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 2.66 predecessor (rather than the "Twelve Core" 3.06 model that Apple compared in their official results).
AnandTech also wisely noted:
The 8C system from early 2009 gives us an example of how it's very possible to have a newer Mac Pro actually perform worse than its predecessor. Apple has done a relatively good job this round of keeping the core count/frequency tradeoffs sensible, but you still have to align your silicon choices to your workload.
For application performance, specifically, MacPerformanceGuide compared the standard four, six, and twelve core "Late 2013" Mac Pro models with an aftermarket processor upgraded model with a 3.3 GHz 8-Core processor.
In a Photoshop test, for example, the site discovered:
The 6-core 3.5 GHz Mac Pro is only ~7% / 10% slower here than the 8-core 3.33 GHz. This represents a really excellent price performance, and note that [an Apple offered] 3.0 GHz 8 core would likely be beaten by the 6-core.
The 12-core 2013 Mac Pro with D700 GPUs fares respectably well here, but lags both the 6 and 8 core machines.
Essentially, for Photoshop, the configurations with higher clockspeeds are a better value than those with more cores.
The always excellent BareFeats also put the "Late 2013" Mac Pro models through an onslaught of application tests, including X-Plane 10, Final Cut X 10.1, and more.
Notably, in addition to pro applications, BareFeats covered gaming performance:
If you play games under OS X Mavericks, the new 2013 Mac Pro base model (4-Core, dual FirePro D300s) isn't going to light your fire. But a 2013 Mac Pro with the FirePro D700s will compete with the fastest Mac Pro tower GPUs -- at least in the case of Tomb Raider and Dirt 2. . .
Keep in mind that only one of the two FirePro GPUs is active when gaming under OS X. If you are a hard-core gamer with a new Mac Pro, you can get even more FPS if you run your games under Windows in a Boot Camp partition and enable CrossFire mode.
The Cylinder Mac Pro is unlikely to be cost-effective for gaming alone, but for one primarily using the system for work, it is good to know that gaming is at least a viable option.
Performance Summary
Ultimately, the "Late 2013" Cylinder Mac Pro models are fast, but it is important to pay particular attention to your individual usage. Just assuming that the most expensive model is the fastest for all tasks could be an costly mistake.
For someone who commonly uses multicore capable applications as well as applications designed to take advantage of multiple graphics processors, one of the Cylinder Mac Pro models -- even the expensive top-of-the line Mac Pro "Twelve Core" 2.7 -- can be a bargain for those whose work means time is money.
However, for someone who prefers a desktop form factor and already has a 4K display, for example, but who does not use many multicore capable applications, one of the lower-end models is superior to the more expensive models.
Furthermore, the custom-configured iMac "Core i7" 3.5 27" can hold its own and even surpass it's much more expensive Mac Pro brethren in many tasks and remains a better value accordingly.
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