Apple released the Mac Pro in December 2013 and a recent teardown reveals that the CPU is user-upgradeable.
iFixit has disassembled the entry-level Mac Pro, priced at $2,999. The device has a cylindrical shape and is made of aluminum.
Users will find the power button at the rear side of the device. At the back, the gadget also has a 3.5 mm speaker and headphone jacks, four USB 3.0 ports, six thunderbolt 2 ports, dual gigabit ethernet ports and an HDMI 1.4 out.
The outer casing of the new Mac Pro is easily removable with the flick of a switch. The first thing iFixit found after removing the casing was the dual graphics card. Further teardown revealed three easily accessible and replaceable vertical RAM slots at either side of the I/O panel.
The 4 GB DDR3L SDRAM modules are labeled Elpida EBJ04EG8BFWB-JS-F. Apple says that users can configure the RAM in the Mac Pro to 16GB (four 4GB), 32GB (four 8GB) or 64GB (four 16GB).
The SSD assembly is easily removable from the device using just a T8 screwdriver. It contains Samsung S4LN053X01-8030 (ARM) Flash Controller, Samsung K9HFGY8S5C-XCK0 Flash Storage and Samsung K4P4G324EB 512MB RAM.
Regulatory markings are found at the bottom cover. The new Mac Pro is identified as model A1481 along with the EMC Number. The device is also rated for 100-240 volts AC. The Mac Pro has only one fan, which pulls air from under the case, through the core and out the top of the case.
Further teardown reveals that a clamp and four screws hold each of the dual AMD FirePro D300 graphics cards in place. The back side of each graphics card contains an AMD FirePro D300 graphics processor, Elpida W2032BBBG 2GB GDDR5 VRAM, Intersil ISL 6336 6-Phase PWM controller with light load efficiency enhancement and current monitoring. The front has Fairchild Semiconductor DD30AJ and IR C F3575 CCIRP.
The latest Mac Pro also has a FirePro card connected to a disc-shaped daughterboard that ties everything together at the base of the machine.
The daughterboard has an Intel BD82C602J Platform Controller Hub, R4F2113 NLG A02 AE03376, ICS 932SQL435AL 3817528F, Texas Instruments LM393 Dual Differential Comparator and MXIC 25L6406E 64M-BIT CMOS Serial Flash.
The power supply is sandwiched between the I/O panel and the logic board of the machine. The power supply's connecting cables are a bit fiddly to remove. However, the I/O board and power supply peel away as a unit.
iFixit's further teardown revealed the CPU, which was marked Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5-1620 v2 with 10 MB L3 cache, clocked at 3.7 GHz and Turbo Boost of up to 3.9 GHz.
"While it took a bit of a trek, a CPU upgrade appears entirely possible-and well worth it, with an alleged cost savings of $1050 for an upgrade to 12 cores," per iFixit.
iFixit has given a repairability score of 8 out of 10 to the latest Mac Pro.
