Apple’s new Mac Pro: a mini supercomputer available in December for $2,999

Apple teased us this past June with a mini supercomputer in a lipstick-shaped black gloss case with seven teraflops of computer power, support for up to three 4K displays, and the latest of everything in RAM, CPU, and graphics cards.

And, of course, all expansion relying on wires and external connections.

The cooling system has a single fan, where the previous had eight, and the entire computer fits in one-eighth the volume of the previous Mac Pro.

“It’s our vision of the Pro desktop,” said Apple VP of marketing Phil Schiller. “It has the fastest processor we’ve ever put in a Mac … the fastest memory we’ve ever put in a Mac.”

With up to seven teraflops of computer power that can be used both for graphics and computing needs, the Mac Pro will be available starting at $2,999 in December — and assembled in the U.S. That’s with a 3.7 GHz quad-core Xeon chip, 12GB RAM, dual FirePro D300s with 2GB of VRAM each, and a 256 B SDD.

Yes, that storage — at least on the inside — is all flash based, which is 10 times faster than a hard drive, Schiller said. Which means you’ll most certainly need to attach it to an external storage system.

“There’s never been a system that can do what the Mac Pro can do,” he added.

Others who have tested it seem to agree, with Apple beta testers saying that the new Mac Pro makes real-time 4K video editing a reality, and that it’s blazing fast and shockingly quiet.