Apple revealed the first Mac Pro 20 years ago today — its Intel Xeon-powered flagship desktop took the reins from the Power Mac G5

Exactly 20 years ago, during the Apple WWDC event, Steve Jobs unveiled the first-ever Mac Pro computer. This launch marked a significant shift for Apple workstations, moving from the PowerPC architecture to Intel x86 processors. Prior to this, the company's flagship tower was the Power Mac G5, but the new machine was positioned to deliver up to twice the performance of its predecessor.

While readers might remember later models like the 'trash can' or 'cheese grater,' the first Mac Pro with an x86 chip looked almost identical to its G5 ancestor. The presentation focused on the new processors, and Apple crowned the new machine as the performance king, claiming it could deliver up to twice the performance of the Power Mac G5 Quad.

The top configuration featured two dual-core Intel Xeon 5160 processors running at up to 3.0 GHz. At release, three processor choices were available: the top-end model with a pair of dual-core Core Xeon 5160 CPUs (3.0 GHz), a Core Xeon 5150 x2 (2.66 GHz), and a Core Xeon 5130 x2 (2.0 GHz). For context, the base model equipped with a Core Xeon 5150 x2 (2.66 GHz) launched at $2,499, including a Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.

Notably, this was the first Mac Pro compatible with Mac OS X Tiger at launch. The system included 1GB of DDR2-667 fully buffered memory (expandable to 16GB), two PCIe 1.0 slots, and an Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT graphics card with 256MB of GDDR3 video memory. It also came with a 16x SuperDrive optical drive.

Steve Jobs boasted that Apple had successfully completed the transition to Intel processors in just seven months — exactly 210 days. However, this model became the last version of the Mac Pro line; it was effectively replaced by the Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra chip in 2023.

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