The connectivity options include 6 Thunderbolt 2.0 ports, 4 USB 3.0 ports, dual-gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. The Thunderbolt connections include DisplayPort 1.2 support so you can, if you really want to; drive 3 x 4K display monitors.

Internally Apple has opted for the faster PCIe flash storage alternative over SATA3. There are 4 DIMM slots available for RAM, again easily accessible once the cover is removed.

The Mac has long been the standard for video editing and the Mac Pro is clearly designed for professional use. Dual AMD FirePro processors each with 6GB of VRAM should provide all the graphics grunt required by the most fastidious graphics professional.

However, the design concept of the central heatsink surrounded by three daughter boards has one limitation which may deter potential purchasers of the Mac Pro, expandability.

Many users like to swap around components inside their computers, upgrading video cards for example. The Mac Pro has limitations in this respect, particularly as the video cards are fixed. While there is no doubt that they are high powered, the thought of not being able to upgrade video capacity for the life of the machine is certain to be a deterrent for some user

The use of flash technology for the system storage, through a custom daughter card, means that there is no option to mount an additional internal 2.5-inch drive in the case if required.

Overall, though, the new Mac Pro promises to be one fast machine and Apple will argue that any expandability issues can be addressed via the Thunderbolt ports. But will it suffer the same fate as the Power Mac G4 Cube? Only time will tell.