What you need to know
- Apple's Afterburner Card is now available as a standalone purchase.
- It'll cost you $2000.
- The Afterburner Card takes on the processing of ProRes and ProRes RAW files for the Mac Pro improving graphics capacity.
Apple's Afterburner Card for Mac Pro is now available as a standalone purchase from its website.
As reported by MacRumors:
Apple today made its $2,000 Mac Pro Afterburner Card available as a separate purchase, having previously been offered only as a build-to-order option when configuring a new Mac Pro.
The Afterburner Card is a graphics accelerator designed for the Mac Pro. It takes on the processing of ProRes and ProRes RAW tasks in applications such as Final Cut Pro X, lightening the load on the Mac Pro's graphics cards.
As Apple's website notes:
Created to transform the workflow for film and video professionals, Afterburner accelerates ProRes and ProRes RAW video codecs in Final Cut Pro X, QuickTime Player X, and supported third-party applications. A PCI Express card exclusively for Mac Pro, Afterburner can be installed in any full-length slot, but it delivers maximum capability in a PCIe x16 slot.
The Afterburner Card works with Apple's Mac Pro only and fits in the PCI Express x16 card slot. It supports playback of up to 6 streams of 8K ProRes RAW or up to 23 streams of 4K ProRes RAW.
The news comes amidst a swathe of new product release for Apple today, March 18. Apple has today also announced a new Macbook Air, new Mac Mini, new Apple Watch bands and new iPhone cases.
Stephen Warwick has written about Apple for five years at iMore and previously elsewhere. He covers all of iMore's latest breaking news regarding all of Apple's products and services, both hardware and software. Stephen has interviewed industry experts in a range of fields including finance, litigation, security, and more. He also specializes in curating and reviewing audio hardware and has experience beyond journalism in sound engineering, production, and design.
Before becoming a writer Stephen studied Ancient History at University and also worked at Apple for more than two years. Stephen is also a host on the iMore show, a weekly podcast recorded live that discusses the latest in breaking Apple news, as well as featuring fun trivia about all things Apple.
