The Mac Pro introduced in 2019 has eight PCIe slots:
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- Four double-wide slots
- Three single-wide slots
- One half-length slot preconfigured with the Apple I/O card
Inateck 4 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Express Card Compatible Mac Pro (Early 2008 to 2012 Late Version) KT4004 Sonnet Allegro USB-C 4-Port PCIe (USB3C-4PM-E) Inateck 2 Port PCIe USB 3.0 Card with Internal USB 3.0 20-Pin Connector - Expand Another Two USB 3.0 Ports, Compatible Mac Pro, No Additional Power Connection Needed. Two SuperSpeed USB-C 10Gbps Ports—Adds two USB-C 10Gbps ports to your Mac Pro®, Windows® PC, or Linux® computer with PCIe slots; or Thunderbolt™ to PCIe card expansion system. Amazing Performance—Transfers data up to 960 MB/s from a single drive, and up to 925 MB/s from each of two drives simultaneously. Super-Powered Ports—Supports USB-C bus-powered SSD, SSD RAID,. The KT4004 PCI- E express card adds 4 USB 3.0 Ports to your Mac pro with quick and easy installation. This USB 3.0 PCI express I/O Card offers an excellent solution to use more USB 3.0 devices on Mac pro (Early 2008 to 2012 Late Version). Enjoy copying videos, music, photos, data files between USB devices and the Mac at blazing fast speeds.
Mac Pro includes one or two Radeon Pro MPX Modules that occupy slots 1-2 and slots 3-4. You can choose your MPX Modules when you order your Mac Pro or order them separately from Apple. Learn how to install PCI cards in your Mac Pro (2019).
Apple AMD Radeon MPX Modules
![Pci express 4.0 motherboard Pci express 4.0 motherboard](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/i-AAAOSwJdtaieWc/s-l300.jpg)
Apple currently has four different Mac Pro Expansion (MPX) Modules that contain AMD Radeon Pro graphics processing units (GPUs). Radeon Pro MPX Modules can use slots 1-2 and slots 3-4, and you can install one or two of each module:
- Radeon Pro 580X MPX Module: one module only
- Radeon Pro W5700X MPX Module: one or two modules
- Radeon Pro W5500X MPX Module: one or two modules
- Radeon Pro Vega II MPX Module: one or two modules
- Radeon Pro Vega II Duo MPX Module: one or two modules
You can use Radeon MPX Modules along with other third-party PCIe graphics cards. If you use Boot Camp, using a Radeon MPX Module and a third-party AMD graphics card isn't supported when your Mac is using Windows. Learn about using AMD graphics cards with Microsoft Windows on Mac Pro (2019).
Apple I/O card
Mac Pro comes with the Apple I/O card, which has two Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Apple I/O card comes preinstalled in slot 8 and can't be installed in another slot.
Third-party PCIe cards
You can install many different PCIe cards in your Mac Pro, such as fibre channel cards, fibre networking cards, and pro video and audio interface cards. The PCIe bus on your Mac Pro provides up to 300W auxillary power. If your PCIe card requires additional power, such as a GPU, use the Belkin Aux Power Cable.
Mac Pro supports the same GPUs that are supported by external graphics processors (eGPUs). If you use Boot Camp and want to install a NVIDIA card to use in Windows on your Mac, don't install the card in slot 2. Learn about using AMD graphics cards with Microsoft Windows on Mac Pro (2019).
Some older PCI cards might use 32-bit Option ROMs that aren't compatible with your Mac Pro. If you install a PCI card that uses 32-bit option ROMs, your Mac Pro might not start up correctly.
Afterburner
Afterburner is a hardware accelerator card made by Apple. Learn more about Afterburner.
RAID cards
If you want to add additional storage, you can install a third-party RAID card, such as a SAS RAID card, or you can install the Promise Pegasus R4i 32TB RAID MPX Module in one of the two MPX bays. If you use Boot Camp on your Mac, Windows doesn't support Apple software RAID volumes.
Learn more
Apple Notes
With the new single-processor, dual-core Power Macs shipping, we continue to investigate the impact of PCI Express on the Mac audio and music world.
Forget about crocodile wrestling — writing about technology is perhaps one of the most hazardous tasks you can undertake. If being technically accurate isn't hard enough, the fact that technology changes constantly makes the job nigh-on impossible. The ink barely had time to dry on last month's Apple Notes (discussing the introduction of new Power Macs featuring PCI Express expansion slots that would make it impossible to run Pro Tools HD) when Digidesign announced PCI Express versions of their Core and Accel cards required to run the ubiquitous music production system.
Digi Catch The Express
According to Digidesign, the company 'is now concluding its qualification process of the PCI Express systems with the range of Apple Power Mac G5 computers.' The new PCI Express Core and Accel cards are expected to ship before the end of the year (they may be available by the time you're reading this column) and will cost the same as the current PCI models, which will continue to be sold. Digidesign also confirmed that there will be 'a crossgrade program for PCI users who wish to switch to a PCI Express solution.' One point to bear in mind, though, is that 7.1 will be the first supported version of Pro Tools with the new PCI Express hardware, and while 7.x Sessions aren't compatible with 6.9 directly, it is possible to export them in a compatible format (see our Pro Tools 7 review, page 90, for more).
Since Apple's new Power Macs all have three PCI Express slots, those running an HD3 system will be fine. But what if you use an expansion chassis with a larger HD system? Hold on to your PCI cards, because Digi will also be introducing a new product, the Expansion HD six-slot PCI chassis, at the end of the year. That will be available with either a PCI Express or PCI card to attach to your host computer and can be effectively viewed as a PCI Express to PCI bridge. It will be interesting to see if an upgrade is offered for existing chassis users if the chassis itself isn't compatible with the new PCI Express bridge.
Digidesign will support Apple's move to PCI Express slots by offering PCI Express versions of their Core and Accel cards (the original PCI Accel card is pictured here), plus a new expansion chassis.Whether this new Digidesign chassis will be a re-badged Magma (www.magma.com) device, as with previous Digidesign chassis products, is unclear, but Magma themselves also have a PCI Express to PCI six-slot chassis 'coming soon.' Interestingly, Magma are going to offer a 'conversion path' between the PCI-to-PCI chassis and the PCI Express model, so this might be of use to existing Pro Tools users who have a chassis already.
Pci Express Pcie Slot
What About Everyone Else?
While the number of Mac owners using a Firewire or USB-based audio interface is probably quite large compared to those using PCI offerings, there are some products with certain specifications that are only available as PCI cards, RME's HDSP MADI card being one example. I know many Logic users who use this card with RME's ADI648, to integrate their sequencing and mixing environments, for example, and these are precisely the people who would benefit the most from the increased power of the Power Mac Quad.
I spoke with RME's Matthias Carstens [see also the Audio Interface Manufacturers' Round Table feature in our last issue), who confirmed that 'Naturally we will add PCI Express versions of existing products to our line', and expected the first announcements to be made at Frankfurt Musikmesse. 'Using the latest FPGAs [Field-Programmable Gate Arrays], we will be able to fully implement all currently known RME features. An example is the HDSP 9652, where the FPGA is completely filled in the current model. This card doesn't have Steady Clock, and also misses phase inversion and the optional +6dB gain in [the] Total Mix [mixer], but the PCI Express version would have these features. We will also make a PCI Express version of the current HDSP PCI card for Digiface and Multiface users, but this card will be function-identical to the existing PCI model, for compatibility.'
There are no plans to offer an upgrade program at this time for those wishing to replace their PCI cards with the PCI Express alternative, and Matthias was keen to point out that Apple's announcement had no impact on the company's plans to bring PCI Express products to market. Although RME use FPGAs to implement their products, the reason why other manufacturers haven't specifically announced PCI Express cards could be the fact that there haven't been suitable off-the-shelf PCI Express solutions available, such as a PCI Express to PCI bridge chip, or more complete solutions like Via's Envy24 PCI audio controller chip, which M-Audio use in many of their products.
Apple News In Brief
- Apple released Mac OS 10.4.3 at the end of October, offering numerous fixes for most areas of the system, including unspecified fixes for Core Audio. Quartz 2D Extreme, by the way (which will bring hardware acceleration to the 2D graphics used by applications such as Cubase SX), is still disabled and unsupported in Tiger. You can download the new version via Software Update or on the web at www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate1043.html, where you'll also find more detailed information. Digidesign hadn't qualified 10.4.3 at the time of writing and still recommend 10.4.2, although I have used 10.4.3 with Pro Tools 7 and didn't experience any obvious problems.
- RME have released an updated driver for users of the HDSP MADI and AES32 audio cards. The new release brings the Mac software into line with the Windows version and includes new Total Mix and Settings applications that enable Mac users to configure features such as the DDS (Direct Digital Synthesizer) for pull-up and pull-down options (related to film frame rates), with full varispeed support in 56-channel mode on the MADI card. The Total Mix mixer now supports a monitor panel, submix view, updated preferences and remote control via MIDI.
Audio Units Meet VST Instruments
In October 2005's Apple Notes we looked at the free AU Lab Audio Units host application that Apple include as part of the company's developer tools package, supplied free of charge with every copy of OS X. After reading the article, someone at the studio where I work asked if AU Lab could be used with Cubase, to run Audio Units alongside VST Instruments, and the answer is yes.
One nice thing about AU Lab is that for every Audio Unit Instrument you add, the application will put a virtual MIDI port on your system (for as long as AU Lab is running) that lets you trigger each Instrument from another application. So, for example:
- Open AU Lab and create a new Project with the default options.
- Select Edit / Add Audio Unit Instrument.
- Choose a plug-in and make sure the MIDI Input Source is set to 'None', because we want to trigger the Audio Unit via another application, not directly from a hardware MIDI input.
- Load Cubase and create a new MIDI track. You should be able to set the MIDI output of that track to the AU Instrument in AU Lab (a port will be available with the same name as the plug-in you added).
- Play some MIDI data to this virtual port and you should hear the AU Instrument being triggered. I've noticed on occasion that if there's no sound at first, you need to double-click in an empty area of the Instrument Channel in AU Lab, set MIDI Source to a physical port, trigger some data from that port, then set it back to None. After this, you should be able to trigger the AU Instrument from Cubase.
Jack Plugs In
Here you can see an AU Instrument plug-in, running in AU Lab, being triggered from a MIDI track in Cubase. Its audio output is being routed into a Cubase audio track, via Jack and a clever VST plug-in included with the Jack OS X distribution.
So now you can trigger an Audio Unit plug-in from Cubase via MIDI. But wouldn't it be great if there was some way of routing the audio output of the AU Instrument back into the Cubase Mixer instead of going directly to a hardware audio output? You might remember a utility called Jack, which I've written about in previous columns, that can do just what we need. Jack is similar to Rewire in that it's basically a virtual cable for routing audio between applications, but it also supports physical audio hardware and is compatible with any application that makes use of Core Audio.
- To start with, download and install Jack (www.jackosx.com), run the included Jack Pilot application, then click Start in the Jack Pilot window.
- Next, run AU Lab, start a new Project, choosing Jack Router as the Audio Device, and add an Audio Instrument as before.
- In Cubase, set up a MIDI track, route its output to the port labelled with the name of the AU Instrument you added in AU Lab, and create an audio track.
One really nice thing about the Jack OS X installation is that it installs a special plug-in (in VST and AU formats) that allows you to route the audio output of an application into a plug-in (or the audio output of the plug-in to another application). So by adding Jack-insert as an insert plug-in on our newly created audio track in Cubase, we'll be able to stream AU Lab's output into that track.
Pci Express Explained
- In Jack Pilot, click the Routing button on the main window and you should see the Connections Manager window, which consists of three columns: Send Ports, Receive Ports and Connections. Send Ports shows all audio ports (whether applications or physical hardware) that can send audio to a Receive port, and Connections shows whether there is a connection between the currently selected Send Port and a Receive Port. Jack uses your Mac's built-in audio hardware by default, but if you want to use additional audio hardware you can set this via Jack Pilot 's Preferences window. If you click on AU Lab in the Send Ports column, you'll see that its output has automatically been routed to the physical audio hardware output. To remove this assignment, double-click each entry in the Connections column
- To route the output of AU Lab into Cubase, expand the Send and Receive Port entries to show all available audio streams, by clicking on the little triangle next to a Port's name.
- Next, select AU Lab 'out1' and double-click Cubase 'VSTreturn1' to make the assignment for one stream in AU Lab to the Jack-insert plug-in within Cubase. Repeat the process for AU Lab 'out2' and 'VSTreturn2'. Cubase itself talks to Core Audio directly, so Jack is only needed to route the output of AU Lab into the Jack-insert plug-in.
That's it — and it should be less complicated to do than to explain. Play the AU Instrument from your MIDI track in Cubase and you should notice hear the audio come back in via the Jack-insert plug-in to the audio track. Pretty neat. And while this example is for AU Lab and Cubase, the technique will work with any application that supports Core Audio in OS X, so there's plenty of room for experimentation.
Pci Express For Mac Catalina
Published January 2006