Issue 18/2006 of the c’t magazine contains a quick test of the Mac Pro. The machine is faster than the old Quad Power Mac G5 (if running native software) but consumes only 223W instead of 340W at full load. It’s also very silent with only 1,0 sone unless the harddisk is used, probably another questionable Maxtor harddisk similar to the one in my Power Mac G5.
Its excellent performance, the low price (for such a machine) and the lack of noise make the Mac Pro a worthy challenger for highend workstations sold by companies like HP, IBM or Sun. Let’s hope they follow Apple’s lead and rid us of noisy fans.