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Apple Mac Pro, Pro Display XDR to be available to order Dec. 10

Beastly desktop is Apple's attempt to win back professionals who have gone over to Windows.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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After a six-month wait, the Mac Pro is almost here.

Apple

Apple plans to make the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR available to order on Tuesday, according to "save the date" emails the company sent to some customers on Saturday. Apple said in November it planned to bring the super-pricey, super-powerful Mac Pro to market in December.

The beastly Mac Pro, along with its $5,000 6K Pro Display XDR monitor "accessory," stole the show during Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June. The new Mac Pro, which starts at $5,999, represents the first major upgrade of the device since 2013 and is Apple's attempt to win back creative professionals who've fled to more powerful Windows machines.

The Mac Pro has been tweaked since its debut in June. It can be ordered with an optional 8-terabyte solid-state drive option, with twice as much memory as previously stated. It will also now be able to handle six simultaneous streams of 8K video, twice the number promised at WWDC.

The company has spent the year revamping its lineup for pros, which included a new 16-inch MacBook Pro with a redesigned keyboard, better battery and improved speakers. CNET Editor Scott Stein says it's not quite like the old-school MacBook keyboard in his first take. "Think of the new MacBook Pro keyboard as a happy medium between the two," he says.

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.