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Apple's new Mac Pro looks like Darth Vader: Yea or nay?

The new Mac Pro appears to be built for the future of powerful computing, and its unique design is already attracting attention.

James Martin Managing Editor, Photography
James Martin is the Managing Editor of Photography at CNET. His photos capture technology's impact on society - from the widening wealth gap in San Francisco, to the European refugee crisis and Rwanda's efforts to improve health care. From the technology pioneers of Google and Facebook, photographing Apple's Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai, to the most groundbreaking launches at Apple and NASA, his is a dream job for any documentary photography and journalist with a love for technology. Exhibited widely, syndicated and reprinted thousands of times over the years, James follows the people and places behind the technology changing our world, bringing their stories and ideas to life.
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James Martin
Apple's new Mac Pro.
James Martin/CNET

With its six Thunderbolt ports and a "unified thermal core," Apple's new Mac Pro doesn't just sound like a futuristic piece of alien machinery, it also looks like something out of science fiction.

This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET's complete coverage from and about Apple's annual developers conference.

Far from the boxy designs of early personal computers, the new Mac Pro is compact, sleek, and nearly edgeless. The resemblance of the Mac Pro, which is aimed squarely at creative pros, to a tiny nuclear reactor is in part due to that heat sucking "thermal core" design. Heat generated from the Intel Xeon CPU and new solid-state drive (SSD) storage dissipates out through the core as the hot air rises -- a change from the typical front-to-back system of air flow in most consumer desktops.

And while the crowd attending Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, where the device was first unveiled, seemed to love this dramatic new design, the visual comparisons to everything from Darth Vader to air purifiers and trash compactors began almost immediately.

Here are a few of our favorite Mac Pro look-alikes:

Just what does Apple's new Mac Pro look like? (pictures)

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