Apple’s first beta of OS X 10.8.3 has added support for the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series of graphics cards, possibly a sign that they could be featured in the company’s redesigned Mac Pro. Following its launch of the first beta this week, the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series was originally discovered by Netkas.org. The operating system for Mac supports Radeon HD 7900 series, codenamed “Tahiti,” which includes the Radeon HD 7970 and 7950.
Both of these graphic cards hold 3 gigabytes of GDDR5 memory and are based on a 28-nanometer chip manufacturing process. They’re also the first to feature AMD’s “Graphics Core Next” compute architecture.
Support for these graphics card series could be a sign that AMD’s latest GPUs might be included in the updated Mac Pro. The computer was updated in June with a bit of speed enhancement, featuring a two-year-old Intel Xeon E5645 chip.
In response to complaints over this small update, CEO Tim Cook confirmed that Apple was working on an overhaul of the Mac Pro. He also suggested that the updated desktop would be released in 2013, though no specific date was given.
Cook said to a customer in an email, “Don’t worry as we’re working on something really great for next year.” An anonymous Apple executive also told the New York Times that an updated Mac Pro was in the works for release next year.
Signs of a new Mac Pro also showed up in the internal configuration files found in Mountain Lion earlier this year. The “MP60” is expected to be a pretty big overhaul of the current Mac Pro model, which has had the same basic aluminum box design that was introduced in the 2005 PowerMac G5.