E3-1xxx v3-series = "Haswell"

Main article: Haswell (microarchitecture)

Introduced in May 2013, Xeon E3 v3 is the first Haswell microarchitecture based Xeon. It uses the new LGA 1150 socket, which was introduced with the desktop Core i5/i7 Haswell processors and is not compatible with the LGA 1155 that was used in Xeon E3 and E3 v2. As before, the main difference between the desktop and server versions is added support for ECC memory in the Xeon branded parts. The main benefits of the new microarchitecture are better power efficiency and a faster GPU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon

All Xeons labeled E5 appear to be part of various Ivy Bridge configurations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In ... ased_Xeons

There are no Xeons labeled E5 that have any connection with Haswell.

It seems the new MP is using old Ivy Bridge Xeons. The question is: why?

There are lots of E5 Xeons that are Sandy Bridge, the E5 Ivy Bridge ones are V2.

There will be Haswell E5s and E7s eventaully. The E3s come out first, they are basically desktop chips with ECC support. Then the bigger E5 and E7 chips come out. Just like the socket 2011 desktop chips come out after their 1155/1150 versions.

The new Mac Pro also contains only a single fan. Located just below the top of the cylinder, this fan sucks air up from vents at the bottom of the computer, and over the thermal core to cool it, and then pushes the now-warm air out the ring at the top of the enclosure. Instead of the wind-tunnel-like noise levels you’d sometimes hear with previous Mac Pro models, the 2013 Mac Pro’s fan is generally very quiet. In fact, in normal use, it’s nearly silent: If you put your ear next to the vent on the top, you hear only a quiet hum. (Apple told us the computer produces only about 12dB of noise at idle, and roughly 17dB under load.) In my quiet office, I couldn’t hear the Mac Pro’s fan over the noise of my 2010 iMac, even when live-rendering some effects on 4K video in Final Cut Pro X. That’s not to say you’ll never hear the fan, but you should expect a much quieter experience than with previous models.

love how quiet the machine is. It's impossible to hear over an external hard drive or ambient air conditioning noise, even under heavy loads. The only sign you'll have that it's cooling itself is the gentle rush of warm air coming out the top of the unit, which makes a surprisingly wide and uniform column of wind.

The idea, of course, is for the blades to effectively cool the system, but also to make less noise in the process. According to Apple, the new Pro reaches 15 decibels while under load, versus 30dB on the last edition. And when the machine is idle, it simmers down to just 12dB -- very similar to the lower-powered Mac mini.

Throughout, the Mac Pro gets a bit warm, but it's rarely hot, and it's always quiet. For lack of a better word, you'd have to provoke the machine to really be bothered by the heat: The warmest area is at the top of the chassis, and even then, you'd have to be sticking your hand near the vents to feel it. Otherwise, the chassis does get a tad warm -- and can take a while to cool down -- but it's much cooler than the air blowing out of the top. Avoid sticking your fist into the opening at the top and you'll be fine. As for noise, I tried hard to get the fans spinning, but they stayed quiet. Actually, if you put your ear up to the opening at the top, you will hear a faint purring, but again, you'd have to be the sort of wise guy willing to put your ear next to the hottest part of the machine (not recommended).

Question is whether it is $3000-$4000 dollars of impressive.

What is the relative cost of building a similarly quiet and powerful PC with dual firepro or quadro cards?

Besides, I don't even think you can, for example, buy the same Samsung PCIe SSD @512 GB retail anywhere. At least, I haven't seen it yet.

As of this moment in time, the nMP is pretty unique. Maybe in a year or two you could build one with identical specs and components cheaper.

Is mSATA the same PCIe mini?

The connector is similar in appearance to a PCI Express Mini Card interface,[41] and is electrically compatible; however, the data signals (TX±/RX± SATA, PETn0 PETp0 PERn0 PERp0 PCI Express) need a connection to the SATA host controller instead of the PCI Express host controller.

Next I tried a heavier workload on the CPU: a H.264 video encode. Here I just ran the x264 5.01 benchmark in parallel with the LuxMark workload. Once again, I saw no drop in CPU or GPU clocks although I believe I was approaching the limits of where that would hold true. The system was pulling an average of 410W at that point, with peak power draw at 429W.

I ran a combination of FurMark at 2560 x 1440 and Prime95 (in-place large FFTs) across all GPUs and CPU cores. The GPUs peaked at 97C, which is pretty much as high as a 28nm Tahiti should ever go. The CPU hit a similar temperature, with most cores hovering around 95C. GPU clocks seemed ok, with both GPUs running between 650 - 850MHz (base - boost). The CPU on the other hand dropped down to 2.1GHz (I even saw a short excursion down to 2GHz). Average power while running this workload was 437W, peaking at 463W before CPU throttling kicked in.

Anyone want to start crowdsourcing a silent, compact PC design based upon more or less standard components? I think collectively we could do better!

Some more thermal and noise info via Ars Technica.

If you're browsing the Web or doing something that isn't pushing the CPU or GPUs, it's almost completely silent. I had two of them on at one point and, because the monitors weren't on, I didn't know they weren't asleep—the new Mac Pro is that quiet.

This largely comes down to the custom-engineered case. The Mac Pro leaves no room for idle hot air, and, in a boxy tower, the fans work a lot like speakers facing a wall with holes drilled in it. Sure, you can hear the sound on the other side of the wall, but a lot is bouncing back into the room. The Mac Pro's hole on the top with vents on the bottom ensures that this is totally avoided. There's only one large fan to create a single stream of air and only one spot for the air to go. It makes so much sense, you realize how completely inept the traditional tower design is.