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f Apple does live up to its promise and proceeds to launch a new Pro-level Mac for power users next year, it should boast the AMD Radeon HD 7XXX series of graphics cards, as discovered by Netkas.org in OS X 10.8.3.

Rummaging through the video card drivers listed in the first OS X 10.8.3 beta released by Apple this week, the software-centric blog was able to confirm that Mountain Lion is set to support “ATI 7000 drivers.”

The confirmation comes by way of two files (listed below) neatly tucked away in the Graphics/Displays department of Apple’s System Report (previously known as System Profiler).


“ATI7000Controller.kext
AMDRadeonX4000GLDriver.bundle”

According to the screenshots provided by the source, OS X 10.8.3 supports the Radeon HD 7900 series (codenamed “Tahiti”).

The discovery cannot be regarded as confirmation that Apple will ultimately come out with a line of Mac Pro workstations equipped with ATI 7000 graphics cards. However, it does confirm that Apple plans to support it.

Avid readers following Tim Cook’s statements around WWDC 2012 may recall an email response from the Apple CEO to one disgruntled customer who asked about a potential Mac Pro refresh.

Apple’s chief executive officer addressed this customer by his first name (Franz), stating, “Thanks for your email. Our Pro customers like you are really important to us.”

“Although we didn’t have a chance to talk about a new Mac Pro at today’s event, don’t worry as we’re working on something really great for later next year,” he said.

Cook’s comments may or may not suggest there’s a new Mac Pro in the works. Apple is a constant innovator (or at least used to be), so we should expect an all-new Pro workstation from the Cupertino giant next year.

Think about it this way. Few people predicted the super-slim iMac announced in October. What’s keeping Apple from applying the same fit and finish to the Mac Pro next year?


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