Well, everybody knew it was coming sooner or later, but now that it is actually here, it is even more of a shock. The new 8-core Mac Pro is without a doubt the ultimate choice for those who need to keep the Death Star up and running or sequence the entire human genome before lunch.
As with every other new piece of hardware, the numbers are what's really important, and the numbers are impressive indeed:
￭ Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5300 series "Clovertown" processors
￭ Intel Core microarchitecture
￭ 8MB of L2 cache per processor (16MB total; each pair of cores shares 4MB)
￭ 128-bit SSE3 vector engine
￭ 64-bit data paths and registers
￭ Energy efficiency optimization
￭ 1.33GHz, 64-bit dual independent front side buses
The new 8-core Mac Pro comes with an incredible price tag that puts other manufacturers to shame. Taking the pre-built, two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor, base unit and maxing out the processors results in just US$3,997:
￭ Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
￭ 1GB (2 x 512MB)
￭ 250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
￭ NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI)
￭ One 16x SuperDrive
￭ Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
￭ Mac OS X - U.S. English
And for the icing on the cake, Apple has also lowered prices on its Cinema Display family, which each offer a two-port, self-powered USB 2.0 hub, two FireWire 400 ports, a Kensington security port, and are VESA mount compatible. The 20-inch Apple Cinema Display is now just $599, while the 30-inch model is $1799.
Unfortunately, while the offer is incredibly compelling, many are likely to opt to hold out until Leopard comes out in order to avoid upgrading to the latest version of the OS which is just a few months away.
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