14 DAY TRIAL // As the moment when Apple unveils the pro line of next generation Macs, more and more details and speculations are pouring in. In a recent reported AppleInsider discusses the new Apple offerings.
It would seem that Apple has selected dual-core Xeon server processors as the brain to power the professional Mac Pro desktop box. These 64-bit processors were officially unveiled by Intel last month as the Xeon 5100 series, and pack a 4MB L2 cache and run at speeds of up to 3.0GHz on a 1333MHz front-side bus.
These chips are almost identical to the Core 2 Duo Extreme chips, from an architectural point of view, however the big difference is that they utilize the company's new Land Grid Array (LGA) 771 socket and also allow for multiple processor configurations. Apple is said to be taking advantage of this to offer professional desktops that will sport two of the dual core chips.
Apple's decision to use the Woodcrest processor in the Mac Pro is also a good way for Apple to further diversify its four primary Mac product lines as the holiday shopping season rolls around, offering the potential for each line to differentiate itself from the others via a unique Intel chip variant.
The new Mac Pros are expected to be showcased at the annual Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), alongside the company's next-generation operating system, Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard".