During Apple’s Annual WWDC Keynote given by Steve Jobs and a host of other Apple top executives and product managers, Phil Schiller introduced the PowerMac’s Intel replacement: the Mac Pro. According to Apple VP Phil Shiller, the new Mac Pro is anywhere from 1.6 to 2.0x faster than the latest PowerMac G5 “Quad”. Advertised as having “millions” of ways to configure the machine, the base configuration includes the following:
Dual-Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon 5100 Processor, upgradeable to 2x Dual 3 GHz, 1 GB FB-DIMM RAM (2×512 MB), expandable to 16 GB, 250 GB Hard Drive, 3 empty slots (3 Gbps SATA), NVidia GeForce 7300 GT (256 MB VRAM), configurable to ATI Radeon X1900 XT or Quadro FX 4500 (512 MB VRAM), SuperDrive (2 5.25″ slots total, 1 remaining) and 4 PCI-Express Slots (One extra-wide, taken by GPU).
Apple also updated its Xserve server line to include Intel processors and other advanced features such as lights-out management and redundant power supplies that business customers require. The base configuration now stands as follows:
Dual-Dual 2 GHz Xeon 5100 Processors, upgradeable to 2x Dual 3 GHz, 1 GB DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM RAM, configurable up to 32 GB, 24x Combo Drive, configurable 8x double-layer SuperDrive, 2 x 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet, Built-in ATI Radeon X1300 with 64MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and mini-DVI to VGA adaptor.
They are both available immediately on-line via the Apple Store.
