CUPERTINO, CA - At
the recent WWDC 2006 show in San Francisco Apple (www.apple.com) unveiled the
new Mac Pro workstation, a quad Xeon, 64-bit desktop featuring two new
Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz, and a new system
architecture that delivers up to twice the performance of the Power Mac G5 Quad.
The introduction of the Mac Pro marks the completion of a transition for Apple
of its entire family of products to Intel processors.
The Mac Pro features the new Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100
series processor based on the Intel Core microarchitecture, delivering
breakthrough performance and power efficiency. The system is up to twice as
fast as the Power Mac G5 Quad and features two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
running up to 3.0 GHz, each with 4MB of shared L2 cache and independent 1.33
GHz front-side buses. With 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered memory, the Mac Pro also
boasts a 256-bit wide memory architecture for high bandwidth.
The newly redesigned Mac Pro features an all new, direct
attach storage solution for cable free, snap in installation of up to four 500GB
Serial ATA hard drives, and support for two optical drives to simultaneously
read and/or write to CDs and DVDs. Every Mac Pro includes three full-length PCI
Express expansion slots and one double-wide PCI Express graphics slot to
support high-powered, double-wide graphics cards without sacrificing multiple
slots.
The front panel of the Mac Pro includes a FireWire 800 port,
a FireWire 400 port and two USB 2.0 ports with additional FireWire 800,
FireWire 400 and three USB 2.0 ports on the back panel. Mac Pro also includes
dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, optical digital input and output, analog audio
input and output, and optional built-in support for AirPort Extreme and
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR.
Every Mac Pro comes standard with the Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT
with 256MB of video memory, providing built-in support for dual-displays and
Apple's 30-inch Cinema HD Display. The ATI Radeon X1900 XT and the Nvidia
Quadro FX 4500, both with 512MB of video memory, are available as options and
provide built-in support for up to two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays. The
Mac Pro supports up to four PCI Express graphics cards to drive up to eight
displays at once for advanced visualization and large display walls.
The latest release of Mac OS X - Version 10.4.7 Tiger -
comes with every new Mac Pro, including Safari, Mail, iCal and iChat AV,
running natively. Tiger includes a software translation technology called
Rosetta that lets customers run most Mac OS X PowerPC applications seamlessly.
Intel-based Mac customers have more than 3,000 Universal applications to choose
from, including all of Apple's own consumer and professional applications.
Mac Pro is now shipping in the standard pre-built
configuration that includes two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors. It's priced
at $2,499.