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Apple Intros the Mac Pro [UPDATED]

TMO at WWDC - Apple Intros the Mac Pro [UPDATED]

by , 1:15 PM EDT, August 7th, 2006

Apple on Monday unveiled the G5 Power Mac successor, the Intel-powered Mac Pro, during CEO Steve Jobs' keynote to kick off this week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Running on the Intel Xeon dual core processor, codenamed "Woodcrest" while in development, the new 64-bit computer offers up to 3GHz speed, 4MB shared L2 cache, and a 1.33GHz front-side bus for each processor.

While there was rampant speculation that Apple would redesign the Mac Pro's case, it is similar to the G5 Power Mac in appearance. The interior, however, was revamped to allow users to plug in up to four hard drives, as well as easily access the RAM slots.

The standard US$2,499 Mac Pro offers two 2.66GHz Dual Core Intel Xeon processors (making the computer a quad-core machine), 1GB of 667MHz DDR2 ECC RAM, a 250GB 7200RPM Serial ATA hard drive, a 16X Dual Layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA's GeForce 7300 GT video card with 256MB of Video RAM, and four PCI Express slots: one a double-wide graphics slot and the other three full-length slots.

It also features a pair of USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port on the front, with three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port on the back. In addition, the Mac Pro has dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, optical digital input and output, and analog audio input and output. It supports AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, which are built-to-order (BTO) options.

Other BTO options on the Mac Pro include 2.0GHz or 3.0GHz Dual Core Xeon processors, 16GB RAM, up to four 500GB hard drives, an extra SuperDrive, and an ATI Radeon X1900 XT or NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 video card, either one with 512MB of Video RAM. The BTO video cards can drive a pair of 30-inch Apple Cinema HD displays, while the stock GeForce 7300 GT video card can accommodate one 30-inch display or a pair of smaller displays. The Quadro FX 4500 also has a stereo 3D port.

The new Mac Pro is shipping today.

2:51 PM EST, Aug. 7, 2006: Updated article with more information from Apple's Web site.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Bookman Posts: 543 Joined: 22 Apr 2002
Mon Aug 07, 2006 2:58 pm Subject:

Gaaahhhhh!

Gimme gimme gimme.


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Close Name:dstarnik Posts: 1 Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:19 pm Subject:

I'm confused. Are iMacs shipping with the new (Conroe) Core Duo chips, or the older chip?


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Close Name:Dreadnought Posts: 162 Joined: 01 Jan 2005
Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:27 pm Subject: Mmmmmm - more cheese grater goodness

Yum yum.

BTW - did the price of the 30" CD just drop by $500 (it is now $1999)?


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Close Name:davebarnes Posts: 130 Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:57 pm Subject: Disappointed

I am disappointed because I wanted to see a Mac Pro starting ar $1500, not $2150.
Some of us don't need 4 CPUs and up to 16GB of memory.
Sone of us just need a Mac that drives a 23-inch or 30-inch monitor.
Some of us only need the horsepower of an iMac, but we want a bigger screen.

,dave


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Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:05 pm Subject:

Quote
davebarnes wrote:

Some of us only need the horsepower of an iMac, but we want a bigger screen.


Wouldn't getting a 20" iMac with a 20" second screen be quite a lot of screen space?

Heck, you could even add a 23" monitor to the iMac, make THAT your main screen, and use the built-in 20" monitor as the secondary monitor. I'm not too fond of having dual-monitors that are different sizes from each other, but it's an option.


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Close Name:cwbullet Posts: 166 Joined: 29 Jul 2001
Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:35 pm Subject: Displays

The pro mac with the Nvidia Gforce 7300 GT: Can it take 2- 23 inch displays - it has a single and dual DVI - Can you plug a 23 inch into a dual dvi port?


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Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Mon Aug 07, 2006 5:44 pm Subject:

Quote
cwbullet wrote:
The pro mac with the Nvidia Gforce 7300 GT: Can it take 2- 23 inch displays - it has a single and dual DVI - Can you plug a 23 inch into a dual dvi port?


I am 99.9999% certain that, yes, you can do that.

Since it's your money, though, I'd suggest asking someone at Apple before you buy anything.


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Close Name:JimWCB Posts: 301 Joined: 29 Aug 2002
Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:03 pm Subject:

Quote
davebarnes wrote:
I am disappointed because I wanted to see a Mac Pro starting ar $1500, not $2150.
Some of us don't need 4 CPUs and up to 16GB of memory.
Sone of us just need a Mac that drives a 23-inch or 30-inch monitor.
Some of us only need the horsepower of an iMac, but we want a bigger screen.

,dave


Looks like the cheapest you cna get it custom configured is $2,124.00 (Dropping the processor speed to 2.0 Ghz and the HD to 160GB).

But you can get the mini with whatever size screen you want. I don't think there's that much difference between the mini and iMac (performace wise) now that they both have similar processors).


Anyway, 14 months since I got my 2.3GHz dual PowerMac G5... was expecting the PowerMac switch to Intel to be early 2007, so I'm wondering if I should have waited, but I don't think I could have stood using my old G4 for 14 months, so I guess I'm okay.

But it'll be another year at least before I can get a Mac Pro to replace my G5. Maybe longer if I go with a Macbook first.


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Close Name:macinnerd Posts: 1748 Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:36 pm Subject:

Bah... I've been using a 542 MHz Beige G4 for the past 4 years.

But... I think that it may be time to upgrade. And as the G5s have just been discontinued, it's easy to see how their prices would plummet in upcoming months.


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Close Name:JimWCB Posts: 301 Joined: 29 Aug 2002
Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:53 pm Subject:

Quote
macinnerd wrote:
Bah... I've been using a 542 MHz Beige G4 for the past 4 years.

But... I think that it may be time to upgrade. And as the G5s have just been discontinued, it's easy to see how their prices would plummet in upcoming months.

Want to make me an offer on my now "rare" G5?
It's exotic, unusual, runs on an uncommon processor! Bid high!!


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Close Name:gwynarion Posts: 8 Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Tue Aug 08, 2006 11:25 am Subject:

Quote
JimWCB wrote:
But you can get the mini with whatever size screen you want. I don't think there's that much difference between the mini and iMac (performace wise) now that they both have similar processors).

Actually there's quite a lot of performance difference between the Mac mini and the iMac. Additionally, the Mac mini cannot run the 30" CD, which the poster mentioned wanting to do.


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