Apple on Monday unveiled the G5 Power Mac successor, the Intel-powered Mac Pro, during CEO Steve Jobsi keynote to kick off this weekis 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 Prois 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, NVIDIAis 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 Appleis Web site.