Apple Unleashes 12-Core Mac Pro

Apple unveiled updated versions of its Mac Pro lineup. The new models include quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors along with improved ATI video cards, and will be available in August.

The new Mac Pro includes two Mini DisplayPorts and a dual-link DVI port, an ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card with 1GB RAM, a 1TB hard drive, 18x double-layer SuperDrive, five USB 2.0 ports, four FireWire 800 ports, four PCI Express 2.0 slots, 802.11n AirPort Extreme wireless networking, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, Apple’s Keyboard with numerical keypad, and a Magic Mouse.

Apple’s 12-core Mac Pro

The 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeon W3530 model ships with 3GB RAM, and the 2.4GHz 8-core Intel Xeon E5620 model includes 6GB RAM.

Build-to-order options include a 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Xeon W3565 or 3.33GHz W3680 processor, two 2.66GHz 6-core Xeon X5650 or 2.93GHz Xeon X5670 processors for 12 processor cores. Other BTO options include two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards with 1GB of RAM, an ATI Radeon HD 5870 video card with 1GB RAM, up to 16GB RAM in the quad-core model and 32GB RAM in the 8-core model, a Mac Pro RAID card, dual and quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel cards, up to four 512GB solid state drives, up to four 1TB or 2TB hard drives, and a second 18x SuperDrive.

The quad-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro is priced at US$2,499, and the 8-core 2.4GHz model costs $3,499.