12-core Mac Pro Hits the Apple Store

Apple began taking orders for its freshly updated Mac Pro lineup Monday morning. The new models are available in quad-core, 8-core and 12-core Intel Xeon processor configurations.

Apple announced updated Mac Pro models at the end of July with the promise of August availability. When the new models were announced, however, the system options were slightly different from what’s actually available on the company Web site.

The 2.66GHz 12-core model was originally listed as a build-to-order option, but now shows as the top of the line standard configuration. The 2.93GHz 12-core model is still available as a build-to-order option.

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.

The 2.8GHz quad-core model ships with 3GB RAM for US$2,499, and the 2.4GHz 8-core and 2.66GHz 12-core models include 6GB RAM for $3,499 and $4,999 respectively.

Shipping times are listed as seven to 10 days.