Apple Announces Penryn Mac Pros and Xserves

[crazzyyfool]

Apple today revised the Mac Pro and Xserve with a new architecture and the recently released Penryn Processors. The Mac Pro combines two 45-nm Quad-Core Xeon processors running up to 3.2GHz and up to 4TB of internal storage. The standard 8-core configuration starts at $2799.

"The new Mac Pro is the fastest Mac we've ever made," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "With 3.2 GHz 8-core Xeon processing, a 1600 MHz front side bus and 800 MHz memory, the new Mac Pro uses the fastest Intel Xeon architecture on the market."

The new Mac Pro features the latest Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors based on 45nm Intel Core (Penryn) microarchitecture running up to 3.2 GHz, each with 12MB of L2 cache per processor. According to Apple, the 1600 MHz front side bus and 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory achives a 61 percent increase in memory throughput.

The new Mac Pro comes standard with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256MB of video memory.

The standard 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:

- two 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors with dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses;

- 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM memory, expandable up to 32GB;

- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory;

- 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;

- 16x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);

- two PCI Express 2.0 slots and two PCI Express slots;

- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR; and

- ships with Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse.

Apple also revised the Xserve today with the same architecture. Xserve standard configuration, with a suggested retail price of $2,999 (US), includes:

- a single 64-bit 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Xeon processor with 12MB of L2 cache and a 1600 Mhz front side bus;

- 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM RAM, expandable up to 32GB;

- a single 80GB SATA Apple Drive Module;

- dual Gigabit Ethernet on-board;

- internal graphics;

- two FireWire® 800 and three USB 2.0 ports; and

- an unlimited client license for Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard.

Apple last major revision of both the Mac Pros and Xserves were over a year ago. The new Mac Pro and Xserve are shipping today from the Apple Store. These updates come one week ahead of Macworld San Francisco 2008, so more should be in store for the expo.

Source MR Discussion

:D

[saxondale.]

If i wasn't going to China in 10 days, i would be ordering this right now:

Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

4GB (4x1GB) (ram from crucial)

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB

500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

One 16x SuperDrive

AirPort Extreme Card (Wi-Fi)

2 x Apple 30" Cinema Displays (after they were updated)

[SnowRanger13]

Nice update, If I didn't get a 24" iMac this year I'd probably be ordering one today.

[crazzy88ss]

brb while I figure out what I'd do with THIRTY TWO GIGS OF RAM! HOLY CRAP.

[+StevoFC MVC]

If i wasn't going to China in 10 days, i would be ordering this right now:

Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

4GB (4x1GB) (ram from crucial)

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB

500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

One 16x SuperDrive

AirPort Extreme Card (Wi-Fi)

2 x Apple 30" Cinema Displays (after they were updated)

Why? I mean seriously...what would you even need that for?

[saxondale.]

Music, video and photography post production. it's my hobby and the career i want to get into when i'm older.

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

Beautiful! If I win the lottery, i'm off to buy a fully maxxed out Mac Pro! Though to be honest, I don't think I could bear a 30" cinema display let alone two. I find my 20" LG TFT a bit overbearing sometimes! :)

[+StevoFC MVC]

Music, video and photography post production. it's my hobby and the career i want to get into when i'm older.

Yeah I know your hobbies, but in reality no one needs that for their home. In a business environment when you are doing some hardcore video editing and all yeah, but for a hobby that's just total overkill...atleast for now.

[APH-Alex]

15, 000 RPM hard drives at 300GB!!!! OMGWTFBBQ!!! :| :o

[RadishTM Veteran]

Yeah I know your hobbies, but in reality no one needs that for their home. In a business environment when you are doing some hardcore video editing and all yeah, but for a hobby that's just total overkill...atleast for now.

I agree, far too much money to be spent on a hobby. When one has a professional career that requires it, that's when you think about it.

Radish?

[giga Veteran]

Just ordered, not a bad price. :)

[RadishTM Veteran]

^ :rofl:

Radish?

[APH-Alex]

That's more than the down payment of my house!

[User6060]

hahah only 27K, put me down for 2 :p

[giga Veteran]

hahah only 27K, put me down for 2 :p

Indeed, and it's always nice of them to throw in free shipping. (Y)

[+StevoFC MVC]

Indeed, and it's always nice of them to throw in free shipping. (Y)

I would have figured at $25k they'd throw in a free upgrade to the wireless keyboard and mouse.

[Simon Veteran]

I would have figured at $25k they'd throw in a free upgrade to the wireless keyboard and mouse.

But at 27K, how much more do they think they can squeeze out of you? The answer's a lot. :p

[Wannes]

I'm now officially calling Apple selffish, you don't even get a free sticker!

[MasterC]

I'm now officially calling Apple selffish, you don't even get a free sticker!

There's no sticker? You spend that much and there's no sticker? Let's sue :p

[Windam]

I'm gonna wait till leopard gets fixed.

[neufuse Veteran]

Music, video and photography post production. it's my hobby and the career i want to get into when i'm older.

if you are in post production what you need is a dedicated encoder card not 8 cores.... 1 dedicated encoder card will offload all that work into chips that can do it in highly optimized fashions... thats how they've been doing it for decades now... thats how they use to edit movies on pentium 60Mhz computers... have a dedicated MPEG encoder card and high speed RAID arrays and you are set... and no it wasn't slow... with dedicated cards you didnt use the processor to edit the pictures and video

[TruckWEB]

if you are in post production what you need is a dedicated encoder card not 8 cores.... 1 dedicated encoder card will offload all that work into chips that can do it in highly optimized fashions... thats how they've been doing it for decades now... thats how they use to edit movies on pentium 60Mhz computers... have a dedicated MPEG encoder card and high speed RAID arrays and you are set... and no it wasn't slow... with dedicated cards you didnt use the processor to edit the pictures and video

You see less and less of those dedicated encoder card. With CPU going multi-core and GPU getting as complex as CPU, most software can do without any dedicated add-on card.

And another thing, those card where not cheap. So, I'm not sure what would be better, pay for 8 core or pay for a dedicated MPG2/VC1/H.264 card.

[neufuse Veteran]

You see less and less of those dedicated encoder card. With CPU going multi-core and GPU getting as complex as CPU, most software can do without any dedicated add-on card.

And another thing, those card where not cheap. So, I'm not sure what would be better, pay for 8 core or pay for a dedicated MPG2/VC1/H.264 card.

If I was doing real video production, more then likely I would be using an encoder card... and I mean real produciton aka for a TV network or hollywood... home users yeah right... might buy a cheap one... but hollywood generally uses ones that cost $10k+

[saxondale.]

but i need an 8 core to make safari faster1!!

[Wannes]

but i need an 8 core to make safari faster1!!

Spoiled brad. :p