Apple rumors - page 51

It was as recently as December that Apple quietly bumped the specs of their Mac Pro line to use 3.33Ghz quad-core Xeon CPUs, but if ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes and his sources are to be believed, we could see the next Mac Pro as soon as next Tuesday, March 16th.

According to Kingsley-Hughes, the next Mac Pro will pack the Intel Core i7-980x CPU… which jives with a rumor we heard late last year, which also hinted a March release.

The Intel Core i7-980X is a 32nm chip, maxing out at 3.33GHz but packing six cores and twelve threads per chip… which could ultimately result in a dual-core Mac Pro boasting twelve physical and twenty four logical cores. Each Core i7-980X CPU also has 128MB of Intel Smart Cache, hyperthreading support, an integrated memory controller and supports DDR1066MHz memor. In other words, Mac Pros built on the Core i7-980x processor will see a huge performance boost over the current model.

Unfortunately, Kingsley-Hughes doesn’t have anything to report on the other high-end, pro-level Mac waiting for an Intel Core iX upgrade: the MacBook Pro. I think we can all take it as read that it’s coming, though: we’ll just have to bide our time patiently in the meanwhile.

Last month, we reported the rumor that in the titanium ensconced bunkers of their development labs, Apple was busy testing a new, sextuple core Mac Pro, to be introduced in the first quarter of 2010.

Proven true or not, the rumor certainly wasn’t a bad guess. The release of Apple’s new iMacs, which come in Intel Core i7 configurations, has made the beefiest of Apple’s desktops look like a poor deal for the price, capably beating the benchmarks of Apple’s existing, Xeon-toting Mac Pro for a comparable price. Apple needs to refresh their Mac Pros soon if they want to avoid their iMac line cannibalizing Mac Pro sales.

It’s not so surprising, then, to see this rumor dusted off. According to Polish website PCLab, the next Mac Pro will sport dual Intel Xeon Core i9 CPUs, offering 12 physical and 24 logical cores. Their test results of the CPU show it to run about 50% faster than the Mac Pro’s existing quad-core Xeon processor. The Core i9 features 32nm engraving, so it sips power more daintily than the previous chip, which is also in line with Apple’s increased interest in rubbing the animal blood out of their furs and providing more environmentally-conscious machines.

Of course, it takes a lot more than a Polish website to make a rumor a fact, but it’s hard to imagine what other course Apple would take with the Mac Pro line besides the Intel Core i9. And while it means absolutely nothing, Intel quickly asked PCMag to remove the information from their website. Verification by cover-up or warrantless supposition? You decide!

[via Hardmac]