Although it hasn’t seen an update since last year, the Mac Pro isn’t dead… it’s just been getting a little beauty rest before it debuts next month post-Lion, boosting a new 16 core configuration capable of searing the melted physiognomy to even the most cynical benchtester’s skull.
9to5Mac has the skinny that internal Apple documents tip the new Mac Pro to hit in late July or early August, post-Lion, and ship with up to sixteen cores… probably a dual 8-core configuration.
The big question mark: what will the chips inside be? Intel does have 8-core Sandy Bridge processors of the Mac Pro’s server class in the pipeline, but they won’t be available until the fourth quarter of the year.
Apple could possibly get early access to these processors, but there’s another possibility: the Mac Pro won’t use Sandy Bridge processors at all, but (according to this rumor, a whole new, unique CPU, custom-made for Apple by Intel.
Given how far off the octo-core Sandy Bridge server processors and how close we are to the Mac Pro relaunch, I’d say that unique CPU rumor just got a bit more believable, wouldn’t you?
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
