Apple Tuesday unveiled two new Mac Pro models using Intel’s Nahalem Xeon processors. The high-end computers also sported a $300 price cut.
“The new Mac Pro is a significant upgrade and starts at $300 less than before,” Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said in a statement.
Using Intel’s Xeon processor with built-in memory controller and DDR3 ECC memory boosts memory elbow-room “about 2.4 percent” while also cutting memory slowdowns by 40 percent, according to reports.
The entry-level $2,499 Mac Pro includes a 2.66Ghz quad-core Xeon 3500 chip with 3GB of Ram and a 640GB hard disk.
The $3,299 Mac Pro gains a boost by offering two quad-core Xeon 5500 chips and 6GB of Ram.
Buyers have the option of dual 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz Xeon 550 processors, up to 32GB of Ram, 1TB of hard disk storage and a wider array of graphics choices.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
