The current Mac Pro desktops are getting a little long in the tooth. Also, any power hungry geeks already have had March ‘09 circled on their calendars, as Q1-9 has long been expected release for the Nehalem Core i7 Xeon release. Based on what’s available, that’s the brains most likely to go into the next revision of Mac Pro. MacRumors notes now a specific date has been given, March 29th, in typical PR fashion of waiting to the last days of the given window.
When these processors will be made available in volume is yet to be seen. Apple has previously been among first dibs on Intel gear, such as the dual 4-core Octo powerhouse a couple years ago. The safe money I’d think would bee to say anytime between March and the Snow Leopard release.
Initial feedback on these chips is an incremental increase in general computing, but big time gains for large data processing such as video rendering/compression. The phrase “ridiculously fast” has been attached to this release. Coupled with Snow Leopard multi-core refinements, audio/video professionals in particular should have something to get excited about.
