Apple Updates Mac Pro line, now goes to 12 cores


Apple finally gave its Mac Pros a big shot in the arm with some significant upgrades, offering up to 50-percent increase in performance.

The new fastest Mac Pro features dual six-core Xeon X5670 CPUs at 2.93 GHz. Apple will sell the configuration as a build-to-order upgrade on its 8-core Macs. For the entire line, the announced CPU configurations for the new Mac Pro include a 2.8 GHz Xeon W3530 4-core, 2.4 GHz Xeon E5620 8-core, 3.2 GHz 4-core Xeon W3565, 3.33 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon W3680, 2.66 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5650, and 2.93 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670.

Video processor options include ATI Radeon HD 5770 and ATI Radeon HD 5870. Also worth noting the Mac Pros ship with the new Magic Trackpad.

"The new Mac Pro is the most powerful and configurable Mac we've ever made," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "With up to 12 cores, the new Mac Pro outperforms our previous top-of-the-line system by up to 50 percent, and with over a billion possible configurations, our customers can create exactly the system they want."

The new Mac Pro configuration are expected to be available in August. Pricing starts out at $2499 for the quad-core and $3499 for the octo-core base models. No pricing was provided for the built-to-order upgrades, including the 12-core options.