It’s not just new iMacs that Apple have outed this morning; the company has also announced updates to its Mac Pro range with the much-anticipated quad- and hexacore Intel Xeon processors.  While the basic configurations include quad-core CPUs as standard, up to two 2.93GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 processors can be specified, along with up to four 512GB SSDs, an ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of memory, and up to 32GB of DDR3 memory.  Meanwhile there are now two Mini DisplayPort ports as standard.

The new quad-core Mac Pro range kicks off with a $2,499 machine, which includes:

– one 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3530 processor with 8MB of
fully-shared L3 cache;
– 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
– two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold
separately);
– 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– 18x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
– five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire® 800 ports;
– AirPort Extreme® 802.11n;
– Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
– Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

Meanwhile the new 8-core Mac Pro starts at $3,499 and includes:

– two 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 processors with 12MB of
fully-shared L3 cache per processor;
– 6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
– two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold
separately);
– 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
– five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n;
– Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
– Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

The new Mac Pro machines will be available in August, with options including the new Magic Trackpad, twin DVD burners and internal RAID.  Hexacore machines will kick off at $4,999.

Press Release:

Apple Unveils New Mac Pro With Up to 12 Processing Cores

CUPERTINO, Calif., July 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today unveiled a new Mac® Pro line with up to 12 processing cores and up to 50 percent greater performance than the previous generation.* Featuring the latest quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors, all-new ATI graphics and the option for up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD), the new Mac Pro continues to deliver amazing performance and expandability for the most demanding consumers and professionals.

“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.”

At the heart of the new Mac Pro’s performance are next generation quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors running at speeds up to 3.33 GHz. These multi-core processors use a single die design so each core can share up to 12MB L3 cache to improve efficiency while increasing processing speed. These systems feature an integrated memory controller for faster memory bandwidth and reduced memory latency; Turbo Boost to dynamically boost processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz; and Hyper-Threading to create up to 24 virtual cores. The Mac Pro now comes with the ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics processor with 1GB of memory and customers can configure-to-order the even faster ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of memory.

For the first time, Mac Pro customers have the option to order a 512GB SSD for the ultimate in reliability and lightning fast performance. With the ability to install up to four SSD drives in the system’s internal drive bays, the new Mac Pro can provide ultra high-speed disk bandwidth and random disk performance, two times faster than the average performance of a standard disk drive.** Mac Pro also now features two Mini DisplayPorts and one dual-link DVI port. The additional Mini DisplayPort output allows customers to connect two LED Cinema Displays without an additional graphics card or adapter and the dual-link DVI port supports legacy DVI-based displays up to a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels.

Every Mac Pro comes with Apple’s innovative Magic Mouse and customers can also order Apple’s new Magic Trackpad as an option. The Magic Trackpad brings the intuitive Multi-Touch(TM) gestures of Mac notebook trackpads to the desktop. With its glass surface, the wireless Magic Trackpad allows users to scroll smoothly up and down a page with inertial scrolling, pinch to zoom in and out, rotate an image with their fingertips and swipe three fingers to flip through a collection of web pages or photos. The Magic Trackpad can be configured to support single button or two button commands and supports tap-to-click as well as a physical click. Magic Trackpad is available separately for $69.

Continuing Apple’s commitment to the environment, Apple’s desktop lineup is a leader in green design. The Mac Pro meets stringent Energy Star 5.0 requirements and achieves EPEAT Gold status.*** The Mac Pro enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and the interior is designed to be more material-efficient. The Mac Pro uses PVC-free internal cables and components and contains no brominated flame retardants. The new Apple Battery Charger provides a convenient and environmentally friendly way to always have a fresh set of batteries for your Magic Trackpad, Magic Mouse and Wireless Keyboard. The Apple Battery Charger is available as an option for $29 and comes with six long shelf life rechargeable batteries.

Every Mac also comes with Mac OS® X Snow Leopard®, the world’s most advanced operating system, and iLife®, Apple’s innovative suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. iLife features iPhoto®, with breakthrough ways to organize and manage your photos by who appears in them and where they were taken; iMovie® with powerful easy-to-use features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand® which offers a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar.

Optional Apple professional applications include Aperture®, Final Cut® Express, Final Cut Studio®, Logic® Express and Logic Studio®.

Pricing & Availability

The new Mac Pro will be available in August through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

The new quad-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

– one 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3530 processor with 8MB of
fully-shared L3 cache;
– 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 16GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
– two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold
separately);
– 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– 18x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
– five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire® 800 ports;
– AirPort Extreme® 802.11n;
– Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
– Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

The new 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $3,499 (US), includes:

– two 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 processors with 12MB of
fully-shared L3 cache per processor;
– 6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
– ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
– two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold
separately);
– 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
– 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
– four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
– five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n;
– Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
– Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

Configure-to-order options include:
– one 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3565 processor for the quad-core Mac
Pro;
– one 3.33 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon W3680 processor for the quad-core Mac
Pro;
– two 2.66 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5650 processors (12-cores) for the
8-core Mac Pro;
– two 2.93 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 processors (12-cores) for the
8-core Mac Pro;
– two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
– one ATI Radeon HD 5870 card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
– up to 16GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the quad-core Mac Pro;
– up to 32GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the 8-core Mac Pro;
– up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD); or
– up to four 1TB or 2TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm;
– Mac Pro RAID card;
– dual-channel or quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel card; and
– up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support.

Accessories include: Magic Trackpad, Apple Battery Charger, wired Apple Mouse, wireless Apple Keyboard, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, the AppleCare® Protection Plan; and pre-installed copies of Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server; iWork®, Logic Express 9, Final Cut Express 4 and Aperture 3. Complete options and accessories are available at www.apple.com/macpro.

*Testing conducted by Apple in July 2010 using preproduction Mac Pro 12-core 2.93 GHz units and shipping Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz units, all configured with 6GB of RAM. Based on render performance of Maxwell Render 2.0.3 using Benchwell’s sculpture.mxs. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac Pro.

**Testing conducted by Apple in July 2010 using preproduction Mac Pro 12-core 2.93 GHz units configured with 6GB of RAM, 1TB 7200-rpm hard disk drive and 512GB solid-state drive. Testing conducted using Iometer 2006.07.27 with a 30-second ramp-up, 5-minute run duration, 128KB request size, 8 outstanding IOs, and 150GB test file. Average rotational media performance calculated by creating the test file on the outer, middle and inner sectors of the drive and averaging the results from all three measurements. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac Pro.

***EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net.

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We’ve been keeping an eye on the Apple Store all morning, and sure enough it’s been taken offline for “updating”.  There’s been no shortage of rumors and leaks regarding what we can expect to see lining the shelves later on today, but most likely are updates for the Mac Pro and iMac.

Both are expected to get a new range of processor options, with a high-end hexacore Intel Core i7 for the Mac Pro and a new, entry-level Core i3 option for the iMac.  Obviously the middle-ground will be populated with various Core i5 and i7 chips too.  There’s also talk of USB 3.0 and some form of faster FireWire, though still no Blu-ray.

Slightly less likely, perhaps, is the talk of a touchscreen iMac which could dual-boot into iOS; that’s been tipped as the ideal way for iPhone and iPad developers to code and test new software, but we’d expect something as significant as that to get a full press event rather than be slipped into the store.  Finally, there’s the Apple Magic Trackpad, which has also been tipped for an imminent release.

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All eyes may be on the iPhone 4 right now (or, more accurately, on its chubby little signal strength meter and whereabouts your fingers are in relation to the antenna) but that doesn’t mean we’ll bypass a good Mac Pro rumor.  According to one of Hard Mac‘s “better sources”, Apple is preparing for a Mac Pro refresh at the end of the summer, to hopefully tap into the “back to school” period.  Meanwhile they’ll be swiftly followed by an iMac refresh.

In fact, the iMac changes are expected to take place between a few weeks and a month later, in the early fall.  As for what will be different, the source claims Apple will introduce USB 3.0 to the two desktop computer lines, together with either FireWire 1600 or FireWire 3200.

There’ll be no Blu-ray, thanks to the Cupertino company’s ongoing dislike of the optical drive technology, and no LightPeak; Apple are said to be considering the latter, but its implementation won’t be for another twelve months or so.  We’re still waiting for the rumored hexacore Core i7 Mac Pro update, so it seems likely that would coincide with the USB 3.0/faster FireWire models too.

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I thought there would be far more rumors leading up to Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference. After all, the big story had already been blown, which left a lot of room open for speculation. Besides, a number of significant Apple products are due for an update, right?

Macrumors runs an Apple buyer’s guide where they track the lifecycle of Apple’s key products. A few of Apple’s products haven’t been updated in a long time, longer than their usual average. But some are approaching record period of stagnation.

M.I.A.: The Mac Pro, Apple’s headless desktop machine, hasn’t been updated in 462 days. That’s a half year longer than its average, and the longest period the Pro machine has gone without an update since, well, the last update. From 2002 on, the machine was updated every six months or so; now it’s been well over a year, with only 2 updates in the last 3 years.

Of course this is a sign of the changing marketplace. Desktops are less popular than laptops. Professional desktops are much less popular than less expensive consumer machines, especially a machine like the iconic iMac. Besides, Apple has quite a few other meals on its plate. But if the Mac Pro was going to updated anywhere, it should be at the WWDC, the best spot to reach developers, right?

That’s not how Apple does things these days. It was sad to see Apple pull out of the venerable Macworld conferences, effectively killing the interest of most journalists in IDG’s trade show. Apple doesn’t even need a trade show keynote, as the company hosts numerous events in San Francisco every year to announce new products. The journalists and analysts will show up. Even if the most exciting product is a refreshed iPod nano with a video camera, we’ll show up, without even knowing what we’re about to see.

Unless there’s a major redesign for the Mac Pro case, Apple will launch the next model with a press release. With a professional unit like this, the most exciting stuff is happening on the inside. USB 3.0, new system bus architectures, better graphics, improved power management and cooling, none of these things are especially photogenic, so Apple can launch them with an e-mail and a new page on its home Web site.

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the Mac Pro or the headless desktop, but I do think we’ve seen the end of the Mac Pro making a keynote appearance.

M.I.A.: The MacBook Air was last updated a year ago. The Air is a strange bird. Full disclosure: I bought a first generation Air when it was released. I needed to replace a dead laptop. A netbook wasn’t powerful enough for the light Photoshop and video editing tasks I perform, but I was also going to be traveling more. The Air was a great fit. After about seven months, I realized it wasn’t powerful enough for me to be productive, but I still use it often.

The Air has a nebulous market. It’s much too expensive to be an extravagant impulse buy, like many netbooks. It’s more powerful than an iPad by far, but it’s also the least powerful computer running Apple’s Mac OS X. Even the Mac Mini is faster. With the economy in the tank, it would be a tough time to introduce an entirely new redesign for the Air. It wouldn’t generate the momentum needed for the Air to take off. Apple likes to release a product and then, a few months or even weeks later, brag about sales results. That wouldn’t happen with a new MacBook Air.

The MacBook Air will eventually get a processor boost. I’d like to think it will get an Intel Core i3 chip, but I’d bet Apple will stick with the lower power Core 2 Duo’s for a while and milk the battery life stats for all their worth. It won’t be worth a keynote appearance except as a sideshow. Again, Apple could launch this product with a press release and be done with it.

M.I.A.: The Apple TV hasn’t been updated in . . . wait, has it ever been updated? There was a minor interface update. There was a slight storage boost. Other than that, nothing. The Apple TV is the worst Apple product I’ve ever owned, and I’m embarrassed that I bought one. It’s buggy and unreliable, it clogs my network, and I’ve never settled in for a nice Saturday night watching a movie on the Apple TV that didn’t end with cursing and multiple restarts.

Steve Jobs hates television. The Apple TV has always been, as Jobs said, a hobby, and I wonder who whined and cried until Jobs agreed to release this little white gremlin. Steve Jobs wants to create products that are active and engaging, not passive and sedentary. The iPod is for jogging and traveling. That’s why it has Nike software built in. The iMac is about creativity, that’s why it comes with photo, video and music making software, and nothing to help watch television.

Every good Windows machine ships with a solid TV tool on board in Windows Media Center. You can watch and record TV on your Windows machine, if you can figure out how to attach your coaxial cable. On the Mac, there are a few third party options, and the Apple TV even has an HDMI output, but Apple’s TV strategy has been a confused mess.

That’s why so many people fell for the recent Apple TV rumor, that it would become an iPhone-sized device running iPhone OS (now iOS4). Preposterous. First of all, there’s the storage size limits. There’s the problem of cannibalizing iPod touch sales, which are significant, even among Apple’s iPod / iPhone families.

Mostly, though, Steve Jobs hates TV, and the last thing he wants is to sell you a device that lets you watch more TV, then take it to your friends house so they can share in the TV watching experience. Steve Jobs doesn’t want your butt on a couch unless your hands are also moving. He certainly doesn’t want you to proselytize sedentary TV viewing with a device that makes it more portable. Not to mention the sheer inelegance of having to find the inputs on every TV you want to connect to such a device.

The Apple TV never made much sense for Apple, anyway. Apple likes to enter an established product category and make a device that has fewer features, but performs them in the most elegant way possible. There were already a few good TV boxes on the market, but it wasn’t established, and by the time Apple TV hit the scene, the DVR market was already being strangled by cable providers roping customers in with cheap, built-in software.

When the FCC resolves these silly CableCard issues and it’s just as easy for customers to buy a third party product as it is to use their existing cable box, Apple might do more with the Apple TV. Until then, I expect some minor interface polish, maybe a storage bump, ad nauseum.

M.I.A.: That weird Magic Trackpad accessory. Of all the strange rumors I’ve heard leading up to an Apple event, this one caught me the most off guard. It’s a completely new product for Apple, and very few manufacturers promote trackpad accessories. After all, a desktop comes with a mouse, and a laptop comes with a trackpad. But of all the rumors I heard, this one made the most sense and would have had the greatest effect.

Apple has a serious fragmentation problem that is holding back the potential of its laptop line. Multitouch is a great technology, but only laptops support it. Adobe went through multiple generations of Photoshop before it supported multi-touch, which is just ridiculous because multitouch gestures make the most sense on the programs in Adobe’s Creative Suite. Multitouch would be great in any number of apps, from productivity software like Excel to games to graphics software and so on.

Imagine if Apple provided a trackpad with every iMac? Not instead of a mouse, but separate from it. Perhaps it would confuse some users, but developers might take notice and start developing better multitouch gesture support into their apps. Thus, the best place to launch such a peripheral, and to give one away to every person in the audience, would have been the World Wide Developer’s Conference.

Sure, Apple’s desktop share is tiny compared to much larger, enterprise-oriented rivals, but its developers are a vocal and influential group. Multitouch support will be everywhere eventually. Apple just missed an opportunity to give the tech a push.

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Ahh, WWDC 2010.  A serious sit-down with developers and Apple working together to polish up the app landscape for the twelve months to come, or a chance to wear Steve Jobs masks and run around making crass Microsoft jokes?  If you haven’t already got your ticket you’ll never know, as this years conference is sold out.

That’s pretty fast work, considering tickets only went on sale on April 28th, and were a not inconsiderable $1,599 for the full five days.  As well as the new contents of iPhone OS 4.0 to pick over, there will be iAd developer workshops and a hefty dose of HTML5.

Of course, for the rest of us what we’re really excited about is the possibility of a few headline hardware announcements on the day one keynote.  The iPhone HD seems likely to make its first official appearance, Apple’s fourth-gen smartphone, while more recently we’ve heard mutterings of new, Core i7 hexacore Mac Pro desktops making their debut too.  SlashGear will be at WWDC 2010 bringing you all the keynote details in our usual liveblog, so join us on June 7th 2010!

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Rumors of Apple’s Mac Pro Intel hexacore refresh taking place in mid-March saw the leaked date come and go, leaving us – and, more importantly, the video and media pros waiting to upgrade their Apple desktops to the latest processors – still none the wiser as to when the flagship desktop line might be updated.  Now, according to information apparently from Intel’s distribution network, it seems possible that Apple could announce the new Mac Pro models at WWDC 2010.

That’s because Intel have apparently warned their partners that the six-core Xeon processor – aka the Core i7-980X – will only be available in limited quantities until the end of the quarter.  If the chip delay really is what’s holding up the refreshed Mac Pros, that would put WWDC 2010 – taking place in early June – at the ideal point for the new desktops to debut.

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Pros using Mac products will have a couple new choices starting in June reports AppleInsider. According to sources cited by the publication, Apple is working on its second LED backlit Cinema display and new updates for the Mac Pro desktop.

The new Cinema display is a 27-inch LED backlit unit that is basically a larger version of the 24-inch display the firm already offers. Sources familiar with the new screen says it has been in the Apple labs for a while and is often called the K59. Resolution is said to be 2560 x 1440, very close to the typical 30-inch resolution of 2560 x 1600.

Apple is also reportedly set to launch a 6-core update for the Mac Pro by way of adding the new Intel Xeon 5600 series CPUs to the mix. The updated Mac Pro is also pegged for a June launch and will offer 6-core chips in 2.66, 2.8, 2.93, and 3.33GHz flavors.

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It should come as little surprise, what with the well-publicized iPad preorder sale starting today, but the Apple Store has been taken down for updating.  Apple’s new tablet kicks off at $499 and is expected to go on sale at 8.30am EST; of course, Apple could surprise us and add a few more updates into the mixture as well.  Recent rumors have tipped an updated Mac Pro desktop, using Intel’s new Core i7-980 Gulftown processor.

There has also been disappointment recently regarding Apple’s apparent reluctance to put one of the newer Core i5 or i7 processors into their MacBook Pro line, which is currently still using the last-generation of Core 2 Duo chips.  Still, we wouldn’t be surprised if Apple kept today’s excitement solely for the iPad.

The WiFi-only iPad models will be priced at $499 for the 16GB iPad, $599 for the 32GB iPad and $699 for the 64GB iPad.  Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until late-April for the 3G version of the tablet, which will be priced at $629, $729 and $829 respectively for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models.

Apple iPad demo video:

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Further details on Intel’s upcoming hexacore Xeon processors have emerged, suggesting that the chips will form their own flagship line rather than replacing the existing quadcore processors.  Hardmac has heard that the hexacore chips will initially be in short supply – kicking off with the 3.33GHz Core i7-980X in March 2010 – and will be expensive, too; $999 for the i7-980X.

Meanwhile as well as the second hexacore, the 3.2GHz Core i7-970, which is expected to arrive in Q3 2010, there’s a little news on the third model in the series.  That won’t arrive until 2011, when it replaces the Core i7-980X with the same clock speed but a lower price, and with a new “flagship” CPU above it.  Apple are expected to launch a new Mac Pro desktop with the i7-980X on March 16th.

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Remember all the talk of a hexacore Apple Mac Pro refresh back in October?  Apple were tipped to have secured exclusivity of Intel’s upcoming top-spec Core i7 processor, with a significant system update – up to 128GB of memory, for one thing – suggested.  According to Hardmac’s sources, the fateful launch date is in fact March 16th, with the potent desktop using the new Intel Xeon Core i7-980X processor.

The six-core Core i7-980X clocks in at 3.33GHz, though thanks to Intel’s TurboBoost system it can be safely overclocked to 3.6GHz.  Hardmac reckon that the slightly slower version of the processor, the Core i7-970X clocked at 3.2GHz, won’t arrive until later on.

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