Apple Announces Penryn Mac Pros and Xserves

Apple today revised the Mac Pro and Xserve with a new architecture and the recently released Penryn Processors. The Mac Pro combines two 45-nm Quad-Core Xeon processors running up to 3.2GHz and up to 4TB of internal storage. The standard 8-core configuration starts at $2799.

"The new Mac Pro is the fastest Mac we've ever made," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "With 3.2 GHz 8-core Xeon processing, a 1600 MHz front side bus and 800 MHz memory, the new Mac Pro uses the fastest Intel Xeon architecture on the market."

The new Mac Pro features the latest Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors based on 45nm Intel Core (Penryn) microarchitecture running up to 3.2 GHz, each with 12MB of L2 cache per processor. According to Apple, the 1600 MHz front side bus and 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory achives a 61 percent increase in memory throughput.

The new Mac Pro comes standard with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256MB of video memory.


The standard 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:

- two 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors with dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses;
- 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory;
- 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
- 16x SuperDrive(TM) with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
- two PCI Express 2.0 slots and two PCI Express slots;
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR; and
- ships with Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse.

Apple also revised the Xserve today with the same architecture. Xserve standard configuration, with a suggested retail price of $2,999 (US), includes:

- a single 64-bit 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Xeon processor with 12MB of L2 cache and a 1600 Mhz front side bus;
- 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM RAM, expandable up to 32GB;
- a single 80GB SATA Apple Drive Module;
- dual Gigabit Ethernet on-board;
- internal graphics;
- two FireWire(R) 800 and three USB 2.0 ports; and
- an unlimited client license for Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard.

Apple last major revision of both the Mac Pros and Xserves were over a year ago -- as noted in our Buyers Guide. The new Mac Pro and Xserve are shipping today from the Apple Store. These updates come one week ahead of Macworld San Francisco 2008, so more should be in store for the expo.