MacRumors.com

TechRadar.com reports on some preliminary benchmarks on Intel's upcoming Nehalem EP chips which they say will be sold as the Xeon X5560 CPUs in the 1st quarter of 2009. Apple has traditionally used the Xeon processors for the Mac Pro line.

Based on their early benchmarks of dual-processor configurations, TechRadar found that the new Nehalem Xeons at 2.8GHz scored favorably in SPECfp benchmark with a score of 160 as compared to a score of 90 for Intel's current Penryn-based Xeons running at 3.4GHz.

And remember, Nehalem EP's 160 point score is for a pre-production system running at 2.8GHz. Models humming a 3.2GHz tune will be available when the chip launches early next year

The current Mac Pro uses the Xeon ("Harpertown") 5400 series processors in dual-processor configurations. It has been speculated that Apple will be migrating the Mac Pro to these Nehalem Xeon processors which are due in the first quarter of 2009.