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RUMOR: Apple ‘Mac Pro’ coming in August, to feature dual high-end dual-core processors

Friday, June 9, 2006 · 8:30 am · 30 Comments

Along with introducing Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard at WWDC in August, “Mr. Jobs will also take the wraps off Apple’s most powerfully stunning Macintosh to date: the Mac Pro,” Kasper Jade and Prince McLean report for AppleInsider. “Until recently, Apple’s professional line of desktop computers stood at the pinnacle of its product portfolio, showcasing both the Mac’s beauty and its brawn.”

“In speaking with AppleInsider, people familiar with the Cupertino-based company’s plans have affirmed that the Mac Pro will indeed employ chips from Intel’s forthcoming architecture. However, it’s still unclear precisely which processors these will be. That’s because, just like the Power Mac G5 Quad, these people say Apple and Intel somehow plan to wedge two high-end dual-core chips into some Mac Pros,” Jade and McLean report.

Full article here.

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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Report: Apple nears Xserve, ‘Mac Pro’ Intel switch – June 01, 2006
RUMOR: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to feature virtualization, ‘living interface elements’ and more – May 30, 2006

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Comment Feed

30 Comments

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Friday, June 9, 2006 - 9:39 am · Reply

Now this would look good on my desktop.
Drunk Cheney

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 9:44 am · Reply

What’s the highest speed Intel processor to date? Anyone know?
Bonkers for Mac

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 9:47 am · Reply

I’ll take one for sure!

MW: “turn” I won’t turn up my nose at that!
Digital Kid

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 9:48 am · Reply

I look for new iMacs around that time frame too, perhaps sooner.
Akido

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 9:51 am · Reply

.:slobber:.
MCCFR

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:03 am · Reply

Here’s a thought to bat around…

What if Apple chose to use the sheer variety of Intel Core processors to create a highly-segmented product line that would appeal to a highly granular market.

For example, what if

Mac Mini > Yonah Core Duo (as it is now)
iMac > as above
iMac Extreme > Merom
MacBook > Core Duo
MacBook Pro > Core Duos, but faster chips, dedicated graphics, and faster larger hard drives, plus more I/O
MacBook Pro Extreme > As above, but Merom instead of Yonah
Mac Pro > Conroe
Mac Pro Extreme > Woodcrest
Xserve > Woodcrest

Apple would suddenly have 9 product grouos in six distinct families. Using variations in clock speed, cache and other components, Apple could have maybe 18-27 different products going all the way from $500 to $3500 in nice easy steps.
BriAnimations

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:09 am · Reply

The real question is, will the design remane the same? Or will they move to something other than the cheese-grater?
Mac Pro?

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:12 am · Reply

Will photoshop run smoother on it?
Why doesnt someone else make a better App than Photoshop.
I dislike the fact Adobe took over Macromedia
Thorin

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:21 am · Reply

MCCFR,

“Apple would suddenly have 9 product groups in six distinct families.”

While that product concept would make a lot of people happy, it would probably be bad for Apple. In the late 80′s / early 90′s that is how the product line-up was. It was very convoluted, people didn’t know what to buy. It made the distribution model a complete mess. One of the first things Jobs did when he returned was simplify the product line-up. It is not gonna happen. Just maybe a median desktop model, but I doubt it.
Turd Ferguson

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:21 am · Reply

MCCFR –

I like what you are saying, but it sounds oddly like something Dell would do. You get all these sub-groups and it seems confusing to the potential Apple customer. I don’t think it fits into Apple’s image. However, if you are “in the know”, it does sound appealing.

Like the Turd always says, “Take ‘em sleazy, or take ‘em anyway you can get ‘em!”
Colorado

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:22 am · Reply

I hope the case design of the Mac Pros will be better than the “cheese grater”. I held off buying one because of the single internal optical drive and the HUGE cpu heatsinks. And ONLY 2 PCI-X slots, CMON!! I know I could of bought some “external” drives but I don’t like clutter around my computer.

I’m hoping for 3-4 expension slots and 2 optical drives. I can’t wait to see what Apple does to the case design.
Turd Ferguson

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:24 am · Reply

I personally hope that it will come with some sort of hi-definition optical drive, whether it be Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or both, just something!
Big Al

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:41 am · Reply

Apple is operating in the PC market now. Apple must offer all of the new chips that are available to other PC users.

That being said, what is the difference between offering MacBook Pros with 3 or 4 different processor speeds or 2 different processors at 2 different speeds each? Mac Pros at 3 or 4 different processor speeds or 2 different processors at 2 different processor speeds each or multiple processors at varying speeds?

There wouldn’t be 9 offerings. There would be Minis, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs, Mac Pros, and Xserves. Some would have processor speed options, some would have processor options and processor speed options and some would have multiple processors.

Same lines with more options per individual line. Still well organized.

Apple will not become Dell.
i heart macdude

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:42 am · Reply

MCCFR: Apple took a LOT of s&*t in the mid nineties for doing the same thing. Didn’t work then either. You run the risk of cannibalizing your own sales. It’s not peculiar to this industry, either. Ask GM (remember Oldsmobile?).

Colorado–I agree on tech, but on style, I love the Aluminum.

TF–Blu-Ray (STUPID FSKING NAME!!!) will surely be there–don’t you think? I think they can’t afford to leave it off. But will the drive be backward compatible? Will there HAVE to be two bays? Will Jobs let that out of the door?

hmmmm….
Turd Ferguson

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:48 am · Reply

I heart macdude –

It’s got to be there! Besides, I thought last year was supposed to be the year of hi-definition? I can shoot hi-def, I can watch it in my home-theater room, but I can’t create it for distribution… Sigh…

SIGH!
gypsy

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:13 am · Reply

With all the talk and rumors of dual-core and dual dual-core(quad) Intel chips, I wonder if there will be upgrade paths for those of us that purchased previous PPC G5 machines.

In the past, there were accelerators that one could purchased to keep up with the changing times.
Mr. Peabody

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:34 am · Reply

Ok, now I’m getting aroused.
Willie G

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:37 am · Reply

MCCFR… it is impractical to have that many products in a line. The net result is confusing and inconsistent price points.

As for Apple’s plan’s for it’s successor to the Power Mac G5. I think AI is being a little obtuse when it ‘speculates’ that there will be “two high-end dual-core chips” in some models. I think that is a given. You can’t release a machine with 4 processor cores and then expect people to get excited about going back to 2.
shadowself

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:46 am · Reply

At least one Dual Dual Core system is a “no brainer”. Apple would be *completely* stupid if it did not ship at least one model.

The real question is how high up the performance scale Apple intends to go. Intel will be shipping dual core 2.93 GHz “Extreme Edition” chips by the time Apple announces the Mac Pros. Intel expects to be shipping 3.2 GHz “Extreme Edition” chips by the end of the year. Will Apple announce a build to order option with the high end chips (much as they originally did with the Macbook Pro and the 2.16 GHz chip)? Will they ignore the Extreme Edition chips all together? They do cost $999 each for a dual chip (quad core) machine having almost $2,000 just in the CPUs themselves!

MCCFR, can you describe the differences between the Performa 6300 and the 6350? Neither can I without looking it up. That was and will be the issue with having so many variations. That, and the simple fact of having so many variations becomes a tech support nightmare for both Apple and its customers.

Steve specifically killed that lunacy and went to FOUR products. This has gradually increased, but I greatly doubt we will ever see a dozen or so models with two or three different processor speeds each.

TF & others, while I suspect a Blu-ray Disk drive may be included as a build to order option, I will be very surprised if any model comes with it as a standard item. It is just too new. None are shipping yet (and won’t be for several more weeks and then only in extremely limited quantities). I expect Apple to wait until January 2007 or later to include BR as a standard item.

TF, can’t do HD on your current system? Why not? you should be able to easily do about an hour on an 8.5 GB dual layer DVD even at moderate compression. If you push MPEG-4 Part 10 compression a bit you should be able to get more than that. You only need BR if you are intending to do feature length stuff. (I’ve yet to see a “home movie” of more than an hour I’d want to sit through! Watching someone’s grandchildren run around Disneyland does not make for a compelling, feature length film.)
Neil

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:47 am · Reply

I’m hoping for two case designs.

One short and reasonably small case for the user who needs a desktop for some expandabilty (2 extra drives and graphics and PCI cards) but wants a smaller unit. This will suit academics who want more than an iMac plus professionals who do not need all the bells and whistles. This may also suit gamers especially if they cna upgrade the processor and graphics card.

A second larger unit similar in size to the G5 that will cater for the speed freaks and those that need a large capacity for multiple drives, cards etc.
Mr. Peabody

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 12:00 pm · Reply

MCCFR,

Yes, and Apple has tried diversifying its product line before and it was a dismal failure. For now Apple needs to retain a nice, clean product line with clearly demarcated price/performance lines.
dennis

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 1:17 pm · Reply

“I’m hoping for two case designs. “

Don’t hold your breath. People have been hoping for that for years–pretty much since the debut of the iMac.
Nick

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 1:43 pm · Reply

Hmmm… What would Odyssey67 say about this?
Steven Cousak

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 1:52 pm · Reply

Intel has announced that the new processors core 2 duo will be available in July, so Apple can not wait until august to release a machine with that processor, so may be we will see the new Macs pro in July and not in august.
KingMel

Friday, June 9, 2006 - 2:46 pm · Reply

MCCFR – Having recently shopped for cars, that sounds a bit like the Toyota approach of offering option packages galore. I found the Honda approach of standardizing on most things and offering only a few options to be preferable for two reasons: first, I was able to get the same functionality at a lower cost (due to economies of scale, I assume) and, second, Honda made very good selections with respect to what should be standard (e.g., four wheel disc brakes). Apple has tended to do the same thing, such as making 802.11 and bluetooth standard.

If Apple takes the Honda approach and offers fewer basic configurations with well-chosen standard components, then Mac users will likely benefit in terms of higher reliability and lower cost. Perhaps the limited customization options currently offered by Apple on most machines (RAM, HDD, and graphics card) could be expanded to include a CPU option, however.