“In addition to revamping its iMac and Mac Mini desktops in the beginning of March, Apple also updated its highest end professional-level Mac Pros. Available as before in four- and eight-core configurations, the newest Mac Pros have a number of new technologies and design features, including Intel’s latest Xeon CPUs. For the most part, the upgrade resulted in performance gains over the previous generation of Mac Pros, despite the fact that our baseline, $3,299 eight-core review unit (2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon) has a significantly slower processor clock speed,” Rich Brown reports for CNET.

MacDailyNews Take: Nehalem. Comparing processor speeds between differing architectures is a meaningless exercise. It’s like saying that a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 is faster than a 2.5GHz G5. It’s not.

“The design tweaks in the new systems also further distance Apple from even the most image-conscious of its Windows-based competitors. Heavy Photoshop users may wish for a faster CPU clock, but anyone engaged in professional digital media production work or other tasks that take advantage of the Mac Pro’s full system power will enjoy noticeable performance benefits on top of best-in-class design.”

“Inside the Mac Pro, Apple highlights the benefits of building products within its own hardware and software ecosystem. The interior is segmented into distinct zones for the various hardware components. The optical drives and power supply are concealed behind pull-out metal drawers, and below sits the familiar row of four removable hard-drive trays. Apple has preserved the cable-free hard-drive interface we came to love in the older Mac Pro here in the new model, and indeed we’ve seen numerous Windows vendors imitate this design in the two years since its debut,” Brown reports.

“Apple’s new eight-core Mac Pro demonstrates marked improvements over the older model in high-intensity digital media and multitasking scenarios,” Brown reports. “We also love the design tweaks that improve on Apple’s already industry-leading sensibilities. Any Apple-bound design professional would welcome this new tool in his or her arsenal.”

Read the full review (8.1 out of 10, 4 stars out of 5, “Excellent”) here.