RUMOR: ‘Mac Pro’ to feature several custom components co-developed by Apple and Intel

“If you’ve been reading previous reports from Rumors on the upcoming Mac Pro that will replace the already impressive quad-processor PowerMac G5 with up to eight stunningly powerful and efficient Intel Core 2 processor cores with a pair of quad-core ‘Woodcrest’ chips or dual-core ‘Conroe’ CPUs,” MacOSRumors reports. “You probably also know that the Mac Pro will support multiple PCI Express x16 graphics cards with the option to pair up cards using SLI technology for double the 3D gaming — or high-end 3D rendering — performance. And all the other bells and whistles of a fully high-end Intel Core architecture-based computer platform, as we’ve reported previously.”

“But there are some new details filtering in. For one thing, we’ve been hearing a lot about Apple’s new high-end software which is being built specifically with the Mac Pro’s eight cores in mind. We’ve also heard a lot of interesting and sometimes conflicting information, which we’ll be digging into further over this coming weekend,” MacOSRumors reports.

MacOSRumors reports, “The last time we received benchmarks and hands-on reports directly from trusted sources who have had access to prototype systems, most of Apple’s attention seemed to be focused on the drive to add more cores — two, four, or eight as the three options for the next generation of professional Macs… the Mac Pro will not simply be a standard set of Intel 975 class chips. It will include several custom components co-developed between the companies, and a configuration of Intel chips that will not normally be used in tower-desktop PCs but rather in very high-end workstations and servers.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy” for the heads up.]

Related MacDailyNews articles:
RUMOR: Apple’s Mac Pro to sport slightly modified Power Mac enclosure (link to images) – July 14, 2006
Apple chose well: Anandtech – Intel Core 2 Duo ‘the fastest desktop processor we’ve ever tested’ – July 14, 2006
RUMOR: Intel’s Woodcrest to power Apple’s next-gen high-performance Mac Pro desktops – July 11, 2006
RUMOR: Apple to unveil ‘Mac Pro’ with new enclosure design, Intel Core 2 Duo at WWDC next month – July 03, 2006

39 Comments

  1. Apple must diverge from standard Intel PC architecture over time if not immediately. There simply is no way to differentiate in a workstation market. The OS is not going to suffice for worstations. Most people don’t care what OS they are using as long as it has the apps and doesn’t crash. XP doesn’t crash and it has most of the apps. Intel Macs DON’T have the apps. Is there any universal binary version of a popular CAD app?

  2. MacOS Rumors just makes up crap all the time. At best, the site gets updated once a week with pure fiction.

    These are the same guys who said the iBook would absolutely, positively NOT be called a MacBook. See?

    Read their past S@#T and you’ll see that fiction is modus operandi at MOSR.

    If you trust them for news then you trust Steve Ballmer.

  3. I have to say that my outlook is exactly opposite of tHE dUDE’s comments, with the exception of the “doesn’t crash” part. When selecting a computer I first look at the OS. If I don’t like the OS, I’m not buying the machine. I think OS X is head and shoulders above Windows and therefore I buy Macs. The applications are secondary consideration. Granted, it is not always posssible to get certain jobs done on a Mac with the apps you may want to use, but I am more willing to work around limited app selection when I have to rather than always work around a crappy OS.

  4. animationstudent-

    that looks so sweet, but is so wrong. comparing clock speeds only works when you’re comparing the EXACT same architecture. a core 2 duo at 2 ghz is slower than a core 2 duo at 3 ghz. however, a pentium d at 3 ghz is not faster than a core 2 duo at 2 ghz.

    plus, the nature of dual core (or multi-core for that matter) means that you don’t get a 2x speed increase because both processors aren’t working on the same data at the same time.

  5. The guy who made me my coffee at the local Coffee shop said there would be 257 cores. I swear. He said his other job is the assistant to a developer who is in the know at Apple. No joke. He said Steve Jobs comes to this coffee shop all the time, but I can’t tell you which shop because then Jobs would get very mad. He said his boss is best friends with Phil Schiller. No joke. The 257 core tower is only gonna cost two thousand dollars.

    Thank god I know so many credible sources, or I would probably be lost as far as the computer market goes.

  6. Nothing New

    For all of those too scared to visit the technical overview of Apple computers, Apple has always had their own custom controller chips. It’s a major reason why you can’t build a Mac from off-the-shelf parts.

    Although they are not labeled, they can be seen in the iMac Technical Overview PDF (http://images.apple.com/imac/pdf/20060120_iMac_TO.pdf). They are on page 13, and are the two large squares in the middle.

    Similar diagrams of previous Mac models clearly have them labeled.

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.