“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
raster: Yeah, me too!
P.S. Ampar is employed again. After only one week. Not bad. Life does go on.
Raster & Ampar = Ace and Gary. If Lance did it, you guys can . . . . or continue to act oblivious.
8 cores at 2.66 Ghz per core with the ability to pair up graphics.
8×2.66 = 21.28 Ghz
Sorry, doesn’t work that way.
Adding processors doesn’t add to the clock speed.
What multi-cores allows one to do is run more apps at the same time.
Or if you have a really large work load that could be broken up into pieces and each work load sent to a core to work on and the results either sent on to the hard drive, the graphics card or back to the main core faster than if the main core did all the work itself.
Another thing a lot of cores can do is set up a assembly line, each doing a little work and then sending partial results to the next core in the chain. This is especially useful for high end 3D rendering.
With the ability of multiple video cards in a SLI configuration, the video data path is spilt, so each video card is only rendering a percentage of the screen. Thus it can render at a higher detail.
All these multiple cores and video cards are for people with high work loads or using software that will take advantage of it.
Great! So now, we can use our Macs for computing and canoeing. How will Apple integrate a Canoe in it’s computers? That’s a tremendous challenge even for Apple!
Ampar – Good news. QUICK too. Nice to hear.
MacOSRumors. This is entertainment more than information. They have never been right about a rumor. Please do not make purchasing decisions based on this site. They base their “rumors” on wishes rather than real information. It’s fun reading though.
Thanks, ©! Things worked out amazingly well.
“MacOSRumors. This is entertainment more than information.”
Looks around.
LOL more fiction than fact. The article speaks like SLI technology is some sort of generic hardware commoditity, when in fact its a Nvidia only feature that requires a Nvidia Nforce 4/5 chipset (and ATI’s crossfire naturally requires an ATI chipset). Considering Apple is getting chipsets only from Intel, and Nvidia isn’t providing Nforce motherboards (nor is there an acknowledgement of such a partnership between Apple/Nvidia), this “article” is one big belly laugh of ignorance.
MacOSRumors has been promising the mythical 4 and 8 core Macs since the days of the G4 PowerMacs! One of these decades they’ll probably be right.
Remember when someone “stole” their domain and started making up stuff that didn’t sound too different from the “authentic” rumors.
Custom components…Whether it’s true or not, this is something that everybody should be hoping for. So when things are announced, we should all have this on our list of expectations. The MacPro needs to be on top in every way.
I congiured one with a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB 10,000rpm SATA drive, NVidia 7900GS 256MB video card, 20″ widescreen display for about $2,200.
Dude, you’re getting a Dell?
What the f%@k is wrong with you?
Verbose:
When I said most people I should have said corporate IT staff and CAD, 3D, animation, production staff. Workstation users don’t even need an OS for most of their work day. What they NEED are the applications that allow them to get the most work done in the shortest amount off time. Copying files, configuring their network connections and worrying about spyware is not allowed to get in the way of workstations so the security of the OS is secondary to the stabiltiy and speed of the hardware.
The OS is unimportant. As evidenced by the fact that you can run any OS on a Mac. If you can run Windows on a Mac workstation, great. But does it run faster on a Mac? Does the Mac workstation provide important enhancements that PC workstation of the same class and price lack? Yes? Great, NOW add the fact that the MacOS has greater uptime, greater security AND all the applications I need. THEN, I will dump my PC workstations and switch to Macs.
In other words when the applications I need run faster under Windows on a Mac OR when the applications I need are availbable AND/OR run faster on MacOS, the department will switch to Macs.
I’ll give the real inside dope. Here it is:
New macs will use the new Amiga custom chip sets that work at 100 GHZ.