“According to one of our sources, Apple is finalizing the future Mac Pro models. They are currently testing the last evolution of Xeon CPU, known as Gulftown, that Intel only demoed a couple of times so far,” linathael reports for HardMac.
linathael reports, “This Xeon is an evolution of those already powering Mac Pro 2009 with some new features:”
• 6 cores and 12 threads for each CPU.
• 12 MB of shared cache instead of 8 MB today.
• 32-nm engraving vs. 45 nm today.
• Power consumption of future hexacore Xeon 32 nm will be slightly lower than the one of current quad core Xeon engraved at 45 nm.
“We currently do not know if all future Mac Pro models will be using this hexacore Xeon or if Apple will keep quad core XEon for the entry level model,” linathael reports. “However, we know that the motherboard will be modified and especially sport a Ethernet 10 Gbits/s port, and those Mac Pro will support 8 and 16 GB RAM modules (vs. 4 GB today) to push the maximal memory that could be installed in the future Mac Pro to 128 GB.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Mac Pro. For when you absolutely, positively have to sequence the entire human genome before morning coffee.
[Attribution: Electronista. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Gregory C.” for the heads up.]
This is a load of horse turds. Speculation by an idiot.
“… sport a Ethernet 10 Gbits/s port …”
And FireWire 3200???
It’s been out of the gate for a year now. Why is Apple sitting on it?
Dude, I LOVE my mac pro. If you’ve got the clams, shell them out for one of these bad boys of power.
The only thing it lacks is a sound card for good gaming. Otherwise it rocks.
Its not what single application will use all of the cores, as really most multi-threaded applications will do just fine in that regard. But if you are like many people and say have mail, web browser, IM clients, iTunes open, then throw on top Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, and maybe WoW
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> and each is going to be utilizing separate cores via separate processes. Throw in ripping a DVD in Handbrake or something and you have yourself a lot of busy cores and few slow downs. That is the point to multi-core.