8 Core Xeon MacPro details

Posted on 05. Apr, 2007 by in Apple, Hardware

So it looks like there are 4 processor options now. Dual quad core “Clovertown” Xeon, Quad 2.0 GHz, Quad 2.66 GHz, Quad 3.0 GHz all “Woodcrest” Xeon.

Standard feature is the 2.66 GHz Quad, the 8 core adds a whopping $2400 to the price and the 3.0 GHz Quad adds $1300.

Start adding multiple 750 GIG drives and RAM and you could blow a big hole in the budget.

No Quad 3.0 GHz “Clovertown” Xeon is available. Not sure why that is apart from there being a significant pent up demand for the new workstation Macs with the imminent availability of Adobe CS3 Intel binary software. There could also be some significant stocks of “Woodcrest” Xeon chips at Apple that are being shifted before going with “Clovertown” across the range. The Clovertown being the latest and fastest Xeon chip from Intel.

Cinema display prices have been reduced too which is good news.

Below is the “standard” MacPro configuration.

Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon “Woodcrest” processors
1GB memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive1
16x double-layer SuperDrive

We have RAM at around $280 per GIG for this machine and SATA drives are more affordable than the Apple supplied options.
Perhaps the 3.0GHz MacPro will be my preferred option, I want to see CS3 running and Aperture.

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