Mac Pro with 8 cores

For everyone who’ has been trying to differentiate a kentsfield from a yorkfield or from a barcelona (by the way for those who dont know, they are codenames of quadcores), another milestone has arrived and that is, 8 cores. And surprisingly, it comes from a company who generally is not affected by the performance rat race, simply because it has got its share of loyal supporters.

In short,
Apple has released a new Mac Pro armed with 3.0GHz, 8-core Intel Xeon processors.

The 8-core Mac Pro offers the power of two Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5300 series processors with 3.0GHz, and runs up to 2x faster than the Power Mac G5 Quad.
The 8-core Mac Pro configuration includes: two 3.0GHz quad-core Intel Xeon 5300 series processors, 8MB of L2 cache per processor (16MB), 667MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory, eight FB-DIMM slots on two memory riser cards (four slots per card) supporting up to 16GB of RAM, 256-bit-wide memory architecture, and 1.33GHz, 64-bit dual independent frontside buses.

In addition, the 8-core Mac Pros include 16-lane PCI Express graphics slot with the option to install an Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM, one single-link DVI port, and one dual-link DVI port; an ATI Radeon X1900 XT with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and two dual-link DVI ports; or an Nvidia Quadro FX 4500 with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, two dual-link DVI ports, and one stereo 3D port.

Mac Pro accommodates up to four drives and 3TB of storage, and provides up to two SuperDrives. It also gives four PCI Express slots, lots of I/O options for ultimate flexibility, and direct-attach hard drive bays. The new Mac Pros also feature AirPort Extreme wireless ready and optional Bluetooth 2.0 support.

Moreover, the machines support up to eight displays, digital resolutions of up to 1920 by 1200 pixels; dual-link DVI ports with support up to 2560 by 1600 pixels; and analog resolution support up to 2048 by 1536 pixels.

The new Pros are available with build to order option. An 8-core machine from the Apple Store with high-end processor spectrum will cost about $3,997 (Rs 172,382). However, the price conscious can go in for the same Mac Pro with two 2-GHz processors for $2,200 (Rs 94,875).

All this jargon basically means that apple is using two Intel Xeon Quad cores each in a diffrent socket on the motherboard. All this is basically aimed at the the software developers and the 3d graphics industry, for development of futuristic applications and faster rendering of videos and textures. After all this, in my opinion, the new pros lack severely in the graphics department and the graphic card bundled with the machine does not do justice to this behemoth of a system.

All this translates into tremendous amount of computing power and also a big hole in the pocket.

Source:Mac Pros with 8 Cores Unleashed

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