During Apple's Annual Worldwide Developer Conference Keynote given by Steve Jobs and a host of other Apple top executives and product managers, Phil Schiller introduced the PowerMac's Intel replacement: the Mac Pro. Advertised as having "millions" of ways to configure the machine, the base configuration includes the following:
- Dual-Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon 5100 Processor, upgradeable to 2xDual 3 GHz.
- 1 GB FB-DIMM RAM (2x512 MB), expandable to 16 GB
- 250 GB Hard Drive, 3 empty slots (3 Gbps SATA)
- NVidia GeForce 7300 GT (256 MB VRAM), configurable to ATI Radeon X1900 XT or Quadro FX 4500 (512 MB VRAM)
- SuperDrive (2 5.25" slots total, 1 remaining)
- 4 PCI-Express Slots (One extra-wide, taken by GPU)
According to Apple VP Phil Shiller, the new Mac Pro is anywhere from 1.6 to 2.0x faster than the latest PowerMac G5 "Quad".
The Mac Pro is available immediately on-line via the Apple Store.