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Mac Pro 'hexacore' Xeon Core i7 debuts Tuesday?

by Michael Grothaus Mar 11th 2010 at 12:00PM

ZDNet is reporting that the next iteration of the Mac Pro will be unveiled next Tuesday, March 16th. Their sources indicate that Intel's new 'hexacore' Core i7-980x chip, which is also expected to be launched next Tuesday, will be in that machine.

Code-named "Gulftown" the 32nm, six-core i7-980X will be labeled as the i7x ("Extreme Edition"). It will be the first dual-socket, six-core processor from Intel. With 6 cores and 12 threads, a dual-configured, i7-980X Mac Pro will sport 12 physical cores and 24 logical cores with a top frequency of 3.33GHz.

Excluding the minor speed bump in December, the Mac Pro has not been updated for over a year. In December we reported on the leaked Core i7-980X specs. Two months later, HardMac reported that the new i7x Mac Pros could be delivered in February. With the launch of the i7-980X on Tuesday combined with HardMac's sources indicating a Mac Pro refresh that day as well, the i7x seems like a lock for the updated Mac Pro. However, as MacRumors points out, Apple has typically used server-branded Xeon chips in its Mac Pro line, and Intel is expected to debut a number of new Xeon 5600-series chips on Tuesday as well, notably Intel's 2010 flagship chip – the Xeon X5680.

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ZDNet is reporting that the next iteration of the Mac Pro will be unveiled next Tuesday, March 16th. Their sources indicate that Intel's...
 

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jackleboul

Anyway, let's hope for the best.

March 23 2010 at 6:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Paolo

A Quad-Mini would be *way* more interesting. That Mac Pros get the latest and greatest is a given and "boring" news.

March 12 2010 at 3:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SophT

If the MP is getting a refresh, what's the X-Serve gonna get? We're dumping our AD controller and moving fully to OD (already have an OD x-serve DC and a MP replica) so we need a new X-Serve!

and the MBP update... that's for me.

March 12 2010 at 1:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
elpaule

Didn't Apple always use Xeons in their Mac Pros ? And as within the next weeks Intel is shipping the 8-core Xeons, wouldn't the 6-core desktop Core7 desktop CPU look a bit underpowered in comparison to the proposed 4-socket x8 core Intel server mainboards?

And the Xeons have the same TDP as the old ones, so they would only need to switch the motherboard, while the Extreme Edition i7-980X runs a lot hotter.

I thought the whole idea of switching to Intel was to get priority access to Intel tech, and not after everybody else has it?

March 11 2010 at 8:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Microdot

ive been holding off on an upgrade of my mac pro 3,1 for just this reason. skipped the nahalem all together. granted... my baby is still a monster (dual 3.2ghz, 16gb ram, raid cont, striped velociraptors) but if i keep up, the cost of upgrade is drastically reduced (mine will sell for almost 3/4 of the new model, unless something drastic changes to pricing)

March 11 2010 at 7:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rembert

Hey Apple, my MBP 2,2 starts to fall apart - well, not really: it still does work properly but I could do with a good speedbump and more diskspace. I'm not in the race for a Mac Pro. However a new iMac is planned in the not so near future. But, please hurry with that MBP.

March 11 2010 at 3:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ianlive

As a horse ages, it's gum line tends to receed making it's teeth look longer, hence "long in the tooth."

The phrase "never look a gift horse in the mouth" stems from this same notion. If you were given a horse as a gift (man, remember those days?) it was rude to check it's teeth, or look at it's mouth, to see how old, or worn out, your new gift was.

Thought others might find that interesting. And when the hell are they going to redesign the Mac Pro case?!

March 11 2010 at 1:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to ianlive's comment
ricosuave

Interesting trivia. Thanks.


I would imagine a case redesign that would make the front holes laser edged instead of drilled. This would match the speaker holes in the new mbp.

March 11 2010 at 2:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
aragorn

What's more powerful - a single hexacore or dual quad core?

March 11 2010 at 12:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to aragorn's comment
Randy

With Dual-Quads, you'll have two extra Cores over the Single Hexa-core.

March 11 2010 at 1:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
oedipus

Honestly, processor power will be minimal, unless your really using all the cores. The biggest factors for me are the added cores for virtual computing, and power savings of the new Xeon 5600's. I really hope they add dual Power supplies to this new one, as that has been my biggest concern with the Mac Pro architecture. (Cross my fingers, as I haven't been let down yet.)

March 14 2010 at 4:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ed Silver

Where the heck are the new MBP's?

March 11 2010 at 12:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Ed Silver's comment
Anthony

Seriously! I need to replace mine! It's four years old and one of the fans died. I already had to replace the hard drive, too! I'm definitely not buying a C2D MBP. With my luck, if I did buy one, the Ci7 MBP would be released about a week later. That's what happened when I got my MBP. The C2D version was released a week later, and I'm stuck in the land of 32-bit computing.

March 11 2010 at 3:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tuaw

I sure hope this rumor is true ... My MacPro1,1 is getting a little long in the tooth.

March 11 2010 at 12:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to tuaw's comment
ricosuave

What is is lacking? I own the same one.

March 11 2010 at 1:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tuaw

What's it missing? About 8 additional cores. ;)

But seriously, this week I noticed that 2 of my 2 GB sticks of RAM were only being recognized as 1 GB a piece, reducing my system's 6 GB to 4 GB. I assumed that the problem was the RAM itself, so I went to Fry's to get some more, and they didn't have any DDR2, just the DDR3.

So I figure that if there comes a time when parts are starting to fail and Fry's doesn't have the parts that I need then it's time to put it out to pasture.

Other than that it's doing just fine. :)

March 11 2010 at 2:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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