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Without waiting for next week's Macworld conference, Apple announced a new eight-core Mac Pro and Xserve server. Both machines, the company said, are twice as fast as their predecessors.
The Mac Pro, targeted at creative professionals, digital content creators, and scientists, offers up to 4 TB of internal storage and two of the new quad-core Xeon processors from Intel, at speeds up to 3.2 GHz.
Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president, said that the new Mac Pro is not only the fastest Mac ever made, but also "uses the fastest Intel Xeon architecture on the market."
Apple is highlighting the Mac Pro's 1,600-MHz frontside bus and the ability to run up to 32 GB of 800-MHz memory. An ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256 MB of video memory is standard, and, with support for up to four graphics cards, the Mac Pro can drive as many as eight 30-inch displays.
Core Details
The new Xserve, targeted at small businesses with limited I.T. resources, features up to two 3.0-GHz Xeons, as well as a new architecture, faster frontside bus, and up to 3 TB of internal storage. Schiller said that the new machine is ideal for supporting Macs and mixed-platform workgroups.
The Xserve, much like the new Mac Pro, features dual-independent 1,600-MHz frontside buses and up to 32 GB of memory. The Xserve can be remotely turned on and off from anywhere on the network using Apple's Server Monitor, and each of its three drive bays can accommodate a 300-GB SAS drive or a 1-TB SATA drive.
The new server also offers two PCI Express 2.0 expansion slots, with up to four times the I/O bandwidth of the previous Xserve, and can support 4-Gbps Fibre channel and 10-Gbps Ethernet cards.
Power Efficiency
I.T. personnel, even at smaller companies, are increasingly aware of power needs, and the new Xserve follows in the trend of reducing power requirements for servers. Apple said the processors draw, at most, 80 watts and need as little as 4 watts when they're idle.
Additionally, the company said that the thermal-management technology provides efficient cooling in a wide variety of situations, and power supplies exceed the Energy Star recommendations from the U.S. Department of Energy.
A preinstalled, unlimited-client edition of Leopard Server software is included, with support for Mac, Linux, and Windows clients.
Among Leopard Server's 250 new features are Podcast Producer, for automatically publishing podcasts to the Web; Wiki Server for collaborative use of shared sites; and iCal Server, which the company described as "the world's first commercial CalDAV standard-based calendar server."
Some observers are saying that Apple's introduction of these products is an effort to "clear the decks" before the expected announcements at next week's Macworld, especially the ones anticipated during CEO Steve Jobs' keynote speech.
The eight-core Mac Pro starts at $2,799, the Xserve at $2,999. Both are now shipping
The Mac Pro, targeted at creative professionals, digital content creators, and scientists, offers up to 4 TB of internal storage and two of the new quad-core Xeon processors from Intel, at speeds up to 3.2 GHz.
Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president, said that the new Mac Pro is not only the fastest Mac ever made, but also "uses the fastest Intel Xeon architecture on the market."
Apple is highlighting the Mac Pro's 1,600-MHz frontside bus and the ability to run up to 32 GB of 800-MHz memory. An ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256 MB of video memory is standard, and, with support for up to four graphics cards, the Mac Pro can drive as many as eight 30-inch displays.
Core Details
The new Xserve, targeted at small businesses with limited I.T. resources, features up to two 3.0-GHz Xeons, as well as a new architecture, faster frontside bus, and up to 3 TB of internal storage. Schiller said that the new machine is ideal for supporting Macs and mixed-platform workgroups.
The Xserve, much like the new Mac Pro, features dual-independent 1,600-MHz frontside buses and up to 32 GB of memory. The Xserve can be remotely turned on and off from anywhere on the network using Apple's Server Monitor, and each of its three drive bays can accommodate a 300-GB SAS drive or a 1-TB SATA drive.
The new server also offers two PCI Express 2.0 expansion slots, with up to four times the I/O bandwidth of the previous Xserve, and can support 4-Gbps Fibre channel and 10-Gbps Ethernet cards.
Power Efficiency
I.T. personnel, even at smaller companies, are increasingly aware of power needs, and the new Xserve follows in the trend of reducing power requirements for servers. Apple said the processors draw, at most, 80 watts and need as little as 4 watts when they're idle.
Additionally, the company said that the thermal-management technology provides efficient cooling in a wide variety of situations, and power supplies exceed the Energy Star recommendations from the U.S. Department of Energy.
A preinstalled, unlimited-client edition of Leopard Server software is included, with support for Mac, Linux, and Windows clients.
Among Leopard Server's 250 new features are Podcast Producer, for automatically publishing podcasts to the Web; Wiki Server for collaborative use of shared sites; and iCal Server, which the company described as "the world's first commercial CalDAV standard-based calendar server."
Some observers are saying that Apple's introduction of these products is an effort to "clear the decks" before the expected announcements at next week's Macworld, especially the ones anticipated during CEO Steve Jobs' keynote speech.
The eight-core Mac Pro starts at $2,799, the Xserve at $2,999. Both are now shipping
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