New Mac Pro: up to 12 Intel Xeon cores

Apple has announced a new Mac Pro with up to 12 cores – via two six-core 3.33GHz Intel Xeon processors meaning a 50 per cent increase in processing power. You can also order the unit with quad-core chips, too.

Among the other high-end options are up to four 512GB SSDs – though with prices starting at £1,999 we don't expect too low a price point on that one.

The Mac Pro now comes with the ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB graphics processor or you can choose to upgrade to the ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB, too.

Full base system specs are below, but the configure-to-order options include:

• one 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3565 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro;
• one 3.33GHz 6-core Intel Xeon W3680 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro;
• two 2.66GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5650 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• two 2.93GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• one ATI Radeon HD 5870 card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• up to 16GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the quad-core Mac Pro;
• up to 32GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD); or
• up to four 1TB or 2TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm;
• Mac Pro RAID card;
• dual-channel or quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel card; and
• up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support.

The Mac Pro also now features two Mini DisplayPorts so you can connect two LED Cinema Displays without an additional graphics card or adapter. The dual-link DVI port supports legacy DVI-based displays up to a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels.

4-core Mac Pro, £1,999

• one 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3530 processor with 8MB of fully-shared L3 cache;
• 3GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 16GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adaptors sold separately);
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gbps hard drive running at 7,200rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire® 800 ports;
• AirPort Extreme® 802.11n;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
• Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

8-core Mac Pro, £2,799

• two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 processors with 12MB of fully-shared L3 cache per processor;
• 6GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gbps hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
• AirPort Extreme 802.11n;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
• Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse