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Steve Jobs just finished Apple’s keynote presentation at the WWDC. The first major announcement was the introduction of the highly-anticipated Mac Pro. The new Mac Pro, is a quad Xeon, 64-bit desktop featuring two new Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz.

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months—210 days to be exact,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And what better product to complete it with than the new Mac Pro, the workstation Mac users have been dreaming about.”

The new Mac Pro features the new Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 series processor, is up to twice as fast as the Power Mac G5 Quad and features two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz, each with 4MB of shared L2 cache and independent 1.33 GHz front-side buses and 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered memory. The computer can handle 4 separate hard drive, adding up to 2 TB of storage and support for two optical drives to simultaneously read and/or write to CDs and DVDs (no word on Blu-ray yet). Every Mac Pro includes three full-length PCI Express expansion slots and one double-wide PCI Express graphics slot. The front panel of the Mac Pro includes a FireWire 800 port, a FireWire 400 port and two USB 2.0 ports with additional FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and three USB 2.0 ports on the back panel. Mac Pro also includes dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, optical digital input and output, analog audio input and output, and optional built-in support for AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. Every Mac Pro comes standard with the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of video memory, providing built-in support for dual-displays and Apple’s 30-inch Cinema HD Display.

The Mac Pro is shipping today with the standard prebuilt configuration, including two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors and priced at $2,499 (US).

The Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

• two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors


• 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory expandable up to 16GB


• NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM


• 250GB Serial ATA (3Gb/s) hard drive running at 7200 rpm


• 16x SuperDrive™ with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)


• four PCI Express slots: one double-wide graphics slot and three full-length expansion slots


• ships with Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard

In addition to the standard configuration, the Mac Pro offers more than 4.9 million build-to-order options including: two 2.0 GHz or 3.0 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors; up to 16GB of 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory; up to four 500GB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm; up to two 16x SuperDrives with double-layer support; ATI Radeon X1900 XT and NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 graphics cards, both with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM; AirPort Extreme module, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module; Apple USB Modem; Apple Wireless Keyboard and Apple wireless Mighty Mouse; Mac OS X Server Tiger; Apple Xsan; and Apple Fibre Channel PCI Express Card. Complete build-to-order options and pricing are available at www.apple.com/macpro. 

Running out of storage on your computer can get annoying.  Having way too much storage on your computer is fantastic.  That’s why Granite Digital, a manufacturer of SATA, FireWire, and SCSI storage solutions has announced that they’ve begun shipping a SATA Dual Drive Internal Mounting Kit for the G5 Mac.  If you’re looking to pack on the gigs, the kit is capable of handling 1.5 Terabytes of storage (JBOD, RAID 1, or RAID 0 configurations).  The old and new model G5s are both compatible with the device using the two different kits that are being offered.  The will set you back $99 and is available via the company’s website.

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Read [Press Release]