Apple Introduces New Mac Pro

SYDNEY, Australia—9 January 2008—Apple today introduced the new MacPro with eight processor cores and a new system architecture that delivers up to twice theperformance of its predecessor*. The new Mac Pro combines two of Intel’s new 45nanometer Quad-Core Xeon processors running up to 3.2 GHz, powerful new graphics and up to 4TBof internal storage to offer the ideal system for creative professionals, 3D digital contentcreators and scientists. The standard 8-core configuration starts at just A$3,999 RRP inc GST.

“The new Mac Pro is the fastest Mac we’ve ever made,” said Philip Schiller,Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With 3.2 GHz 8-coreXeon processing, a 1600 MHz front side bus and 800 MHz memory, the new Mac Pro uses thefastest Intel Xeon architecture on the market.”

The new Mac Pro features the latest Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors based onstate-of-the-art 45nm Intel Core microarchitecture running up to 3.2 GHz, each with 12MB of L2cache per processor for breakthrough performance and power efficiency. With a newhigh-bandwidth hardware architecture, dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses and up to32GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory, the new Mac Pro achieves a 61 percent increase inmemory throughput**.

Every Mac Pro comes standard with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256MB of videomemory. The Mac Pro includes a new PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot that delivers up to doublethe bandwidth compared to the previous generation, and supports the latest generation ofgraphics cards from NVIDIA, such as the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of video memory, orNVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 with 1.5GB of video memory and a 3-D stereo port for stereo-in-a-windowapplications. With support for up to four graphics cards, the new Mac Pro can drive up toeight 30-inch displays at once for advanced visualisation and large display walls.

The Mac Pro is the most expandable Mac ever, featuring four internal hard drive bays withdirect-attach, cable-free installation of four 1TB Serial ATA hard drives, totaling 4TB ofinternal storage and support for two SuperDrives. With optional 15000 rpm SAS drives that candeliver up to 250MB/s of RAID 5 disk I/O performance, the Mac Pro is ideal for film and videoeditors. Combined with SATA or SAS drives, using an optional Mac Pro RAID card offers theultimate data protection and disk I/O performance on the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro is easily andconveniently accessible in front and back so users can connect external devices with five USB2.0, two FireWire 400, two FireWire 800, optical and analog audio in and out, dualGigabit Ethernet ports and a headphone jack.

Every Mac Pro includes Leopard™, the sixth major release of the world’s mostadvanced operating system. Leopard is packed with more than 300 new features and introduces abrand new desktop with Stacks, a new way to easily access files from the Dock; a redesignedFinder that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, a newway to instantly see files without opening an application; Spaces, an intuitive new featureused to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; and TimeMachine™, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac. Featuring animproved scheduler and other multi-core technology, Leopard is a perfect companion to the MacPro, making applications faster and helping application developers take advantage ofmulti-core systems.

The new ultra-thin aluminium Apple Keyboard now ships with every Mac Pro and built-in Bluetooth2.0 makes it easy to reduce cable clutter with the optional Apple Wireless Keyboard and AppleWireless Mouse.

Pricing & Availability
The new Mac Pro is shipping today and will be available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com.au) and Apple Authorised Resellers.

The standard 8-core Mac Pro, with a recommended retail price of A$3,999 inc GST, includes:

In addition to the standard configuration, the Mac Pro offers numerous build-to-order optionsincluding: one 2.8 GHz, two 3.0 GHz, or two 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors; up to32GB of 800 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory; up to four 1TB Serial ATA hard drives runningat 7200 rpm or up to four 300GB SAS drives running at 15000 rpm; Mac Pro RAID card; up to two16x SuperDrives with double-layer support; NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600graphics cards; AirPort Extreme 802.11n; Apple USB Modem; Apple wireless Aluminium Keyboard;Apple wireless Mighty Mouse; and Mac OS X Server Leopard. Complete build-to-order options andpricing are available at www.apple.com.au/macpro.

*Based on estimated results comparing a preproduction 2.8 GHz 8-core Mac Pro with a 2.66 GHzQuad-Core Mac Pro running professional applications like Maya, modo and Logic Pro.

**Testing conducted by Apple in December 2007 using a preproduction 2.8 GHz 8-core Mac Prowith a 2.66 GHz quad-core Mac Pro. All systems were configured with 4GB of RAM. Results arebased on the STREAM v. 5.6 benchmark (www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/ref.html) using OMP supportfor multiprocessor-compiled builds. All systems were configured with 8GB of RAM. Performancetests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance ofMac Pro.

Press Contacts:
Fiona Martin
Apple
fmartin@asia.apple.com
(02) 9641 8230
John Marx
Apple
jmarx@asia.apple.com
(02) 9641 8399