Apple announces Mac Pro - shipping today

"The fastest, most configurable Mac ever" indeed. Today at WWDC 2006 (check out our coverage and the chatcast) Apple introduced the Mac Pro, and it might as well come with a pair of hot pads with all-new features like this:

• Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" processors
  

• 4MB shared L2 cache per processor
  

• 1.33GHz dual independent frontside buses
  

• 1GB memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
  

• NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory
  

• 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive1
  

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

And the fun doesn't stop there. You can stuff up to 16GB of RAM in these beasts now, along with 2TB of storage. With over 1,000,000 available BTO configurations, we wouldn't be surprised if customers have a hard time simply deciding on which Mac Pro they want to throw down their credit cards for.

Also notable: gone are the two or three configuration options from the PowerMac Mac Pro's page in the store. It simply offers the base configuration, which now starts at $2499, and beckons you to click 'configure'. Just try not getting lost in options on your way to the checkout.