Apple's freshest Mac Pro, which was the first machine of any kind to ship with Intel's newest Nehalem-based Xeon processors, has been on the block for a few months now. By our estimation, that's plenty of time for the pros (and "prosumers," if you will) to get a good feel of their new workstation. Design wise, not a lot has changed in the machine, but we're anxious to know how you feel about the more subtle changes as well as the internal overhauling. Apple's charging a small fortune for this bad boy, so we fully expect you to be critical here. What's it missing? What should've been included? Are you still bitter that WiFi is a $50 option on a multi-thousand dollar machine? Sound off below!

Intel's announced this week its latest batch of Nehalem-based Xeon processors, the single-socket 3500 and dual-socket 5500 series for servers and workstations. Both models boast speeds up to 3.2 GHz and feature Intel's turbo boost, hyper-threading, and virtualization technologies, as well as integrated power gates. If you've got the newest Mac Pro, however, then you're already using the new quad-core CPUs,, but for everyone else, they're now being sold en masse to manufacturers at a price ranging from $188 to $1,600 for the Xeon 5500 and $284 to $999 for the 3500. We've already heard about 5500 / 3500-equipped Lenovo and Dell workstations, but if that doesn't suit you, Intel promises over 230 systems are in the pipeline from companies such as Cisco, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, among others.

Well, what do we have here? An industry source has sent along information and images for a trio of new Dell Precision workstations using Intel's Nehalem architecture. The T3500 (starts at $999) sports up to 24GB DDR3 ECC memory. Just above that, we've got the T5500 (starts at $1,620) with up to 72GB of memory and dual socket Intel Xeon. Meanwhile, granddaddy T7500 (pictured; starts at $1,800) boasts 192GB of three-channel DDR3 ECC memory up to 1066 or 1333MHz, dual native Gen 2 PCIe graphics slots and supports NVIDIA SLI technology. All models feature an E-SATA port, up to 1.5TB SATA HDD, dual / quad monitor support, DisplayPort connectors, and for those trying to keep some assemblance of eco friendliness, these are all Energy Star 5.0 compliant. We also caught wind of new EqualLogic PS6000 and SSD-equipped PS6000S storage arrays, which start at around $17,000 and $25,000, respectively. Interests piqued? Hit up the gallery below for some pics.

Update: Dell releases the official presser for the PS6000S.

We have to say, we didn't exactly expect Lenovo to have any hard-hitting news emanating from the floor at Game Developer's Conference, but this is pretty swank. The company has just unveiled two new ThinkStation desktops, the S20 and D20, both of which are designed exclusively for specialized professionals in fields such as computer-aided design and digital content creation. Within, you'll find your choice of Intel's latest Nehalem-based Xeon chips (yep, the same 5500 and 3500 series as in Apple's newest Mac Pro), NVIDIA's Tesla C1060 GPU platform (or an ATI FirePro, if you prefer) and Windows Vista or RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.2 running the show. Hit up the gallery below for the specifications breakdown, and as for pricing, you'll find 'em in Q1 for $1,070 and $1,550, respectively. Full release is after the break.

When Apple's ever-so-slightly refreshed Nehalem-based Mac Pro showed up on our doorstep, we were understandably taken aback by the enclosure. Sure, it looks exactly like the previous Mac Pro externally, and only slightly more beautiful internally, but it's hard to deny the gorgeousness of this metallic wonder. That said, the so-called cheese grater design is one that's mighty familiar to Mac fans by now, so we'll spare you the details there. What you're probably wondering is whether or not this rig is really worth the steep asking price. At $2,499 for a single quad-core 2.66GHz rig and $3,299 for a twin quad-core 2.26GHz machine (which is our test system, by the way), neither option is particularly "affordable." And outside of the refreshed Intel Xeon processor, there aren't too many new hardware components to really convince you that an upgrade is a dire necessity. Follow us past the break to get a real-world perspective on the value proposition, and moreover, to get a better understanding of who exactly benefits most from a workstation of this magnitude.

Here she is, fresh off the Saturday Express. Apple's latest Mac Pro is said to be significantly more nimble and entirely easier to upgrade than its Penryn-based predecessor, and while it'll take us a few days yet to check out the former claim, we can already assure you that the second one is valid. Upon unboxing this beast (to be fair, it's not all that monstrous), we immediately dug within the cover to see what was up with Apple's new tray system. Rather than forcing users to squeeze their hands into unfathomably tight places just to pop in a new DIMM or add in a fresh 2TB hard drive, the engineers at Cupertino found a way to place all eight RAM slots on a removable tray, meaning that you can actually take that piece elsewhere and operate under better lighting. The tray was dead simple to remove and replace, and while it's a small inclusion, it's definitely an appreciated one. We'll be stressing this thing out and writing up a more thorough review soon, but for now, enjoy the snapshots / video below and after the break, respectively.

Intel's new Core i7 chip has been showing up in tons of silly-spec'd high-end gaming rigs for about three days now, so it's obviously time to get bored and move on -- and right on cue, TechRadar's got the first benchmarks we've seen of the upcoming dual-processor Nehalem EP platform. The secret test machine featured two 2.8GHz Nehalem EP chips (likely to hit retail in 2009 as the Xeon X5560) and 24GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 RAM controlled by the new Quick Path Interconnect and on-die memory controllers, which together cranked out a SPECfp base rate of 160 -- way above the 90 posted by current 3.4GHz Xeon setups, and higher than the 105 scored by a 2.7GHz dual-processor rig with AMD's new Shanghai chips. Yeah, that's silly fast, and it's bound to get even faster when these bad boys launch with a 3.2GHz part along for the ride. Now if Intel could just siphon some of that speed into these pokey Atoms we can actually afford, we'd be grins-a-plenty.

C'mon, who here doesn't want their very own supercomputer to do, um, whatever they want with? In an effort to make sure every man, woman and child has an absurdly powerful number cruncher in their home (let's go with OSPP, or One Supercomputer Per Person), Microsoft has tag-teamed with the fabled Cray in order to "drive high productivity computing into the mainstream." The Cray CX1 Supercomputer comes loaded with Windows HPC Server 2008 and incorporates up to 8 nodes and 16 Intel Xeon CPUs (dual- or quad-core); additionally, it boasts up to 4TB of internal storage, 64GB of memory per node and interoperates nicely with Linux. The CX1 is said to be the most affordable supercomputer offered by Cray (not to mention the "world's highest-performing computer that uses standard office power"), but it'll still run you anywhere between $25,000 to well over $60,000. Chump change, right?

[Via NetworkWorld]

Intel's had its new processor plans slipped out to the public thanks to Sun, according to DailyTech. Details on the 6-core (!) Xeon Dunnington, as well as the kinda-sorta hush-hush Nehalem were apparently leaked out onto Sun's public web server over the weekend, including plans for the new Xeons to overtake the company's Tigerton CPU line. The Dunnington processors will have a 16MB L3 cache shared by all six cores, and will be pin-compatible with the Tigertons, thus making integration with your Clarksboro chipset slightly less painful... by being possible. The Nehalem also got the spy treatment, with news that it will not only replace the Penryn line in Q4 '08, but will also be the first time in 18 years that Intel includes on-die memory controllers. If this sort of thing is important to you (and we think it may be) hit the read link and get all the juicy details.

Intel seems like it's going to be making a bigger push at gamers with the launch of Penryn, and HotHardware managed to score some deets on the company's upcoming "Skulltrail" platform, which is built-around server-class hardware reconfigured for gaming. The new mobo pictured here supports dual quad-core Penryn Xeon processors, SLI graphics, and four PCI Express x16 slots, as well as two standard PCI slots. You're also looking at a whopping six internal SATA ports, dual eSATA ports, six USB ports, a lone FireWire port, and Gigabit Ethernet. That's quite a foundation for a gaming rig -- let's just hope pricing is at least pretend reasonable, eh?

When a regular consumer desktop just won't serve your demanding computing needs, it's time to go workstation, and Dell's got a pair of new quad-core-packin' models that are spec'ed to be some of the fastest on the planet. Both the Precision T7400 and T5400 are available with either one or two of Intel's newest 45-nanometer Xeon Processors (up to a 3.20GHz X5482 on the 7400), as many as two 1.5GB nVIDIA Quadro FX5600 graphics cards (capable of driving four 30-inch monitors), up to 4GB of RAM (with a whopping 128GB promised using a memory riser card chassis when 8GB DIMMs become available) and either three (5400) or five (7400) hard drives for up to 3TB of storage -- all topped off with a little Blu-ray action. Available immediately, the new rigs start at just $1,600 and $1,850, but for a configuration that meets your ridiculous specifications, expect to shell out well north of ten grand.

Right on schedule, we've got 16 new server and high-end desktop processors based on Intel's new 45nm manufacturing and Penryn architecture. The procs all deliver more power from less juice while eliminating lead for a more eco-friendly impact over time. The QX9650 desktop proc receives the spotlight, again, as does the "world-record" setting performance of a 3.2GHz quad-core Xeon 5400 "Stoakley" proc with a 1600MHz front side bus and 12MB cache. Right, the same chip that Apple's rumored to be waiting on for their Mac Pro update. At least some of the new processors will be available today inside pre-built systems -- the rest will arrive within the next 45 days. Bulk pricing begins at $177 for the 1.86Ghz dual-core Xeon on up to $1,279 for the 3.2GHz quad-core mother.

[Via Electronista]