The Apple community's been waiting for this. It's been rumored that an eight-core Mac Pro is in the works, now it's a rumor no more. The Apple 8-core Mac Pro is finally here.

Back when the 8-core Mac Pro was still a rumor, it was said that it was going to be released later this year, possibly November. It was released earlier than everyone expected. This newly launched Mac Pro is the world's first 3.0 GHz, 8-core Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro. We can't help but get swayed by the tagline on the Apple site: "Consider the bar officially raised."

Mac Pro 8-core boasts advanced performance on workstation graphics, and "unparalleled" expansion in many possible configurations. Simply put, at 3.0 GHz the quad-core Mac Pro runs two times faster than Power Mac G5 Quad. Expansion-wise, it 8-core Mac Pro can accommodate up to four drives and 3TB of storage, eight DIMM slots to fill up with 16 GB of RAM, two Super Drives.

That's a lot of power. We are sure the programmers and software developers are going to be happy with the functions of this one.

   
 

Nosy little spies within the walls of Apple have been at their wits' end in trying to figure out what exactly this company has been up to, particularly if the said company will be releasing a new line of products this fall.

Apple is said to be preparing massive air-freight shipments with unconfirmed contents from the Far East this week, and these shipments are expected to reach US shores by maybe the 5th of September. Could it just be a coincidence that the timeframe of these shipments fits nicely with the date when Apple is believed to be ready to start rolling out its first Core 2 Duo-based Macbook Pro notebooks?

Then there's also the fact that the end-of-life notice of the entire iPod Nano line is on September 16th, which is also the same day that Apple's "Free iPod nano" back-to-school promotion is set to expire. This timeframe also coincides with previous rumors regarding the availability of Apple's next-gen iPod Nano. More coincidence?

These are all general speculations at the moment, and until we either get direct word from Apple officials, or we get to find out what's in those boxes they just shipped, there's still no telling as to what kind of strange fruit will really fall from this tree and hit us on the head.

Rumors circulated that Apple was going to introduce a new enclosure for its first Intel-based Mac Pro desktops. But according to AppleInsider, the Mac Pro will only sport a slightly modified casing from the Power Mac G5. People "in the know" claim the differences between the Mac Pro and Power Mac G5 casings is cosmetic - mainly the addition of a second optical disc drive slot on the face of the Mac Pro.

But the first Mac Pros will most probably ship with the additional optical disc drive slot and bay empty so users can choose to fit it with either a Blu-ray or HD-DVD drive. The other "cosmetic change" is that new Power Mac's power supply has been moved from the base of the unit to somewhere higher. At least that's what AppleInsider sources said.

Granite Digital has shipped its SATA Dual Drive Internal Mounting kits for the Power Mac G5. The kits provide Power Mac G5 users a compact, affordable storage solution that is "simple, quick and easy" to install. Using the simple to install bracket and cables provided in the kit adding two drives takes only a few minutes.

The SATA Double Drive Bracket (included in the kit) can accomodate two standard 3.5-inch SATA (ATA 5 or ATA 6) drives with data transfer rates of up to 300MB/s.

Its unique aluminum bracket design works with older PCI-based and newer PCIe-based G5s using different SATA host adapters. The bracket is $50, while the kit retails for $100 and includes a SATA PCI or PCI-e two-channel host adapter, two internal SATA data cables, SATA power cable, and an aluminum mounting bracket (with screws).

Additional drives are $99.95(160GB), $159.95 (250GB), $399.95 (500GB), and $599.95 (750GB). The SATA Dual-Drive Mount kit for the Power Mac G5 kit is available at the Apple Store comes with a one year warranty.

When the infamous MacBook Pro was released to the masses back at the start of the year, it was housed in a very fetching aluminium case, gained somewhat from its predecessor. When the MacBook was released recently, that too supported a 'newish' case, which gained popularity thanks to its slimline appearance, and its choice of white and black. We have now learned that the new release of the PowerMac will be housed within a newly designed case.

The new case will be different enough to allow instant distinction between the PowerPC and Intel Core Duo variants. Together with the cases, there will be a few choices on which processors to adopt. The new Intel Core Duo will be available for the PowerMac with 2 chips, A.K.A. Quad-core platform. It is not known whether the PowerMac will adopt the soon-to-be released Core Duo 2 chip, codenamed Conroe. The mobile variant is not expected till Fall.

The MacBook Pro will also have a new case for its range. However rumour has it that this will not be released till the system adopts the Intel Core Duo 2 chip, codenamed Merom. We would hope that issues are fixed in the new case release including heat expulsion.