Apple today announced a 24-inch iMac that is priced more affordably than ever before and a Mac mini with powerful new integrated graphics. The company also unveiled the new Mac Pro using Intel "Nehalem" Xeon processors.
New iMac and Mac Mini
For the same $1,499 price as the previous generation 20-inch iMac, the new 24-inch iMac delivers a 30 percent larger display, twice the memory and twice the storage.
Delivering up to five times better graphics performance, the updated Mac mini now features the same NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics introduced with the aluminum unibody MacBook family. The Mac mini is also among the most energy efficient desktops, drawing less than 13 watts of power when idle. All iMac and Mac mini systems come with Mac OS X Leopard and iLife ?09, Apple?s suite of consumer applications for managing and organizing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music.
The new iMac line starts with the 20-inch iMac for $1,199 with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, a 320GB Serial ATA hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics. The 24-inch iMac features a 1920-by-1200 pixel widescreen display that offers 30 percent more screen real estate than the 20-inch model, and starts at just $1,499. The 24-inch iMac includes up to a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, a 640GB or 1TB Serial ATA hard drive, and a variety of graphics technology from NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics to the NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 or ATI Radeon HD 4850 discrete graphics.
Every iMac features a glossy display with a built-in iSight video camera, mic and speakers in a thin aluminum and glass design. The new iMac also includes a Mini DisplayPort connector with adapters available for DisplayPort, VGA, DVI and Dual-Link DVI displays. iMac includes built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi networking; Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; Gigabit Ethernet; a total of six USB 2.0 ports (including two on the Apple Keyboard); and one FireWire 800 port.
Starting at $599, the Mac mini is a tiny desktop measuring only 6.5 by 6.5 by 2-inches. Available in two models, Mac mini features a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, up to 4GB of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, up to 320GB Serial ATA hard drive, five USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 800 and a SuperDrive. The Mac mini features NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics for up to five times better graphics performance than before and now with dual display support can drive two Apple or third-party displays with Mini DisplayPort or DVI connections. Using less than 13 watts of power at idle, up to 10 times less power than a typical desktop PC, the new Mac mini is also very energy efficient.
New Mac Pro
Apple also introduced the new Mac Pro using Intel "Nehalem" Xeon processors and a next-generation system architecture to deliver up to twice the performance of the previous generation system. The new Mac Pro starts at $2,499 and features the latest graphics technology and an updated interior.
The new Mac Pro includes Intel Xeon processors running at speeds up to 2.93 GHz, each with an integrated memory controller with three channels of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC memory that delivers up to 2.4 times the memory bandwidth while cutting memory latency up to 40 percent. Every Mac Pro comes standard with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory. An optional ATI Radeon HD 4870 is available for even more performance. With both a Mini DisplayPort and DVI port, the new Mac Pro provides out-of-the-box support for the 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display, the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display, or other DVI based displays.
The Mac Pro includes four direct-attach cable-free hard drive carriers for installing up to 4TB of internal storage when using 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA drives. An optional cable-free Mac Pro RAID card delivers performance up to 550MB/s and allows the four internal drive bays to be set up in RAID 0, 1, 5, or 0+1 configurations for improved disk performance and redundant data protection.
Every Mac includes Leopard operating system.
The new Mac Pro will be available next week through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), Apple?s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.
The new quad-core Mac Pro will be available at suggested retail price of $2,499 (US) while the
8-core Mac Pro will retail for $3,299 (US).