Rumor: Next Mac Pro to Have Six Cores

Video editors and audio engineers rejoice, cautiously: Rumor has it that the next Mac Pro will use Intel’s Gulfdown desktop chip. That’s according to HardMac, who says “one of our sources” believes Apple is testing the Xeon CPU, which has only been demonstrated a couple times before. Gulftown is a hexa-core processor with 12 threads, which Wired describes in plain English as “a processor with six brains, capable of efficiently distributing power to execute 12 concurrent tasks.” To simply things even further, it’s more powerful than today’s high-end quad-core chips.

Added benefits of the Gulftown chip include a larger shared cache (12 MB instead of 8 MB) and less power consumption thanks to a 32 nm process instead of the old 45 nm process. Apple’s latest operating system, Snow Leopard, is capable of handling all this advanced computing.

What does this mean for the average user? Not much, as the the rumored new Mac Pro will probably command a hefty price and won’t be of much value to anyone but professional users (unless Macs suddenly become a real gaming platform). But if Apple then keeps its quad-core Mac Pros around, it’ll mean lower prices for those who want a desktop Mac. For now, mark “Spring 2010″ on your Apple rumor confirmation calendar. [HardMac via Wired]