In November, on the eve of the launch of the new Quad-core Xeon from Intel, I posted a wish for a gift of an 8-core Mac Pro. The new chip has 4 cores on a single die, making each chip the equivalent of a 4 processor module by itself. Since the Mac Pro has room for 2, that would give you an incredible machine, and naturally I want one.

Well, check out this graphic, snapped from MacWorld UK, before they could pull it down (courtesy of Mac Rumors):

Looks like Apple is going to move to either a single 4-core processor or a double 4-core (8-core) monster very soon.

Some details on the specs of the chips available on Jason O’Grady’s blog today on the “Octo-Core” Mac Pro:

Rumors have been swirling since October 2006 that Apple would introduce an 8-core Mac Pro using dual Intel Quad-Core Xeon 53xx family processors (code-named Clovertown). Current Mac Pros use Intel Woodcrest cores that are in the Xeon 51xx family.

According to reports “Clovertown” will ship in two configurations (X5355 and E5345) with the same 1333MHz bus found in the Mac Pro running at 2.66 and 2.33GHz respectively. Two slower configurations (E5320 and E5310) aren’t expected to be used by Apple.

The Intel Xeon 53xx series will reportedly use Intel’s LGA771 socket, the same socket that ships in today’s Xeon 51xx series (a.k.a. Woodcrest) Mac Pros. Therefore it’s conceivable that current Mac Pro users could upgrade to 8-core machines – depending on chip availability of course.

So, although my birthday has come and gone, if you’d like to make my week, feel free to send me one of these when they do launch.

Just plain awesome.

Update (4/4/2007):  It launched today.  Check it out. 4.9 million configurations available at the Apple Store.  The price is nothing to sneeze at – that’s a very expensive upgrade!