Apple

Intel's New "Sandy Bridge-E" Processors are faster and zippier than the previous generation Sandy Bridge processors.

Current Mac lineups utilize Intel's Sandy Bridge processors which have 32 nm technology. The new Sandy Bridge-E processors utilize the same technology but with higher clock speeds, bigger L3 caches, 6 cores, and higher prices. They are extremely powerful.

The Core i5 and i7 series of processors by Intel offer something amazing; turbo boost. This means that the processor can technically overclock itself when it needs to produce large workloads. It's not a system-wide overclock, it's just a temporary boost. So it shouldn't be confused with overclocking your system to the extent of needing a super amazing cooling system. The processor will only operate at higher clock speeds when the processor needs to use it. As well as turbo boost, the Core i5 and i7 processors have hyperthreading which means that they can operate two threads per core instead of one. What this means is that a dual-core processor will be treated as a quad-core, a quad-core will be treated as an eight-core, and a six-core will be treated as a twelve-core.

The new Sandy Bridge-E Core i7 processors come in three thresholds:

Core i7-3960X
Cores: 6
Clock Speed: 3.3 GHz
Turbo Boost: Up to 3.9 GHz
Hyperthreading: Yes – 12 Cores
L3 Cache: 15 MB
Socket: 2011
Technology: 32 nm
Cost: $990

Core i7-3930K
Cores: 6
Clock Speed: 3.2 GHz
Turbo Boost: Up to 3.8 GHz
Hyperthreading: Yes – 12 Cores
L3 Cache: 12 MB
Socket: 2011
Technology: 32 nm
Cost: $555

Core i7-3820
Cores: 4
Clock Speed: 3.3 GHz
Turbo Boost: Up to 3.9 GHz
Hyperthreading: Yes – 8 Cores
L3 Cache: 10 MB
Socket: 2011
Technology: 32 nm
Cost: Unknown/$294?

These new processors aren't built for casual users. The power inside of these microchips are best suited for design professionals. They currently support the following configurations for multiple video/graphics cards:

• Two video cards at x16 and one video card at x8
• One video card at x16 and three video cards at x8
• One video card at x16, two video cards at x8, and two video cards at x4

Apple may be doing away with the Mac Pro lineup in favor of their iMac. If Apple implements these new processors into the iMac, there would be nothing holding it from nearly beating the Mac Pro in performance; if not completely crushing it. Currently, the Mac Pro is the most powerful Mac computer available and allows you to manually configure your hardware in more ways than any other Mac. The Mac Pro can support numerous internal drives. The iMac can only support two internal drives. The thunderbolt idea hopes to replace the Mac Pro with the iMac in that users can daisy chain a RAID chassis to their MacBook Pro's and iMac's instead of needing to worry about the internal configurations of their Mac Pro's. The Mac Pro also sports a maximum of in theory 128GB of RAM because it has eight RAM slots; four for each of its two processors. The Mac Pro can also sport up to 24 cores, 12 of which are virtual. Yeah... it's pretty powerful. With these new processors, Apple might do away with the Intel Xeon processors. Maybe even the Mac Pro completely.

What do you think about Intel's new Sandy Bridge-E processors? Should Apple integrate them? Or should they wait until Ivy Bridge? Share in the comments below!

Sources: Hardware Secrets