Apple Ultra-Thin, Sub-Notbook in January?

The January 15th keynote for IDG's Macworld San Francisco expo will see Mac Pros using new 45-nanometer, quad-core Xeons based on Intel's Penryn architecture, the French outlet reports -- systems which AppleInsider said earlier this year were dependent on Intel's supply of new processors before manufacturing could begin, and which would be available by the early 2008 event. These will clock up to the predicted 3.2GHz and use new video cards, including NVIDIA's latest Quadro FX workstation models. A Blu-ray drive should also be an option, the site claims.

As significant as these updates may be, the report also cites sources which point to the release of Mac OS X 10.5.2 as being instrumental to the hardware upgrade. Apple software engineers are reworking Leopard code to optimize it for the SSE4 instructions found within Penryn and the architecture as a whole, both of which promise speed gains above and beyond clock speed boosts.

This update will be the most significant interim upgrade for Mac OS X ever made by Apple, according to the rumor.

Source: Apple Insider