Apple Prepping New Generation of Mac Pros, 27″ LED Cinema Display

For the professional end, Apple might just have some good stuff in store.

Per AppleInsider, Apple is wrapping up development on both a larger version of its LED Cinema Display as well as a new generation of Mac Pro workstations.

The new display is targeted for a June release date and measures 27″ diagonal which seems to resemble a slightly magnified version of the company’s existing 24″ model which was introduced back in October of 2008.

Two sources familiar with the upcoming display say its been lingering in Apple’s labs for quite sometime, where it’s frequently referenced by the unique identifier/codename “K59.” Apple is believed to have been waiting patiently for the cost of the larger LCD panels, which sport a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, to shed some of their premium before introducing the model to market.

Thanks to the success of its 27-inch iMacs, which sport similar components, Apple is now believed to be in a position to market the display at a more affordable price. The company also recently put behind it problems with the same size panels that slowed the momentum of its larger iMac offerings for several months following their October 2009 introduction.

Meanwhile, Apple is also wrapping up development of its new generation of Mac Pro units, which are also slated to arrive by June, despite external reports that inaccurately pegged its release to show up as early as January or as recently as this week.

While details are scarce, sources familiar with the matter were stern in stating that Mac maker’s plans call for a dodeca-core model, sporting a pair of Intel’s latest Westmere-based hexacore chips for a total of 12 cores.

It’s suggested that Apple will likely stick to its existing Xeon strategy, employing a pair of pricey Xeon 5600 Series “Gulftown” chips into an expensive dodeca-core Mac Pro, while offering a single processor model with 6 cores at prices similar to today’s US$2,500 quad-core model.

The 5600 series will be available within the next 45 days in 2.66, 2.8, 2.93, and 3.33GHz configurations, ranging in price from US$996 to US$1663 in lots of 1000. These new 32 nanometer chips have 12MB of L3 cache, and 6 cores with 12 threads for each CPU. Apple typically bundles the most affordable of these pricey multi-core chips into its standard dual-processor model, offering the higher frequency chips as build-to-order options.

Rumors have remained that Apple would abandon its Xeon strategy and adopt two of Intel’s US$999 3.33GHz Core i7-980X Extreme Edition uniprocessor chips for a 12-core Mac Pro. However, Intel clearly lists this chip as uniprocessor model, meaning the Mac maker would need to adopt a dual motherboard strategy to make that happen.