Looks like Apple has announced a new Nehalem based Mac Pro with a starting price of $2,499. The new systems feature your choice of a single core 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3500, or a dual 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500, start with 3GB of memory, a 640GB hard drive, and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of RAM.

The new systems should be available next week online and in stores, so break open your piggy banks and get your credit cards ready.

Today Intel announced plans for its future in building processor chips in this seemingly crazy race to build them bigger and faster between Intel and AMD. The latest news involves new chips that promise to bump up processing speeds even more with 2, 4, 6 and even 8-core processors.

Intel unveiled a new microprocessor code-named “Dunnington” which will pack in a 6-core processor as a replacement for current Xeon systems with Quad-core processors. According to Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel’s digital enterprise group, the new Dunnington processors are expected to be available in the second half of 2008.