"Now I can begin planning our systems purchases," said Robyn Berland, lab manager for the Student Tech Services group at New York University, referring to the new computers. She called the new Mac Pro workstation and Xserve servers, which feature Intel Corp.'s just-released Core 2 Duo processors, "very exciting."

Brian Weitzner, a chemical engineering student at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. agreed, and said the US$2,499 base price was most surprising for a "well-equipped" standard configuration machine. "I could save up and get one in a few months," he said, "if I didn't eat."

Bob O'Donnell, an analyst with IDC, said he was impressed that, with the announced October ship date for Xserves running the dual-core Intel Xeon processors, Apple has now completed the transition of its laptop, desktop and server product lines to Intel chips. But he wondered whether Apple will follow other computer makers and support Intel's historical and aggressive processor upgrade cycle, which runs about every six months. "Can Apple keep pace with Intel the way other PC vendors do?" he said.

"Normally, Apple has a longer release cycle," said O'Donnell. The question, he said, is whether Apple intends to keep up with other Intel hardware manufacturers or will it need to skip chips on the Intel roadmap.

Henry Norr, a respected independent reviewer of personal computing hardware, said it is paramount for Apple to revamp the elaborate cooling system in the prior line of PowerPC-based professional workstations, which had nine fans as well as water-cooling technology to keep the systems from burning up. The new Mac Pro systems have four fans and no water cooling technology, primarily due to the much lower watt consumption of the Intel chips.