In a lot of ways, Intel and Apple were born to be partners. Both companies are as good at marketing as high-tech gets. And they actually manage to hit production yields that satisfy Apple's processor needs.
On the other hand, Intel is the worst possible partner for Apple. They love to say exactly what processors they're working on and when they will ship. Which is frustrating if you're Steve Jobs and your top-secret Quad and 8-Core Mac Pros get spoiled by an eager partner, as happened today.
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At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is currently hosting new product announcements by every tech company in the world except Apple, Intel rolled out its first-ever consumer quad-core part, the 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Quad Q6600. Now, it's not a guarantee that Apple's going to announce new Mac Pros tomorrow, but it's a pretty good indication. Until Apple rolls out a really different desktop case, you can expect a rev whenever Intel brings out new high-end processors, particularly Xeons.
It will be interesting to see which way Apple plays this -- they could view it as an opportunity for the most ridiculous Mac ever (can anything take advantage of 8 cores right now), or they could simply use the part to deliver the cheapest quad-core Mac thus far. Either way, a little bit of Steve's secret sauce has been taken away from tomorrow.
Intel introduces new quad-core chips [Ars Technica]
Image via Intel.
