Macworld is coming in January of 2008. And what would a months-off Apple event be without unsubstantiated pre-launch rumors of sweet new product offerings at incredibly low prices? Need I remind you of the Apple Product Cycle? Gentlemen, Start Your Rumors!

MacSlice is reporting rumoring that the requisite unnamed “Apple informant” has delivered (rumored) glad tidings of (rumored)great joy unto all potential Mac Pro buyers…

“…our Apple informant has told us that a new lineup of Mac Pros and Apple Cinema Displays are arriving in Q1 2008 and will be announced in Macworld 2008. (This has been revised to As far as we know, the Mac Pros will be housed in the same aluminum casing, but the baseline processor speeds, RAM and hard drives are to be improved. Also, all models will be 8 (2×4) core Xeons.”

(Rumored) Mac Pro Base Model Specifications
2 x 3.0GHz Quad Core Xeon
2GB FB-DIMM RAM (Up to 32GB)
500GB Hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 8600GTS with 640MB or NVIDIA Quadro NVS 440
SuperDrive (with option for Blu-ray drive)
Price is approx $2000

Additionally, the aforementioned informant suggests that new Apple Cinema Displays will feature a slimmer brushed aluminum casing akin to the iMac, embedded iSight camera, and LED backlighting. The 20″ model will be discontinued, and a 24″ and 32″ option will be added alongside the venerable 30″. Interesting. MacSlice has added an update since the original post, stating “this update may happen earlier than 2008.” I’m glad their source is really committing with strong language like “may”. Once again, these are only rumors. Let’s all hope there is a grain of truth in there somewhere…after all, it’s about time Apple offered a HD disc burning option.