UPDATE: Benchmarks of the new Mac pro systems compared to the previous generation's here [1].

Apple has renewed its Mac Pro and XServe linups earlier today with an update of its online Apple Store and presentations at the annual Los Angeles, CES (Consumer Electronics Show).

The new Mac Pro comes in a standard 8-core configuration priced $2799. It includes two 2.8Ghz Xeon Core 2 Quad chips, 2GB of RAM, 320GB of storage and a Radeon 2600 GPU with 256MB of DDR3 VRAM.

Customers may customize the Mac Pro with up to 3Ghz or 3.2GHz Xeon chips, 32GB of RAM, 4TB of storage and NVidia 8800GT or Quadro FX5600 GPUs.

It is also still possible to configure the Mac Pro with one only Quad Core Xeon chip, which subtracts $500 to the price. This means the less expensive Mac Pro is currently priced $2299.

The XServe has also been renewed with an 8-core configuration at 2.8Ghz with 2GB of RAM and 80GB of storage priced $2999. Options for up to 32GB of RAM, 3TB of storage, RAID, Fiber Channel cards and redundant power supply are also available.

Both the Mac Pros and the XServes keep the same external brushed aluminum design.

It's quite a surprising move from Apple to release products one week before a major event like the MacWorld Expo, during which it usually makes major announcements.

The Mac Pros were even demonstrated at the CES earlier today, another unusual move as Apple usually snobs the show.