Apple Computer Inc. has introduced an upgraded version of its highest-end computer — aimed at graphics and video professionals — the last of Apple’s computers to be converted over to Intel chips.

The MacPro replaces the company’s venerable PowerMac machine.

“Today the PowerMac is going to fade into history,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of global product marketing, told the company’s annual developer’s conference at the Moscone convention center in San Francisco. “It is twice as fast as the machine it replaces,” he said.

“Our transition is complete,” he said of the company’s switchover to Intel chips that began with the first models in January and is complete with the move to MacPro, which begins shipping on Monday. Apple had previously relied on Power chips built by Motorola and IBM.

MacPro contains:

• two dual-core Intel Xeon “Woodcrest” chips, or four separate processors
• processors run at up to 3 gigahertz, or cycles per second.
• four hard disks with two terabytes of storage.
• up to 16 gigabytes of memory.

Later in the presentation, Chief Executive Steve Jobs is expected to preview the next version of its OS X operating system, code-named Leopard to an audience of thousands at Moscone Center in San Francisco.