Next Generation Mac Pro

vipz

Gawd
Joined
Apr 11, 2005
Messages
818
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7057/up-close-with-the-new-mac-pro

It is supposedly only 1/8 the size of the current tower, which is roughly 50 liters. That's pretty nuts.



I believe this picture shows the two GPUs plus the SSD:

xOtAZyE.jpg




Another angle, this time the memory slots and rear ports:

Hfq2rKb.jpg
 
you gotta give it apple. this is stunning design.. hopefully we'll see similar pc cases
 
Last edited:
That thing is going to get wicked hot with dual cpu's... jeezus.
 
Can you imagine trying to take that on a commercial airline?
I hear Kim Jung Un is ordering 100 of these for himself.

------------------------

I actually dreamed of something similar to this after seeing the Silverstone FT03.

A mITX (with mSATA) board with a long pcie flexible riser, a video card, and a psu forming a triangle with a large fan in the bottom blowing up. Then I thought that you might as well just make it a box.

mITX / \ GPU
p s u ~
 
Last edited:
Damn and a 12-Core Xeon E5, a new thermal core, a triangular air duct that runs through the center of the hardware with one huge fan mounted at the top.
 
Last edited:
Cool as hell. That design should be well appreciated by the usual Apple hating [H] crowd.
 
First we need pc hardware that'll fit lol.

I'm sure Foxconn will have plenty of slaves...cough.... I mean workers in some brand new factories soon that will custom tailor all the parts needed to adhere to Apples design standards.
 
I'm sure Foxconn will have plenty of slaves...cough.... I mean workers in some brand new factories soon that will custom tailor all the parts needed to adhere to Apples design standards.
assembled in America
 
The parts themselves could still be manufactured in China.

So according to Engadget, it's 9.9" tall and 6.6" wide. Using the standard cube shape, it's ~7 liter. As a cylinder, it's only ~5.5 liter. Nuts I say. Nuts.
 
The parts themselves could still be manufactured in China.

So according to Engadget, it's 9.9" tall and 6.6" wide. Using the standard cube shape, it's ~7 liter. As a cylinder, it's only ~5.5 liter. Nuts I say. Nuts.

The benefit of having access to custom PCBs :D
 
I was refering to pc hardware, as in non-Apple, as in stuff we get from manufacturers like Asus/Gigabyte/etc. Clearly Apple could have anything they want made =p. Obtaining parts ourselves, that would fit, isn't likely to happen. So you can't make a similar case if there's no widely-available, standardized parts that would fit in it. So there will be no similar pc cases, at least not close to the same size.
 
Last edited:
That thing is seriously awesome as far as the use of space goes but I am not all that fond of the cylindrical aesthetics just yet. Kudos to apple for making one of the more compact PCs I have ever seen. Shame it will probably be $5k for anything decent in it.
 
Based on the potential specs, I'm guessing we're looking at roughly 550-600W of number-crunching goodness in a 5.5 liter tube. Everything will be cooled by one massive fan, so even if it's not quiet, the noise profile would be quite pleasing.

If only there were a version of this with desktop Haswell and SLI/XFire instead... :(
 
on another note: now they have a reason to charge a premium... their design is truly unique
 
Let me guess - dual notebook GPU's?

Very innovative design, but calling it the "Most expandable Mac we've every created" really only applies to the last 3 years, and that's still not saying much. Yes, ThunderBolt2 is fast, but it's not PCI 16X speed, so forget about upgrading that video. Big 4TB HD? External thunderbolt.

It's indeed an impressive feat of engineering, but I'm wondering what's really the point other than to say "Look at what we crammed in here!". It's a Pro workstation. I doesn't have to be anywhere near Mac Pro sizing to at least have a bay for a 3 1/2" secondary drive and one PCIE 16X slot that can be upgraded.
 
They look to be full Tahiti cores with a combined total of 4096 stream processors.
 
There isnt anything with custom pc parts that can achieve this. Only Apple could afford to make these custom boards and design them so they could fit in that shape. They can do this because theyre backed by their brand. Mac Pro looks good.
Is there any other manufacturer with custom designed hardware and such sophisticated solutions? I know just Voodoo DNA that got swallowed by HP and basicaly died, but they didnt have brand recognition.
 
Now if we could just get it with a haswell desktop CPU, and sli gtx 780's.
 
Well this is the stuff I wish we had on the PC side of things. However, asking for this type of computer basically says every standard goes out the window. We need new form factors for everything. Everyone has just gotten too cushy with their ATX. We just got stuck there. Just because we make things smaller, doesn't mean we can't keep the same upgrade-ability and flexibility. Though I do believe things are simplifying, everything is much more integrated.
 
All we'd really need to make this is an itx board with a PCI-e slot on both sides of the board that angle inward at 45 degrees.

I wonder if it would be possible to contact a motherboard maker and get a custom board made, like We do to get custom cases built.
 
The amount of work required would probably be greater than setting up a company to do specific project. I mean even if gathered money for development. On the other hand such circuitry might need some creativity. I dont know if companies that have the tools have the people to make a board thats as these in Mac Pro. Theres also trial and error - time. Apple products are like no one elses.
 
Check out http://www.bcmcom.com/custom_motherboard_design.htm or http://www.perfectron.com/custom_design.html for custom motherboard. Not sure on details but theoretically they would possibly be able to do something.

Edit: Looking at some old info back in 2002 it was $100,000 for R&D, Tooling then 5000 boards minimum run. I would expect that to probably be five fold by now if you was looking at a high end custom board. Hope one of you lot have some very deep pockets if you would want to emulate the design. Which is different and has some good concepts.
 
Last edited:
Well then they do have everything..
I Wonder how is it in details if for serious there would be requirement for Thunderbolt. Or even PCI SIG ePCIe. Arent those licenced?
Im sendin them an email: "I want a board just like new Mac Pro". Theyll surely pick up buissness. :D
 
Check out http://www.bcmcom.com/custom_motherboard_design.htm or http://www.perfectron.com/custom_design.html for custom motherboard. Not sure on details but theoretically they would possibly be able to do something.

Edit: Looking at some old info back in 2002 it was $100,000 for R&D, Tooling then 5000 boards minimum run. I would expect that to probably be five fold by now if you was looking at a high end custom board. Hope one of you lot have some very deep pockets if you would want to emulate the design. Which is different and has some good concepts.

All I want is an ITX board (such as the Z87 Asrock one) with dual NGFF slots on the back of the motherboard (RAIDable) and the PCIe-16x slot at the "top" of the motherboard on the reverse side (so I could put a 90 degree adapter on it and bring the back of the video card along the back of the motherboard). :D
 
My Powermac G5 casemod isn't finished and now I'll have to do another Mac-inspired project ? Ah man, Jony Ive keeps making those insanely innovative designs too fast for my modding spare time.
 
Yeah I was thinking about a 3 sided 'n' shape Mobo. CPU and GPU on opposite sides with 8 RAM slots on the connecting side with wifi, sound and custom IO plate at the bottom.

You could then have full length custom copper blocks. A radiator that sits against the open side of the 'n' shape the pump and res (120x120x'Z'mm) in the middle of the 'n' with a 140mm fan sucking air from the bottom of the case which is also the mounting holes for the Mobo to attach to.

since each side is 140mm long (to match the fan) then you would have 420mm x 'Z' height of space to play with which would be loads and you could even run the cards in crossfire/sli and keep a small footprint.

Based on what I described the case could be approximately 320x280x'Z'mm (LxWxH)

:p probably looking at a fair amount; so short of me winning the lottery this would never happen but could look bloody amazing if you can understand my description.
 
It looks and sounds awesome to be fair. There is allot of great innovation in this. Not looking forward to the price mind.
 
Back
Top