2013 MacPro CPU and GPU

[derbothaus]

Originally Posted by H2SO4

I hope Zigich is wrong.....

Yeah. More stupid modular Mac musings. Well, it could happen seeing as how dongle and "extras" happy Apple has been of late. Charge the same remove all the ports and sell them back to you. He could of at least hired a designer to do something for a mock up.
Wait, he IS a designer? Good lord.

[theSeb]

Originally Posted by derbothaus

Yeah. More stupid modular Mac musings. Well, it could happen seeing as how dongle and "extras" happy Apple has been of late. Charge the same remove all the ports and sell them back to you. He could of at least hired a designer to do something for a mock up.
Wait, he IS a designer? Good lord.

I reckon we might lose the firewire ports, but that's about as far as it will go.

[H2SO4]

Originally Posted by derbothaus

Yeah. More stupid modular Mac musings. Well, it could happen seeing as how dongle and "extras" happy Apple has been of late. Charge the same remove all the ports and sell them back to you. He could of at least hired a designer to do something for a mock up.
Wait, he IS a designer? Good lord.

One thing I used to love about a tower from back in the day, (I don't even need one if I'm honest - an iMac or a Mini will do me), is the fact that everything was internal.
I could buy my tower and have a PCI anything card instead of this horrible plethora of USB devices I currently have. One cable to power and one cable to monitor, at the same time as having maximum upgradeable goodness.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by derbothaus

He could of at least hired a designer to do something for a mock up.
Wait, he IS a designer? Good lord.

A designer of what though? It seems unlikely a designed of electrical oriented products. Nor did he crawl very far into Ive's mind.

1. There will likely be a seam at the boundary of each of these components. Apple is so freaked out at this point about seams that the 21" iMac doesn't even have a door to the RAM slots. (and hid the 27" door behind the pedestal arm. )


They are going to put 7 seams on the "utlimate" config???? Chuckle ...... ummm no.

Neither are these design very symmetric. Another hallmark of Apple design principles as of late.


2. Somehow I doubt this designer knows what center of gravity means.


3. Notice how the power supply remains constant no matter how many extra layers and devices cramming into the middle of the sandwich.

4. The additional power and signal distribution will bump up costs. (e.g., Blade server boxes generally much more expensive than all-in-one boxes. )

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by theSeb

I reckon we might lose the firewire ports, but that's about as far as it will go.

If you are betting on two 5.25" ODD bays being present you're likely going to loose. Firewire staying (e.g., on the front socket panel ) is far more likely than two ODDs bays.

Unless there is some reason Apple is hard pressed to attached to the Thunderbolt controller to x4 PCI-e lanes, FW will likely stay (e.g. attaching to the C600 series I/O Hub leaves just 4 lanes left and USB3.0/Ethernet/Wifi/Bluetooth/audio/etc gobble up the remaining 4. A small PCI-e switch could solve that issue also though to multiply one x1 lane into 2-3 1x lanes. ). If the mini can afford to have it, it is a huge leap to toss it from the Mac Pro. Sure the iMac dropped it but the Mac Pro (unlike the Mini and the iMac ) has two socket panels.

Sure FW will likely get dropped from the back panel. But that still leaves two FW ports on the front. On the Mini where there was no reason to nuke a port (e.g. needed space for a second TB port) Apple left the FW port on the 2012 model. Thunderbolt can't pragmatically be on front and back. It is only going to be one. That means the "other" likely won't loose much unless there is something radical they are doing to the front also ( which is unlikely. Even arguments for "smaller" demands little of the front sockets.)

. The only reason why "can't" is:

A. ran out of space on the motherboard. Unlikely.

B. could hook up the FW controller. Unlikely.


Folks may get all twisted about a port not being on the back, but it probably will be around.

There is a chance Apple may keep one 5.25" bay, but two ODDs ???? All indicators is that Apple doesn't believe that is a commonly desired/required config. In fact more that a few folks on this forum use the second bay for just about everything else but a 2nd ODD . It isn't likely Apple is being unilateral in repurposing the 2nd bay to something else. It is already being done in the marketplace.

[derbothaus]

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

2. Somehow i doubt this designer knows what center of gravity means.

:d
Love it.