Mac Pro 6,1 Cylinder - Fact Gathering.

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1. The MacPro6,1 is a computer! (Ref. clamnectar)

1. Assembled in the USA with some parts still manufactured abroad (in the far east?).
2. It's cylinder shaped and the exterior is "Stretched Aluminum". Stretched aluminum is the same process which makes coke cans. They start with a puck shape and after several progressive pushes on the center it forms a hollow cylinder. It can create beautiful and strong walled shapes.
3. After shaped the surface is machine polished for an "incredible" (mirror-like?) finish. Of course if their polishing compound is large grit it may produce a finish similar to current MacPro machines.
4. It uses a triangular (3 sided) heat-sink Apple calls a "unified thermal core" which touches several chips presumably including the CPU, and both GPUs. No information yet as to whether it helps to cool VRAM, or other components.
5. It appears as if it might also touch parts of the PSU but the images are inconclusive at best.
6. A single slow-spinning fan with backward-curved impeller blades is located on top and pulls air up from the bottom intake vents and over the components and heat-sink.
7. It looks as if the fan is exhausting out the top but it could also be forcing some air back down between the outer walls and the "back" of the three main PWBs (CPU card, and 2 GPU cards) where it would push past the RAM and the SSD on it's way out the bottom.
8. "As you rotate Mac Pro to plug in a device, it senses the movement and automatically illuminates the I/O panel."
9. It's 9.9 inches tall and 6.6 inches in diameter (wide).
10. Apple is claiming that it's a workstation or will become one when you flesh it out. Here's the quote from Apple: "And it has everything you need to build a workstation...". They also refer to it as a "pro desktop computer" in one place and the "future of the pro desktop" in another. So it remains unclear how Apple themselves are classifying this machine.

1. The images so far show only a single CPU design.
2. CPU models will be from those supported by the Intel Xeon E5 chipset.
3. Processors planed are currently to offer "up to 12 cores".
4. Many MacRumors members assume the CPU socket will be Socket-2011 and that the chipset will be either of the C200 series or of the C600 series. VirtualRain is referenced here for example.

1. The info so far claims dual ATI workstation graphics:
2. AMD FirePro workstation-class GPUs
3. Up to 6GB of dedicated VRAM each.
4. Apple claims you can edit 4K video with this setup.
5. And also connect up to three 4K displays at the same time.
6. Up to "7 Teraflops" of GPU compute power.
7. It appears as if the two GPU boards are not interchangeable but unique physically and electrically.
8. Most likely it is possible to connect a total of 7 common-day LCD monitors.
9. The model demoed at WWDC states having: "4096 Stream Processors, 384bit memory Buses, 528GB/s"

1. Four-channel DDR3
2. 1866MHz. (up to 60GB/s bandwidth)
3. ECC: Yes
4. Total of 4 DIMM sockets

1. One or two "next-generation PCI Express flash storage" (Same as 2013 MacBookAir?)
   See iFixit's pic of the SSD from the 2013 MacBook Air (top) with the old MBA SSD (bottom)...
2. Up to 2.5 times faster than the fastest SATA III SSD.
3. Artagra pointed out that there looks to be "A place for a second SSD as shown in the pictures - the actual connector is not there, but you can see the silk screening on the board for it. This points towards two SSDs being a BTO option, but it's nothing confirmed."
4. From Hellhammer: What We [think] we know about the storage "SSD" device itself so far:
   • Controller: Samsung (PCIe based, not available yet so not sure if it's SATA or NVMe)
   • NAND: 21nm Samsung MLC
   • Capacity: Apple's demo unit is 256GB. current NAND you can fit up to 1TB on the PCB
   • Connector: Proprietary (i.e. not M.2)

1. Thunderbolt v2.0 (3 controllers, 6 ports, 6 devices per port)
   That's up to 36 external devices total. (a "PCI expansion chassis" is also mentioned as being one of them)
2. USB 3.0 (?? Controlers, 4 ports)
3. Gigabit Ethernet (two ports)
4. HDMI 1.4 (one port)
5. Headphones: 1
6. Mic input: 1
7. Mains Power In Socket: 1
8. Three-stream 802.11ac Wi-Fi
9. Bluetooth 4.0

1. No information yet. Remember, no guesses or opinions without a reference! Thanks!
2. It does have a PSU and from the images it's located in the bottom - but that's all we know so far.
3. Two users JHowland and deconstruct60 suggest the PSU might actually be "mounted to the removable port panel".

1. One (or two?) upgradable looking SSD (PCI Express flash storage) and,
2. 4 RAM slots is all I see that a user may upgrade.
3. Everything else seems to be done through peripheral (external) devices connected to one of the many I/O ports.
4. PCIe 3.0 controller for "up to 40GB/s" bandwidth - but apparently no standard internal PCIe card-edge connections.

Umbongo said:

Is suggesting there could be a dual CPU model not speculation? That would absolutely require a larger enclosure.

You can only connect one display to a thunderbolt connection currently yes? So 6 displays supported in total? Or can you use splitting devices so this could have 12 (which the cards can support)?

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theSeb said:

Sorry to be pedantic but the parts will be manufactured in places like Taiwan, South Korean and so forth as well, not just in China.

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Gonk42 said:

It is designed for developers of software for Apples other systems which will use GPGPU, and for power users of commercial software written for Apple systems. It is not designed as a general purpose workstation.

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Umbongo said:

Yeah http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlnRntfCMhk

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