Apple Continues to Work on All-New Mac Pro With Upgradeable Design

[PickUrPoison]

And still not even a whisper of a new Mac Mini.

Much more than a whisper, Tim Cook said it was “not time to share details” but they “do plan for Mac mini to be an important part of our product line going forward.”

So Tim Cook has confirmed there will be a new Mac mini.

Unless you read his statement to mean that the 3 year old model is going to be an important part of Apple’s product line somewhere in the future.

It may only continue to be dual core, or they could add a quad- or even 6-core model, since Intel will be introducing appropriate processors (finally) later next year (2018). It may or may not have dual drive bays, I personally wouldn’t count on two.

But it will very likely have soldered RAM, since it will probably be based on MacBook Pro internals, which use LPDDR3. LPDDR3 is not available in socketed form, it must be soldered.

 

[Plutonius]

Why would you need it if you weren't a professional? Seems overkill.

It is but many people want to be able to upgrade without buying a new machine or want to use their own display. The new iMac Pro blows away all other Macs so even a professional wouldn't be waiting on the new Mac Pro if performance was the only issue.

It's also nice having the internal space for multiple drives.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

Still got my G5. One of, if not the best computer Apple has ever made.

I loved mine at the time. But it was freakishly loud. And the dual G5 cooling system took up all the internal space. It only had room for 2 hard drives because of that.

 

[Solomani]

Rumor of an upcoming upgradeable Mac Trashcan Pro? Oh noes!! This rumor will totally kill potential enthusiasm and sales of the already-announced iMac Pro!

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

"Mac Pro design has a limited thermal capacity that doesn't always meet the needs of the most demanding workflows"

Whatever the constraints of the thermal capacity of the Mac Pro, it is LOT better thermal design than the all-in-one iMac Pro ... so this explanation makes no sense to me. Imagine what they could do with the Mac Pro design using the same GPUs in the iMac Pro, throw in 10G ethernet, the fast RAM etc .. if it can be done in the constrained space of the iMac Pro, it can all be done better in the R2D2 Mac Pro.

That's INSANE.

There is a LOT more room, and cooling-capacity inside of the iMac Pro's form-factor than in the cylindrical Mac Pro. For one thing, the ENTIRE aluminum chassis is one big freakin' RADIATOR, and the available PC board space is HUGE!

I simply don't know how you would say that the iMac doesn't have much room/cooling capacity. It just doesn't make sense.

 

[Amy Pond and me]

The trashcan was a very beautiful design... for a headless consumer Mac.

 

[wizard]

"At the time, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi admitted that the 2013 Mac Pro's so-called "trash can" design has a limited thermal capacity that doesn't always meet the needs of the most demanding workflows."

Apple thought "Pros" preferred Form over Function. How could Apple be so out of touch?

Actually many do. You need to remember the definition of "pro" is far wider than media development that many in this forum define as "pro".

Apples real problem is that they think their customers are stupid and will pay a high price for something that they really don't need. The lack of a version of the Mac Pro oriented towards professionals with less demanding needs killed the machine. Many pros are willing to pay $1500 for a decent desktop machine. Many of us would have been happy back then with a quad cored APU type chip and the option of a decent GPU. Plus rational internal storage, one SSD stick doesn't do it for most of us. Today you would expect more fir that $1500 including a six core processor and even faster SSD storage. In the end the Mac Pro was a great concept as a platform but simply marketed to the wrong sorts of people.

Frankly i suspect that Apple is still going down the wrong path here. They can make the machine that Pros want but honestly there isn't enough if them to drive sustainable sales. In a nut shell if they make the machine pros want sales will still be luke warm. The need a platform with enough breadth to attract all sorts of pro users. There has to be enough volume to justify continued development and that will only happen with an entry level model that is less than $1500.

I probably shouldn't care but if they don't get volume up desktop Macs will disappear.

 

[routine_analyst]

So what do I do with the $13,000 iMac Pro that I just bought?

Lots of late night video watching.

 

[iBug2]

I don't know how they are gonna do a faster mac than the iMac Pro. iMac Pro already has the fastest workstation CPU's available inside, the fastest AMD GPU's inside. What are they going to do? 2x18 Cores and 2xVega? And sell for 25000$?

 

[kemal]

Seriously Apple. Look at the HP Z8. Something like that. Offivial support for pascal and volta. Two cpu slots. Couple of 3.5 drive bays. A good amount of pcie slots.

Bet there will be no PCIe slots as the T2 chip runs the SSD directly, just like an iPhone.

 

[Duffer100]

With the iMac Pro release dominating headlines on Thursday, we want to highlight that Apple also reiterated some other exciting news for pro customers: a modular Mac Pro is in the works.

2013 Mac Pro on left vs. 2012 Mac Pro on right​

The brief mention came at the very end of Apple's press release about the iMac Pro becoming available to order:While this isn't new information, it does let us know that Apple remains committed to an all-new, powerful Mac Pro with an upgradeable design after first teasing the news to a group of reporters back in April.

We don't know what the new Mac Pro will look like, but given it will be a modular system, Apple could return to a tower design like the 2006 to 2012 Mac Pro with a case that could be opened with a lever on the back.

The promise that it will be a high-performance, high-throughput system suggests the modular Mac Pro could be even faster than the iMac Pro, which itself is easily the fastest Mac ever with workstation-class tech specs.

The maxed-out iMac Pro, for example, costs $13,199 and is equipped with an 18-core 2.3GHz Intel Xeon W-class processor, 4TB of SSD storage, 128GB of ECC RAM, and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 graphics with 16GB of HBM2 memory.

It's also good news for customers who were sad to see Apple discontinue its standalone Thunderbolt Display, which will be revived in the form of an all-new Apple-branded high-end display geared towards pro customers.

Apple's discontinued Thunderbolt Display​

What we also don't know is when the new Mac Pro is coming. Apple only revealed that it wouldn't be ready this year. It could certainly be released at some point in 2018, or it could take a little bit longer--it's anyone's guess right now.

Apple hasn't updated the current Mac Pro in just shy of four years, beyond reshuffling some configurations and pricing back in April.

At the time, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi admitted that the 2013 Mac Pro's so-called "trash can" design has a limited thermal capacity that doesn't always meet the needs of the most demanding workflows.

"I think we designed ourselves into a bit of a thermal corner, if you will," said Federighi, according to multiple reports.

It isn't often that Apple pre-announces new products in its pipeline, but there were growing concerns the company was no longer focused on professional users, evidently to the point that it felt the need to respond in a big way.

"We're committed to the Mac, we've got great talent on the Mac, both hardware and software, we've got great products planned for the future, and as far as our horizon line can see, the Mac is a core component of the things Apple delivers, including to our pro customers," said Apple's marketing chief Phil Schiller.

Article Link: Apple Continues to Work on All-New Mac Pro With Upgradeable Design

[doublepost=1513360927][/doublepost]If the Mac Mini means so much to Apple, when will we see an update? Unfortunately I do not have $5000-13000 lying around my house.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

The trashcan was a very beautiful design... for a headless consumer Mac.

It was a fine pro machine. I've paid the mortgage for 4 years with mine. It just wasn't modular enough for the broader pro market.

I didn't care so much about the non-upgradeable CPU and GPUs. You could upgrade the RAM, that was good. You *should* have been able to upgrade the SSD but Apple refused to ever sell upgrades (yes, you could get stolen ones on eBay or Frankenstein kits from OWC with no TRIM support, but, blech)

But it's still the best designed Mac in history IMO. It just has a limited market.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Would love to see Apple go back to the old Mac Pro tower design, but I would bet good money on the fact that they won't for the next iteration of Mac Pro. I consider my G5 tower a work of art still today, even if it's effectively a paperweight at this point.

I know.

I was watching "The Blacklist" (IIRC), and one of the scenes was inside what appeared to be a computer-recycling warehouse. In the background of the scene, there were pallets-full of G5 Towers, all looking as great as the day they were built!

I completely lost track of the scene, as I almost cried for the wasted industrial wonderfulness...

You can whine about Jony Ive this, and Jony Ive that; but that man HAS come up with some GREAT Industrial Art!!!

...and it's FUNCTIONAL, too!

 

[z970]

I wish they'd build a 2017/2018 version of it. G6. I want drive bays. Slots for graphic cards, etc. I'd like lots of ports on the back and front. And please, a starting price of $2199.00.

I don't understand Apple these days. $5000 entry price for an imac?

Unless you're doing some incredibly big photo work, or video, a graphic designer/photographer just doesn't need these monster machines like the trash can mac pro or $5000 imacs. In my opinion.

Personally, I felt the trash can mac pro a step back. It's speed did nothing to impress me. I wasn't a customer who needed that. I needed a G6 with slightly updated processing and options I could upgrade myself.

I'll buy my own monitor, thank you.

And what about a truly capable mac mini? Why did Apple cripple the mac mini?

My last tower was a G3 which I still have. It still works. But it sits here unused because all the new software I use won't work on it.

So I use a 2015 macbook pro. I have two akitio towers connected to it for storage and back up. I have a nec monitor connected to it. It works. But there are better solutions. I'd like to add more ram. Not be limited to 16gb. I would like an ethernet port. I could use another usb 3 port or maybe 2.

Ok. I'll stop kvetching. I wish apple would pay attention to real need. Day to day use. And stop making minimal machines. As a graphic designer, photographer, i need what I need. Minimalism in my imagery. Not in the tools I use to create.

I invite you over to the PowerPC forums, if you want to revive that G3.

We're quite nice people. Really.

 

[melendezest]

It would be a VERY non-Apple move to leave the G5-tower version of the Mac Pro along side of the Cylindrical Mac Pro. It's like Chevy continuing to sell last-year's Impala next to the new one. It really doesn't happen very often. And yes, I know they do it with iPads and iPhones; but those are FAR less "different" year-over-year.

I don't know if you saw the article; but the RAM in the iMac Pro IS Upgrade-able; but only by an Apple Service Center. But it IS upgrade-able.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/14/imac-pro-ram-upgrade-apple/

Well as I said, they DID do that with the Power Macs. This time they failed to see that one device DID NOT replace the other. They do sell different Macs based on config, so there was no reason why they couldn't do it. But hindsight is always 20/20. The modular Mac has the potential for addressing everything, but given this iMac Pro I highly doubt it.

BTW, thanks for pointing out the RAM in the iMac Pro is (kinda) upgradeable, although IDK if the cost of doing so negates the "ability". Then again, that machine has too many deal-breakers for me to consider..I find it absolutely ridiculous.

 

[ActionableMango]

"Slots and Bays" PLEASE

I sold all my Mac Pros and bought PCs but I could come back if there are PCIe slots, memory slots, M.2 slots, and drive bays.

 

[kemal]

I seem to remember one could purchase a single core (later dual core) G5 cheese grater for $1900 and the four core xenon started at $2400. I would hate to see the new Mac Pro start at $5000.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

I bought my first Mac, a PowerMac G4 for £1600 ish back in around ‘02.
Then a PowerMac G5, Mac Pro followed by another Mac Pro, (along with 2 MacBooks Pro, a MacBook Air, 3 Macs Mini and ‘loads’ more other Apple gear.
I’m a home user who dabbled with vid editing.
I will not be buying that large faced proprietary appliance that is the iMac.

Speak for yourself.

So wait for the Mac Pro. Sheesh!

 

[joe28753]

My guess is they'll use Thunderbolt or some similar connection to make the Mac itself a modular block. Considering they're starting to support external video cards, and in the past supported clusters with the XServe, I imagine some architecture that allows you to essentially daisy chain the entire Mac Pro with another one. Need more horsepower? Add another basic CPU block. Need more video processing? Add another external video card.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

At what cost? $8,000? No thanks. Apple really needs to come down to earth. They are putting themselves in the absurd position of a boutique computer company. That path doesn’t lead to a good place.

Yes, $8000. It's NOT a machine for people surfing and doing their Facebook stuff!

 

[PickUrPoison]

I think they needed a scapegoat.

It was either thermal constraints or Jony's ego.

Sure the design is nice, but the thermal engineers decided how much cooling capacity they required, not Ive. They wouldn’t have signed off on a design that didn’t meet their specs.

The triangle inside the cylinder, which locked them into a dual GPU architecture and allowed for no expandability, was a big mistake. They couldn’t pivot to the one big card that users actually wanted. There was no path forward except to start over. That took way too long for them to accept, so now we’re still waiting for the fix.

The new design will undoubtedly provide more flexibility. It will be larger, have a bigger (modular?) power supply, more cooling capacity and I’m 99% sure will offer nVIDIA or AMD for the GPU. No idea how many but there will be slots and drive bays.

 

[aaronhead14]

Thank goodness. I cannot wait for the new modular Mac Pro!

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Not sure this takes so much...work. Really this is about case design and ensuring contracts. It should not take years and years. If they don't do anything fancy they could have this out in short order.

“If they don’t do anything fancy” is your problem. Apple won’t grab standard parts, so I’m sure engineering and testing the custom motherboard takes a couple years. If the RAM and CPU can’t be serviced and it won’t accept multiple full-length high-wattage GPUs, then I think it will be a big disappointment for most. The multi GPU aspect alone is huge, and I sure hope Apple doesn’t think people want to wait for them to produce custom Titan or Vega cards that are years late. I won’t likely be buying the next gen Pro, but I have to think that off-the-shelf GPU support will be a must.

 

[ssgbryan]

For the complainers of the computer (iMac Pro) they won't buy or can't afford, Apple is working on another pro desktop that you won't buy or can't afford. But, upgradeability! TGIF!

If it meets my needs, I'll buy it - if it doesn't, then I will transition to a new machine that does meet my needs.

 

[Marx55]

Looking forward to it. Hopefully, Apple will do it right this time, not using soldered partes and implementing user upgradable components.