Mine still rocks for running older software that I need on occasion. Really great computer.
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Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today
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I’m looking to pick one up when they get down to about $100, it’s a shame they didn’t upgrade the ports to at least thunderbolt three before they discontinued it.
I have a lot of legacy software that I run right now on a 2014 Mac mini
Remember when Mac Pros were actually affordable and you could upgrade them as needed?
I could see this design come back for Apple silicon; one main board for the SoC/RAM/SSD & the two secondary boards for GPU and/or Neural Engine cores to send compute/render tasks to...
And two NVMe slots for M.2 2280 SSDs; like on the original, but with the second slot actually enabled rather than solder pads teasing us...
The 2013 Mac Pro had RAM slots, so if one wanted a larger amount of RAM but did not want to pay the Apple Tax, one could buy third-party RAM...
Another case of getting the lowest amount of storage and swapping in a third-party NVMe solution, shame Apple did not enable the second M.2 NVMe slot, the pads were right there...
And two NVMe slots for M.2 2280 SSDs; like on the original, but with the second slot actually enabled rather than solder pads teasing us...
The 2013 Mac Pro had RAM slots, so if one wanted a larger amount of RAM but did not want to pay the Apple Tax, one could buy third-party RAM...
Another case of getting the lowest amount of storage and swapping in a third-party NVMe solution, shame Apple did not enable the second M.2 NVMe slot, the pads were right there...
Beautiful machine. I would love to see a comeback with Apple Silicon. The circular design kinda reminds me of Apple's HQ.
I sincerely believe that this is actually a very phenomenal product just that it is toooo ahead of it's time
If they are ever revisiting this and put in the M-series chip I'm sure this is an actual good product
If they are ever revisiting this and put in the M-series chip I'm sure this is an actual good product
This is my thought precisely.
I actually liked the one we had at work—great performance for the day and shockingly quiet despite all the heat it generated. But it was just screaming for an Ultra-series Apple Silicon CPU/GPU instead of what was available at the time. Plus the sort of GPU-centric concept, whether executed well or not, was slightly ahead of its time.
The Mac Studio looks nice, but it should have just been this exact form factor. Although, now that I think about it, it’s possible the trash can was capable of pushing so much air it would be overkill for Apple silicon—what was the combined TDP of its CPU and GPUs vs an M2 Ultra?
Still one of my all time favorite Mac products. This was a true pro machine aimed at real professionals (Hollywood film editors, etc). A beast of a machine for its time!
That thing was actually kinda the spiritual predecessor to the Studio. It's funny how today you can't meaningfully upgrade the Studio and it's fine, but it was the thing that broke the Can Pro, even though it was technically upgradeable. IMO it's just the sleekist and most beautiful desktop ever made - with a cooling concept that actually made sense, and it was ages ahead of it's time realising peripherals were largely becoming something outside the Computer instead of something you put in there.
Frankly: put an Mx Max or Ultra in that thing, and I'd buy it at a premium. It's time, Tim Apple.
Frankly: put an Mx Max or Ultra in that thing, and I'd buy it at a premium. It's time, Tim Apple.
answered my own question: The Xeon E5-2600 v2 has a rated TDP of 150W and the FirePro D700 274W, so on paper something like 700W, while the M2 Ultra is a small fraction of that.
Although, the actual Mac Pro’s specs say 270W max (927 BTU/h) and the Mac Studio is rated at 295W (1007 BTU/h), so in the real world the Studio is dumping a bit more heat than the old trash can did.
Ditto, did the same thing recently. CPU and GPU wise it isn't spectacularly fast, but it has 64 GB of RAM and for old intel things I may want to run it fits the bill perfectly.
Never understood this desktop. High price starting at $2,999 (in today’s currency = $4,061). Can’t upgrade. No storage expansion except what was then slower, more expensive Thunderbolt 2 and external drives, or even worse, regular USB. Also, only one HDMI port.
Mac Studio is simply better in every way, especially price and i/o. Apple silicon didn’t exist in 2013, but the Trashcan had too many tradeoffs and a too high price.
Mac Studio is simply better in every way, especially price and i/o. Apple silicon didn’t exist in 2013, but the Trashcan had too many tradeoffs and a too high price.
There is no practical need to, it has no expansion slots so the form factor cannot be used as a Mac Pro, and for Mac studio with the m chip soc it doesn’t need this much real estate, makes no sense to make the Mac Studio this big for no reason.
Only logical use for this form factor for the m chip is to use the extra space to make the ssd expandable and support multiples….but then apple would be killing its own golden goose.
Not as many people need a Mac Pro with Apple's current offerings.
Bought mine on launch and still using it.
It’d be so sick if they brought back a Jet Black Mac and iPhone in the same year and pushed all of the edges into curves again. Never gonna happen, obviously, given where the design language is now but I’d probably buy both if they did.
A lot of businesses do not upgrade machines. They buy what they need, run it to the end of its depreciation period and replace.
Thus, upgradability for those people is irrelevant.
At the time, thunderbolt 2 was cutting edge and the Mac Studio for example did not exist. At the time, the trashcan was pretty quick, ran macOS, is/was pretty damn silent and had a heap of high speed IO.
edit:
also, the storage can be replaced/upgraded with a cheap m.2 adapter. RAM can be upgraded (all the way to 128GB if you want to trade a bit of CPU performance, 64 GB otherwise). CPU can be upgraded up to the 12 core, but 10 cores (not offered by apple) or 8 cores is the sweet spot in terms of clock vs. core count. Only thing you can't really change are the GPUs due to the proprietary form factor unless you find the higher spec cards somewhere. Well. You CAN run external GPU(s) via thunderbolt. Can't do that with a current Mac.
It's more upgradable than an iMac Pro, Mac mini or Mac Studio until the third party SSD modules come out, and even then can fit more RAM than the new mini.
Only 1 HDMI, but 6 display ports via displayport over thunderbolt, and hey if you wanted to break out those thunderbolt ports to GPUs you could probably have a lot more displays than that via multiple ports in each card.
Not saying it's a better machine for somebody than the new mini by any stretch - but for a 2013 Mac it is incredibly upgradable.
Even today the trashcan is the cheapest way to get 64-128 GB in a Mac, if you need large amounts of RAM.
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With all of the hype I didn’t think it was all that fast for the price. I think we dropped 10k per unit and thinking to myself I could get a PC that would outperform this for much less money. It was also the only Mac I’ve ever had to take in to get repaired 3 times — the only plus is that it wasn’t as heavy as the previous model to carry into the Apple Store.
Have one since they launched and it's been a reliable workhorse for audio work. Such a pity they didn't just put some Apple Silicon in it as it's far more lovingly designed than the bland Studio/Mini boxes we have now.
