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Concept Imagines What a Modular Mac Pro Might Look Like

Some cool ideas in there. I would have taken it more seriously if the RAM slots were oriented in a way they could actually be used.
Definitely not Mac Pro material, but could be a Mac Mini Plus.
 
No thanks. I'd rather Apple not innovate and try something radically new. Just a slightly spec-bumped iMac made slightly thinner with fewer upgradeable features and fewer of those pesky ports and I'm all set. /s
 
Honestly, Apple should make something like the SilverStone FT03. I have this case for my windows machine and it's very Apple like. What's interesting is that it's similar to the cylinder Mac Pro except the Silverstone uses standard parts.

800x600px-LL-1d9d9d71_FT03S-Mini-34View.jpeg
 
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To be a proper modular computer it has to be able to accept PC components, which are pretty much the definition of modular computers. Wrapping a GPU in plastic and adding a slot in connecter means nothing to professionals, and anyone with experience of Apple trying to squeeze hot running components into small enclosures knows it is something to not do.

Apples record of having to replace, for free, every MBP laptop logic board since before 2010 should show you exactly their record on being able to pull this off.
 
ike1707 said:
http://www.pascaleggert.de/macpro.html
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That just has the same problems as this concept - what do the GFX cards plug into? Their outputs are at the end, and the fans (which draw IN air) are oriented to they are up against the side of the case, where there is nowhere to draw in air from. And then the case just has HDMI output, which is useless.

Somebody who actually knows what a pro workstation is - and how a PC works - please design us a concept!
 
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redheeler said:
It looks like that would be a thermal nightmare. Nice work on the concept but it's not practical, just give us a more traditional tower form factor and we'll be happy.
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right. the thermal issue would be huge.

i'm thinking that it will be something either like a half size old school pro (cause SSD don't take up as much space) or perhaps something akin to a couple of mac minis stacked together. imagine even a shell sort of like a drobo or such and you literally plug in whatever you want
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fokmik said:
we dont want
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damn it, did I miss the day we voted you the voice of everyone.
 
MacSince1985 said:
Some cool ideas in there. I would have taken it more seriously if the RAM slots were oriented in a way they could actually be used.
Definitely not Mac Pro material, but could be a Mac Mini Plus.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry too much about how easy it is to get at the RAM, since you're not going to be swapping it out every week. At most, you'll be upgrading it every couple years. The important thing is that the RAM can be upgraded.
 
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minimalism said:
MacPro2_08.jpg
MacPro2_05.jpg

For me, this is the best concept Mac Pro yet. For more info, click here.
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I like this idea, allowing them to reuse the thermal tech they already developed, with standard RAM, GPU, and hopefully CPU connections. Looks slick. That said, I'm not sure where the motherboard would sit, and with two GPUs like that I kinda doubt the impeller design would move enough air to keep everything cool. Also, I would much rather be able to access the ports on the video card itself, and I'd prefer it be a bit bigger and be able to house a couple of 3.5-inch HDDs. Cheap storage, and all.
 
People that want to know why it takes so long.
1. Industrial design.
2. Motherboard design. (CPU, PCIe Switch, etc....)
3. Airflow testing of the real product.
4. Manufacturing tolerance checking and tuning.

It's not just throw a MB in and ship it.
There is no motherboard.

It must have at least 3 PCIe Gen3 slots.
They need to be full size and double slot spacing to allow for oversized GPUs.
The third slot is a must for either a single card to be added for audio or video *OR* the addition of a PCIe expansion chassis for more slots.

I have a 2008/9 MacPro with 8 processors that running just fine. Eight cores at 3GHz is okay.
Until I can get another machine with expansion, this one is the one I'll be using.
 
zen said:
That just has the same problems as this concept - what do the GFX cards plug into? Their outputs are at the end, and the fans (which draw IN air) are oriented to they are up against the side of the case, where there is nowhere to draw in air from. And then the case just has HDMI output, which is useless.

Somebody who actually knows what a pro workstation is - and how a PC works - please design us a concept!
Click to expand...
You're right on all counts, but with a size bump and some reworks, that concept could actually work. I'm thinking make it double-wide (room at the top for four impellers) and then you've got room to mount your GPU's (and other PCI cards, for which there would be room, now) horizontally so you can get at the ports. If you mount them upside down the fans will be working with the impellers to cool them. That would also leave more space for hard drives and a beefy mobo with great CPU cooling and tons of room for dual processors and RAM.

And it would wind up looking like a post-modernist NeXT cube. I think it would be sweet.
 
What people don't realise is that AT/ATX is a really old technology which is suboptimal in many ways regarding cooling. The industry has realised that decades after common users with common sense did but most companies never had the money or courage to pull out from it. Personally, I prefer separate compartments for CPUs, GPUs, and storage but more crucially, I would like to be offered more options. An ultra expensive Mac Pro in a tower that is just too big, too noisy, too similar with Dell/HP, too expensive, and too unsupported won't cut it. If Apple can't bring something that can scale (in size/price/power) from a single workstation for musicians, productivity users, programmers, 2D designers, etc up to a multi CPU/GPU monster then they should introduce 2 models/products/machines for the top line - not everyone likes iMacs.

Now, for the haters that insist that the cheese grater design is the best thing since sliced bread I would respond that they are shortsighted or hypocritical. If you really want number crunching and tons of storage you go with racks (if cloud computing is too expensive) in a distributed environment or you start thinking about outsourcing if the project is too big; you won't be scalable enough with just a tower and a couple of PCIe slots. But if 99% of the "Pros" are just YouTube vloggers then our world is doomed.
 
Oh here we go... all the Ive wannabes are at it... :rolleyes:

It might look like anything; this is like a blind man guessing what an elephant might look like. How about you just wait and see? Anything these "concept" artists produce is going to be smashed into the ground by the real thing.

I might have a little more respect if these folks didn't take an existing form factor and uglify it by pretending that Apple are gonna take the Mac mini and morph it into some ghastly hybrid of itself and something else, making a confused, clunky mess - THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN HELLO?

I bet Jony, Phil & the ID team come online at night with cookies and soda, fire up the projector and are laughing themselves into fits of hysterical tears, looking at these "concepts".

Oh that display... wow... that's GHASTLY! Does the "artist" know anything about balance, gravity and aethetics?
 
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Build a new cube with the current aluminum and black industrial design. Build a series of screens on articulated arms that plug into the new cube, like the G4 iMac. An open and modular system that celebrates two of the coolest Macs they've built.
 
GeneralChang said:
I like this idea, allowing them to reuse the thermal tech they already developed, with standard RAM, GPU, and hopefully CPU connections. Looks slick. That said, I'm not sure where the motherboard would sit, and with two GPUs like that I kinda doubt the impeller design would move enough air to keep everything cool. Also, I would much rather be able to access the ports on the video card itself, and I'd prefer it be a bit bigger and be able to house a couple of 3.5-inch HDDs. Cheap storage, and all.
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Not bad.

The real Mac Pro cylinder can take more than 64GB RAM though even though its DDR3. Would lower G5X RAM outdo more DDR3 RAM?
 
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devinci99 said:
Not bad.

The real Mac Pro cylinder can take more than 64GB RAM though even though its DDR3. Would lower G5X RAM outdo more DDR3 RAM?
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I'm honestly not sure. The transmission speed is so much higher I'm sure that there would be some offset for lower physical space. And are there max size limitations inherent in using GDDR5X? I wasn't aware of any, but I also haven't really read much in to it.

Edit: Sorry, I saw what you were talking about. The folks that mocked that up probably don't really know anything about GDDR5X, because I don't think you'd actually be limited to anything like 24 gigs. And GDDR5X is like twice the speed of GDDR5, which is also like twice the speed of DDR3. Which would be a massive improvement.

Of course, the only place I've seen GDDR5X used is in GPUs, so...
 
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