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Different case for MacPro

S

sgunes

macrumors member
Original poster
May 25, 2009
92
9
DFW
Hello:
This may sound like blasphemy here but I was wondering if anybody took a MacPro and put the parts in a different case.
I have a Thermaltake Armor which has very good harddrive cooling and overall cooling and lets me put some 12 3 1/2 inch hard drives in it.
Is the MacPro motherboard regular ATX or eATX? How difficult would it be to transplant all the innards to the new case and sell the MacPro aluminum case?
Has anybody done that?
I know that I can buy external HD cases... but that is not the question.
 
sgunes said:
Hello:
This may sound like blasphemy here but I was wondering if anybody took a MacPro and put the parts in a different case.
I have a Thermaltake Armor which has very good harddrive cooling and overall cooling and lets me put some 12 3 1/2 inch hard drives in it.
Is the MacPro motherboard regular ATX or eATX? How difficult would it be to transplant all the innards to the new case and sell the MacPro aluminum case?
Has anybody done that?
I know that I can buy external HD cases... but that is not the question.
Click to expand...

No, its not ATX and as far as cooling goes, the Mac Pro's about as well engineered as they come. You'd better off getting an eSATA card and a big external case just for all your extra SATA needs.
 
Looks like some people think it is blasphemous to even think about it.
I cannot imagine that nobody ever put a MacPro in a different case.
My case has 3 front intake 120mm fans and multiple 120 and 140mm top and rear exhaust fans. I have a bunch of HDs running 24x7 and did not have one fail on me in over 4 years.
There is no magic pixie dust in the MacPro case.
It a well engineered aluminum case but to think that nothing else comes close, you have to drink plenty of kool-aid.
This was not supposed to be flame-bait.
I really have better things to do than get Mac fanatics angry.
 
sgunes said:
Looks like some people think it is blasphemous to even think about it.
I cannot imagine that nobody ever put a MacPro in a different case.
My case has 3 front intake 120mm fans and multiple 120 and 140mm top and rear exhaust fans. I have a bunch of HDs running 24x7 and did not have one fail on me in over 4 years.
There is no magic pixie dust in the MacPro case.
It a well engineered aluminum case but to think that nothing else comes close, you have to drink plenty of kool-aid.
This was not supposed to be flame-bait.
I really have better things to do than get Mac fanatics angry.
Click to expand...

My MacPro is awesome and silent...
 
Get a couple of eSATA cards and turn that other case into an external hard drive enclosure.
 
From a 40 year machinist's standpoint I love and appreciate the design and construction of the Mac Pro (2008) Alum case. I've never seen a case that even comes close to the quality of the Mac Pro's.
 
sgunes said:
Looks like some people think it is blasphemous to even think about it.
I cannot imagine that nobody ever put a MacPro in a different case.
My case has 3 front intake 120mm fans and multiple 120 and 140mm top and rear exhaust fans. I have a bunch of HDs running 24x7 and did not have one fail on me in over 4 years.
There is no magic pixie dust in the MacPro case.
It a well engineered aluminum case but to think that nothing else comes close, you have to drink plenty of kool-aid.
This was not supposed to be flame-bait.
I really have better things to do than get Mac fanatics angry.
Click to expand...

Why do you want to change the case? I know Thermaltake has very nice cases with a good airflow. But I would never do that with a Mac Pro. The case concept fits perfect to the hardware. Well, fancooling isn't all ! The calculation, the more fans you have, the better airflow is totally wrong.Important is, that the cold air comes in and goes out on the other side well. This is what the Mac Pro does perfect ! I would ONLY TRY to change the mac pro case if you totally hate the design. Otherwise, you won't get better results with your thermaltake case, no matter if you have a harddrive cooling system ! I would rather try to get a Water cooling system in your mac .... :D .... ( You could push your mac in to a river, that will cool your mac pro perfect and your harddrives )..
 
sgunes said:
Hello:
This may sound like blasphemy here but I was wondering if anybody took a MacPro and put the parts in a different case.
I have a Thermaltake Armor which has very good harddrive cooling and overall cooling and lets me put some 12 3 1/2 inch hard drives in it.
Is the MacPro motherboard regular ATX or eATX? How difficult would it be to transplant all the innards to the new case and sell the MacPro aluminum case?
Has anybody done that?
I know that I can buy external HD cases... but that is not the question.
Click to expand...

LOL... Thermaltake? Even in the PC modding world from whence I came Thermaltake is considered bottom rung. You are funny! :D

Now, if you said a Lian-Li case, then I might take you seriously :p (well, maybe not!)

Have you even looked closely at a Mac Pro case? How would you improve it?
 
sgunes said:
Looks like some people think it is blasphemous to even think about it.
I cannot imagine that nobody ever put a MacPro in a different case.
My case has 3 front intake 120mm fans and multiple 120 and 140mm top and rear exhaust fans. I have a bunch of HDs running 24x7 and did not have one fail on me in over 4 years.
There is no magic pixie dust in the MacPro case.
It a well engineered aluminum case but to think that nothing else comes close, you have to drink plenty of kool-aid.
This was not supposed to be flame-bait.
I really have better things to do than get Mac fanatics angry.
Click to expand...

For a start the Mac Pro does not use a standard ATX motherboard (or any other standard), and is custom designed to fit into the case - try having a look yourself, and you'll see the logic board is a completely different shape. I doubt you could ever physically get one to fit in a PC case.

The Mac Pro case is specifically designed to keep the hardware as cool and as quiet as possible - this doesn't always mean simply increasing the number of 120mm fans either. It's perfectly designed for the Mac Pro, and that is exactly what it's used for.

Whilst your Thermaltake may have a massive number of fans in it, pushing high volumes of air to achieve cooling, it'll be noisy and won't have dedicated air "channels" - PCs operate by throwing air in the back, and sucking it out the front/top via any route. Mac Pros have dedicated channels for airflow, with a single fan serving a single "area" rather than the whole case.



As for your hard drives not breaking, that's nothing to do with cooling. I've had a hard drive die within 3 days of running it.
 
Wow he asked a question, and everyone just moaned and bitched. It might be in his best interests to build a external HDD enclosure but hes curious if anyone has tried it, and Im slightly curious as-well (Im not a fan of the fatness of the MacPro case, its heavy and has a huge rear).
 
o2xygen said:
Wow he asked a question, and everyone just moaned and bitched. It might be in his best interests to build a external HDD enclosure but hes curious if anyone has tried it, and Im slightly curious as-well (Im not a fan of the fatness of the MacPro case, its heavy and has a huge rear).
Click to expand...

i doubt youll get a smaller case for such processing power, that wont be loud as hell or hot as hell
 
sgunes said:
I have a bunch of HDs running 24x7 and did not have one fail on me in over 4 years.
.
Click to expand...

If you recall the research Google did with 100,000 commercial harddrives two years ago, you would know that the temperature (sans extreme temperatures) is not really an important factor for the longevity of any given harddrive.
 
People who use G5 and Mac Pro cases for Hackintoshes go to great pains to fit relatively small PC boards into the Mac cases. They still have considerable cost to make all the case connections and replicate the functionality.

Doing it the other way round sounds a really difficult proposal. Not only would you have to re-engineer all external connections, you also face the task of getting the huge logic bord with the proprietory lay out into the new case. That will probably necessitate changing all peripheral systems around.

Have you had a look where the PSU sits in a Mac Pro and what kind of juice it pulls? I would rather go Hackintosh all the way but try this.
 
o2xygen said:
(Im not a fan of the fatness of the MacPro case, its heavy and has a huge rear).
Click to expand...

The rear of the case is the same size as the front of the case. Would you prefer a triangular computer? Or perhaps a cylindrical one?

The Mac Pro is small in comparison to the two Lian Li full-sized towers I owned before switching to the Mac. It's quieter, looks much better (no blue LEDs - yay!) and has more or less than same expansion capabilities (alas, no floppy drive).

Unfortunately, that Thermaltake case is ugly as sin. It may have better cooling, but it looks hideous.

Incidentally, the Mac Pro motherboard is eATX, or thereabouts. I wouldn't put it past Apple to have a non-standard motherboard size, though.
 
gugucom said:
People who use G5 and Mac Pro cases for Hackintoshes go to great pains to fit relatively small PC boards into the Mac cases. They still have considerable cost to make all the case connections and replicate the functionality.

Doing it the other way round sounds a really difficult proposal. Not only would you have to re-engineer all external connections, you also face the task of getting the huge logic bord with the proprietory lay out into the new case. That will probably necessitate changing all peripheral systems around.

Have you had a look where the PSU sits in a Mac Pro and what kind of juice it pulls? I would rather go Hackintosh all the way but try this.
Click to expand...

That's the first good suggestion.
If they do not decrease the MacPro prices (or give you the next faster CPU for the same price) soon, I may go for the hackintosh once I know which combination works best with 10.6.
 
I've been thinking about putting my Mac Pro in an Antec Open Air case or building something similar to it.

​

I don't care what form factor it supposed to be for nor what the Mac Pro is. A drill and a few stand-offs will remedy anything like that. :rolleyes:

Also the Mac Pro case is NOT "an extremely well designed" case. It's fairly average and it's lacking in several areas. None of that is important to me tho - the Mac Pro case works fine and the lacking areas don't bother me nor are they detrimental to operations. I just wanna play around with a new and interesting case. And also I wanna play with different and bizarre looking CPU coolers. :D

The only thing that looks at all troublesome to me are the rear fans. They socket directly into the motherboard. So I will have to make a socket plug to pull those leads external in order for SMC control of those two fans - if I want use of them. Other than that everything looks fairly straight forward to me.
 
I have the coolermaster stacker, the original which was widely accepted as the best cooling case you could have.

It is *NOT* better than the MP.

The way the cooling in the MP works is quality.

Changing it would simply be utterly stupid.
 
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