Mac Pro 2010... What potential features would blow the current Mac Pro away?

[Nostromo]

My wishes:

No lame duck entry level Mac Pros, but a serious, well priced Mac Pro at the lower end.

No lack of testing that would bring about things like the audio issue of the 2009 Mac Pros.

Better and better priced offerings in graphics cards.

Built-in airport.

Warranty increased to 3 years without expensive extended warranty (Should be standard for a workstation of this price range).

 

[Icaras]

My wishes:

No lame duck entry level Mac Pros, but a serious, well priced Mac Pro at the lower end.

No lack of testing that would bring about things like the audio issue of the 2009 Mac Pros.

Better and better priced offerings in graphics cards.

Built-in airport.

Warranty increased to 3 years without expensive extended warranty (Should be standard for a workstation of this price range).

Agree with what you said, especially the lower priced entry level MP and built-in Airport!

As for the warranty, I don't think they'd do that, as it would mess the simple appeal of AppleCare (one machine exempt from their warranty system would convolute AppleCare IMO). But they could go the other way and just simply lower the price point for AppleCare on the MP. But I don't see it going below $199 unfortunately.

Btw, I was just browsing the AppleCare options and I think it's pretty absurd that the MBP 15" and 17" are priced at $349

 

[JesterJJZ]

2 extra drives, 2 extra pci slots...

 

[Transporteur]

There's another solution. Make the case bigger.

Instead of making them bigger (please Apple don't!), they could finally drop the bulky CD-drives and swap them with slim lines. Why still these old big things? I don't get it. Of course they are a little faster than the slim line models, but who cares?
Is there anybody around here who actually uses the CD-drive? I never used mine in the 9 month I got the Pro.

 

[nanofrog]

Instead of making them bigger (please Apple don't!), they could finally drop the bulky CD-drives and swap them with slim lines. Why still these old big things? I don't get it. Of course they are a little faster than the slim line models, but who cares?
Is there anybody around here who actually uses the CD-drive? I never used mine in the 9 month I got the Pro.

It would severely restrict the choices available, particularly if a user wanted to fit a BluRay burner. And make the MP feel more like an iMac.

 

[Transporteur]

It would severely restrict the choices available, particularly if a user wanted to fit a BluRay burner. And make the MP feel more like an iMac.

There are Blu-Ray burners available in the slim format, no restrictions there.
Of course you wouldn't have the large choice for drives like when sticking to the standard format, but two 5.25" drives simply waste so much space.
Swapping the ODD bay with two slim line drives and two 3.5", or 4 2.5" bays would be ideal, at least for my needs.

 

[iVoid]

Instead of making them bigger (please Apple don't!), they could finally drop the bulky CD-drives and swap them with slim lines. Why still these old big things? I don't get it. Of course they are a little faster than the slim line models, but who cares?
Is there anybody around here who actually uses the CD-drive? I never used mine in the 9 month I got the Pro.

The reason there are two optical drive bays up top is because of the power supply being moved to the top (of course, Apple lists the extra drive bay as a feature, but really it was just a side effect of moving the PS up top). So using slim line drives won't save space, because the powe rsupply still has to take up that corner of the case.

 

[nanofrog]

There are Blu-Ray burners available in the slim format, no restrictions there.
Of course you wouldn't have the large choice for drives like when sticking to the standard format, but two 5.25" drives simply waste so much space.
Swapping the ODD bay with two slim line drives and two 3.5", or 4 2.5" bays would be ideal, at least for my needs.

I was able to spot BD reader/DVD burner drives, but not BD burners in that format. Who makes one (my search was short - mostly newegg, but I expected that I'd find one or two, such as Pioneer or NEC Sony Optiarc). Didn't spot them though.

Converting the 2nd Optical bay would be a good idea as most are using it HDD or SSD drives (i.e. an included adapter/cage would be ideal IMO, just in case a user does want to put a 2nd optical drive in).

But I suspect they'll leave it up to users to sort it out on their own via 3rd party solutions (saves them on costs, and there are companies that specialize in such things).

 

[Transporteur]

The reason there are two optical drive bays up top is because of the power supply being moved to the top (of course, Apple lists the extra drive bay as a feature, but really it was just a side effect of moving the PS up top). So using slim line drives won't save space, because the powe rsupply still has to take up that corner of the case.

I wasn't talking about saving space in terms of making the case itself smaller. I only suggested replacing the current ODD bay with a combination of optical drives and hard drives, because 4 drives in a workstation is simply not enough for lots of users.
Instead wasting the space with two bulky CD drives, they could swap a single drive with two slim lines and use the left space for HDD/SSD bays.

I was able to spot BD reader/DVD burner drives, but not BD burners in that format. Who makes one (my search was short - mostly newegg, but I expected that I'd find one or two, such as Pioneer or NEC Sony Optiarc). Didn't spot them though.

Sony builds those drives. The Optiarc BD-5730S-01 burns CDs, DVDs and BluRays.

 

[nanofrog]

The Optiarc BD-5730S-01 burns CDs, DVDs and BluRays.

I knew I should have just checked the manufacturer's sites instead of just using a search (terms not detailed enough apparently) and newegg...

Thanks for the model #. Not bad on price either, though it's slower (6x) than the full size models (12x; pricing of $200 - 215USD).

 

[nuckinfutz]

I'd love to see SATA 6Gbps so that I know I'm not being limited in throughput if I get the fastest SSD available.

USB 3.0 would be nice.

4 drives is a lot of space. If anyone needs more than 4 drives then it makes more sense to utilize an external array (IMO).

Firewire 3200 would be a nice pipedream as well.

As for the optical drive...an Apple convertible bay where you could either snap in an optical drive or a couple of HDD/SSD would be nice.