New Mac Pro Confirmed to Have Removable CPU

[DonutHands]

Ok OWC, iPhone photos, really? Office cant afford a DSLR?

I want to see what the power supply looks like to run all that beefy hardware and yet still fit in that tiny area.

 

[iLondoner]

The E5 roadmap has an 18-core processor in the Broadwell EP future that is supposed to be socket-compatible with current E5 CPUs. 36 threads with up to 45MB of L3 cache.

 

[rGiskard]

I'll bet money that Apple will sell them. Will they warranty the work that you do? Nope. But they'll sell the parts.

You just restated what I already said. They will sell the parts, not as upgrades, but as OEM replacement parts.

Meaning that for any MP, the GPU upgrades will probably be limited to the highest original offerings for that model year. A mp8,1 OEM replacement GPU is unlikely to fit in a mp6,1.

The GPUs will be upgradable the way the logic boards are upgradable in the old MP towers. Yes, you can remove the old logic board and replace it with a newer one. No, it isn't a viable upgrade path.

----------

Seriously, 'Apologies'? To whom? Apple? Phil Schiller? Perhaps these people could make an offering at the Steve Jobs altar you keep in your basement in order to appease... you, I guess?

'Apologies', for making an assumption about a tech product. Like, someone's feelings were hurt. Wow.

I think he wants you to apologize to him, for "hating". Perhaps by posting a video of yourself loving the new Mac Pro? You could lick it!

 

[marioguarneros]

So everything in this none user upgradeable Mac Pro is removable? Nothing is soldered on the board? RAM and CPU are standard components you can get later for cheaper? Interesting.

Still, I want my sata port, my optical drive and my floppy drive back.

Not to mention a parallel port to plug in my dot matrix printer because I refuse to move on with tech.

Jokes aside, these tear downs came with really good news but I can still see myself just replacing the entire machine within five years and perhaps selling or making the old one a home office replacement.

I can see even more value now in these machines that I already had.

----------

And the SSD, since OWC sells SSD upgrades for other Macs with proprietary connectors. And it was clear from early photos that the CPU was installed in a socket.

But it's nice that others are learning about this now.

I totally agree, I think it was even mentioned in the BTO page for it as: user replaceable. Right?

I guess Apple's reputation for not making their devices as upgradable as before plus the huge amount of haters bashing it as not user upgradable before getting the facts or simply because they couldn't stick their old cards/hdd's really affected the perception of a lot of people.

 

[jm001]

What about RAM, SSD and GPU?

RAM and SSD I believe were already demonstrated to be upgradeable. RAM is shown on the Apple online demos as easily removable and replaced.

GPU otoh isn't removeable afaik and what early adopters have said. These are integrated chips on the mobo and by the looks of it no way to upgrade it aside from your initial configuration on the Apple store.

 

[sully54]

I think the real story here is that OWC beat ifixit with the first Mac Pro tear down.

 

[Renzatic]

....plus the huge amount of haters bashing...

If I hear the word "haters" one more time, I swear to god I'm gonna leap through the internet, and punch someone in the neck.

To get on topic, the breakdowns do show that the whole machine is surprisingly, almost elegantly easy to disassemble, but the GPUs remain the biggest question for me. They look like bog standard graphics cards with the fan housing stripped off, but I haven't seen a single connector in any of the shots. What they are (I'm guessing they're PCIe 16x), or where they're positioned on the card itself.

Are they entirely proprietary designs, or would it be possible to upgrade a GPU later with a little bit of work?

----------

GPU otoh isn't removeable afaik and what early adopters have said. These are integrated chips on the mobo and by the looks of it no way to upgrade it aside from your initial configuration on the Apple store.

Nope, they're removable. Look at the breakdown shots in the other thread. You can see them sitting there to the left and right of the chassis.

The question is, can they be upgraded using any standard parts, or do people have to wait for a specifically designed rev of a card before they fit one into the Pro?

 

[-hh]

I'm sure people will be happy to hear this... Apple seems to be keeping the professionals in mind as far as upgradability goes.. They aren't locking in the unit to just once specific ordered platform and thats it....

Not really: the socket is to benefit Apple, because the nMP isn't going to have the sales volume to make stocking different motherboards more cost-effective than the incremental cost of a socket.

It's not a surprise to me. It's Manufacturing 101 - when the quantity produced is relatively low, modularity is more likely, in order to support BTO options and minimize the need to re-tool from one year's models to the next. The fact that it doesn't look like yesterday's modular design is beside the point. The fact that the GPU cards are a proprietary design is beside the point - Apple needs these to be modular for Apple's own purposes.

+1 on this one and worth repeating: the modularity that exists is primarily to benefit Apple's bottom line(s).


-hh

 

[GJN]

That's terrific news! I'm sure that any special needed tools will be available from places like iFixit.

 

[jasonvp]

You just restated what I already said. They will sell the parts, not as upgrades, but as OEM replacement parts.

Let's call replacing a LOWER end piece of hardware with an UPPER end piece of hardware: an upgrade. Yes? Or no? I call that an upgrade. I'm not sure what you call it. If I buy a Mac Pro with D300s and then purchase a pair of D700s from Apple (at an insanely high price, assumedly), I could put them into the Mac Pro, and therefore UPGRADE THE VIDEO capabilities of my machine.

Right?

It's an upgrade. We're not going to get into the semantics of what the word means.

Meaning that for any MP, the GPU upgrades will probably be limited to the highest original offerings for that model year.

I will happily take that bet. MR is full of folks that like to prognosticate about Apple's hardware direction and choices without any real clue of what they're talking about. As was previously stated, several people in the Mac Pro section of this forum were insistent that the CPU wouldn't be upgradeable because it was "soldered on". Really. It was more than one person making the (foolish) claim.

We can see through the OP that those folks were: wrong.

We now have folks that insist that Apple could hard-code specific CPU IDs into the EFI such that the Mac Pro won't boot if the end user replaces the CPU with one of the available 1600 or 2600 series chips. I offered one of those folks a friendly wager that he was wrong, and that Apple would not in any way stunt the Mac Pro's build by hard-coding CPU IDs in. He won't take the bet.

Now we come to you and the GPUs. Are you certain that, when Apple does update the Mac Pro to 7,1, that the GPUs will NOT be pin-compatible with the current 6,1? Here are some things to think about before answering and/or taking the bet: Costs. Why would Apple invest $N into developing a proprietary GPU card form factor that will only work on one generation of Mac Pro? The ROI there sucks. What's more likely is that this is the new GPU form factor for Apple's Mac Pros for the foreseeable future, and that any new ones they come out with will work just fine in today's 6,1. There may need to be an EFI or firmware flash, but, oh no! We haven't done that before, have we? (See: 4,1 Mac Pros becoming 5,1 Mac Pros...)

Personally, I think you're making some massive assumptions based on very little first hand knowledge.

 

[marioguarneros]

It's not a surprise to me. It's Manufacturing 101 - when the quantity produced is relatively low, modularity is more likely, in order to support BTO options and minimize the need to re-tool from one year's models to the next. The fact that it doesn't look like yesterday's modular design is beside the point. The fact that the GPU cards are a proprietary design is beside the point - Apple needs these to be modular for Apple's own purposes.

Interesting point you raise there.

Do you think that Apple would have preferred to keep the upgradability to a minimum just like with the iMac but manufacturing necessities outweighed their original intent?

If this was the case they could have gone with proprietary everything including sockets and connections to achieve the same goal, right?

I am still wondering what's going to happen to the next Intel CPU socket, will it be compatible with this generation of MacPros?

Like I said before, interesting theory you got there.

 

[rGiskard]

I guess Apple's reputation for not making their devices as upgradable as before plus the huge amount of haters bashing it as not user upgradable before getting the facts or simply because they couldn't stick their old cards/hdd's really affected the perception of a lot of people.

It isn't perception, it's reality

Many of the upgrades to my MP tower would be impossible on a nMP:

CPU: yes
RAM: yes
Video card: no
USB ports: no
SATA ports: no, not even available on nMP
Ethernet: no
Fiber channel: no way
ODD: no, but not so relevant

Some of those upgrades aren't so important, but there's no question that the nMP is much less upgradable than the MP Tower.

 

[DrManhattan]

USB ports: no
SATA ports: no, not even available on nMP
Ethernet: no
Fiber channel: no way
ODD: no, but not so relevant

Some of those upgrades aren't so important, but there's no question that the nMP is much less upgradable than the MP Tower.

This is incorrect as Thunderbolt allows you to modify any of those.

 

[marioguarneros]

If I hear the word "haters" one more time, I swear to god I'm gonna leap through the internet, and punch someone in the neck.

To get on topic, the breakdowns do show that the whole machine is surprisingly, almost elegantly easy to disassemble, but the GPUs remain the biggest question for me. They look like bog standard graphics cards with the fan housing stripped off, but I haven't seen a single connector in any of the shots. What they are (I'm guessing they're PCIe 16x), or where they're positioned on the card itself.

Are they entirely proprietary designs, or would it be possible to upgrade a GPU later with a little bit of work?

----------



Nope, they're removable. Look at the breakdown shots in the other thread. You can see them sitting there to the left and right of the chassis.

The question is, can they be upgraded using any standard parts, or do people have to wait for a specifically designed rev of a card before they fit one into the Pro?

You are right, "haters" is not a good word, I will start using "bitter" and "misinformed" instead.

 

[DrManhattan]

If I hear the word "haters" one more time, I swear to god I'm gonna leap through the internet, and punch someone in the neck.

It's just a word. No need to be so violent. I read a lot of the nonsense the past few months in the Mac Pro forums.

 

[N64]

So everything in this none user upgradeable Mac Pro is removable? Nothing is soldered on the board? RAM and CPU are standard components you can get later for cheaper? Interesting.

Still, I want my sata port, my optical drive and my floppy drive back.

Wait a second, you're lumping in SATA with optical and floppy drives. What's so obsolete about SATA? And especially PCIe, which they have also removed but which every GPU except for their snotty little proprietary cards use. Not to mention all those sound cards and stuff.

Anyone saying that this new Mac Pro is very user-upgradeable is kidding himself. It's meant to be sleek and use external components.

 

[MattInOz]

And the SSD, since OWC sells SSD upgrades for other Macs with proprietary connectors. And it was clear from early photos that the CPU was installed in a socket.

But it's nice that others are learning about this now.

Looking at the photos in the teardown it looks like the new Mac Pro SSD is just two of the drives they use in the MacBooks stuck together in a case. So it might take a bit of system configuration after the install to raid the two blades together but making the replacement drives should be to hard for OWC.

 

[GJN]

The fact that the GPU cards are a proprietary design is beside the point - Apple needs these to be modular for Apple's own purposes.

What might those purposes be? BTW just curious, not trying to be sarcastic...

 

[N64]

To the haters who jumped to the conclusion that the CPUs would not be upgradeable, feel free to post your apologies here. A little claim chowder is good for the soul.

Why do you need apologies? By the way, I'm not one of those people.

 

[Renzatic]

Many of the upgrades to my MP tower would be impossible on a nMP:

CPU: yes
RAM: yes
Video card: no
USB ports: no
SATA ports: no, not even available on nMP
Ethernet: no
Fiber channel: no way
ODD: no, but not so relevant

Impossible? No. But it is different, more like:

CPU: yes

RAM: yes

GPU: probably not, at least not with standard cards. This is still a big question for me...

USB ports? Yes, via hubs. May not be the most optimal solution depending on your use case, but it can be done.

SATA ports? Replaced with Thunderbolt for eSATA and a PCIe connection for internal drives. This is a good upgrade overall. The only downside is, for now anyway, it's a good deal more expensive.

Ethernet/Fiber Channel - MAY be mooted with IP over Thunderbolt, depending on how well it works in practice.

 

[LordVic]

What might those purposes be? BTW just curious, not trying to be sarcastic...

i would imagine warranty and repair work.

if something broke or went wrong with the unit, it's a lot cheaper to be able to replace only a component than the entirety.

 

[MattInOz]

Wait a second, you're lumping in SATA with optical and floppy drives. What's so obsolete about SATA? And especially PCIe, which they have also removed but which every GPU except for their snotty little proprietary cards use.

It's an overhead that isn't required for NAND Storage that can have it's controller directly attached to PCIe bus.

 

[haplain]

Keeping cost down

In my eyes the only reason Apple did this was to save BIG bucks. Seeing how these are built and assembled in the US, much higher wages than anywhere else they would be assembled, they want to do everything to cut costs. But allowing the internal mold/construction to remain the same across all the models, with no soldered or difficult to remove parts, it allows ONE single MacPro to become any configuration. Doing so will allow MacPro's to be easily constructed and customized, repaired and replacement parts to be installed. All of that will in turn reduce the amount of time i.e. money Apple technicians need to build and repair these machines. I'd like to believe Apple did to for the consumer but I HIGHLY doubt that. It just makes financial sense for them to allow one chassis for any new MacPro.

 

[N64]

Impossible? No. But it is different, more like:

CPU: yes

RAM: yes

GPU: probably not, at least not with standard cards. This is still a big question for me...

USB ports? Yes, via hubs. May not be the most optimal solution depending on your use case, but it can be done.

SATA ports? Replaced with Thunderbolt for eSATA and a PCIe connection for internal drives. This is a good upgrade overall. The only downside is, for now anyway, it's a good deal more expensive.

Ethernet/Fiber Channel - MAY be mooted with IP over Thunderbolt, depending on how well it works in practice.

Yep. Theoretically, besides the GPUs, it all works over Thunderbolt as long as you're willing to pay that much extra. My main concern is the GPUs that might be barely upgradeable even if they are replaceable.

----------

It's an overhead that isn't required for NAND Storage that can have it's controller directly attached to PCIe bus.

If you had access to the PCIe bus, which you don't. Unless you mean with Thunderbolt, which adds a lot of cost. SATA works well for mass data storage on spinning hard drives, which are not obsolete.

 

[LordVic]

Yep. Theoretically, besides the GPUs, it all works over Thunderbolt as long as you're willing to pay that much extra. My main concern is the GPUs that might be barely upgradeable even if they are replaceable.

not only that, is GPU upgrades, if this is a proprietary board design, would be exclusively sold / controlled / maintained by Apple.

I dont imagine AMD sold the reference designs of these boards to their regular licensees.

And expansion GPU's via thunderbolt will not be done unless Intel gets off their might high horse and allows thunderbolt development for GPU's