Another utterly unsupported set of "specs" that are transparently ridiculous - it's not even "rumor" quality. It's so annoying that I'm going to break my NDA a little:
Apple has two prototypes under design and evaluation now. I've only seen one.
The smaller one - the one I've seen - is almost finished. It is code-named "Monolith." It's a Space Gray aluminum slab mounted vertically on a polished black solid aluminum pedestal. It's beautiful (really gorgeous!), and it would look good on top of a desk or beside one.
It's opened like a clamshell, with the entire top and front coming off after pressing a single cleverly hidden button on the back. A clear polycarbonate shield partially covers much of the guts while opened. Under the shield is a cage containing containing two cards, mounted close, back to back, with heat sinks extending outward from the two cards. The system is air cooled by two fans from the bottom.
One card is a single CPU processor board. It is not intended to be user replaceable (that's the plan so far, it seems), but it looks easy to do. Indeed, it was mounted on rails, and had little grips at the top for pulling it out (think PDP-8 modules). I wasn't allowed to know what processor family will be used (not even Intel vs. AMD), but I do know it has 8 RAM slots, which are accessed through gaps in the polycarbonate shield.
A second, single, graphics board adheres to the PCI standard electrically, but uses a non-standard physical form-factor that matches the size and shape of the CPU card. It's also slid in on rails from the top and is definitely intended to be user-replaceable. Again, I wasn't told which company the GPU is from or whether both AMD and Nvidia would be supported. People were non-nonchalant about it and hence I assumed it would be AMD only, but given that it's fundamentally a PCI card, I could imagine possibilities.
Another set of rails allows user-insertion of four M.2 flash cards via small "sleds." One small thumb screw is used to hold the M.2 cards into the sleds, and the design looks really easy to use. I was told that all 4-drive RAID modalities are supported. All four were loaded in the test mule I saw, and wow, it was fast! Sorry, though, there is no provision for 2.5" or other form-factors - it's M.2 only.I couldn't tell if they were normal M.2 or Apple-proprietary.
At the back are the usual set of ports, looking about the same as what the iMac Pro has, but I didn't really pay much attention to them.
I was told the other prototype is larger, which I took to mean "dual processor and/or dual GPU's and/or multiple 2.5" drives." I was told it is more in flux at the moment, yet it will be finished before a final decision is made. The people showing this one were really proud, though, and eager to get it approved.
I liked it! Totally drool-worthy! Be nice and maybe I'll tell you about the monitor!
