Your perfect Mac

[lepidotós]

Say you had a replicator that could materialize any computer you could imagine, and you imagine a Mac. What would it look like?
For me, a 3:2 4GB DDR2 iBook G4 that uses a 7448 or 8641D @ 2GHz, with a Mobility Radeon X800. To compliment, a Quad G4 (using two 8641Ds) also using 4GB DDR2 with an ADC Radeon HD 3850 inside the MDD case.
A POWER9-based Power Mac or e6500-based PowerBook would also be pretty cool.​

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Any a1117 G5 variant (preferably air cooled) & a 17” PowerBook G4.

 

[eyoungren]

Everything I put into my Quicksilver, but with a dual 2Ghz processor and not modifying the case or fans.

Or my Quad G5 but with the air cooling of my 2.3DC.

Admittedly, the goal on the G5 is not a stretch (people have made air-cooled Quads) but the Quad was pretty much all I was trying to achieve with the QS.

 

[mode11]

Everything I put into my Quicksilver, but with a dual 2Ghz processor and not modifying the case or fans.

Or my Quad G5 but with the air cooling of my 2.3DC.

Admittedly, the goal on the G5 is not a stretch (people have made air-cooled Quads) but the Quad was pretty much all I was trying to achieve with the QS.

The QS G4 is one of the best looking desktops Apple has ever made, but its airflow absolutely sucked. Perhaps if there were a big opening below / behind the front panel, like the MDD, to act as an air intake this could be improved. Or maybe stick a couple of filtered 120mm fans in the floor.

A slot loading laptop optical drive, no Zip drive and space for just two 3.5" HDDs might free up enough space for some kind of front-mounted internal fan. Or perhaps the PSU could go there, and the CPUs would then have space for a decent HSF.

 

[velocityg4]

I've posted this mockup I made before. In another thread before ARM Macs. Basically the iMac G4 design with a much longer oblong base to handle the cooling needs of modern CPU and GPU. With an ultra high quality web cam based off iPhone back cameras. I'd also add Face ID but that isn't in the mockup.

The screen itself would be ranged from 24" to 35" 4K to 8K.
- CPU, RAM and storage would be user replaceable.
- Not sure about the card. Given the base would be much wider than the iMac G4. It might handle a style dual slot GPU laying sideways with internal connector going to the monitor and rear thunderbolt DisplayPort outputs.
- CPU wise. I'd be fine with Apple Silicon. If they made it and the RAM socketed on the desktop with various CPU options. Such as the M1 Max size but without the extra GPU cores and all the space filled with CPU cores. Allowing people to install a dedicated GPU from AMD or nVidia. Heck even an Apple one based off their GPU but scaled up to a dedicated card.
- I'd also want a second PCIe slot if Apple Silicon was used. To install something like an old Orange Micro card. Doing your choice of Intel or AMD CPU.

If we're talking about about PowerPC. I'd want the latest IBM Power designs scaled onto TSMC's processes. Updated with big and little cores. Making the fastest PowerPC CPU they can. Scaled to the thermals appropriate for laptops, dekstops and workstations.

All in ones would be based off the below iMac G4 mockup. The mini would be inspired by the LC I but scaled down. The workstation off the Quadra 900. An upgradeable consumer desktop off the IIcx or IIgs. I won't get into laptops as I don't feel like it. Besides upgradeable RAM and SSD.

The UI would be clean and simple influenced by Next and Classic Mac OS. Although I'd bring in some OS X influences like the sidebar and toolbar.

 

[eyoungren]

The QS G4 is one of the best looking desktops Apple has ever made, but its airflow absolutely sucked. Perhaps if there were a big opening below / behind the front panel, like the MDD, to act as an air intake this could be improved. Or maybe stick a couple of filtered 120mm fans in the floor.

A slot loading laptop optical drive, no Zip drive and space for just two 3.5" HDDs might free up enough space for some kind of front-mounted internal fan. Or perhaps the PSU could go there, and the CPUs would then have space for a decent HSF.

Well…I tried that. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/quicksilver-beautification-project.1953562/

There was just too much heat to get rid of. Three video cards, a SATA card, a USB card, multiple drives and two optical drives - PLUS a 1.8Ghz dual processor.

With the door shut it just locked up at some point every time. I could have run it okay with the door down, but I didn't want my cat sitting in it.

It's in pieces now though. I moved on to a Quad G5 in 2017 and a Mac Pro in 2020.

 

[Warped9]

Funny to see this thread. This morning I turned on my 2011 21.5 iMac. I loved how it booted so quickly and how everything responded so well. It runs better than new with the upgrades I put in over the last two years. I have zero complaints with this computer other than it’s stuck at High Sierra, and yet presently that isn’t an issue. My iMac satisfies everything I ask of it.

Makes it real hard to justify replacing it.

But ideally I’d like an M2 iMac 24 with 32GB RAM. I’d like it green, but not the current three-tone green. I’d rather have the same brushed green of the pedestal yet over the entire chassis front and back. I’d also like it to run SketchUp and my current CS4 (because I don’t want to pay Adobe a subscription).

 

[mode11]

Well…I tried that. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/quicksilver-beautification-project.1953562/

There was just too much heat to get rid of. Three video cards, a SATA card, a USB card, multiple drives and two optical drives - PLUS a 1.8Ghz dual processor.

With the door shut it just locked up at some point every time. I could have run it okay with the door down, but I didn't want my cat sitting in it.

It's in pieces now though. I moved on to a Quad G5 in 2017 and a Mac Pro in 2020.

I get that you were seeing how far you could push the design, likely on a budget, but I never really saw the utility of 6 relatively low res displays. Sticking with the single Nvidia card and a couple of large displays would surely have been adequate for anything the machine had the horsepower to run. In the same vein, a single large hard drive (or SSD) could replace those multiple HDDs, freeing up space and reducing heat, power consumption and noise. With a more conservative loadout the QS could still make for a nice little machine, albeit only for some occasional retro fun.

The issue with the QS is that the airflow is totally imbalanced and circuitous. In via the little holes by the CPUs, out via the PSU and case fans. To sort it out you could remove the optical drive and mount a 120mm fan in its place, an inch or so away from the front wall and blowing towards the CPUs. Then fashion a wall from the bottom of the fan to the case floor, forming a duct down to a roughly 5"x1" hole in the case floor. The GPU could either use a blower or rely on the nearby case fan.

 

[eyoungren]

I get that you were seeing how far you could push the design, likely on a budget, but I never really saw the utility of 6 relatively low res displays. Sticking with the single Nvidia card and a couple of large displays would surely have been adequate for anything the machine had the horsepower to run. In the same vein, a single large hard drive (or SSD) could replace those multiple HDDs, freeing up space and reducing heat, power consumption and noise. With a more conservative loadout the QS could still make for a nice little machine, albeit only for some occasional retro fun.

The issue with the QS is that the airflow is totally imbalanced and circuitous. In via the little holes by the CPUs, out via the PSU and case fans. To sort it out you could remove the optical drive and mount a 120mm fan in its place, an inch or so away from the front wall and blowing towards the CPUs. Then fashion a wall from the bottom of the fan to the case floor, forming a duct down to a roughly 5"x1" hole in the case floor. The GPU could either use a blower or rely on the nearby case fan.

I got the Quicksilver either in late 2013 or early 2014, I forget which. In any case that was over 8 years ago. What I know know, versus what I knew then and the finances I have to work with are all very different as is my home and work situation.

I would definitely do things differently now - but not the six displays. Right now I still have six hooked up to my Mac Pro. With the exception of the 20" ACD which I use mainly for windows the rest are much higher resolution displays. None of which I could have afforded eight years ago.

In any case, the rationale for six is down entirely to my vanity. At the time I got the QS I also got a Mac Pro at work. That MP was capable of three displays with one video card and had a then large HD (1TB). Given the nature of my relationship with that job I wasn't about to let the work Mac have more displays than I had at home OR more GB in storage. Never mind how many video cards it took to achieve it.

Of course you're right about screen size and resolution, but at the time quantity was more important to me than quality. And my finances only allowed for so much at that time. Also, SSDs were extremely expensive then for the size I would have wanted. HDs were more affordable - especially used.

Another thing I do not care for is being bound by what I need. I prefer to get what I want and usually that tends to be more than I need so it tends to work out.

Yeah, I know. I could have done it other ways but this was they way I wanted to do it. Having a QS loaded out this way was not something I ever could have done back in 2001 so that was another factor.

Things are different now. My G3 and my 500mhz G4 have benefitted from the QS experiment and SSDs have come down considerably in cost. As my old drives die they will be replaced with SSDs most likely. I already have done so with a least four of my Macs.

 

[Doq]

I just want a Mac Pro that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

G5 PowerBook. Or maybe that dual G4 prototype comes to fruition. Actually that's for the other thread.

 

[eddjedi]

Good question. Although I'm fond of the PPC era, my favourite Mac was my 2006 15" Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro. That was a really classy machine - looked and felt great, powerful, and over the 5 years I owned it I upgraded the HD, RAM and battery myself. So that machine was pretty much perfect for me, it was powerful and sleek yet I could still maintain it myself.

And yes, I second the comment above about Mac Pro pricing. The first Intel Mac Pro base model was about a quarter of the price of the current one. I do not earn four times as much as I did then, inflation is not the only thing to blame.

 

[HackMacDaddy]

I wish I could have a 2022 version of the classic Mac Pro paired with a new version of the 30“ Cinema Display.

You know with Sata bays and such. Also I‘d want a „Snow Leopard 2022“.

For mobile computing I would love the 12“ MacBook with Apple silicone and without the designflaws ?

 

[mode11]

inflation is not the only thing to blame

Apple is essentially now the iPhone company, with everything else a distant second. Even the switch to Apple Silicon is as much about leveraging their yearly investment in A-series chips. These are well suited to being beefed up a bit for laptops, Apple's main Mac market, but how they'll work in the Mac Pro remains a big question mark.

 

[dgdosen]

• Similar in size to 2017 Macbook
• M3 level perf and power draw (better than today's M1Max/ AlderLake/ Ryzen 6000)
• OLED screen
• enough memory for what I need to do

 

[mectojic]

Honestly, I'd love an M1 iBook Clamshell. I'd keep the aspect ratio at 4:3, since that's part of the design, but would make it retina.

 

[ian87w]

Apple Silicon 15" Macbook Air with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 4 USB-C ports, fanless.
I think I'll be fine with that.

 

[mustagcoupe]

I would love a 20 inch imac g4 with the radeon 9600 from the last gen emac and maybe a single expansion slot, preferably pci. My biggest issues with my 20 inch imac are the awful fx5200 and the fact that i cant reasonably use scsi with it. I know they have usb and firewire to scsi adapters but for the price of one of them i could buy one or more Power Macs that can have better graphics and scsi and are almost as nice to look at. I find myself mostly leaving the imac on a shelf looking pretty because its just not not that useful compared to one of my Power Macs, especially since the 20 inch imac cant boot os9 or 10.2 and the classic mode in 10.3 and 10.4 is no good for most games.

 

[B S Magnet]

Either a maxed-out, late 2011, top-end 2.5GHz quad core i7 unibody MacBook Pro with an antiglare retina screen, an NVIDIA GPU, 32 GB RAM, and every aluminium piece anodized in a non-glossy frosted red (like the 4G iPod nano in Product Red); OR, the same specs and hue but in the form factor of the MacBookPro4,1 case, which would also allow for anodized-effect red keys. And for the heck of it, throw in an HDMI port and upgrade the Thunderbolt bridge to at least Thunderbolt 2, with two ports.

And retrofit Thunderbolt 2 to work in Snow Leopard.

(I have a thing for anodized red aluminium and have ever since I held a Sony DD Walkman finished in a limited edition red which was next to impossible to obtain in North America (it was a demo at the Sony store in my town at the time). And also, Snow Leopard is the best, and I will die on this craggy hill in the Himalayas, where Snow Leopards live.)

 

[eddjedi]

I'd keep the aspect ratio at 4:3, since that's part of the design, but would make it retina.

You should check out the Hauwei Mateview monitor, I love mine, I can really see this 3:2 aspect ratio becoming mainstream. I can see why widescreen displays are popular for watching movies or timeline-based apps like Final Cut Pro, but I find a square display much better for web browsing, Photoshop, Logic etc.

 

[lepidotós]

@mectojic On the topic of same (similar in this case) case newer insides, I... still really want a 3:2 PowerBook FireWire. Mac OS 9 looks really great at 1280x854. I accidentally now own a TiBook that's all beat, so maybe that might be a good project... I mean, I really like how the Titaniums look, but it's almost destroyed, so if I can't repair it... might as well make it unique. Especially if I can figure out a way to get it to accept my other Lombard battery.
I guess to get really outlandish, I'd love... honestly, I'd really love a POWER9-based Power Mac (Graphite, not QS or MDD, but other colors like Sage or Ruby or Blueberry and White would be cool too, I'd probably want a Sage and White one) with dual 8c32t CPUs, 64GB or even 128GB RAM, a Radeon RX 6900 XT, ditch the screamer case speaker for more airflow and have a proper sound card instead, and four 4TB SSDs. I could just shove a Blackbird inside my dead (for now) Gigabit Ethernet's case, and I might if a new power supply doesn't help -- not, like, I'd go out and buy a Blackbird just because of that, I was already going to get one, but I was going to put it in just a generic Rosewill case that I already bought but can't find anymore -- but Power Macs have some things unique to them (like the logic board being mounted on the swing-out door, the processor daughtercard system, and ADC) that make them special snowflakes. And the Mac OS, but I'm willing to pretend with something like helloSystem.​

 

[eddjedi]

On the subject of aesthetics, that's one of the reasons I love my Cube. It is arguably a poor computer in terms of specs, features, expandability and design flaws (like the 100% failure rate vertical optical drive) but I LOVE that 20 years later it still looks fresh, it was a good design to start with and hasn't discoloured at all.

That is one of the reasons I don't own a G3 iMac or clamshell, because the plastic has gone yellow and the displays look tired. I would love a factory fresh blue G3 iMac just for display.

 

[lepidotós]

You do make a compelling point that a brand new CRT would be pretty amazing to see. I'd love to have a 21" Acrylic Studio Display CRT, even the actually existent 17" is a bit of a pipe dream for me. Thomas Electronics in New York does still make them, if only for institutional customers...​

 

[eddjedi]

Thomas Electronics in New York does still make them, if only for institutional customers...​

I didn't know that. I really hope CRT production does ramp up again, obviously I understand that LED monitors and TVs are here to stay but you can't beat a CRT for playing old video games, and I'm getting a bit tired of having to gamble on 30 year old ones that can go bang at any moment (I bought a B&O MX4000 in October and it's already starting to play up )

 

[lepidotós]

Not just old video games, I love them for absolutely everything and use them for such. My current daily driver monitor is a Dell E773s (which is absolutely not 17", it's 15") that I hot potato between my Power Macs and 6600K with a GTX 970, and I just got a 19" Compaq that does comparatively high resolutions for my Blackbird/RX 570 build. Still hoping I can find a high-frequency DP or HDMI or even USB Type C to VGA or DVI-I adapter that has 10 or 12BPC DACs onboard. I'll take 8BPC if absolutely needed, but 1600x1200@75Hz and, I dunno, 640x480 at 160Hz is too good to pass up. I know of both the Sunix and DeLOCK adapters, but I'm pretty sure both are 8BPC (and expensive, at that).​

 

[eddjedi]

I don't know if I could look at a CRT all day any more, I still have one for my Amiga 4000 and while I love the way it looks and the authentic viewing experience, the flicker does get to me after a while.