People who need workstation like mac pro:
1. need processing power: 6+ cores, xeons still needs good cooling, which if you want to be quiet it has to have big cooler meaning big body and quiet fan;
2. need storage: min 4 full 3.5 inch HDD bays: thunderbolt storage is still expensive, and it is not very portable. one 3TB 3.5 HDD is very easy to take out from mac pro and take; SDD is still not big or reliable enough.
3. powerful GFX card - again, two slots, big cooler;
4. powerful PSU....
There is no more points needed to find out that apple just cant miniturize Mac Pro at this point in time.
Power supplies are already too small. I'd like to put in 2 AMD Radeon 7970 graphics cards. They both require 2 extra pci/e power connectors. But the current PSU only supplies 2. I am currently using a 3 year old 5870 & a 4-5 year old 3870 graphics cards. I usually use 4-5 displays, 3 of which are 30" 2560 X 1600 ones.
Then to bring it up to date a I a 2 port USB 3 card with an additional 2 ports for eSATA III.The 4th slot has another graphics card, the Nvidia model in my old 1st gen Mac Pro, as it does not take an extra power connector. I actually am one of those that would like more slots, not less. The competition have more.
I would think that 2-4 additional slots for SSDs or some extra fast 2.5" SAS drives. I had 4 hdd in my mid 2012 Mac Pro which is actually a mid 2010 Mac Pro. They're both version (5,1). I had 2 additional drives in the optical drive area. But the second one keeps me from having an optical drive. So more drive space is needed.
Windows units in this class have 16 memory slots. Plus more SATA III hdd slots, PCI/e 3.0 slots, faster processors available. Plus they are the current version.
Basically the Mac Pro is sorta of in limbo. The no upgrade but still selling it means we can still purchase one, but we still have to pay the same price as a Windows unit with the above additional capabilities plus more.
My conclusion is that if Apple actually does make a new Mac Pro in 18 months or so we will need one that is at least as big as the current model. Smaller may be better with the many iToys, but not with the Mac Pro. The MacBook Pros have been split into an iToy model called a retina display model while the older MacBook Pros have been carried on with the new Ivy Bridge processors & USB 3. But with the removal of the 17" model, which is the smallest I will purchase, the built-in card slot went away as well as room for a second ThunderBolt port. There are adapters available to add many of these features, but then I have more pieces & almost as much weight as my Mac Pro.
