Mac Pro Redesign?

[strausd]

Just out of curiosity, I want to see how many people think we will see a new design for the Mac Pro and how many people think the design will continue to stay the same.

And if you think there will be a redesign, I am curious to know what you think it will be like.

 

[fox10078]

I think the current design is excellent! But that doesn't mean I don't think they should call it done, if they can make it better, then I'm all for it.

 

[InuNacho]

Maybe a designated 2.5 slot or two for a SSDs but thats really about it.

 

[MovieCutter]

The only thing that makes sense is to make it slightly shorter. If they make it narrower, it'd kill our 4xSATA bays. Unless they killed the Optical drives and used that space to somehow turn 4-6 HDD bays vertical? But then they'd have to make the GPUs fit and the PCIe slots, etc. The current case is perfect (aside from the "handles"...those need to be contoured so they don't cut your hands when you pick them up) but aside from those issues and a potentially larger power supply, the chassis itself is perfect.

 

[derbothaus]

Dust management solution would be nice. Nvidia GTX 6xx support.

 

[Jst0rm]

I think the current design is perfect but I wouldn't mind the ability to rack mount it easily.

 

[VirtualRain]

I think the chassis is fine... the only real problem is the Bluetooth antenna performance. I'll be very surprised if it gets a redesign though. It's sold to a market segment that is not after a pretty, flashy, or new for the sake of new design. If they do redesign it, it says a lot that they are really investing in the Mac Pro and should put rumors of its limited longevity to bed.

I would rather see them focus on internals and capability:
- Lots of Sata3 ports
- USB 3
- Thunderbolt
- 2.5" drive slots in place of useless optical bays
- 6+8 power for top of line GPUs

And above all, cost reductions (wishful thinking I know)... But perhaps achievable without unnecessary luxuries like the removable CPU board. I'd like to see a single dual socket main board design so you can buy a single CPU system and just drop a second CPU in later. A reduction in major parts would reduce costs for all configurations.

 

[strausd]

I think the chassis is fine... the only real problem is the Bluetooth antenna performance. I'll be very surprised if it gets a redesign though. It's sold to a market segment that is not after a pretty, flashy, or new for the sake of new design. If they do redesign it, it says a lot that they are really investing in the Mac Pro and should put rumors of its limited longevity to bed.

I would rather see them focus on internals and capability:
- Lots of Sata3 ports
- USB 3
- Thunderbolt
- 2.5" drive slots in place of useless optical bays
- 6+8 power for top of line GPUs

And above all, cost reductions (wishful thinking I know)... But perhaps achievable without unnecessary luxuries like the removable CPU board. I'd like to see a single dual socket main board design so you can buy a single CPU system and just drop a second CPU in later. A reduction in major parts would reduce costs for all configurations.

Totally agree with you. However, I would love more drive bays. Most cases easily support 5-7 drives with 2-3 optical bays. Sadly, the Mac pro is only 2 optical bays (which one is pointless) and only 4 drive bays.

 

[Maccho]

I am sure if there was any better design than the current one, Jonny Ive and Apple would have already made the upgrade.

Though that said, perhaps they are just leaving us to wait in suspense so that we are totally awe-struck when the new one does come out.

Though that said (too), old design is good enough, Prosumers are after the monster that is the beast inside!

WooHOO new Mac Pros!!!

 

[Blue Sun]

I'm betting on somewhat of a redesign.

Hopefully the case doesn't shrink too much though. Expandability is what the Mac Pro is all about.

 

[Demigod Mac]

Hard to say since the design is such a perfect union of aesthetics and functionality. It IS old but it's rather ageless at the same time. I'm sure today's Mac Pros will still look stylish 10 years from now.

That said, I hope that if they adjust the design, they don't sacrifice functionality and expansion for looks.

 

[zephonic]

I think the current design is one of the best designs of all the time, and certainly the best tower design ever. From an aesthetic POV there is absolutely no reason to change it.

But it needs more room inside for hdd's etc. so I did vote yes for a redesign. If they can stick more stuff in without changing the exterior, great. But I doubt it.

 

[Peace]

I would have selected A. Yes but I didn't because I don't think the design is too old.

This doesn't mean I don't think there will be a redesign though.

 

[champ01]

Mac Pro needs to be easily placed into a rack.

I think we can all agree on that?

 

[Wardenski]

I like the current case but maybe some may want rackmountable compatability.

For me, the logic board should have two 6 pin and two 8 pin connectors for the mightiest GPUs although drivers in OSX are more important.

 

[maflynn]

Mac Pro needs to be easily placed into a rack.

I think we can all agree on that?

No I don't think everyone will agree with that, but having a rackable case may be a good compromise for those who need to rack the computers

 

[Umbongo]

I'd like to see Apple update the Mac Pro so that it has similar functionality and expandability of HP's workstations.

The Z820 has the following in a rack-mountable design with the same size as the Mac Pro:

• 16 DIMM slots, up to 512 GB, 8-channel ECC DDR3 1600 MHz, 4 channels per CPU
  
• 5 x 3.5" drives or 6 x 2.5" drives.
• 3 external 5.25-inch bays, 4 internal 3.5-inch bays
  
• 3 PCI Express Gen3 x16
• 1 PCI Express Gen3 x16 mechanical/x8 electrical
• 1 PCI Express Gen3 x8 mechanical/x4 electrical
• 1 PCI Express Gen2 x8 mechanical/x4 electrical
• 1 Legacy PCI

I'd like to see 8 DIMM slots per CPU (at least 8 and 4 for the DP model), 6 to 8 drive sleds even if some are 2.5" only, at least 4 fully configurable PCI-Express x16 slots, plus at least another smaller slot now that so much can be done through PCI-E cards. With a design that allows the top processors.

 

[xgman]

I'm betting on somewhat of a redesign.

Hopefully the case doesn't shrink too much though. Expandability is what the Mac Pro is all about.

Hopefully they will do things like accommodate 2.5" drives natively etc.

 

[RoelJuun]

Although I voted no redesign it is complicated. The outside is gorgeous, the inside too. The different compartments is genius but some changes would be nice:

- More drive bays (skip 1 optical drive bay?)
- More ram slots for the single processor
- More space/pins for 2 heavy GPU's
- Rack-mountable isn't important for me, but others request it
- Easier mount for 2,5" drives (SSD's), just ship a dock with it (not going to happen)

But please, don't make it smaller. But I don't think Apple will change much, it would take money, testing, engineering and so on. It's not worth it for them.

 

[thekev]

Dust management solution would be nice. Nvidia GTX 6xx support.

That would be nice. Given that I wouldn't expect a Haswell version prior to 2014, if they don't redesign it, count on another 2-3 years of the same thing. One of the concerns seems to be whether Apple is still concerned with the line, so I guess a redesigned case would reassure some people. I'd just like to see a better base configuration given how much stuff I have to update.

Totally agree with you. However, I would love more drive bays. Most cases easily support 5-7 drives with 2-3 optical bays. Sadly, the Mac pro is only 2 optical bays (which one is pointless) and only 4 drive bays.

It varies, but a modern feature has been to allow however many 3.5" drives, or a larger number of 2.5" drives. I wish their configurations were as competitive today as the first couple generations.

I'd like to see Apple update the Mac Pro so that it has similar functionality and expandability of HP's workstations.

The Z820 has the following in a rack-mountable design with the same size as the Mac Pro:

• 16 DIMM slots, up to 512 GB, 8-channel ECC DDR3 1600 MHz, 4 channels per CPU
  
• 5 x 3.5" drives or 6 x 2.5" drives.
• 3 external 5.25-inch bays, 4 internal 3.5-inch bays
  
• 3 PCI Express Gen3 x16
• 1 PCI Express Gen3 x16 mechanical/x8 electrical
• 1 PCI Express Gen3 x8 mechanical/x4 electrical
• 1 PCI Express Gen2 x8 mechanical/x4 electrical
• 1 Legacy PCI

I'd like to see 8 DIMM slots per CPU (at least 8 and 4 for the DP model), 6 to 8 drive sleds even if some are 2.5" only, at least 4 fully configurable PCI-Express x16 slots, plus at least another smaller slot now that so much can be done through PCI-E cards. With a design that allows the top processors.

That PCI allocation would throttle some lanes on the single package model given a 40 lane limit, similar to how crossfire isn't a true 32 lanes. Unfortunately OSX still caps out at 96GB of ram, so you wouldn't be able to do that. I understand with distributed tasks, there may be some situations where incredible amounts of ram would be useful.

 

[Umbongo]

That PCI allocation would throttle some lanes on the single package model given a 40 lane limit, similar to how crossfire isn't a true 32 lanes. Unfortunately OSX still caps out at 96GB of ram, so you wouldn't be able to do that. I understand with distributed tasks, there may be some situations where incredible amounts of ram would be useful.

Customizable configuration of the lanes would allow the user to determine how they used them. A single processor Mac Pro could be configured as x16-x16-x4-x4 or x16-x8-x8-x8 while using four x16 mechanical slots.

OS X doesn't cap out at 96GB any more. Lion supports at least 128GB on C600 series chipsets as has been show by the hackintosh community. The 96GB limit comes somewhere from them not having the hardware to test/develop memory addressing over 96GB on until later in the 4,1/5,1 life cycle. With 4 channels, 3 DIMMs per channel and 32GB LR-DIMMs and 64GB on the way I would hope Apple look at making OS X able to address large amounts of memory.

 

[Inconsequential]

I'd like to see Apple update the Mac Pro so that it has similar functionality and expandability of HP's workstations.

The Z820 has the following in a rack-mountable design with the same size as the Mac Pro:

• 16 DIMM slots, up to 512 GB, 8-channel ECC DDR3 1600 MHz, 4 channels per CPU - No -> No space.
• 5 x 3.5" drives or 6 x 2.5" drives. - No -> No space.
• 3 external 5.25-inch bays, 4 internal 3.5-inch bays - No -> No space.
  
• 3 PCI Express Gen3 x16 - Yes -> But not all x16
• 1 PCI Express Gen3 x16 mechanical/x8 electrical - No
• 1 PCI Express Gen3 x8 mechanical/x4 electrical - No
• 1 PCI Express Gen2 x8 mechanical/x4 electrical - No
• 1 Legacy PCI - No - why on earth!?

I put money on the fact it'll look roughly the same, with 8 DIMM slots in total (i.e. for quad channel memory).
Same amount of HD and PCI-E slots, etc.

May have dedicated SSD slots.
May swap one of the drive bays for added SSDs + HDs, but I think not.

We'll soon find out tho.

 

[Umbongo]

I put money on the fact it'll look roughly the same, with 8 DIMM slots in total (i.e. for quad channel memory).
Same amount of HD and PCI-E slots, etc.

May have dedicated SSD slots.
May swap one of the drive bays for added SSDs + HDs, but I think not.

We'll soon find out tho.

I was just showing an example of what the HP Z820 has to show what they can fit in an enclosure the same size as the Mac Pro.

 

[thekev]

Customizable configuration of the lanes would allow the user to determine how they used them. A single processor Mac Pro could be configured as x16-x16-x4-x4 or x16-x8-x8-x8 while using four x16 mechanical slots.

OS X doesn't cap out at 96GB any more. Lion supports at least 128GB on C600 series chipsets as has been show by the hackintosh community. The 96GB limit comes somewhere from them not having the hardware to test/develop memory addressing over 96GB on until later in the 4,1/5,1 life cycle. With 4 channels, 3 DIMMs per channel and 32GB LR-DIMMs and 64GB on the way I would hope Apple look at making OS X able to address large amounts of memory.

I thought this was still valid. I wasn't aware that someone was able to make it work.

Regarding configurable lanes, they did this on one of the older mac pros.

I was just showing an example of what the HP Z820 has to show what they can fit in an enclosure the same size as the Mac Pro.

They kept it neat too. It's not like you can't navigate the interior to replace a hard drive or add in hardware.

 

[Umbongo]

I thought this was still valid. I wasn't aware that someone was able to make it work.

Yeah I don't even think it was a case of trying to get it to work, he just put Lion on a Super Micro dual E5 build and it pretty much worked without any real effort and supported the 128GB he had installed. I don't think any one has tried to get Lion working with 128GB on current Mac Pros though.

Regarding configurable lanes, they did this on one of the older mac pros.

Yep they did so not out of the realm of possibility. Also a lot of C600 boards have configurable lanes as many have 5-7 slots and with all that bandwidth available and current cards not maxing it out.

We'll see what they've done in a week or two. I wouldn't be surprised if its basically just a processor, chipset and graphics update of the existing model. You'd think that they would take the opportunity to make it a system that fills the many roles the platform is capable of though - especially now the Xserve is no more.