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Mac Pro

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664 pointssalimmadjd500 comments

I love watching people moan about this yet unreleased product.

I think the new Mac Pro episode will resemble the iPad one - lots of "ohemgee it's like just a bigger ipod, lol, how stupid do they think we are, kthx?" reactions, when in fact this product will probably push a new paradigm shift in the way workstations are built i.e. moving away from the plastic pieces of shit ubiquitously sold now. Seriously, I dare you to look around a regular "PC customization" website e.g. [1]. Apart from Razer and maybe Alienware nobody has even tried to really innovate the workstation landscape. I remember when I was building one of my first desktops with my dad - 20 years ago.

A final thought: Apple has a million flaws (mostly software and systems, grr), but they didn't get where they are for being stupid or for not understanding the market, so at least give them some fucking credit.

[1] http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Vortex-500-gaming-pc/

We reserve our right to moan at consumer junk with the workstation label glued on.

Innovation is not something I really want in the workstation market.

I want something utterly reliable that works flawlessly for several years and if something goes wrong I can swap the bits out in minutes. If I need more disks, just throw them inside it without playing around with half knackered frayed cables, external enclosures, power management and cable routing, volume management etc. More RAM? chuck it in. More CPU, chuck another CPU in.

Apple aren't offering ANY of that.

To be honest, neither Alienware or Razer are even workstation class machines either.

People have a low expectation of the term "workstation" these days.

Citation:

http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/workstations/z820_...

Edit: will the "downvoters" please bother to stop and explain what their idea of a workstation is?

People have a low expectation of the term "workstation" these days.

The whole "prosumer" thing has been blurring the lines, typically to the detriment of the "pro" market, except for those "pro" markets that do not overlap with the consumer space whatsoever, e.g. heavy construction equipment.

>Apple aren't offering ANY of that.

I think Apple's philosophy here is to push all the expansion to external devices. The new Mac Pro has 6 thunderbolt 2 ports on it. I'd assume you could probably connect some extremely large and fast storage enclosures with that kind of bandwidth. A regular workstation will always be limited by the space available inside of it. Not with this.

I didn't downvote you, but I don't think your criticism is well founded. For example, on the existing Mac Pro, adding a hard drive not require any cables at all. Neither does adding RAM. So it's not the case that "Apple aren't offering any of that."

I also don't see how the machine you linked to supports "chuck another CPU in". It looks like it limits you to two, which is the same as the Mac Pro.

Remember the good old days when SGI had awesome casings and rock-solid tech inside?

Curiously, my first association was "jet engine", was amused to learn that to many it's a trash can.

Am I the only one whose breath was taken away by this new design? Power desktop seriously revisited for the first time since the 80's, anyone?

nah, dyson fans have used similar bases for years.

I kid, I kid.

Honestly though I do not care for an integrated "pro" machine. This is form over function. Fail a component and its off to the shop. Combined with, if I want to upgrade them I need to replace the unit.

If they are going to integrate everything then they need to drop the price. Integration implies lower costs as having all the support needed to drive user added cards and internal drives can be done away with.

Plus its not like I want to have an octopus of cables on my desk and moving storage to all external does that.

Benefits, perhaps driving the thunderbolt prices down and having new and interesting devices to connect to the system.

In the end integration means commodity, just expensive. Can't wait to see what they want for it, I figure on three thousand minimum, which would be a third too much for something so inflexible. Apple, meet Dyson

I agree. Apple has used the geometry of the device to assist more with cooling, and shares the heat sink among components, and uses one large slow fan. This kind of thing really pushes my buttons.

It's 10" high, which is unexpectedly compact. It seems like the designers have chosen a shape to maximize use of space. I'm sure it isn't the only way to go but it's a wonderful next step.

Again Apple has shown us what we want when we thought we just wanted "more".

Except that they have the fan backwards - suck air up from the floor... along with all of the dust and crap.

Unless you're supposed to have this on your desk to show it off. I suppose that wouldn't be unusual...

The 'power desktop' has been revisited since the 80s - the 'all in one' was a revisit.

I love making fun of it but of course I'm just hiding my admiration. At one point I owned an iMac G4 lamp-shade and it seems to hearken back to that design - especially the bottom vents. Ive and co clearly felt they had to come out with something as unique as that lamp-shade design (although it was discontinued, probably because it was really easy to snap in half) and new to inspire excitement about Apple again. It's really sleek, and not nearly as unwieldy as the lampshade iMac. Apple and Tesla routinely set new standards for industrial design. I predict they will sell like hotcakes, not just among professionals but for home users as well.

Someone here said 'Champagne holder' ;)

I think it looks gorgeous. I can't wait to see one in person. My only hesitation about the design is that cylinders don't snuggle well with other computing equipment.

It reminded me of a big battery. I thought it was cool!

This was my first thought. http://goo.gl/nVBNJ

Everyone made fun of the i"Pad" 3 years ago. Now everyone owns one.

For those that don't remember, the biggest innovation in workstations is that we can build them out of consumer-grade PC parts.

This is going to be a $3000 workstation. Its processor will cost more than that "workstation" you linked to. They aren't even competing in the same space.

The new "paradigm" this is pushing is that you don't need PCIe cards or internal storage. We'll see about that.

This is not the first time they've decided there are elements that don't need to be part of the base machine. Each time there were outcries but they were proven right in the end. When's the last time you needed an optical drive for example? And did you see the mention under Thunderbolt 2 of "add a PCI expansion chassis" - that's their answer for those who really really need expansion.

The most interesting mods aren't OEM builds. Alienware for instance, has always focused on complete package game systems.

There's a ton of innovation in that space by companies like Digital Storm: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/%5Bprimary-term%5D/digital_...

Or Falcon Northwest: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/%5Bprimary-term%5D/falcon_n...

A major benefit of these systems is extensibility and repair options, which is why the layout isn't welded together with vendor lock-in proprietary components. Regardless... The ultimate in performance, price and flexibility is still to build it yourself.

Personally, I'd prefer to build a workstation with better specs for a third the price. I'm sure lots of people are terrified to open a computer, and will gladly pay premium prices for something that will look chic for the first nine months.

Let's talk about the real paradigm shift here: Black.

> Let's talk about the real paradigm shift here: Black.

The shape! I really wish they could have gone with a cube or a sphere...not a cylinder! But I understand why those options are not optimal thermally while the sphere is not optimal spatially.

Ha! I really enjoyed the ending! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnJDJN4VA

> part from Razer and maybe Alienware nobody has even tried to really innovate the workstation landscape

By and large this holds true, however an increasing number of manufacturers are offering pre-built slim form factor PCs. They may not be radical re-designs of the sort Apple is trying to push, but they're certainly a departure from the norm [1].

[1] http://www.falcon-nw.com/desktops/tiki

Precisely. No one has taken the real human usability of the box design into question for far too long.

The cylinder doesn't inform a way of using it, it invites multiple. I picture myself using it "sideways," half turned for easy access/cable management.

Rack mounting will require innovation as well, but imagine how densely you could pack them and how dynamic you could make the cooling.

A single fan in a workstation machine. Unbelievable.

There are fanless workstations.

I have two large silent fans: one in the power supply and one over the cpu in my monolithic 2007 PC.

How about a load of mini-itx boards suspended in cooking fat?

I agree in that most workstation units have are visually lack lustre. I was asking someone the other day why they don't wrap X model of iPhone in alumunium or titananium, and he said that it costs too much. But surely they are so small that it wouldn't hurt to add some luxury materials - a can of pop comes with a free alu can.

The design actually reminds me perhaps of a precursor to the R1 astromech droids (on the inside.)

Rackmounting? Looks like that's always been a junky proposition anyway:

https://www.google.com/search?q=rack+mount+mac+pro

Halfway down this page and it really appears a lot of people are just inventing reasons to have a problem with it.

I wonder if there is a patent for this design or if we'll start seeing PCs that embrace the idea of one heat sink.

It is a pretty cool idea, and takes advantage of some of the properties of aerodynamics. I wonder if they tested this in a wind tunnel.

Come on. If you're getting a customised PC, the items have to interoperate, but you gain flexibility. The Mac Pro customises... how? You're comparing apples and oranges.

Besides, while the new design has some interesting features (well... one plus a different look), it's not like you could have built an 'all-in-one' with your dad 20 years ago. Stop with the hyperbole.

In 1981 I built an all in one with my Dad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zx81

(Or rather he built it and I played the games.)

Workstations are not gaming PCs or consumer desktop systems.

Gaming PCs and consumer level desktops may be "plastic pieces of shit," but the workstations I've used are always solid - both hardware and software.

The ones I have used have the build quality of a rack server, but in a desktop system. They typically use Xeon processors, ECC memory, etc.

> Apart from Razer and maybe Alienware nobody has even tried to really innovate the workstation landscape.

How about Thermaltake? http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00001...

It's not going to change anything. For awhile now, they've been constantly shrinking and slimming their Mac Mini and iMac line and until today it looked like that's what they were focusing on in terms of desktop. It's always been a choice of a compact fully-configured iMac or a bulky cheaper, configurable PC tower and the towers didn't go anywhere. Now they're taking away the configurable part of the Mac Pro, so there are even more people who'll move to PC towers from their outdated last-gen Mac Pro.

This thing looks like a '90s sub-woofer. As of now, I wouldn't want this sitting on my desk as showy bling.

Honestly I saw the page after seeing the 'trash can' comments and expected to be unimpressed. But I actually quite like the concept, though maybe that's the nuclear engineer in me talking.

These are the same people who bitched and whined about the iPad and the iPhone. :D

Copywriting and product-debate aside, that's some pretty impressive frontend presentation. From what I can tell from the minified JS, they're using Require.JS for code organization, their own jQuery-like utility toolkit they call Apple Core, fully pre-rendered text everywhere, and javascript that plays and pauses two copies of the HTML5 video, one backwards and one forwards, shuffling their opacities for seamless transitions.

Interestingly, they don't need separate videos for each transition, because the video is streamed rather than pre-buffered in its entirety. Not that Apple really cares about its bandwidth costs here, but it's an interesting strategy.

The minified JS: http://images.apple.com/v/mac-pro/home/a/scripts/macpro.rele...

And the raw video (download and play in QuickTime): http://movies.apple.com/media/us/mac-pro/2013/96614028-695e-...

Ugh. I think it's beyond awful. Incredibly slow and in many environments (chrome-windows) effectively non-functional. I still haven't made it to the end because of how slow and unresponsive it is.

Posting minified JS is pretty useless. Open up Chrome inspector tools and use pretty print to actually read it:

http://i.imgur.com/PHUaDSU.png

The site is really cool but to me feels too much like a fancy Flash page of old, just made with HTML. It's simply not as effective at presenting information as a traditional, scrollable webpage, for instance you can't use your browser's in-page search to look for keywords.

Also it doesn't really work in the mobile browsers I've tried (works very poorly on iOS, falls back to a normal page on Android, doesn't show anything at all on Windows Phone).

A normal webpage plus a cool demo video, while certainly not as creative/innovative as this, would probably be more useful.

If you are interested by the Bezier Curve easing, it uses a micro JS lib I wrote: http://greweb.me/2012/02/bezier-curve-based-easing-functions...

I was surprised how bad it works in landscape orientation on their own ipad devices.. Alignment is wrong, scrolling is not smooth.. Overall, just bad. I could understand if I was browsing from an android platform..

Some unintended consequences of playing the video backwards - when I go in reverse from slide 9 (Fan) to slide 8 (Thermal Core), the arrows indicating air flow and thermal flow are animated in reverse :-)

pity it does nothing in opera but show the can, and I wore out my mousewheel by scrolling to slide 2 in firefox.

probably just tested in safari. preaching to their own choir I guess.

I thought it was nice too until I tried using it on Chrome on Windows. Scrolling is completely broken (have had to reload the page a few times...)

I haven't seen any video or animation on either FF or Chrome (on Win machine). Any idea what browser does it work in?

No doubt the tech behind it is very cool, but, presentation-wise, it just looks like a well-made slideshow with a weird gimmick for switching slides to me. Did the right arrow button go out of style or something?

I love this new device. I suspect I will buy one.

But it doesn't solve my "need a new mac pro" problem.

Right now my 2009 octo mac pro, with six displays attached, plays three roles:

- it is my high end desktop workstation, with three primary high resolution (2560x1600) displays.

- it is my HTPC, with one of the six monitors strung into another room entirely.

- it is my office NAS, with four internal 3TB disks

So, three roles all rolled into one device. This is possible because I can expand it internally with 3.5" disks and pcie cards. In fact, my 3x gt120 cards only take up 3 of the 4 slots.

To duplicate this, I think I need to:

a) add an external disk enclosure

b) drive my fourth display via HDMI

c) pray that 3x 4k displays leaves can coexist with 2x 2560x1600 displays as secondary displays, which seems unlikely

d) pray that the disk array doesn't cannibalize enough thunderbolt bandwidth to interfere with the displays

e) another external box for cd ripping and general optical disk usage

... and all the while, with a single physical CPU, and no ability to ever upgrade the graphics cards. Granted, my needs must not be complicated if I can live with gt120s in 2013, but it was nice to know I could upgrade.

Oh, and I have upgraded my SSD boot device three times in the 4.5 years I've owned this system. That was nice.

So again, I actually really like this device - I think it is a very, very cool computer. But as a discriminating mac pro user who pushed the form factor to the limits, it is not at all what I need.

I think that the whole notion of "it's nice to know I could upgrade" is primarily a consequence of what's currently in the system. Consider the next upgrade.

You buy this thing in 2013. For bulk storage, you hook up a usb 3.0 raid array and a cheap usb dvd drive. A couple years later, you decide you need more fast storage, so you add on a 512GB / 4 TB thunderbolt fusion drive box (note: this product doesn't exist today). Next year, you upgrade the USB raid array to thunderbolt and decide you want an external cinema quality 4k / THX video converter, that also connects over thunderbolt.

Then in 2016, you conclude that the 24 core macbook pro is sufficient for your day to day, and hook up your bulk storage to that when you're home, but leave the cinema converter and the old usb raid array hooked up as your htpc.

Incidentally, to address your specific scenario, I'm pretty sure that an Apple TV costs less than your gt120 did.

In other words, you doubled down on the tail end of one way of doing things, and little of that will carry over to the new standards. It's the same situation many people were in with AGP graphics cards, IDE hard drives and ATX power supplies without the additional 12v connector.

I definitely see what you are saying, and that is why I do think it is a very impressive and very cool computer.

But a lot of the value for me was the one device. A single, unix based[1] device that did everything from be my htpc to be my fileserver to be my desktop, music player, build box, run all my vms, etc.

I derived a lot of value from that. Even if the second device is an apple TV, it's still a second device.

Also, diverging a bit, a lot of folks are talking about a lot of video based expandability via the thunderbolt ports, but remember - it's not even as fast as 4x pcie ... 10mb/s over copper vs. 120 mb/s ... if I have my numbers right.

I think the form factor might support some interesting upgrade options, like hifi separates.

Or you could buy a HP Z820 with liquid cooling, dual xeon processor, a fusion io card, three workstation gpus, and 12 sata drives :)

Thanks for that tip. I might just do that.

Perhaps reload my mac pro with snow leopard one last time, get another year or so out of it, and then "switch" to linux on an old school workstation like this.

Hate to abandon all of my mac VMs, though. I don't think a non-mac vmware host can run mac VM guests... without a lot of mucking around, that is...

(it's probably cheaper too, but you'll still have a huge "ugly" "old" box [sitting under your desk where it won't matter anyway])

I'm still glad Apple made this, but I feel like it might miss their target market a bit. It does fit with their strategy of "disposable devices" though; you'll be buying a new one if you want to upgrade.

Maybe build a Hackintosh? I've been running one for 18 months (coming off a Mac Pro when it became clear upgrades would be a long time coming). It's pretty great. If you're careful with hardware selection you can apply Apple's own software updates with zero issues.

See: http://www.tonymacx86.com/351-building-customac-buyer-s-guid...

I am using a hackintosh for over a year now, I had a macbook pro prior. Works great, Core i7 3770k with 32gb, SSDs...

Funny enough I use a corporate issued Retina as my Windows Laptop (and Steam gaming..) I can't lock it at work (Apple, no kensington?!), so I keep it at home mostly.

Unless Apple comes out with another expandable tower that has multiple sockets and supports > 128GB of ram I won't be buying one of their desktops.

I have an _old_ Q6600 based hackintosh with RAID SSD and RAID 10 secondary. Granted the ram maxed out at 8GB but the machine is still speedy. Having > 64 would vastly simplify my workflow by enabling more VMs to be live at the same time.

Awesome. Thanks for the link. Would you be able to say with any reasonable certainty that it is primarily the motherboard that is key for building a Hackintosh? I want to build a Haswell Win7/OS X machine, and judging from this link and the other brief research that I've done, that if one sticks with Gigabyte for the motherboard you're more or less all set.

Many users would find a USB3 array to be fast enough. I would likely go that route instead of a TB array just based on the cost difference between the two.

I expect that a 4k display will totally consume a TB port each. The 2x 2560x1600 displays should be chainable off a single TB port (you can do that currently). That leaves to more TB ports. Also, I expect that each TB port has its own bandwidth separate from the others, so if your TB array is the only device on the 5th or 6th port, I expect there would be no issue.

There is certainly no getting around that your tower would require a separate disk box and DVD or blu-ray reader. That is unfortunate.

The video card upgrade situation deeply concerns me though. The FirePros aren't entry level like the GT120s are, but they won't be top of the line 6 years from now. Further, what if I need to be running CUDA applications?

> But it doesn't solve my "need a new mac pro" problem.

Yes! Totally yes!

I held off buying a MBP just so mine would be one generation better than my coworkers'.

I just know there's a MBP in the pipeline, because the inventory has been allowed to dry up. Why wasn't a new model announced?

care to elaborate why you have all of this in one device? My guess is that having 3 seperate devices (a workstation, a NAS and a small HTPC) makes more sense for encapsulation and failure scenarios. However, if the workstation runs 24/7 anyway it might make sense as the uptime of the NAS/HTPC probably isnt very critical if you mess something up on the Workstation and have to reboot or something.

Also like to know what you use 6(!) displays for :) What do you work on ?

The displays don't actually run over thunderbolt, they just share the (mini displayport) connector so there's no need to worry about losing bandwidth.

Your first two sentences sum up the situation for me as well. It looks like a nice way to quietly drive a bunch of high-resolution monitors, but I still need new workstation.

Maybe I'll see something I can use at SC13 in November. An updated CX-1 (which I guess would be -2) would be as nice as it is unlikely.

As a design asthetic I find it fairly interesting. By working toward a design managing the thermals in a way that allow for more heat removal while allowing it to not sound like a 747 on takeoff is good. I suspect your typical desktop machine will benefit from that kind of thinking.

Also for a long time Intel was trying to push all of the expansion boards outside the case with USB, and Apple seems close to achieving this with thunderbolt. Leaving the primary chassis as the system/holder for CPU+Memory+GPU with perhaps some boot media, and putting anything else outside.

I can't wait to see on in action to see how well this strategy works in practice vs in slideware.

Thunderbolt is actually a few PCIe 3 lanes (4 in the original incarnation) and a display port in a cable. This way, an external peripheral is not inferior to most on board alternatives in terms of throughput, and has not room for interesting things add size is no longer a constraint.

I am developing my first PCIe project and must say I am still shocked on how powerful and underutilized the bus is. Hope Thunderbolt solves this - peripherals could be much powerful than today, from SSDs and USB sticks to high bandwidth data acquisition tools.

"... to high bandwidth data acquisition tools...."

I see what you did there.

In the ways the heat management is designed, it reminds me of the oft-maligned G4 Cube, which used the same components around the edges, airflow through the centre idea to cool the machine. The small size of the unit also reinforces the similarity for me.

Didn't the Cube have overheating issues?

Thunderbolt was co-developed with Intel.

>allow for more heat removal while allowing it to not sound like a 747 on takeoff is good

Funny because the case looks like a jet engine :D

This page is a fantastic example of great development skills used in a way that is utterly infuriating to use. I don't want it to animate when I use my scroll wheel. I want the page to scroll.

Off topic, but were this and the Air the only product announced? If so, I'm disappointed- I was hoping to pick up an updated Macbook Retina 13". Oh well.

Yeah, I ended up using the buttons on the side. "Rotate your mouse an indeterminate amount" is not a good UI interaction.

I had to enable JS to find out what you're talking about. The result was 200 megs of memory consumption and the realization I may be using a different kind of internet than most people when using NoScript. (I'm surprised they have a non-JS version.)

I imagine they designed it for trackpads, not scroll wheel mice. It works pretty well on a trackpad.

Just an FYI, you can use the arrow keys (L and R) to scroll. Much easier.

Other than the operating system previews, they also seem to be standardizing around 802.11ac for the airport related products.

I'm in the exact same situation. I am hoping that they launch the updated 13" rMBP along with OS X 10.9.

Additionally, an updated AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule were announced.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/mac_accessori...

I wish meta complaints about site a link points to would be flagged out of existence. This adds absolutely nothing to the discussion of the topic on-hand, the new Mac Pro. It takes up a ton of scrolling space with unrelated moaning garbage.

the animation is terribly slow on my 1mbps african internet connection... completely unusable.

IIRC, it's a two-day thing...

"Okay, we COULD just label the ports with regular high color contrast paint. Say, white paint on a black background or black paint on a white background. But that would be TOO EASY and the panel would then really 'pop' against our otherwise monolithic clean design. Which would be distracting."

"But during actual use the ports are going to be on the BACK of the device (so you won't see it) and will have random stuff plugged into some of the ports, which ALSO would disturb the pure clean lines of the thing, so who cares?"

"No, no, we've got to label this thing with black labels on a black background, so it blends in."

"How will people be able to see the labels?"

"Easy. We'll add LED backlighting!"

"How will people TURN ON the LED backlighting, without the button to do THAT destroying our perfect design?"

"Simple - there's no button for it - you just move the machine to turn on the backlight!"

"What if you want the backlight to STAY on for a while, longer than the default?"

"Just keep shaking the machine. Or duct-tape a vibrator to it."

"That's PERFECT!"

"Why don't we have LED lights on the ports? That way people can see them when the machine is in the shadow of a desk."

"How do we turn them on?"

"Today, when people have trouble seeing ports, they tilt the machine to give it more light. So we'll detect that."

"Hey, so now we don't need garish colors on our ports!"

"Bonus."

Playing the devil's advocate here:

Black on black is pretty funky, but it might make sense to have LED lights. When you plug stuff into its expansion ports, chances are you're gonna move the machine slightly, so it lights up automagically which lets you see where things are.

You may also put this inside a cabinet or under the desk maybe (I'd put it on a mantlepiece) where light isn't abundant. Shake it, ah, there it is. No hard drive so you can shake your heart out!

Why would you want the backlight to stay on for a while, longer than default? Genuinely curious.

This isn't the world of PS2 ports -- there's no ambiguity about which port does what.

considering the labels are totally unnecessary, i don't see the problem. it's not like people are going to be plugging USB cables into the thunderbolt ports or the power cable into the HDMI port by accident.

What are you talking about? The labels are white, not black!

the labels are white, check your facts before you start ranting.

Didn't Apple make the Flashlight feature a core iOS7 thingie? So, problem solved?

Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L2fsubA2-c

Or they could let the timeout be four hours.

No harm done if they do that.

Do you really twist your neck around on your laptop to make sure that the labels for plugging in peripherals all the time?

I thought not.

You could just put it on your desk so that the ports are facing towards you.

OK, so it's not a Mac Pro. It's a Mac Mini Pro.

As long as it's not too expensive, it's exactly what a lot of prosumers might want (especially those who want to ditch their laptops for iPads and iPhones, and maybe a MBA for the road- a lot of people's MacBook Pros live on their desks). I can't see a serious video editor wanting one, but they're all jumping ship to get cheaper Wintel workstations (and at some point, studios will move the heavy lifting to some kind of local big-iron server).

I can see developers who want a slightly better machine buying it, and rich people, and photographers, and so on. If Thunderbolt expansions bring down the costs of upgrades (compared to buying the upgrades with Apple - not everyone likes to open their chassis) then it might be quite attractive.

How about the entire graphic design industry? Finally a 'headless iMac' with balls. The MacPro allows me to attach my EIZO monitors. The iMac screens are consumer-quality, really. If you're looking for high quality screens (and OSX), the MacPro is the best. I am curious about the price-range.

The Mac Mini is the low-end, cheapest mac. I see nothing low end, nor cheap about this one.

The small form factor just means there is less air inside than in your typical ATX tower. I really don't see your connection to Mac Mini.

I can't see any way a 'prosumer' will be able to afford it considering what's going inside. I think these things are going to run $3000+, but maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe I'm mis-defining 'prosumer.'

"I can't see a serious video editor wanting one, but they're all jumping ship to get cheaper Wintel workstations"

Is this actually the case? I don't know anything about that segment of the computing industry, but I just assumed that FCP was the industry standard.

Personally I couldn't care less about the design, it would be sitting behind several large screens anyway and the thermal ideas sound interesting....

That said....

4 ram slots???? Really? 12 cores, 2 GPUs and I get 32GB of ram? Maybe 64GB if 16GB dimms in standard sizes become a thing? That kills it completely in my book.

That paucity of slots is what got me to thinking...

I was wondering if the idea would be to daisy chain these together via TB 2 and see one workstation with... say ...36 cores or whatever.

I'm trying to determine if that would be a possibility. In essence, is the Mac Pro a Thunderbolt 2 "processing" device? Or could it be made to be one?

If it were...

Man...

put me down for a couple of them. I mean you could potentially get a 48 core "workstation" in 1/2 the volume of the current Mac Pro.

Why not 32gb dimms?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226...

The 12 cores are going to be in 1 CPU BTW. It's a limitation of the chipset and probably thermal capacity as well (check out http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/... ).

As far as 16GB dimms in standard sizes; that's already a thing: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=...

There are also a handful of 32GB DIMMs out already. Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820326...

I would expect that you'll be able to run 64 or 128GB of RAM max.

Unless you're actively thrashing through all 32GB (maybe you are), wouldn't installing a large SSD for swap space will help you out just as much?

That does kill it.. for everyone who requires more than 64GB of RAM..

Apple is doubling down on their segmentation here. They're clearly abandoning (I don't mean this in a pejorative sense) a mass appeal with this new iteration and targeting it specifically to 'actual' professionals: graphic designers, video editors, etc.

I don't see it that way at all. The Mac Pro has always been about the top 1% power users. The appeal was twofold: it was a bitchin'-fast machine you could stuff with as many cards and drives as you want, and it ran OS X.

This new design removes the former selling point. 12 core max (same as current)?? Four RAM slots (down from eight)?? 1/6th the volume (i.e. space to plug stuff in)??

This offers almost no advantage over a late model iMac with a Thunderbolt-to-PCIe breakout module (which is what many power users have been doing in the years since the last update).

Are you suggesting the Mac Pro ever had mass appeal? This strikes me as the opposite, abandoning the 'actual' professionals in favour of a weird mass market design.

First thing I noticed was all the dark -- what, did someone turn off all the lights? Where's the white that has dominated Apple material for so long?

But hey, give Tim Cook some credit here. This is literally the first significant product release during his tenure as CEO where the major elements of the update weren't simply screen-size or resolution. I don't have a lot of confidence this is earth-shattering, but it will be interesting to see how this is received.

Classically, White has been consumer grade and black has been the professional grade in Apple design. See iPhoto vs Aperture, or iMovie vs Final Cut Pro. The Macbooks were all white, while the pros were (admittedly not black, but) metallic. I don't think it is that much of a change from what they've already projected out there.

Indeed. Despite how the product fares, this kind of courage makes me hopeful about his leadership into the future.

The last upgradable mac is now dead. I thought the whole idea of the pro was the ability to put in graphic and other specialty cards as needed for "Pro" use. This looks like another cute consumer PC. Maybe they'll sell it along side the HP's at Sam's Club.

I think the idea here is that, between plentiful Firewire 2 and Thunderbolt 2, you now have enough external bandwidth that you shouldn't need internal cards. When given the choice, I prefer this route, since it means I can transport my proprietary stuff to other machines, or even use them with laptops in a pinch.

That might not work for you, granted, but the amount of bandwidth available between all those ports (20 GB/s in the case of Thunderbolt 2) should be enough to cover most use-cases.

I would have designed it the same way - Thunderbolt is the future of expansions, not tiny little cards you need to slide inside of the HW. This machine recognizes that - They give you 6 (six!) to play with.

Thunderbolt IS PCIe, so it's just as fast.. Why should card makers be constrained in expanding the machine to make peripherals small enough to fit inside? If I want 1 solid foot of Disks for my workstation, then so be it. Wire it in over Thunderbolt, and I'm good to go.

Schiller explicitly said there would be external expansion options. I don't know if the GPUs can be swapped out though.

You can't upgrade it? What are those thunderbolt 2 ports for then?

I'm amused by all the disparaging comments about this new design. Every time Apple launches an incredible product it is always immediately decried. I'll wait til these are on sale before judging them.

Disparaging remarks? What, do you have something against trash cans?

When I clicked on that page and saw "The future of desktop computing.." and that trash can slide into view I actually thought it was supposed to be a metaphor.

They said they were abandoning skeuomorphism but they sure made the Mac Pro look like an actual waste bin.

I've nicknamed it the Dustbin. As the air intake is on the bottom.

It can fit on your desk... Well it will have to in order for it not to replace my vacuum cleaner.

Some pictures coming out are extremely interesting.

This one seems to show the the "CPU board" with the single CPU, and RAM on each side... OK http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/proces...

This one shows the two "GPU cards" - notice the one on the right has a white connector, bottom middle, which is for the SSD. Otherwise, they are almost identical (I see slightly different components at the top) http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/graphi...

And this one shows the "GPU Card", now with an SSD in that connector.... http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/storag...

Finally this one shows the three "cards", presumably with the power supply at the very bottom. http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/therma...

I think the big question here is how are the three "cards" joined together?

If they're using some kind of connector, I imagine that makes them "replaceable" if not "upgradable".

It also hints at the possibility of getting just one GPU card.

I wonder if one could have 2xCPU cards and 1xGPU card?

Interesting

-I think the big question here is how are the three "cards" joined together?

These days PCIx (and similar) extender cables are used commonly on server builds. I wouldn't be surprised if apple used some sort of equivalent ribbon to connect the graphics cards.

That's interesting! Perhaps one of the future cards will be a Xeon Phi 50 core x86.

And "there's a bus for that" if you want anything else. (referring to thunderbolt 2.0)

This is incredibly beautiful and I'm sure quite expensive, but I want one, even it makes no sense to have one. Good work Apple

Really? It looks like a funerary urn to me.

Certainties:

1. Use of glue somewhere which knackers any chance of repairing it. Memory, disks and that is it.

2. Proprietary fan which will get noisy after time and cost a fortune to replace. First step will be to put it on the floor so you can't hear it... leading to...

2a. Someone is going to put a half drank coffee cup in it and blow it up.

2b. Plume of hairballs every time a cat owner fires it up as it'll suck in every bit of crap off the floor (the dirtiest place in your house).

2c. Someone will whack their noggin on the desk while they're trying to plug their headphones into it.

Perhaps I'm bitter because my 2010 MBP blew up spectacularly, but I'm seeing a lot of visual design over sensible engineering in Apple recently.

The iMac is a sensible design over this. If only it wasn't such a bastard to get inside it.

I tend to use computers for years (typing this on a 7 year old Lenovo). I'd like the opportunity not to fill up a landfill after a couple of years.

Aren't all 2a,2b,2c all applicable to other machines though?

The product descriptions seem just horribly written:

> Something that provides an extremely powerful argument against the status quo.

> The new Mac Pro packs an unprecedented amount of power in an unthinkable amount of space. A big reason we were able to do that is the ingenious unified thermal core

> Not only does it feature a state-of-the-art AMD FirePro workstation-class GPU with up to 6GB of dedicated VRAM — it features two of them.

> The new Mac Pro looks unlike any other computer. Because it is unlike any other computer.

Is someone seeing something more on this page than me?

I am using a the Rockmelt browser on a Mac Mini, and I am seeing only the trashcan thing...

The page has some secret trick or something to have more info???

Doesn't seem to work on some browsers. Not on the latest Firefox but works on Chrome and Safari.

I had to click a tiny arrow on the bottom. This is a great example of minimalism gone too far.

All I see is some thing that looks like a cross between the monolith from '2001' and an ashtray from the local Greyhound station. Clicking all over the page doesn't do anything (FF 20.0 on Windows 7 x64).

Guess I'm not in the target audience for whatever it is...

If you have a scroll mouse. Scroll down. And scroll down many times to trigger the animation. It took me quite a while to realize this... =D

It's light on RAM slots and monitor connections.

Four ram slots? That maxes out at 64 Gig of RAM. What happened to the old 128 Gig?

Sorry, dropping $999 ea. on a single monitor, much less multiple monitors, is just stupid. The difference at the screen between a Thunderbolt display and a display costing half as much isn't enough to warrant the extra cost.

The former machine had a visually distinct box with tons of space inside for the video card of your choice and you could stuff drives in it for days, without relying on expensive external boxes that sucked up slots on the power strip.

It's probably the right design for someone, but not for people who want a serious workstation and not an art statement.

It has 6 Thunderbolt/Display Port (i.e. any display with $10 cable adapter) connections. How much more do you need?

I like the equivalence between "a machine I'm not going to buy but must be just so" and "serious workstation".

It should support 32GB dimms, so 128GB.

It's disturbing to see so many people drooling over this hardware. Granted, it's tasty-looking, but:

- http://www.defectivebydesign.org/apple

- http://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/01/20/apples-diabolical-plan...

- http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337939,00.asp

Give some thought to the above before buying an Apple device, please.

Those links are largely sensationalism. I don't agree with everything Apple does, but it's certainly not as bad as how those articles portray it to be. To call GateKeeper "DRM" is absurd, and having non-upgradeable hardware is a design choice, not a diabolical plan.

Unless you can show me a non-biased, non-partisan view of how Apple is the worst tech company to buy from, I'll continue to enjoy my MacBook Air.

These are critiques of Apple's other products and software, but none of them apply to this specific hardware. Are there specific criticisms of this Mac Pro hardware?

Do you really think HN readers are so uninformed that they are not aware of the tradeoffs in Apple hardware? They are tradeoffs, not evil conspiracies.

tldr:

First link is bonkers.

Second link is oh no, pentalobe screws.

Third link is gasp non-removable battery. Yep just like practically every knock of-- excuse me ultrabook has (and for exactly the same reasons Apple did it the first time: people like the very thin form factor).

It's a brilliant design (far beyond its aesthetic novelty), and quite frankly I could care less that they lock things up or spy on me. Make sure to copy and paste your little comment on every Windows PC/phone/tablet announcement as well. Last I checked, it's easier to install Linux on a Mac than a new PC. Oh, you didn't know? Apple isn't the only "diabolical" company. Don't forget about Google, Microsoft, Facebook, the government, etc.

Actually, you know, you're right. We need to boycott these evil organizations. Who needs technology when the companies who make it are greedy? Who needs a government when it does stupid things every once in a while?

This concept reminds me of the old Silicon Graphics workstations. Some 15 years ago they were something I would dream of having on my desk. SGI was the symbol of performance and graphics and the computers looked very different from everything else.

Maybe this is also a tribute to Steve Jobs and NeXT. Think Different.

Taking a look at the site and the walk around, it eases most of my problems, but not all of them:

- The RAM looks accessible enough that it can be changed/modified with ease.

- That's true for the built-in drive as well, it looks like one of the "blade" type SSDs that comes in the rMBP. Even if its a slightly different form factor, I've got faith OWC will come up with solutions. Will be slightly miffed about losing a "No SSD, give me the cheapest mechanical drive" purchasing option, but there it is.

- My real concern is the GPUs. With the new thermal profile and the walk around, those really don't look like off the shelf parts. I'm pretty sure you can't easily swap them. I'd prefer an nVidia option generally, and more importantly the FirePros will likely be optimized for graphics work, and terrible for gaming (yes, I do sometimes game on my Mac Pro) and not optimized for scientific computing, which would be my other use case.

It's just enough to make me like the new Mac Pro, but also hesitate because of the GPU.

That's my only real complaint (without seeing the price) at the moment: the GPUs. I really want/need an nVidia option.

Up to 3 4K displays at the same time? It seems Retina desktop monitors are on their way. I'm surprised they weren't announced at the same time.

My current mac pro has 6 displays attached, three of which are "high resolution" (2560x1600).

I think that the 4k displays require 2x thunderbolt ? Or else why would there be a limitation of 3 ?

So all 6 TB ports used, and no ability to add a 4th display.

EDIT: well, I could add a 4th with HDMI, but it would be low resolution, and the 5th and 6th displays are impossible. Also, all 6 TB ports used up, so no further expansion is possible.

Wait till the actual release date! There is not a good reason for them to announce new apple displays until they can actually be used with their hardware. Thunderbolt 2 doesn't even exist yet.

He mentioned "...your favorite 3rd party displays" when introducing the 4K-ness.

Hurrah! GPUs sealed directly into the machine. No more keeping old macs alive with extra GPUs. (the quadro 4000 and k5000 really helped the 2009 macpro)

It also appears to only have one CPU. From what the page says its only got one Memory controller, which as the "new"* Xeons have onboard memory controllers. So that seems a bit of a fail.

*as in the same Xeons that have been in the HP Z620/820 for the last 8 months

This Mac Pro will be using the Ivy Bridge-based Xeons, not the Sandy Bridge-based ones that are in the HP machines you refer to.

Reminds me of the Cube. But Thunderbolt and USB3 make this much, much more versatile...

The design seems pretty ugly to me, but it is functional. It's essentially a wind tunnel with all the circuit boards placed against it.

It's a pure cylinder. How can a basic form be ugly?

I'm pretty impressed that they didn't slap a logo on the front.

Yeah, the cylinder design seemed a little bit "what?" at first, but after seeing the airflow demo... it makes a lot more sense.

Just like the good old Cube. Only the guts are in a triangle.

Although I'm amazed at the thermal core design, it still looks like a litter bin somehow.

I'm a big fan of everything except less RAM capacity. Getting the disks out of the case makes a lot of sense -- 4 drives was never enough to be meaningful. A boot SSD and a big 8+ drive external RAID on TB2 seems a lot better (ideally with an SSD or more RAM to cache), and/or NAS/SAN.

Curious where it will be priced; if it's $1999 or less for a usable base config, it could be a default. Mini never really made a lot of sense as a desktop. It's depressing leaving an rMBP docked all the time.

Unfortunately, I think the CAD cards and Xeons might make it impossible to price at that level, unless the base config is severely pared down.

The New Mac Pro, the world's fastest trashcan introduced by the world's least usable web page.

More seriously, I think it's pretty cool, I like that the design has a point, thermal management, rather than just having a weird shape to look all "designy". It's hard for me to accept that this is a pro machine though, very over integrated for that kind of role.

And also, for a company that's not supposed to be focused on specs, there's a lot of specs on that page (when it works).

I've been using the same Mac Pro since 2008. I bought an ATI Radeon 6970 around a year or so ago and extended its life that much more. For most of my computer's life, its had a PCIe eSATA card and an external case. It works great still but its starting to show its age.

I can't say I'm too excited about a computer that's relegated to an much more expensive Mac Mini. Thunderbolt 2 is nice but its a poor substitute for internal drive bays and 16x PCIe.

> Thunderbolt 2 is nice but its a poor substitute for internal drive bays and 16x PCIe.

Why, exactly? I don't know how many lanes will be in the Thunderbolt2 (haven't checked the specs), but I have a Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID storage (4 drives), which is really fast. SSD sys drive + Thunderbolt storage = win in my books.

Yes I love the design. But the main thing with the Mac Pro that I love is I can swap a drive, memory etc without walking through the mall to the Apple Store. I have shied away from too many iMacs for this reason (I have 2, both failed at times where I needed them now - one a drive from Seagate and one a video card which pretty much kills that beautiful screen along with it). As long as it is easy to swap memory, a drive externally, and maybe a video card then I am cool with it. Otherwise customizable computers from Apple are no longer.

This definitely explains why it took a while to update the Mac Pro. A nice surprise today.

The more I look at this design, the more I think it's absolutely brilliant. Increasingly we're seeing fantastically small form factors for mid-ranged desktop computers like the Intel NUC and the Mac Mini, yet high end workstations are still stuck in massive, ugly ATX towers.

This seems to elegantly solve the problem of squeezing components that tend to run very hot, into a relatively small space. The shared heat sync and cooling pipe is really clever.

that is because most people using high end workstations dont care about how it looks or how big it is.

If you can't upgrade anything easily, it's bascially just a very fast Mac Mini.

1.0Gbps writes for the internal SSD sounds pretty good. Wonder what component provider they're using?

That's pretty standard for the PCIe type SSD cards. I've been watching them for a while I didn't know you could boot off them but it appeard that has changed

[Scan Components](http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives...)

My first reaction was, oh wow looks just like the NeXT cube, that's kinda a cool tribute to Jobs.

Then my second reaction was, oh man, it will sorta look like I have a trash bin on my desk. I wish they had made the dimensions a little different. I think this will be the "flop" model where they work out hardware kinks and the next one will be prettier/sleeker, so I'll hold out til then.

So instead of a Cube we have a Cylinder. I'm sure it will look nice with a couple of large monitors and a Cintiq. The combination will still cost less than even a small company car and will be able to handle most of the tasks people use workstations for!

Mac Pro: The world's fastest trash can.

But if you put a dome on top, legs on the sides, and painted it blue and white...

I don't even care if it will be really great or not in the practice at the moment (even if I hope it will be great), but it is so reassuring and warm to see somebody trying new things...

There's no way a cat could sleep on it.

Would be interesting to see more GPU equipped machines designed for data processing instead of just processing graphics. ("just" not to minimize the value/importance of design, photography, and art, but "just" in that there's more to GPUs that design, photography, and art.) Form + function for matrix multiplication.

Though totally unrelated to the Mac Pro (other than it being a knockoff of MacBook Air) Dell has made an interesting push for data crunchers. Their recent-ish re-launch of an Ubuntu machine [0] that enables you to simulate and then push your environment up to the cloud is an interesting, if fairly niche product.

Could the Mac Pro, with it's specific audience, the Dell XPS, and maybe even the RasberryPi, be the beginning of a much more specialized desk/laptop computing movement in the face of iPads (errr... tablets) eating the general purpose, internet surfing computer market?

[0] http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd

They go on and on about the memory bandwidth, but never mention what is to me the important number: the memory capacity. Anyone know?

128 very expensive GB.

It took me embarrassingly long to figure out how that website worked. The text telling me to scroll took like 10-15 seconds to show up, so I kept exiting the page and looking at these comments to see if there was more than just a picture. Eventually I figured it out, but still had to scroll slowly and methodically through to see everything.

yeah, i felt like a bit of an idiot because i couldn't figure out how to go to the next slide. then i found that i could click the dots on the right side.

later, i accidentally scrolled and it took me to the next slide. i was all like, "ah, that's what they meant by scroll".

Not to fork the discussion, but: I'm thinking of putting together a new (Linux) PC for my needs (which are mainly number-crunching, photo processing, etc.). How much of the tech in this Mac Pro is available today to build one? I'm not sure I've seen any PCIe SSDs, for example. How about Thunderbolt 2?

Just a couple months ago, we built a similarly specced 1TB SSD raid using an expensive controller and 4 256 GB drives for a multipass batch processing job that we do. It gets about 1GB/sec read and write performance and cost about $1k altogether. A controller that can max out the PCI bus is about $300 alone.

The major benefit we found is that the higher random access speeds allow us to multiplex our jobs without completely thrashing the old RAID array that we replaced.

But it sucks that there are no PCI solutions for what we needed. OCZ had a couple cards but they were out of date and enterprise priced.

I think what we really need is some kind of slot for internal flash the same way DIMMs are slotted, maybe even have the controller and flash chips physically separated for more fine grained upgrades or have the SSD controller embedded in the motherboard chipset.

The weird 9.5mm enclosure and sata cables that SSDs currently use is some kind awkward weening phase off of spinning platters that needs to go away. Even single SSDs are starting to saturate SATA3 and the SATA specs aren't keeping up.

Hopefully a new trend in workstations that look like the Mac Pro will come along the same way that many "Ultrabooks" look vaguely like MacBook Airs. At which point we'll hopefully get more sensible SSD and interconnect management.

PCIe SSDs are available from a number of vendors. Fusion-IO is probably the most well-known.

The design is reminiscent of the 20th anniversary Macintosh.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=20th%20anniversary%...

What you’re looking at is the Bose subwoofer that came with the Spartacus, it’s not the actual computer.

Interestingly enough, the subwoofer contains the computer’s power supply.

http://512pixels.net/2012/12/tam/

More like the 20th anniversary Macintosh subwoofer. The cpu was behind and below the screen, just like an iMac.

I actually think this is a "Pro" machine - just the definition of "Pro" has narrowed to someone who does visual design work (FirePros instead of a more general purpose/off-the-shelf solution that can be swapped out for something specialized) and has large enough storage needs that they've probably got an external drive enclosure or NAS already (only the SSD for internal storage).

Unfortunately, that narrower version doesn't fit me. But since "Scientists" weren't mentioned in the litany of users of the Mac Pro, and apple.com/science is a 404 page now (which was better than the Leopard-era page that came before it talking about the innovative Workgroup Cluster), I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

"no computer has been built this way before"

Well technically water cooling provides a common thermal core.

The design reminds me a bit of my "sunflower" iMac, which was a really nice machine.

I look forward to all the R2D2 mods this will birth.

Agreed, it does look like R2D2.

It was as if Apple lured R2D2 to the dark side and released as the Mac Pro!

Apple developers don't use Pivot? Text is cut off left and right on a 1200x1920 screen.

I hate to answer a question with a question...but:

  Does Apple make a pivoting display?

You can just see would-be entrepreneurs designing their trash can attachments right now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that a "pro" computer with no wired ethernet?

Who on earth would discard stable gigabit internet for some flaky wifi with substantially lower performance?

Edit: Corrected as requested. Thanks.

It has two Gb ethernet ports (and you can easily add more through the 6 20Gb Thunderbolt 2 ports.

1. Gigabit ethernet is listed.

2. Thunderbolt to ethernet adapter, just like on mbp retina.

If you scroll 'down' to the bit about expansion it says it has gigabit Ethernet.

It does have wired ethernet, at least according to the presentation I believe.

So instead of a Cube we have a Cylinder. I'm sure it will look nice with a couple of large monitors and a Cintiq. The combination will still cost less than even a small company car.

Awesome. I've been wanting to play League of Legends in 4k.

All I see is a cylinder?

I've seen a lot of Star Trek lately. It would fit in right next to other alien spacecraft against the special effect space backdrop of The Original Series.

Worst webpage of all-time.

LET ME SCROLL damn it

The design looks so familiar, and it has been bugging me the whole day. Finally, I found it! The new Mac Pro designs reminded me of this DLINK Wireless Router

http://thegadgetclub.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/d-link-c...

The design is obviously polarizing and leaves many questions unanswered. But one surprising and promising development is that Cook said this would be a platform for "the next ten years." In the face of fears that Apple would abandon the "pro market", this is one of the most explicit forward-looking statements they've made in some time.

[minor edit for intent]

The race to get the first donut-shaped accessory is on! And If I ever would want a non-customizable computer I'd get an macbook air

It looks like a garbage bin.

I thought it looked like a car boot mounted sub-woofer.

Apple needs to design a really cool sticker sign that says "No smoking ashes! This is an extremely expensive computer!"

I'm pretty bummed about the new Mac Pro, I really want / need my dev work station purchase this summer to have a Haswell generation CPU, plus NVidia Cuda support. Which this seems to lack.

(context, I'm doing a lot of Dev work on high peformance numerical algorithms, and the fewer machines i need to test all the different substrates, the better.)

For the home user, this is fine, but one thing Apple forgot about (And they usually do) is the enterprise customer. If you're looking to replace your current setup of Mac Pros with these, how would you go about mounting these things in a rack?

I wonder if you can use the center to play office basketball with the paper scraps. If it gets hot because of usage you may even have a fun little fire pit to use.

Regardless it looks cool and it may have issues but it will be a great computer, overpriced but great.

No one is talking about the HTML on that page?! Seriously, what kind of geeks are you... ;)

The thing I really like about my old Mac Pro is that I could crack it open and stick a couple old graphics cards in there and go crazy with media. I had 5 screens including a TV and a Wacom digitizer connected to mine.

This is a total miss for me.

It will be very frustrating if they don't make a dual coy socket version. If you do iOS development and large compiled code bases, a mac pro is the best you have. Hackintoshes waste your time in other ways.

As usual, the HN headline is misleading: it should read "Mac Mini Pro".

Oh wait, what?

Flash storage on a PCI-ex bus? Nice. I wonder which GPUs they are cramming there.

The design is fantastic. I guess it has only one big fan on the top sucking the heat of everything, should be silent.

Now brace yourselves for the price...

What is the height of this workstation ? I hope apple is not messing with the cardinal rule of making workstations tall enough that you can rest your legs on them when you lean back on the chair.

Interesting design aesthetic. This still doesn't justify the price and Apple's going to be taking a hit now that so much of the entertainment industry has turned away from Final Cut.

Nice design. I hope it's quiet (is the bottom air intake really sufficient?) Will it accommodate any standard parts (PCIe cards?) other than memory/drives?

Is the "one fan" concept patented?

They're going with external expansion options. There are enclosures you can buy for PCIe cards to plug them in to the Thunderbolt ports if you need to.

This edged design inspired many Japanese users as below: http://togetter.com/li/516991

I really don't care about the product itself, but I am always glad when Apple releases something new. It's really interesting to study the release process.

It's truly impressive being able to create such hype around a release. Funny enough, many Apple fan-boys are basically fanatics. The rational thing to do is of course to work against the corporations, in order to force them into improving and lowering the prices. But somehow Apple has managed to create a "personal army" of fan-boys, blindly defending their every move.

On a related note: I am really surprised they are going desktop, has not the last five years been about replacing it?

How has nobody mentioned its size? I freaked out when I guesstimated 6.6 inches in diameter and 9.9 inches in height.

Size doesn't matter, but that's some astounding cramwork.

Without expandability this product is for hipsters and the aesthete. If I am paying thousands of dollars for a computer I refuse to compromise on core functionality.

Flash would have been the better option for the animation ;)

Not liking the design...

It looks like they were peer pressured to make something bland, and now iOS looks too much apart from Mac OS. Throws away all learnability.

Due to the shape of it, the power contained within its walls... Yes, I'd be very tempted to set the hostname to 'zpm'.

If Apple can save the desktop, I will thank them.

Finally, I have a replacement for my NeXT Cube!

They've clearly studied their core markets - Graphics and viz work. I'm in line to buy one.

the iTrashcan looks fantastic.

iCan is super motivational, too.

iBin

I love it too... I will probably also buy one. :/ So much for cutting back on my tech spending. grumblesmurf

Did apple finally make a responsive web page? I'm on my phone so I can't test how it looks on a desktop.

Whoever buys one of these promise us you will pose an Obi Wan doll behind it flipping off the tractor beam switch.

Ugly as shit. Completely useless for expansion. People will defend its ugliness and lack of expandability.

Only 2 things that I don't like about it: 1) price, 2) can't upgrade.

Otherwise it's very impressive.

Another astronomically expensive Mac Pro. This time hermetically sealed and unupgradable. Lovely.

Actually it appears somewhat upgradeable; the memory is seated in standard slots and is clearly user-serviceable. The SSD appears to be as well; it may require third-party kit ala OWC (One World Computing) but oh well.

The only two remaining components that may or may not be are the GPU boards and the processor. The system seems serviceable enough so far.

But let's wait for final specs and user guides before passing judgment.

What's the price?

for a thousand bucks I would buy a new desk and monitor to make it the center piece of my new study in my house. instead Apple will want at least five thousand and expect it to be a business class workstation.

make this the Mac mini, you sell a gazillion.

I like machines like I like my women, able to touch them all over.

Mac pro - still proprietary, no thanks

This reminds me of Steve a bit... like the Next Cube 2013. Must be why it is black.

How well will it play the new crop of game? Battlefield 4 etc? (serious question).

Ask EA, or the friendly folks at DICE

If it is a cylinder, won't it be easier to roll off a surface and fall down?

I look forward to Apple literally rolling them out in the near future

It's totally tubular.

The new OS is called mavericks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks_(location) ).

Did apple suddenly become a bunch of surfers?

Next up, the iSphere.

They already did the iHemisphere (2nd gen iMac).

I think iCone has precedence.

Is it me or does that look like something out of Tron?

Price would be nice.

The design is risky, one bad chip could ruin it.

The new Mac Pro: approved by Dart Fener :P

This is so awesome. Wow. Amazing design.

Apple Urn

The cube flopped.

Let's try a cylinder.

And it becomes black

and then sphere? or a cone?

Personally, I have been waiting a very long time for this. PC users need not read this. I love this company as they have revolutionized many things. Just the App Store alone gives me enough reason to be loyal forever. iOS... just beautiful. The Mac Pro... mind blown..

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