Apple plots new Mac Pro, eyes desktop innovation (Mac Pro assembled / partially made in USA)

ZD Net ^ | 6/10/2013 | Larry Dignan

[PreciousLiberty]

“I think this mostly hurts in being able to upgrade to a better graphics card down the road.”

I’d be willing to bet Apple offers GPU upgrades.

[ctdonath2]

I’ve long considered that. Something where you just stack Mac Mini style boxes as needed, thick or thin, simple vertical connector.

[ctdonath2]

“Pretty smart.”

Considering the classic tower is mostly an empty box.

[The KG9 Kid]

I haven't added an internal card aside from a graphics card to the last three Windows PCs I've hand-built from NewEgg parts. I've never known anyone who's added a card to any available PCIe x1/x4 slot. The biggest thing inside a PC case that barely even justified the enormous cubic rectangular design was a CPU heat sink/fan combo, followed by the VHS tape-sized graphics card. All the rest of the space inside was a rat's nest tangle of power supply and data cabling that was worse of a mess than mid-1970s era Chrysler smog control equipment. Just a awful mat of wires, leads, vacuum pumps, trash and sharp edges under the hood.

The old 'AT/ATX'-style motherboard that G5 Mac Pros shared with the PC/AT platform has now been separated into three distinct panels within the new Mac Pro design. I'm sure that these panels are intended to be swappable as upgrades become available, which means the new Mac Pro is really just a newly modernized form factor that murders ATX. And good riddance.

Amazing to watch Apple fans of all people complaining about the loss of totally unnecessary *internal* expansion. The desktop computing world is all solid state now, and it's like watching Apple fans weeping over the loss of the 16-bit ISA slot like PC enthusiasts did over a decade ago. Oh, the flipping irony.

I am SOLD on the new Mac Pro. Just look at the specs on that mother. Guess I'll need to be getting nerd glasses, a goatee, and sleeve tattoos for camping out overnight outside the Apple Store to get my hands on one when they finally ship.

There's not one good reason for me to buy into another MSFT Windows PC, and I develop for that environment in MS Visual Studio. All I need is a life support system for Win7.

[ctdonath2]

Fully agree.

Nice to see Apple once again tell the engineers “go nuts, make it powerful and make it perfect”.