2013 Mac Pro Announced at WWDC

[TurbineSeaplane]

Might be best to just install an OWC PCIe SSD.

http://cl.ly/PYM3

That's what I did.
Screams!

 

[Bansaku]

Wow, the reactions thus far are coming quick and very opinionated! AWESOME! This is exactly what Apple needs; Something that gets people talking and the industry buzzing! We can argue all day long about the talking points, but the fact remains that Apple has thought outside the box (no pun intended) on the design of this machine; One that has never been implemented before, let alone attempted. It's powerful! It's efficient! It's awe-inspiring! It's, the future!!!!!!

 

[krautzman]

Hmmm interesting.: Apple have just lost the graphic design and music / movie editing sections of their market in one fell swoop with this iteration of the Mac Pro. First they make people wait years for any kind of serious upgrade and then when they do ; they make most of the users expansion cards either redundant or force them to buy Thunderbolt expansion cases in order to use them? That is a dumb move. Whilst some people and businesses may be happy to except that , I'm tipping most will not and will simply migrate their cards and systems over to Windows or Linux OS where their cards can be slotted directly into new PC's.

Some people are saying that this signals a reduction of possibilities for cards and other hardware in our Hackintosh's when 10.9 is released. However I don't see it that way. If Apple are forcing everyone into using thunderbolt expansion cases in order to use their cards and hardware on the new Mac Pro , then this only further opens up the market and by extension the required software and kexts needed to run that hardware. Thunderbolt being at its heart basically an IO port , only sitting externally of the box (tin) and motherboard.
Interesting times indeed.
What does everyone else think?

 

[rivritt]

Don't care for it. I appreciate Apples "thinking different" but this is just not for me...Not that I could afford it anyway! hahaha

 

[jonhendry]

Yep. Closed form. Doesn't open up. Better max it out when you buy it!

It does open, but it's likely that the only thing you can change is the RAM. Maybe the SSD, which one of the stick-shaped circuit board ones like they use on the Air (but with higher performance components, presumably).

The pictures at Apple's website show an SSD installed on one of the sides with a GPU. The other GPU side doesn't have an SSD connector, but it has room for one. I suspect that you may be able to configure a Mac Pro with two SSDs, in which case both GPU "sides" will be populated with SSD and connector.

If you watch the video carefully, there's something above and to the left of the connector panel that appears to be what you slide in order to open the case. It is shown sliding at one point, and there's what appears to be a lock icon next to it. I assume the lock is related to some method of locking the case shut.

 

[jonhendry]

No rackable case...

Sure it's rackable. Cylindrical shapes are easily racked. Wine racks. Tire racks. You don't even need much precision, you just need something to keep the cylinder from rolling.

If you want to mount the new Mac Pro in a steel rack, just get some of these: http://stores.45chromeshop.com/-str...p/Detail.bok?gclid=CJ_cgO-G27cCFQyk4AodPwcAmA

6" Peterbilt Exhaust Clamp. $17.50. Has a steel mounting flange you can use to bolt it to a steel rack. Ought to be plenty sturdy, and cheaper than the special rack-mounting rigs for the old Mac Pro.

 

[jonhendry]

I really would love to know who this mythical "professional user" for whom costs is not the issue you're talking about is? Do you live in the real world or do you like to imagine a fantasy land populated by people with money burning holes in their pockets?

I used to work in a Harvard neuroscience lab funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (last I heard, the 2nd largest medical/science foundation after the Gates Foundation). Cost was pretty much no object for us. We had a few $100,000+ 128-channel neural interface boxes (the kind of things they use for those brain-controlled-robot-arm projects), a $20,000 laser, Mac Pros at every experiment rig, with multiple monitors, etc.

I really ought to have spent *more* when I was there, on RAIDs and network backups, etc.

 

[scorza]

Sad to see modability go by the wayside, but it looks like awesome hardware and design to me.

Seems like price will be a big factor, especially if it's Made in the U.S. of A.

 

[jonhendry]

Then there's the concept of all these boxes laying around that need power, cables all over, etc.

Hopefully someone will put out a Thunderbolt external storage chassis that holds, say, four SATA drives and an optical drive, is available without any drives, and doesn't bother with any RAID hardware or other additional tech that would raise the price.

Basically, just the old Mac Pro's storage connections, in one box, with the most economical Thunderbolt implementation possible. Put four drives in and they'd show up as four drives on your Mac. Unless you combine the volumes or something in OS X.

That would help the clutter situation a great deal, especially if the empty chassis were only a couple hundred dollars.

 

[sylar828]

Kinda promised myself to buy the new Pro when it comes out..................
I feel torn in two Questioning my decision

I don't think apart from the server grade NAND flash (witch rock btw) that it will be worth the upgrade from my current hackie running GTX680 with a possible new i4770k or maybe even support for a proper workstation motherboard supporting one or two Xeon E5 V2 with ECC Ram?

Somehow the later makes me more excited