I’ve worked with people using Macs for film work and it’s actually been kind of sad to see them withering on the vine without any proper REALLY high-end machines from Apple for the last 4 years.
If I was managing this one, I’d try to make:
a really nice, quite large, case
with a high-flow whisper quiet air cooling system
and a very robust water-cooling system
and lots of drive bays
the guts inside would not be tightly engineered to only just fit exactly into the space
Then I’d release a new one every year or 6 mo, whatever schedule, with just tiny improvements to the case design, mostly all the same mechanical parts and updated CPU/GPU/motherboard. Keep making up new adaptors to make the water cooling system fit new chips and cards and you could keep the same basic design going for a decade.
My reasoning is that the target market for a Mac Pro is people like OS X but have an unlimited demand for computing power, and would otherwise be looking at moving to a Hackintosh right now.
tl;dr I’d make a giant hackintosh with official support
Other than the case being heavy compared to a normal PC, the aluminum body with grill front mac pro was a great machine with a very nicely made design. not sure why they thought that smaller is better for that form. it’s not like people typically move these machines very often.
Have you looked at the HP Z series? I use some of the older Z620 machines, they’re quite nice. I’m not a huge fan of water cooling, heat pipes to radiators seem like a more reliable system.
I’ve worked with people using Macs for film work and it’s actually been kind of sad to see them withering on the vine without any proper REALLY high-end machines from Apple for the last 4 years.
If I was managing this one, I’d try to make:
Then I’d release a new one every year or 6 mo, whatever schedule, with just tiny improvements to the case design, mostly all the same mechanical parts and updated CPU/GPU/motherboard. Keep making up new adaptors to make the water cooling system fit new chips and cards and you could keep the same basic design going for a decade.
My reasoning is that the target market for a Mac Pro is people like OS X but have an unlimited demand for computing power, and would otherwise be looking at moving to a Hackintosh right now.
tl;dr I’d make a giant hackintosh with official support
Other than the case being heavy compared to a normal PC, the aluminum body with grill front mac pro was a great machine with a very nicely made design. not sure why they thought that smaller is better for that form. it’s not like people typically move these machines very often.
Have you looked at the HP Z series? I use some of the older Z620 machines, they’re quite nice. I’m not a huge fan of water cooling, heat pipes to radiators seem like a more reliable system.
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA5-4045ENW.pdf
All this mac pro discussion reminded me of this custom rackmount enclosure for mac pros: http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros
They plugged them in to gaskets sideways, to fit them into a rack and keep the intakes in the cool side…
A lot of effort went into that, and not just the idolatrous photo shoot.
A lot of work went into making Apple’s case designers weep :-).
It’s too little, too late.
The way Aperture and FCP went sent a signal that Apple doesn’t care about pro users.
The Mac Pro sent a signal that Apple doesn’t care about pro users.
The anemic upgrades sent a signal that Apple doesn’t care about pro users.
It’s not surprising that pro users have been leaving in droves.
tl;dr:
The Mac Pro is pining for the fjords.
Mac Mini is honestly even worse and hasn’t had this announcement bolstering it.