The new Mac Pro

[S1gnsOfL1fe]

Oh. My. Goodness.

What an ambient music beast this would be! Looking forward to seeing it in person. I can't believe it's only 9.9 inches tall. The previous Mac Pro's design, that "cheese grater style" lasted 7 years is 8 times as big.

So what do you guys think? Future dream machine or miniature garbage can?

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/10/4412350/apple-new-mac-pro-wwdc-2013

[Phase47]

The best descriptor I've read about the case is when the author referred to it as "the container..."

Darth Tower could def. be a dream machine, but the big questions are when, and how much?

[seismic1]

I wonder how easy it will be to work on internally. There is plenty of space inside the outgoing model. Lots of the mini form-factor PCs are not easy to work on internally, and, in any case, cannot be upgraded, because there are no expansion slots.

[Phase47]

Guessing hard if not impossible to do any meaningful upgrades. If you look at the product animations w/ the container opened, it looks like RAM is about the only thing that's upgradable. (And look at the case size relative to the RAM sticks - that container is tiny - 9.9" tall.) It would appear that almost everything is integrated (GPU, etc.) and that there are no PCI slots or anything else. So any sound or video cards would need to be connected by some external chassis via Thunderbolt I guess. Ditto any external drives, optical, etc. (Basically all the stuff "pros" use.)

Still, if they can keep the price under $2K US, it will still be a winner.

EDIT: Looks like only a flash drive as well... So no spinning HD. I'm not sure how big those flash drives are these days, but it seems like pros will need more space. Think about video editing, sample libraries, etc. I guess Apple is expecting all of that to be on external drives?

[GaryG]

I guess they do which is darn messy. Only reason I'd want a desktop machine nowadays would be because it could be big and airy (ie. powerful but efficiently cooled) and have all the drives neatly contained.

But I'm a windows user so, hey...

[seismic1]

I love my desktop machines. Although they're not portable, they are easy to upgrade. If I need portability, I have the option of using a laptop. I'm Windows-based at the moment, but I'm thinking about trying out Linux for PyDaw and audio recording.

[V0RT3X]

I am keen on whatever the verdict will be on this system once the reviewers test it!

Not that i'll be able to afford one...

[Sampleconstruct]

It's the "all external" route, as one can flawlessly cascade thunderbolt drives that shouldn't be a problem, although those drives are stil very expensive, I got an Elgato (240 GB) to run with my new Laptop last year for 600 bucks which was obscene. I wonder how to connect my RME Audio Interfaces with this, have to investigate. But I'm really looking forward to the relase.