Heat concerns about the new Mac Pro's design

[game_over]

 

I's stunning

[MorganX]

Not a fan of OS X, not even sure I like this for a desk PC, but with Dual GPUs and the amount of power in that space, Kudos to Apple. It's cool as ######.

[MorganX]

Again, I don't like macs (in fact, I have a non apple product agenda from quite a while) but the design, at least from thermodynamics, it's excellent. Convection is the keyword here. Triangular heatsink however allows for little to no customization... but again, that's supposed to be a machine that you are so no going to upgrade. I wish PC form factors diverged from the original square design to produce something more three-dimensional, as apple has done.

 

P.D. Apple phones are a complete ripoff, same with their laptops.

 

If you're talking price, maybe. But iPhones do what they are supposed to do, and they do it as well or better than anyone else IMO.

[Bryan R.]

It's a sleek design and is innovative but I sure do wish Apple would stop using "innovative" to describe pretty much anything they do. Diamond cut edges or whatever are cosmetic and have no real world application. As opposed to simply "machine cut" which is still essentially all this is except they get to throw around the fact that diamonds were used to make your fancy computer. It's crap like that just makes it all so gimmicky.

[Dysphoria]

It's a sleek design and is innovative but I sure do wish Apple would stop using "innovative" to describe pretty much anything they do. Diamond cut edges or whatever are cosmetic and have no real world application. As opposed to simply "machine cut" which is still essentially all this is except they get to throw around the fact that diamonds were used to make your fancy computer. It's crap like that just makes it all so gimmicky.

Well... it's inovative because noone else has come up with this kind of cooling solution/PC design. It minimizes the space needed to hold all the PC hardware while maximizing on the air cooling efficiency.

When you come up with something like that, you can use the "invovative" word yourself....

[Lord Method Man]

Where do I put my three-way SLI GTX Titans?

[Liana]

Where do I put my three-way SLI GTX Titans?

Maybe an apple genius can help you with that :P

[xendrome]

I'm pretty sure out of the 100% design process on the chassis close to 50% of their concern was based on the thermal dissipation, so I'd leave this to the engineers who kind of know what they are doing..

[Bryan R.]

Well... it's inovative because noone else has come up with this kind of cooling solution/PC design. It minimizes the space needed to hold all the PC hardware while maximizing on the air cooling efficiency.

When you come up with something like that, you can use the "invovative" word yourself....

Maybe you didn't read my post.

[HawkMan]

Well... it's inovative because noone else has come up with this kind of cooling solution/PC design. It minimizes the space needed to hold all the PC hardware while maximizing on the air cooling efficiency.

When you come up with something like that, you can use the "invovative" word yourself....

That doesn't make it innovative, not when the reason no one else has come up with this design is because it's not very good looking, but mostly because it's impractical and not very customizable, but great for looking people into having to buy custom made upgrade parts from your company.

[ctebah]

That doesn't make it innovative, not when the reason no one else has come up with this design is because it's not very good looking, but mostly because it's impractical and not very customizable, but great for looking people into having to buy custom made upgrade parts from your company.

 

It's very innovative actually.   From the cooling aspect and the minimal design alone.  Having to buy parts directly from Apple to upgrade the new Mac Pro doesn't make it any less innovative.  

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

A valid concern (other than heat) would be for instance, you are holding a glass of soda and you knock into something causing the soda spill into the mac pro top hole. A $1.50 soda causing $3000 of damage. Hopefully the mac pros come with covers, which I'd imagine they do

I dont see how this scenario is playing out to be honest...

If the Mac Pro was on your desk it would be taller than even the largest can of soda, so unless you stand up and pour the soda through the air vent I cant see how such as thing is going to happen.

Lets say the Mac Pro is under your desk, then it's just as likely to be ruined as a normal PC... my PC case has a massive fan in the top of it. If i was to pour a can of soda over it i have no doubt in my mind it would ruin my PC too...

However as the PC is under my desk any knocked over drink would just run across the desk and either off the edge to the carpet, or flow round my scanner.

I don't see the issue personally unless you have a hole in your desk for wires and your PC / Mac happens to be directly below it.

[threetonesun]

If you look at the way the top vent fits in the canister, I think it would be pretty hard to actually get liquid on the components. Although, I bet you could use the top of it to keep your coffee nice and warm.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

Maybe you didn't read my post.

 

You aren't allowed to criticize their overuse of the word 'innovative'. Do you think you are an authority on innovation? Pretty sure Apple has a patent on that so no you aren't. :D

 

In seriousness, I don't see many people spilling stuff into their Mac Pros. It's far more likely of scenario with a laptop and people generally manage to not do it all that much even then. I just toss mine out of backpacks, down flights of stairs, onto marble floors instead.

[game_over]

I'd say the design is innovative, but the system itself doesn't really bring any innovation to the table, more particularly in the way we use our systems.

 

The design of their systems is second to non, not a single inch of wasted space.

[HawkMan]

It's very innovative actually. From the cooling aspect and the minimal design alone. Having to buy parts directly from Apple to upgrade the new Mac Pro doesn't make it any less innovative.

I suggest you read my post again.

It's not innovative just because they're the first to cash in on a cash cow by making proprietary hardware.

They could have made it just as "innovative" with a square chimney design that accepts standard upgrade parts. The round proprietary design doesn't make it inherently more effective or innovative than a square chimney.

It would be innovative if they had put in new innovative functions like laser cooling and holographic storage. Just making a proprietary computer case does not make it innovative.

[HawkMan]

The design of their systems is second to non, not a single inch of wasted space.

That is true for all odeon small form factor desktops from acer/asus/HP/et al.

You know what my word for that is? It's not innovative. It's "pain in the effin ass to work on" just the work to take out the HDD for out of box backup is ridiculous on those things.

Give me a nice midi tower where you open the side door and everything can be pulled straight out. The first towers that had screw less HDD mounts that pulled out the side and not into the case. Now THAT was innovative.

[Arkos Reed]

To those complaining about upgradability of the system, you don't seem to know the workstation market and how the Mac Pro has been designed.

 

- Storage : 20Gbps thunderbolt drive enclosures will fill that, easily.

- Ram : user upgradable

- Graphics : just buy the biggest version and be done with it (if you really need GPU horsepower for your workloads)

 

The other components in a workstation are next to never upgraded. Usually when a workstation gets too slow due to age or major workload changes, it's entirely replaced, not upgraded.

I had an HP XW8600 at work, when it became obviously too slow, I had it replaced with a Z800. Buying an extra processor was no longer possible anyway, they were either EOL'd by intel or removed from the HP catalog.

 

Based on the initial photos (might change with final hardware) :

 

Regarding thermal design, the Mac Pro is nearly best in class. The thermal core, as they call it, has been built to offer the best airflow and space savings possible. See below :

 

 

Regarding the possibility of foreign objects or liquids going in, it's next to improbable due to the case upper lip going very close over the fan's rim for one, AND the hole in the center of the fan redirecting any possible liquid introduction to the center of the thermal core (and therefore directly to the bottom the Mac Pro without touching any components) as shown below for the other :

 

 

Now, when it comes to repairability and default warranty, yes, this machine is a joke. Anything breaks, you're out of luck for days/weeks, and the default 1 year warranty is a shame at this price level.

[HawkMan]

So your argument is to buy the biggest highly overpriced version with apples 500% price increase not he graphics card instead of having a design that allows easily upgrading the graphic so card with standard models ? What about 1-2 years downt eh line when the CPU is still highly competitive but an upgrade of the GPU would help immensely ?

Either way the point was innovation, and NONE of that makes it innovative.

[123456789A]

Maybe an apple genius can help you with that :p

 

Last Apple genius I spoke with wanted to charge me $35 to replace a screw, and said Apple had to be the one to put the screw in.

[Arkos Reed]

So your argument is to buy the biggest highly overpriced version with apples 500% price increase not he graphics card instead of having a design that allows easily upgrading the graphic so card with standard models ? What about 1-2 years downt eh line when the CPU is still highly competitive but an upgrade of the GPU would help immensely ?

Either way the point was innovation, and NONE of that makes it innovative.

The top GPU model available for the Mac Pro is quite reasonably priced if performance is comparable to a W9000 (arstechnica even suspects it is in fact vastly underpriced) for a workstation graphics class/certified GPU. A $1000 upgrade for 2 GPUs is peanuts. Professional Discrete add-in GPUs, with application certified drivers cost a friggin' lot (often in excess of 3K each). That's why I said, if you need it, go for the biggest GPU, it's a bargain.

 

All this of course, if you really need that kind of horsepower on a mac, I'm not talking about playing WoW/whatever on a pretty machine.

 

This form factor, for a fully fledged workstation IS an innovation, just like the Mac Mini was, when it was introduced. A workstation, be it a PC or a Mac, is still a computer, and so far there's been nothing new since SSDs were introduced. Apple isn't a developper of new solutions in this domain. We'll see really great stuff when HP (ever) introduces Memristor and Photonics.

[0nyX]

Last Apple genius I spoke with wanted to charge me $35 to replace a screw, and said Apple had to be the one to put the screw in.

They wanted to screw with you.

[Dick Montage]

OMG you could spill a drink into it.  Same as I could my other PCs.  Blame apple.  Blame pepsico.  Blame everyone.  Not me though!

[xWhiplash]

So your argument is to buy the biggest highly overpriced version with apples 500% price increase not he graphics card instead of having a design that allows easily upgrading the graphic so card with standard models ? What about 1-2 years downt eh line when the CPU is still highly competitive but an upgrade of the GPU would help immensely ?

Either way the point was innovation, and NONE of that makes it innovative.

 

Oh great, more of this.  500% price increase?  I do not find any other workstations that are 500% cheaper than the Mac Pro.

 

And yes it is innovation.  You do realize they are using Intel and AMD parts don't you?  Apple does not design the components.  What do you expect the internal innovation to be?

 

Why don't you people get it?  This is NOT meant for you or me.  It is meant for people that make hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Or they make several dozen thousands of dollars per project.  They can certainly afford a new Mac Pro in a year or two if they DESPERATELY need one.  Most of the people that use these are not IT pros and do not know how to swap out parts.

[ctebah]

I suggest you read my post again.

It's not innovative just because they're the first to cash in on a cash cow by making proprietary hardware.

They could have made it just as "innovative" with a square chimney design that accepts standard upgrade parts. The round proprietary design doesn't make it inherently more effective or innovative than a square chimney.

It would be innovative if they had put in new innovative functions like laser cooling and holographic storage. Just making a proprietary computer case does not make it innovative.

You should really read a review on it. You'll see their thermal design is second to none.

Like I already said, making it harder to upgrade doesn't make it any less innovative. Or maybe you just don't know what the word "innovate" means....