Just reverse them (so the GPUs are venting up) then have right-angle dongles (which are very Apple now) under a magic magnetic lid compartment. Or, recess them enough (increase the case height) enough that you can plug in normal DP / HDMI cables.
I like it, but it's not proprietary enough for Apple to make. They didn't come out with a single upgrade GPU for the Mac Pro dustbin design, so I doubt they care much about selling modularity or upgradability these days. Their message is clear: "upgrade" means new device, which means all the products they sell are disposable appliances.
IMO, they could open up MacOS to work on some variations of hardware and sell it for $300-$500. They would still make the nicest hardware, but since desktops and laptops obviously aren't their main focus anymore, they could still offer power users good tools to build all these amazing mobile apps on without limiting them to their current slim pickings. Hell, even just make XCode cross-platform. Even just let it run on X, and use the Windows Linux subsystem to support it.
Using two standard full-length cards is just lazy design (even if he made it a point to use standard components). The GPUs should be on boards like they are on the current MacPro and attached to the monumental heatsink. This add two fans to a design that absolutely doesn't need them. The SATA disks also seem misplaced - it should extend PCI-E storage or, even better, DIMM flash modules: big Xeons have 4 memory channels per socket, enough for letting a couple of those go to storage. Having one single bus for everything makes the machine much neater.
seanp2k2|9 years ago
I like it, but it's not proprietary enough for Apple to make. They didn't come out with a single upgrade GPU for the Mac Pro dustbin design, so I doubt they care much about selling modularity or upgradability these days. Their message is clear: "upgrade" means new device, which means all the products they sell are disposable appliances.
IMO, they could open up MacOS to work on some variations of hardware and sell it for $300-$500. They would still make the nicest hardware, but since desktops and laptops obviously aren't their main focus anymore, they could still offer power users good tools to build all these amazing mobile apps on without limiting them to their current slim pickings. Hell, even just make XCode cross-platform. Even just let it run on X, and use the Windows Linux subsystem to support it.
rbanffy|9 years ago