We just had a chance to look at the Mac Pro in a soothing hands-on area, featuring lots of stations that were demoing the kind of work that Apple expects pros will want to do. Starting at $5,999, the Mac Pro has been long-awaited, and, lucky for pretty much everybody, Apple didn’t over-engineer the basic shape: it’s a rectangle, and you can put PCI cards in it.
Where Apple did apply its engineering chops is in all of the little details, like the complicated way that the grille on the front has some extra depth and texture instead of just being a grid of holes. The chassis is built around a stainless steel frame, and the feet on the bottom can be replaced with wheels. With a turn of a handle on the top, you can lift the entire body off the computer to get to its insides.
All of those details show Apple’s cleverness in design, but the previous Mac Pro was too clever by half, forcing Apple to admit that it had designed itself into a “thermal corner.” There should be no such problem here, as there are three big fans and, based on what Apple said onstage, plenty of heat sinks for major components.
The model Apple is showing off in its hands-on area isn’t overloaded with cards, as you can see above, but you can load it up yourself: there is a total of eight PCI Express slots. (Though Apple uses one of them for basic IO, you could theoretically replace that one yourself if you want to.)
Developing... more hands-on impressions and video coming soon!
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