More rumors to scoff at.

[Andrew Richards]

You beat me to it.

If it is another G5-esque tower I will be disappointed. I want a 19″ x 19″ (or less) 2U box with twin 16x PCIe 3.0 slots and at least two discrete Thunderbolt busses along with all the usual I/O. An all new form factor would portend a much longer tail than one more cheese grater.

Best,
Andy

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Andrew Richards] “An all new form factor would portend a much longer tail than one more cheese grater.”

I don’t know if that will happen, though. Apple decidedly killed their rack mount based computers, why would they go back?

Besides the power supply redundancies (and updated tech), you’re asking for an Xserve-ish form factor, right?

[Andrew Richards]

I just want the new Mac Pro to fit in a rack, not require one. It will usually be a mini tower. Heck, the current case is already a 3ishU 19″ square if you remove the pointless “handles” that are little more than a visual homage to the old plastic G3 and G4 cases. They could stick with the current form, but when better than now with a disruptive tech like Thunderbolt to redesign the case?

Best,
Andy

[Craig Seeman]

There’s nothing in the article that indicates the case design is staying the same. The new GPU doesn’t preclude a new form factor. I’d want to see the same thing Andrew does. My guess is a lot of people would.

[Bret Williams]

I’m going to go out on a limb and say SSD standard on the MacPro. Just so they can keep some margins and differentiate.

But seriously, if I get an iMac i7 before the end of this year, you can bet the Mac Pro will be released in January. And it’ll probably cost $1500. That’d be the price point for me that would make it really intriguing. The more I spend in December, the cheaper the next Mac Pro will be. But in reality I think $1999. Which would be somewhat reasonable if it is more of a Mini Pro form factor. It’d be a headless iMac with Xeon chips and ECC RAM and maybe a swappable GPU. Add a thunderbolt display and it’s $3000, which is $500 more than the best iMac I think.

Checking out Geekbench btw and the iMac is the 10th fastest Mac out there. The only thing faster is the 8 core (or more) Mac Pros and the 3.33ghz 6 core Mac Pro (still the best overall Mac Pro value I think.) And in reality, they’re only faster when it comes to hyper threaded functions. So if you’re running Final Cut Pro classic, then the i7 iMac is probably the fastest machine oddly.

[Kevin Patrick]

[Bret Williams] “if I get an iMac i7 before the end of this year, you can bet the Mac Pro will be released in January.”

If that’s the case, I’m sure we can take up a collection from other Mac Pro users to get you your new iMac right away.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Andrew Richards] “I just want the new Mac Pro to fit in a rack, not require one. It will usually be a mini tower. Heck, the current case is already a 3ishU 19” square if you remove the pointless “handles” that are little more than a visual homage to the old plastic G3 and G4 cases. They could stick with the current form, but when better than now with a disruptive tech like Thunderbolt to redesign the case?”

I hear you. Really, I do. I’d like a rack mount capable tower, too. I am a positive person and I think Apple will release another tower rather than kill off their top of line machine, but design rules the roost. A rack mount blob isn’t the Apple way. Those handles help keep the MacPro cool and quiet due to airflow. A square cage won’t be as effective unless you put really noisy fans in there.

We will see! I hope I’m wrong.

Jeremy

[Kevin Patrick]

Did I miss anything here? Was this (10.7.3 beta) the first time the Lion OS referenced these new cards?

If Apple was going to pull the Mac Pro line, I can’t believe they would suddenly add support for some new ATI cards, only for existing Mac Pro users. Why stop selling Mac Pros and Mac Pro graphic cards in all their enormously successful stores only to add support for new cards, which would only be for exiting Mac Pro customers, knowing they are going to end the Mac Pro line?

If Apple just added this reference to that latest release of Lion beta and it was not already there is previous releases, or betas, then I would say this is a very positive sign a new Mac Pro is coming.

[Andrew Richards]

[Jeremy Garchow] “A rack mount blob isn’t the Apple way. Those handles help keep the MacPro cool and quiet due to airflow. A square cage won’t be as effective unless you put really noisy fans in there.”

The perforated metal lets the air flow, but the handles are just…there. They aren’t heat sinks. It couldn’t be a solid aluminum shell like a mini, but they could put the current case on a bit of a diet without losing any key functionality. Who actually uses two optical drives? And the two 4x slots are bandwidth-equivalent to Thunderbolt, so that’s even more interior space that can be ditched. The Xeons with their generous heat sinks, and the PSU , and space for full length PCIe cards still need the same amount of room. If they turn the wide bits 90 degrees and trim the fat, 19″x19″x3.5″ should yield enough interior volume for my wish list.

Best,
Andy

[Jeremy Garchow]

You’re right.

Those handles keep the bottom of the machine off the floor and the top actually let you pick that beast up and move it. There’s a method to it.

Sounds like we will have an answer soon enough, perhaps and maybe.