[Macworld]

Post your comments for The time is (finally) right for a Mac minitower here

[danmusician]

My guess is that Apple will not bring out a mini-tower and will eventually kill off the tower format all together. As they continue move iOS AND Mac OS toward each other, they will eventually completely alienate the power user market that needs the tower format. I think they dropped "Computer" from their name for a reason. They wish to be a consumer electronics company. There's nothing wrong with that (they're certainly making money!), but I'll miss them when I eventually need to switch my studio computer to that other operating system.

[lkrupp]

Wishful thinking at best. Apple has been heading in a different direction for the past decade and it is not desktops, sad to say. Consumer electronics, mobile, and laptops are seen as the future.

[flowney]

People who work with video absolutely need the fastest CPU, fastest disk subsystems and Video subsystems possible. Fulfilling that need leads to the need for massive disk capacity. Sixteen terabytes (4-4 TB disks) is not unreasonable.

[iSRS]

Question on the OWC Mercury Elite Pro DualDrive. I currently have an external 3TB FW 800 drive for my iTunes Library. I just, over the Christmas holiday, moved from a 1TB drive. What is a pain is I basically, when running out of storage, need to connect both drives (New and Current) quit iTunes, rename the old -OLD or -DATE and then the new one the name of my existing drive (I do this from a different Mac, just to be safe). Then start my copy. Not a huge issue, but I would much rather have a setup that would allow me to expand when I need it, never really messing with the drives. Would this suit that need? Or is there something better out there to achieve what I am looking for?

Sorry to take a small mention and drive off topic.

[fibercut]

What people seem to miss is the Mac Pro's internal plumbing the have fat internal pipes from moving data that the iMac doesn't, this is must for video!

Plus intel is dragging their feet for new Zeons (for dual processors).

[ControlsFreak5280]

I couldn't agree more. I'm one of those that won't go the iMac route. In fact, I went as far as creating my own "Hackintosh" to get the expandability that I want. I would gladly trade the headaches (that come with a custom system) if there was new Mac Pro (or mini-pro) that had storage and video expansion options.

Nice article!

[BradBradley]

The Hackintosh is becoming the standard for pro-macs. What really needs to happen is for the Ubuntu community to step up for creative pros. Ubuntu is a lean fast OS that can be run on any commercial motherboard out there. Pro users could buy the latest thunderbolt motherboards (which blow Apple's offerings out of the water) in their machines. Ubuntu's video drivers cream Apple and Windows. And while Apple is moving away form the computer and phone working together (just making everything into one incapable mobile OS) Ubuntu is working toward a complementary environment where the phone and computer work together yet each retains its power and purpose. (http://www.mobilemag...o-hits-youtube/)

[BigBopper]

I woudl buy a smaller tower configuration immediately. I like the internal storage and memory expansion and the abiltity to upgrade the video card. I an my second Mac Pro and had a Power Mac before that.

A mid-sized tower case, two internal hard drive slots, a single optical drive, standard video card slot and memory expansion to at least 16 GB would be ideal.

[ingus]

As usual, excellent article. I'm not holding my breath. Though I would love to see one.

Thunderbolt is great, but unless you're using a RAID array, or SSD's, there's no benefit over USB3. Otherwise the drive is the bottleneck.

For the Pro or "Power" user, it all boils down to OSX. And it's a huge price to pay. Win7/8 have finally become "good enough" and don't have the upgradability issues OSX devices carry. It's not enough to have the slot, but you also need drivers. The driver situation has vastly improved, but still doesn't come close to the "other side". Supporting all possible devices is not something Apple is well structured for (and something they do't want to do).
If you're willing to use Win7/8, then any desktop Mac, at a given pricepoint, is just not price competitive with what you can get/build on Windows. For instance, see how much computer $2000 buys on Apple versus what you could buy/build on Wintel. The economies of scale alone are hugely in Windows favor. Building a Hackintosh is a huge headache too, every OS update seems to break it. Who needs that hassle.

This post has been edited by ingus: 04 March 2013 - 08:51 AM

[Dan Frakes]

ingus, on 04 March 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

Thunderbolt is great, but unless you're using a RAID array, or SSD's, there's no benefit over USB3. Otherwise the drive is the bottleneck.

For a simple hard drive, yep. But Thunderbolt can also do video, faster networking, and the like, and you can daisy-chain over Thunderbolt.

[bdkennedy1]

We have to remember that Apple has neglected several products over the years, not just the Mac Pro. The Mac Mini was neglected almost as long before it was redesigned. OS X was neglected while Apple was working on the iPhone. The Macbook Air was neglected while Apple was redesigning the Retina MacBook Pro.

[vinnieRice]

Apple is only going to build one line of towers so the article is somewhat moot. There's no reason for an Mac Pro tower unless, like every other Apple business, it brings something unique to the party. For a flagship Pro machine that means performance and flexibility.

There are probably two reasons for the delay - Intel manufacturing suitable Xeon parts in suitable numbers - Apple may be demanding something a little custom (4 x cpu for 32/64 cores?) and the need for deep OpenCL integration by co-operation with Nvidia. The Mac Pro needs to be at the top of the performance league or there is simply no point.

My personal ideal for video/3D/music/photography: 32 cores, 8 RAM slots, 2 full graphics card slots (you can't extend graphics card slots via Thunderbolt), 1 fusion drive, two standard drives, one swappable SDD slot, 8 USB, 2 FW800, 4 Thunderbolt. 18" x 5.25" x 14" deep to allow rack-mounting.

[TeaEarleGreyHot]

I always thought the Cube was an attractive mini-tower system. It could be once again....