Why Not a Mac Pro Mini?

2012-12-23 • SEND FEEDBACK |
Related: Mac Pro, memory

Why develop a medium size tower when the needs of most users would be served by a super-sized MacMini? See Analysis of the Oct 2012 MacMini.

The best thing that could happen to the Mac Pro line would be to see two models offered ( both pure speculation of course).

This speculative offerings actually make a lot of sense: most users would find a Mac Pro Mini quite sufficient and it could be offered right away using existing chipsets, with the big tower Mac Pro Monster coming late in the year.

Mac Pro Mini

A supersized MacMini need only offer enough memory, a really fast CPU and decent connectivity; job done for many users:

• ~3X the height and ~1.5X the footprint of the MacMini
• 6 cores with Intel Core i7 Extreme at 3.3/3.6 GHz
• 4 memory slots for up 64GB memory (with OS X bug fix to allow it).
• 1 PCIe slot for extra graphics, PCIe SSD, etc.
• 4 Thunderbolt ports
• 6 USB3 ports, fast graphics,
• One internal 3.5" drive bay.
• Four internal drive bays for 2.5 " drives (SSD/HDD).

Mac Pro Monster

Basically a true workstation grade machine:

• 16 CPU cores (dual CPU).
• 16 memory slots, for up to 256GB memory (with OS X bug fix to allow it).
• 5/6 PCIe slots.
• 4 Thunderbolt ports.
• 8 USB3 ports.
• Ultra fast graphics.
• Drive bays for four 3.5" SATA 6G drives.
• Drive bays for four 2.5" SATA 6G drives.

Hope springs eternal. But in the meantime, my 3.33 GHz 12-core gets my work done every single day since August 2010. It’s an MPG Pro Workstation.