My wishlist for the new Mac Pro
2006-07-05 23:54:33
Rumors are starting to fly about what will be new, exciting and different about the upcoming Mac Pro. Here's what I'm hoping for:
Reasonable size: sorry, but even though the G5 looks cool, I really don't get why it has to be so much bigger and heavier than 95% of other desktop/tower machines. The thing weighs a ton, has two inches above and below that aren't even vented. Yet it only has two hard drive slots and one 5.25" peripheral bay. So I either use half my desk, or bang my knee into it.
Speed: I'm so tired of my super slow G5. I'm a programmer, not a movie editor, not a music producer. The 64-bit velocity engine does me zero good running MySQL, javac and emacs. I need clock cycles. Lay on the gigahertz, baby! If it's not at least 3.2 GHz, forget it. I'm switching to Ubuntu.
Drive bays: as I said, two drives in the G5 just blows. Give me at least four 3.5" SATA bays, so i can load it up with 2TB of storage.
A real desktop form factor: this relates to the size thing. The G5 is for most purposes, a server. It's too big to sit on a desk. But if it's under the desk, you have a mess of cables. It would be good to have a lower-profile layout. Something that a monitor could reasonable sit on top of, and something that would have a full complement of front ports: audio in/out/optical, USB, firewire. I'm thinking of the old Sun SPARCstation pizza box. It would have to be wider and/or deeper, but the low height and utility as a monitor stand were just right.
Some cool gadgety features: I know Apple likes cool, elegant design. And this wish wouldn't make that easy. But, this supposed to be a pro Mac. Meaning, it's in a studio, lab or office. It's not an iMac that needs to look nice in a living room. Right? So how about: a flash reader; a halfway decent speaker with a physical volume control knob; an integrated microphone and iSight.
I have a feeling I'll get nothing I want on this list. Ok just, the speed. That's all I really care about. Please.