6 ms·

Do we really need a full tower? Isn't most of the space in a traditional PC "trash can" form factor wasted? The graphics card size would need to change, but i

by melling 10y ago

Do we really need a full tower? Isn't most of the space in a traditional PC "trash can" form factor wasted? The graphics card size would need to change, but it would be great if we could shrink the case and still have all the power of a desktop.

rcarmo 10y ago
You can build a very nice and compact machine with a relatively small footprint using off-the-shelf components: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/12/17/1840 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/12/17/1840 ...integrated graphics are plenty good enough for a lot of use cases, but you're right in assuming the graphics card would need to change. Current GPUs require a lot of extra power and cooling that requires a (mini-)tower form factor...
- kawsper 10y ago
  Someone should pre-build these machines, and just ship them without OSX.
  - Nursie 10y ago
    Yeah that was tried about 15 years ago. Much legal hammering occurred.
    - itomato 10y ago
      That was because Psystar advertised and sold the machines with Mac OS installed.
rtkwe 10y ago
Full towers have a couple benefits against smaller cases, thermals and space for expansion (internal hdd's, additional graphics cards, etc.). Smaller cases really suffer from lack of expansion space and often severely restrict the components you can use just based on the volume you can work with.
- melling 10y ago
  Yes, the expansion capabilities are well understood. Applying an 80/20 rule, one or two graphics cards, and a couple of drives should pretty much cover it. Apple could offer a large and small form case. The real problem is heat, right?
  - rtkwe 10y ago
    Heat is a big problem but given that they barely seem to want to be in the pro business at all these days given their laptop choices lately I doubt they'd want to have 2 different desktops.
jasonlotito 10y ago
Depends on if you use all your feature or not. Sure, can be mostly empty is you mostly don't use what you pay for. But if you use everything you pay for, it can get pretty tight in there. That being said, if you want a smaller case, you can get that as well. It really depends. You have flexibility, and you get what you need. This is something Apple has been missing for some time now.
alkonaut 10y ago
If they skip a second cpu socket, a second graphcis card, and any 3.5" internal storage then they could make it pretty small. I hope they don't however, they should at least have two full length graphics cards. CPU's are good enough that you can cram enough cores in one socket these days for most desktop workloads. Spinning metal storage isn't necessary either, an m2 slot + space for 2xSSD's is plenty for internal storage. The problem is the full size graphics cards, in the age of 4K, 5K and 8K and what have you, there is just no way around that content creators for games, video, VR etc will need two of the latest of whatever is on the market. And those are huge and hot. And they need a large box of moving air with an 750W+ power supply.

by melling 10y ago

rcarmo 10y ago

You can build a very nice and compact machine with a relatively small footprint using off-the-shelf components: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/12/17/1840 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/12/17/1840 ...integrated graphics are plenty good enough for a lot of use cases, but you're right in assuming the graphics card would need to change. Current GPUs require a lot of extra power and cooling that requires a (mini-)tower form factor...

kawsper 10y ago
Someone should pre-build these machines, and just ship them without OSX.
- Nursie 10y ago
  Yeah that was tried about 15 years ago. Much legal hammering occurred.
  - itomato 10y ago
    That was because Psystar advertised and sold the machines with Mac OS installed.

rtkwe 10y ago

Full towers have a couple benefits against smaller cases, thermals and space for expansion (internal hdd's, additional graphics cards, etc.). Smaller cases really suffer from lack of expansion space and often severely restrict the components you can use just based on the volume you can work with.

melling 10y ago
Yes, the expansion capabilities are well understood. Applying an 80/20 rule, one or two graphics cards, and a couple of drives should pretty much cover it. Apple could offer a large and small form case. The real problem is heat, right?
- rtkwe 10y ago
  Heat is a big problem but given that they barely seem to want to be in the pro business at all these days given their laptop choices lately I doubt they'd want to have 2 different desktops.

jasonlotito 10y ago

Depends on if you use all your feature or not. Sure, can be mostly empty is you mostly don't use what you pay for. But if you use everything you pay for, it can get pretty tight in there. That being said, if you want a smaller case, you can get that as well. It really depends. You have flexibility, and you get what you need. This is something Apple has been missing for some time now.

alkonaut 10y ago

If they skip a second cpu socket, a second graphcis card, and any 3.5" internal storage then they could make it pretty small. I hope they don't however, they should at least have two full length graphics cards. CPU's are good enough that you can cram enough cores in one socket these days for most desktop workloads. Spinning metal storage isn't necessary either, an m2 slot + space for 2xSSD's is plenty for internal storage. The problem is the full size graphics cards, in the age of 4K, 5K and 8K and what have you, there is just no way around that content creators for games, video, VR etc will need two of the latest of whatever is on the market. And those are huge and hot. And they need a large box of moving air with an 750W+ power supply.