New Mac Pro teardown reveals replaceable Xeon CPU

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/12/new-mac-pro-teardown-reveals-replaceable-xeon-cpu/

by shawndumas • 13 years ago

38 45 13 years ago

btgeekboy• 13 years ago

Seems I'm pretty spoiled by iFixIt - I really like their super high image sizes that let you really see every little bit of the board. These look like they were taken with an old mobile phone, smuggled out of some factory.

Seriously, OWC, nobody on your staff has a tripod, DSLR, and a desk lamp or clip light?

lispython• 13 years ago

Your saying is unfair.

They already did the teardown work well from their article, why criticize them like you care about the appearance but not the idea.

MnOWED1O• 13 years ago

Because the "appearance" is a huge quality point. Nicely framed, well-lit high resolution pictures are important in a photographic teardown.

rbanffy• 13 years ago

I felt old when I see this socket. I learned my way around personal computers on machines with 40-pin CPUs. Everything I do these days would be science fiction back when I started.

Not very plausible sci-fi at that...

nknighthb• 13 years ago

The back of my brain sees hundreds of tiny little pins just waiting to get bent.

Fortunately I gather at some point they actually switched to slight protrusions on the socket that contact nearly-flat points on the CPU.

ericd2• 13 years ago

Yeah, they're just metal pads on the CPU now.

astrodust5• 13 years ago

This is the Land Grid Array (LGA) socket type (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_grid_array) where the pins are on the socket and the pads are on the chip. This supplants the Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) sockets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIF_socket), those being a reworking of the Pin Grid Array (PGA) packaging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_Grid_Array) which was a higher density version of the Dual Inline Package (DIP) standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_in-line_package) used for the 80286 and prior chips.

miahi• 13 years ago

The pins in the socket are actually more complicated. Every pin is actually a kind of spring[1], so it stays in contact with the CPU when it is pushed on them. They are not very hard to bend if you drop the CPU on them by mistake - but instead of a (maybe) unusable CPU you can have an unusable motherboard. The odds of unusable equipment is actually low, as most of the pins are just for power.

[1] https://lh3.ggpht.com/-omZKyfVo6YE/T7IiJnDdwZI/AAAAAAAAAco/W...

2bluesc3• 13 years ago

Sad that a replaceable CPU on a desktop is "feature" or even noteworthy. I'm sure Apple will "fix" this.

ihsw• 13 years ago

With the advent of 3D-printing we should be prepared for the inevitability that everything will eventually be just as difficult to tinker with.

3D-printers enable you to construct devices that are so intricately and tightly closed.

nwh• 13 years ago

I'm not sure we will ever see mass produced 3D printed items. As it stands injection moulded thermoplastics can be churned out at absolutely incredible rates that just can't be matched by a deposited powder or extrusion printing. I think it's world changing, but not for mass produced items like the Mac Pro.

brudgers• 13 years ago

The odds of a given user ever replacing the CPU are low, because premium Xeon CPU's tend to retain value - 2.0ghz HarperTown quad cores are really cheep, 3.0ghz quad core parts cost enough to make system replacement more attractive in many cases.

mikeash3• 13 years ago

I'm sure Apple will "fix" this.

I don't understand this at all. OK, you want to hate on Apple a little, I get it. But this statement just makes no sense. Do you think they did this by accident? Is this really a problem for them?

2bluesc3• 13 years ago

It's mostly a joke, but there is truth behind it.

Apple has a long history of "fixing" products by removing useful buttons (every mouse they've ever made), user serviceable battery/RAM, integrated RJ45 connectors, etc. Sometimes in the name of packaging, and other times just to increase their service revenue.

People are missing the real point -- that point being that Anandtech thinks that being able to replacing a CPU on a power user desktop is noteworthy.

eddieroger• 13 years ago

This isn't a desktop, it's a workstation, and Apple's workstation line has always had replaceable components.

xradionut• 13 years ago

It's more like a design statement. Workstations are for us plebes that use Linux.

oakwhiz5• 13 years ago

It's possible that Apple could whitelist the CPU in the BIOS so that the system does not boot if you replace the CPU with one that isn't "approved."

astrodust5• 13 years ago

About as likely as Microsoft being run by lizard people.

userbinator2• 13 years ago

IBM/Lenovo has been doing this with their wireless cards, I wouldn't doubt Apple on this either. But instead of it being a whitelist it could just be they decided to strip out support/detection for all other members of the CPU family.

astrodust5• 13 years ago

You want to yell at Apple for using notebook CPUs in their compact systems, is that it? Need a convenient target for your rage?

Take it up with Intel who for years has been shipping soldered on CPUs. Apple doesn't make these chips, you know. They just work with whatever Intel can give them that fits in their desired form factor.

userbinator2• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure Apple can't "fix" this since Intel doesn't offer Xeons in BGA.

cmelbye• 13 years ago

They just redesigned the thing from scratch, don't you think they would've taken that opportunity to "fix it" if they wanted to do so?

Sanddancer• 13 years ago

I don't think that as arstechnica states that it's really accurate to compare the D-series FirePros to the Wx000 series of firepros; they seem more like desktop radeons with a memory bump. AMD's press release ( http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/new-amd-firepro-2... ) regarding the D series doesn't mention ECC memory, which is what tends to make the FirePros so expensive and is mentioned in the specs of every other FirePro AMD sells. Maybe there will be later clarification, but so far, I've seen nothing to suggest that these are much more than souped up radeon 7900s.

ericd2• 13 years ago

ECC server memory isn't that much more expensive than normal memory (it includes one more chip). Any reason it would would bump the price of the pro radeons? My thought was that it'd be The low volumes and additional design/R&D/enterprise margins. Apple buys in sufficient quantities that most of those things should be substantially decreased.

hornetblack• 13 years ago

Better silicon. For example the main difference between the 290 and 290x is silicon. Better silicon will have more units enabled and could handle higher clock speeds. (Others are likely to be dead or dodgy). Although at 450 Watts I doubt there will be much in the way of high clock speed.

When it comes to workstation graphics Nvidia drivers behave differently when using a Quadro. (Eg: duel monitor support in Linux)

New Mac Pro teardown reveals replaceable Xeon CPU

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