[geeks] Apple desktop refresh

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Mar 3, 2009, at 12:43 , Dan Sikorski wrote:

> Mark Benson wrote:
>>
>> If they did release a 'semi-pro' currently then I doubt most of  
>> them would run OS X much anyway, which may be why they won't do it.
>>
>
> That is assuming that the only reason to get it would be for  
> gaming.  I don't play many games, i simply want a desktop machine  
> with a little bit of expandability.  The Mac Pro is the only machine  
> in apple's lineup that has any expandability to speak of.


> Shit, it's the only one that has a case that is reasonable to open.

...and it is light years behind most good PC cases when it comes to  
actually doing maintenance, upgrades, and fixing it.

It's very easy to open and do trivial things, and it looks awesome.   
Airflow is "adequate" on the original 2006/2008 models, and seems to  
be much improved on
the new models.

The cabling is excellent of course, and I like the optical drive bay.

But for everything else, the Mac Pro case is a serious pain-in-the-ass.

It is hard to clean for one thing.  Even just getting the dust out is  
an exercise in frustration, since it is so damned hard to remove the  
cages inside, and the obstructed airflow in the original Mac Pro  
guarantees a healthy dust harvest.

Something I've learned too: running the fans slow like Apple does by  
default (and because the SMC controller and firmware are broken)  
causes dust to accumulate faster.
I've tested running the fans at near full speed using smcfancontrol,  
and it collects a lot less dust if the air moves faster.

It's actually not that much louder as long as you avoid full speed,  
which does whine a bit.

Doing any sort of repair or upgrade work is difficult because taking  
the case apart to access the buried motherboard is fairly labor  
intensive and more difficult than any good PC case.





-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."