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Comment by youdontknowtho | Hacker News Reader

This kind of design is WAY more likely to come from a PC vendor than Apple. The 16 TB ports was definitely kind of a LOL moment.

I dig it. They are useful, but that can't be done with "standard components".

The whole idea of a flexible and upgradeable PC is kind of against the Apple "tightly coupled" software and hardware story. The reason that their user experience has historically (I haven't used a mac in about a decade) been so good was because they limit the available hardware for their testing purposes. They don't have a lot of choice in hardware, but what they do support works every time.

I don't know...I got off the Apple train a long time ago. I loved my Mac Pro, but it just wasn't for me.

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The PC ecosystem shipped something similar years ago (with different aesthetic choices). Combine a silverstone ft03 with a noctua d14 dual tower cooler, and you get a similar convection cooling design.

Pics:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-review...

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1190-page4.html

The main problem is that tool-less cases were in style back then. If you pick it up in the obvious way, you'll end up with two side panels in your hands and a broken heap of computer on the ground. Other than that, it is a totally solid and very quiet case for high tdp systems.

Actually, the main problem is that you can't put 2x full length video cards in it.

Cooling a mini-itx board with a 14mm processor with <90W TDP is not a unsolved problem. But the standard ATX motherboard layout assumes most of the head will be generated by the processor, and that's simply not true today. A dual GPU setup for gaming or ML might generate 5 to 10 times the heat generated by the processor, and there's literally a couple centimeters for airflow between the two cards.

When I see an innovative design that maximizes airflow across the GPU(s), preferably one that involves removing the stock "windtunnel" cooler and replacing it with massive "tower" passive radiators and 3x 120mm temperature controlled case fans blowing cool air across them, then I'll be impressed. (note that this would require either a new motherboard design or using pci ribbon extenders)

Yeah, I was thinking PCI-E extenders or daughter boards too. You could also use MXMs, possibly doing 4-way SLI or something crazy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_PCI_Express_Module

But then you're back to the same problem of needing custom coolers which work with the modules AND the case, where we've seen Apple never release an upgrade part since launch.

Actually, that case fits two full length cards, or at least full-length the year it was built. The power supply is on the bottom, on the "CPU side" of the motherboard (the motherboard ports stick out the top), so you get the full motherboard length, plus the power supply height, plus a bit extra. It leads to a pretty dense, but well laid out install. There is a diagonally mounted 120mm fan that does nothing and has to be removed, if I remember right.

Crucially, convection (with help from fans) means the cards are pulling cooler air than in normal cases (at least in theory -- in practice, it is very quiet with one GPU).

I can't recommend it due to the lack of screws / latches on the side panels, but the general layout and airflow is great, and could easily be adapted for a different model with support for longer cards or even three way GPUs.

Current generation AMD cards have stock water coolers that are similar to what you asked for, but apparently third party air coolers are cooler/quieter. (I don't remember if the case I linked has water cooler mounts. I doubt it.)

> Actually, that case fits two full length cards

Eyeballing that case, it looks like it might have the length to accommodate a modern GPU, but it doesn't have the width for a double-slot GPU, much less any room for airflow across it.

> the general layout and airflow is great, and could easily be adapted for a different model with support for longer cards or even three way GPUs.

My problem with current ATX/ITX is that it was designed before PCI cards consumed more power and generated more heat than the CPU. An ideal solution would allow a 160+mm clearance on the obverse side of the GPU card (allowing the "wind tunnel" cooling system to be replaced with a tower cooler with 120mm fans, and a dedicated exhaust out the back of the case for each GPU.

It would require a redesign of motherboards, cases, and GPU cards, so I'm not holding my breath. I think it's more likely that at some point we'll see cases with integrated watercooling loops, and the user would simply plug in the CPU and GPU blocks.

I agree its very un-Apple-esque in concept. Its also got too much of an Alienware vibe, design wise.

How so? It's an elongated version the trash can Mac Pro design.

The 3rd and 4th pictures, with the center panel removed...the angles are reminiscent of Alienware with the prominent angles.

Have a look at the 8th slide "Thermal Core" on the official Mac Pro page:

http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

I am quite sure that apple's is more constrained by appearances than the coupling of hardware and software. the mac pro design while very unique is so constraining that they may have simply painted themselves into a corner and had no graceful out.

if they had kept the previous incarnation then updates could have proceeded yearly or even once every two years.

I do agree this proposal lacks a lot, it certainly has no Apple vibe to it

16 TB ports is probably because they are also USB C ports and figuring out which ports support TB and which don't may become a hassle.

Does any processor actually support enough PCIe lanes to do 16 TB ports?

16 TB3 ports would require 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes, and Intel's biggest Xeons only have 40 lanes for the entire system.

The chipset can add more also, but they will have higher latency. It's common on lower end systems where the CPU only has 16 or so. Those'll go to the graphics card slot (the only 16x on the small board) and all other peripherals will come off the chipset's PCIe lanes.

That's true, but the C612/X99 chipsets that pair with Broadwell-EP CPUs only provide an extra 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes.

It's still nowhere near enough bandwidth to do what this concept wants to do.

Definitely. They'd have to develop something entirely new to do it, which I bet would cost more than just doing a quad socketed system to get all the lanes.

You would need a dual CPU system. Skylake Xeons have 48x PCIe.

16x TB3 = 64x PCIe Lanes

2x GPU = 32x PCIe Lanes

2x M.2 = 8x PCIe Lanes

Chipset = 8x PCIe Lanes

Would be too much for even 2x Skylake Xeons. Maybe 10-12x TB3 ports.

Kaby Lake desktop have upped the number of PCIe lanes by 20% if the Xeons do the same then you just about have enough -- your list above is 112 lanes, 48*1.2=57.6 and so 56 is not unreasonable.

Yeah, you'd need to get into 7-series Xeons or whatever AMDs new Zen server chips are (not sure if they do 4-way or how many PCI-E lanes they have).

I think people are reading too much into these numbers.

The author is a game designer wanting to enter industrial design. It's just a bunch of renders created for fun. Here is another one you might enjoy:

http://pascaleggert.de/ThorA1.html

Calling him a game designer based on [1] seems too limited. Yes, those renders you can find are about gaming. But he's done more than that, see his resume.

[1] http://pascaleggert.de/aboutme.html

To be fair, he spent most of his time at Crytek [1] which is a game company.

    Art Director, Crytek
    Director of Visual Design, Crytek
    Lead Designer, Crytek
    Visual Designer, Crytek
    Freelance Graphics Designer, Verdure

[1] which should explain the oversized GPUs: to run Crysis

This seems like the kind of design you would come up with if you've never held a rifle before, let alone tried to service one.

It doesn't look that far off from the FN P90, which also appears to be impractical on first look.

Well, except for the ridiculous magazine design which looks to be aggressively anti-ergonomic and couldn't actually work as rendered without bullets actually passing through one another as they're fed into the chamber.

I agree the magazine is user-hostile.

The FN P90 has a similar angled entrance to the chamber. The rounds are perpendicular to the chamber while in the magazine, but are directed into place. I never bothered to buy a PS90 (the U.S. semi-auto version) to find out whether this design results in higher-than-typical stoppages.

I guess the other commenters missed it or chose to ignore it, but I enjoyed your joke!

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