When we posted Peter Zigich's first design thoughts on a new MacPro last year, we didn't realise how popular the article would be. He's back with round two of possible design thoughts and this time there is something new at the core.
Our first article on possible new MacPro designs based on a modular concept sparked off quite a debate. The second round of thoughts from Peter Zigich this time is based on the idea that Apple might switch to using power efficient ARM chips.
All speculation of course, but one thing we do know is that Tim Cook has committed to building a new pro machine. Let's hope that at WWDC or earlier, we will be treated to a new form factor MacPro rising up from the dry ice.
In the meantime we will let Peter continue with his thoughts...
- optimised for performance/watt
- power-efficient
- cooler
- fully scalable
- smaller
- cheaper
- custom CPU design
What does it mean?
- significantly smaller enclosure
- increase computing power by adding more CPUs
- increase & tweak important performance (custom chip design)
- cheaper CPUs - higher profit
- smaller, lighter, quieter, cooler (less heat), "Greener" (Environment)





Version 1a
Custom Apple designed ARM CPU A10
Each Processor has 4 cores for a total 8 cores per Card.
4 Cards for a maximum of 8 CPUs (32 Cores).



Version 1b
How about Intel Inside?
Maybe Intel can come up with super efficient Haswell Xenon CPU 2 Xenon CPUs can fit in the Heat Sink
Version 2
Custom Apple designed ARM CPU A10
Combined CPU & RAM Module.
6 Cards for a maximum of 12 CPUs (48 Cores) and 96GB RAM


MacPro Cube
If Apple creates custom GPU (shorter, less heat), enclosure dimensions could shrink even more.
MacPro Cube with a footprint of a Mac Mini. 200mm x 200mm x 200mm Cube.
