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Mac Pro taken apart!

Tuesday, August 8, 2006 / Disassemblies

By Jacob Loeb

Jacob and company take the new Mac Pro down to its unmentionables.

Mac Pro Box

Mac Pro Box

Mac Pro Accessories - Not much has changed here, obviously...

Mac Pro Accessories - Not much has changed here, obviously. Looks like we are back to the standard power plug, which should be good news for a lot of users.

Mac Pro Back - Nice dual gigabit ethernet ports, and the business end of a smokin' graphics card.

Mac Pro Back - Nice dual gigabit ethernet ports, and the business end of a smokin

Mac Pro Front Ports

Mac Pro Front Ports

Two Drive Bays

Two Drive Bays

Two Drive Bays - Open

Two Drive Bays Open

Mac Pro DVD-R Drive. Its a Sony.

Mac Pro DVD-R Drive. It's a Sony.

Fan unit

Fan unit

Fan Unit

Fan Unit again...

Mac Pro - Fans removed!Mac Pro - Fans removed!

Mac Pro - Fans removed!

The Lair of the Processor!The Lair of the Processor!

The Lair of the Processor!

Deeper into the Lair of the Processor!

Deeper into the Lair of the Processor!

A truly gigantic heat sink.

A truly gigantic heat sink.

Sinks in place.

Sinks in place.

Processor and stamp.

Processor and stamp.

Even more processor lair.

Even more processor lair.

For some scale.

For some scale.

The drive sleds.

The drive sleds.

The stock hard disk.

The stock hard disk is a Seagate 7200rpm 250GB.

Da Mo-Bo

Da Mo-Bo

The PCI Slots.

The PCI Slots.

Independent Power Cords.

Independent Power Cords.

The RAM riser card being removed. RAM must be installed in pairs on the new riser cards. Each Mac Pro comes with two riser cards. Note the oversized heat sinks for the new RAM. Each RAM stick has a small processor which generates a considerable amount of heat.

Sliding in the RAM riser...The RAM riser card ready to go back into its slot, illustrating how it slides in on rails.

Sliding in the RAM riser...The RAM riser card ready to go back into its slot, illustrating how it slides in on rails.

Sliding in the RAM riser...The RAM riser card ready to go back into its slot, illustrating how it slides in on rails.

The RAM Riser Cards.

The RAM Riser Cards. There is an enormous amount of room for RAM in this system, up to 16GB if desired.

RAM Riser Cards in the Case.

RAM Riser Cards in the Case.

The RAM Label

The RAM Label

The RAM Heat Sinks

The RAM Heat Sinks. The sinks are almost the size of some processor heat sinks.

The optical drive sleds.

The optical drive sleds.

The hard drive lock light glows orange. All 4 hard drive trays lock into place when the back latch is closed, indicated by the orange indicator. All 4 trays are included. Also, note the power supply is now found at the top of the unit, seen in the upper right of the photo.

The hard drive lock light glows orange. All 4 hard drive trays lock into place when the back latch is closed, indicated by the orange indicator. All 4 trays are included. Also, note the power supply is now found at the top of the unit, seen in the upper right of the photo.

Unlocking the hard drives.

Unlocking the hard drives. Same picture as above, but hard drives are unlocked.

The beauty within. Internal PCI-E slots shown with the high-end NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, and two dual-link DVI ports. Notes from the field indicate that the new machine's video cards are non-SLI compliant.

The beauty within. Internal PCI-E slots shown with the high-end NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, and two dual-link DVI ports. Notes from the field indicate that the new machine

The Side Case Open.

The Side Case Open.

16 Responses to “Mac Pro taken apart!”

  1. Tony

    Great pics guys!

  2. John Waters

    I DEMAND TO SEE AN IMMERSION COOLED MACPRO!!!

    (Transformer oil or perflurocarbon, cooking oil is ghetto)

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    [...] See if this helps Mac Pro taken apart! | PowerMax Articles [...]

  4. Seantae

    I have a question! The 3rd picture from the top…I have a cord that plugs into the wider slot on the left..it has 4 cords coming from that cord..3 of those cords plug into somewhere but one doesnt..so im assuming im missing a piece but i have no idea what its called..the end of that cord looks similar to a USB but its got rounded edges..the people from the apple place have no idea what im talking about..any help would be awesome!

  5. Jochamus

    @Seantae
    It’s a firewire port.

    Great article and nice pics!

  6. Keith

    It’s actually just as likely to be an HDMI connection, given that it is meant to come from your HD monitor right?

    (don’t yell at me if I’m wrong, I tend to avoid those overpriced macs :p )

  7. Mauro

    Is there a sticker or stamp anywhere on your MacPro stating where it was assembled?
    My 2005 G5 was put together in California, a rare thing anymore. I want to order the MacPro but I’d be nice to know where it’s put together. Thanks for your help and your photos are first class!

  8. Beto

    Take out the superdrives and give me another 2 or 3 pcie2 slots >:) (with crossfire or SLI this would b amazing :O)

  9. Johnno

    Mauro- it is very rare for products to be assembled in california. Now, Most to all products are “Designed” in california, but they are assembled in China

  10. Mauro

    Sorry I was away so long. My Mac Pro arrived in mid December 2009 almost a year ago. It has a sticker that says assembled in USA. Just like my old G5. It was shipped from a city in the Southwest. Will pull out packing.

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