New Mac Pro teardown uncovers highly fixable, upgradable machine

In a vast departure from every other Apple gadget released this year, the new Mac Pro appears to be a highly repairable machine.

After carefully deconstructing Apple’s trash can-shaped workhorse, the ever-useful gadget butchers over at iFixit awarded the $3,000 machine an 8/10 score for repairability.

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The Mac Pro uses non-proprietary screws, though you don’t even need any tools to open up the case, making RAM upgrades a cinch. The single fan is easy to access and replace, too. You can even reach and replace the built-in CPU — a quad-core Intel Xeon processor (E5-1620 v2) — though it’ll require some major digging and tinkering to get to it.

Dual graphics cards rest just inside the outer casing, though interestingly an SSD cage is sandwiched up against one of them. You only need to remove one screw to get to the SSD, while four need to come out to access the graphics cards. There’s no available port to add additional internal storage, which is unfortunate because external alternatives (through Thunderbolt) remain expensive.

Otherwise, it’s a glowing review of the new machine — and a huge improvement over Apple’s laptops, which are filled with proprietary screws and inaccessible components.