13-Inch MacBook Pro With M2 Chip Outperforms Base Model Mac Pro Despite Costing Nearly $5,000 Less

[russell_314]

True, it's never been a thing on x86, - but it's something developed by ARM and - until you go back to ancient history & Acorn - ARM in desktops/laptops has never been a thing.

As has already been posted - the Surface Pro X which snuck out just before the M1 used the technique - you can argue the toss as to whether it sold enough to qualify as a "thing".

...but Apple Silicon grew out of phone/tablet technology where big.little (or similar) was definitely a thing.

I didn't mean just x86 because Apple Silicon isn't x86. I'd say the Surface Pro X falls under the tablet category. I'm not saying Apple invented ARM or the big little concept but Apple was the first to make them work on mainstream devices. Before Apple Silicon, ARM was generally in devices that required low power like phones or tablets or cheap devices like low end Chromebooks.

Before everyone was happy with the status quo like if it works why change it. Now even Qualcomm is claiming to have something in the works that will compete with M1. I think this is the start of a new generation of processors. Maybe even ARM will be the new x86 for Windows computers. I don't mean the current Qualcomm ARM but fast ones like Apple Silicon.

 

[russell_314]

Acorn had ARM CPUs in desktops back in the late 80s. "Mainstream" outside of UK and maybe a little bit of Europe here and there, no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes

You need to remember that "mainstream" meant something completely different 30 years ago when computers were the wild west before the IBM compatible takeover.

That's very interesting. I know ARM has been around forever. I think it's a bit different than what we have now. With the current iteration of ARM I think Apple was the first to think it would work on a PC. Maybe now Microsoft will take Windows on ARM seriously. I know there was a contract they had with Qualcomm so hopefully that expired and they can move on with future designs. Who knows maybe Intel will make an ARM CPU

 

[Deepshade]

...and doesnt require 4 $600 supermarket trolley wheels to move it!

 

[randomvariations]

This is normal evolution. Tick/Tock. The slowest and cheapest MacBook made today runs circles around the top tier fastest MacPro of yesteryear.

Then the new MacPro will come out and become the current trophy holder - only to be supplanted in the future by the next laptop.

This leap frog cycle of laptop and Mac Pro has been going on for decades.

No it's not - you're comparing mobile hardware to desktop class, this isn't normal, it is the NEW normal, but it new.

 

[theluggage]

Before Apple Silicon, ARM was generally in devices that required low power like phones or tablets or cheap devices like low end Chromebooks.

...well, yeah, but the elephant in the room for the last few years has been that these "low power devices" were getting more powerful than low-end desktops and laptops & gaining serious image/video/audio processing capabilities. Shortly before the Apple Silicon announcement some benchmarks emerged showing that the iPad A12 got comparable scores to an i7 Mac Pro - it was fun to watch the rationalisations about why an ARM-based Mac still wouldn't work.

As I've said in an earlier post (ignoring the big.little thing) a late 1980s ARM could thrash a contemporary x86 - Acorn developed it because they deemed that the x86 wasn't good enough for the BBC Micro successor - but the desktop market was a PC compatible closed shop, so future development focussed on low-power/embedded applications, then mobile when that came along. ARM fell behind when x86 processors started packing floating point processors and PCs got accelerated graphics cards. No reason why ARM systems couldn't have got these - but the market wasn't there so it didn't happen.

 

[randomvariations]

This is to be expected. My M1 Air utterly decimates the classic Mac Pro I'm typing on right now.

There are 12 years between those 2, that's not "expected" it's long term churn and completely different chip architectures and software...you can't even run 64bit bios on that OG pro.

 

[Tagbert]

More like they copied ARM, as ARM used the big.LITTLE architecture before apple.
Also Intel is doing fine, they just need a decent manufacturing process.

Apple was one of the founders of ARM and has remained a close contributor. Apple has an architectural license from ARM that allows them to use the ARM ISA but do their own designs to implement it. For the first few generations of iPhones, Apple used ARM designs but soon started doing their own chip design and evolved that to our current Apple Silicon A and M-series chips.

Trying to say that Intel copied either ARM or Apple gets complicated in this case. Either answer would be correct.

 

[iPadified]

It is more than just RAM. The x64-Rosetta translation isnt as rosy as everyone makes it out to be. There may be legacy x64 plugins or/and PCI-E cards/dongles for plugin software as well.

I know for sure my organization is having a hella of a hard time with Docker right now. Simply because it uses QEMU-64 emulation underneath. Anything more complicated than a run hello-world is problematic. To a point some Devs are asking for Intel macs or go Linux. I am sticking it out with my M1 Max but it sure isnt a honeymoon.

True, app compatibility is a large concern (also for Win/x86-MacOS in general) but my thoughts did not include software as the title regarded the hardware performance.

 

[iBluetooth]

Sorta? It's not faster than the fastest in 2007, but a 3080 will get you into the top 30.

So, I should have guessed 18 years to make sure to be exactly right?

 

[Onelifenofear]

Tell me you live in Apple's bubble without telling me you live in Apple's bubble.

As far as corporate support goes, Apple is bottom of the barrel. It was clear even dating back to the Xserve that Apple has no idea whatsoever how to support corporate environments, and they have been failing miserably at trying for almost 30 years now.

Almost every other workstation manufacturer has same-day, on-site service for high-end workstations. There is no such thing as "swapping out" a machine in the real world - doing so results in hours of downtime even after the swap is complete. Corporate support means having techs at the ready and available to travel to the worksite with replacement parts, repair the machine, and getting it back up and running that same afternoon. HP does this, Dell does this, Apple doesn't do this. And with Apple's latest designs with the M-series chips, Apple will never be able to offer that level of support.

Apple does do this for corporate accounts. It did for my owned company for the last 22 years - well till we sold up 2 years ago. A replacement device on site swap out. Work drives swapped out if needed but ironically we ran off x serves for the first 10 years then a specialist Video server solution.

Then when the original was fixed it was swapped out. This was directly handled by the business team on Regent Street. I don’t know what industry you are in but this has been the way for me and other VFX companies in London. Most of which have switched primarily to Linux now.

I agree that this may change with Apple Silicon but who knows how serviceable that Pro may be.

 

[Bodie CI5]

As I remember it, the 64 started selling at a much higher price. MUCH higher. Then they slashed the price and people that had bought the system at the previous overly inflated price were deservedly miffed. But whatever...

In January 1983, with the C64 now selling at K-Mart, Jack [Tramiel] lowered the price from $595 to $399. "He planned to reduce the cost of the Commodore 64 but he wanted to wait until after Christmas to get the last bit of money," says Dave Haynie.

Brian Bagnall, On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore, Variant Press, Winnipeg, 2005, p. 293.

It was still a much cheaper machine than you remember it to be. The reason I've pointed this out is that, in my opinion, you're making a flawed comparison. The Mac Pro is viewed as a high-end machine, a workstation. The C64 was not classed in that sort of category and was primarily a home PC.

But, yes, I too would have been miffed at the price reduction overnight.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Criminal Enterprise - Get a grip!

Xeons in the Mac Pro have not been significantly updated - you'd get maybe 10% faster - or up to 32 cores but a lower clock.

Mac Pro are bought buy people that need them - and a PC Workstation from Dell, HP or Boxx is going tocos the same amount of money as the Mac Pro ( you don't buy apple RAM )

Custom PC rig mean you need a support person. I you have a Corpotate apple account Studio in London for example you can get a broken Mac swapped out in 3 hours. You can't get that support with any PC workstation ( perhaps a specialist lease company )

All that said about your doomed startup is they didn't understand what was needed.... sense doomed.

While the M2 is blazingly fast - does it have potential for 1.5TB ECC RAM ( I have 768gb ) or 8 PCIE slots ( have currently have 60+ TB in my Mac Pro ) + Dual GPUs that are faster than a 3090 and significantly better in Pro Apps that have massive datasets - gaming cards are bullt for Texture fill over vertex and Workstation cards are the opposite ( sense they are not great for games )

So the Mac Pro use cases are reduced to those requiring multiple AMD GPU or >128 GB RAM that cannot be sent to a compute server. Talk about niche use cases…

The entire Audio Industry lives on Mac Pros. If you think an M1/M2 runs commercial music studios and does complete cinematic scores on one you haven't been in professional studios. Add onto that 6 simultaneous streams of 8K in Real-time with Afterburner something no matter what Apple alludes to cannot come close to matching with Film post production. Putting Vienna Software on a Mac Pro tower or rack and loaded up all the plugins in conjunction with all analog/digital hardware in major audio studios where a photo shows a Macbook Pro at the desk gives the illusion all the work is done on that, when it's basically a dumb terminal at that point, whether Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, etc.

 

[2009 mac user]

There's a reason I call it the Meme Pro. What an overpriced joke of a computer.

At this point Apple should just pull it from sale even though we're a few months from the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. There's literally no point in owning one anymore outside of you just absolutely hate having money since Macs that are 1/3 of the base spec price outperform it in every imaginable way.

I agree. When I saw this article I thought of one thing:

Jokes aside, I do feel kind of bad for those who spent thousands on Mac Pros a couple years ago. That thing is as much as a used car.

 

[theluggage]

The entire Audio Industry lives on Mac Pros. If you think an M1/M2 runs commercial music studios and does complete cinematic scores on one you haven't been in professional studios.

To be fair, the only Apple Silicon Mac that would be plausible in that role is the Studio Max or Ultra, which was only released a couple of months ago, so it's not surprising that it's not penetrated into commercial music studios yet. It's also likely that the Ultra will start turning in more impressive performances as software gets better optimised for it. The big limitation seems to be 128GB RAM (for studios who need to have 100-piece digital orchestras permanently loaded up) and lack of PCIe slots for custom audio cards.

Maybe 128GB + super-fast SSD access will be enough (certainly cheaper than huge amounts of RAM) - and maybe TB4 + rack-mounted PCIe enclosures will satisfy for specialist interfaces, considering the Ultra ought to have 4x the TB bandwidth of the Trashcan.

Anyway, Apple have more-or-less said that there will be an Apple Silicon Mac Pro which, presumably, will address these areas. They need to get a wiggle on, though...

The problem with the Mac Pro, though, is that it's essentially just another Xeon tower that's been 'blessed' to run MacOS, so its value really depends on users being committed to MacOS-only software (or software where the Windows/Linux versions are still cruddy) - and that's going to be a shrinking pool as Windows software catches up. Apple Silicon is an opportunity to offer something novel.

 

[7149041]

...and doesnt require 4 $600 supermarket trolley wheels to move it!

Incredible, I am routinely doing bicep curls with 20kg (that's with one hand) while apparently an average grown adult needs wheels to push around a 18kg Mac Pro with both hands, because they can't lift it.

Am I wasting my potential in IT?

 

[7149041]

Jokes aside, I do feel kind of bad for those who spent thousands on Mac Pros a couple years ago. That thing is as much as a used car.

Don't feel bad, I got my return on investment in a week or two.

 

[Smearbrick]

Sorry… these are really stupid comparisons (thermals? Storage? Max RAM?). Processors aside, these are two completely different computers for different needs. Next thing they’ll be saying is the m2 MacBook Pro is far more portable than the Mac Pro, despite the Mac Pro having wheels.

 

[binarysmurf]

Don't feel bad, I got my return on investment in a week or two.

It's funny how the naysayers in this thread tend to gloss over comments like these, isn't it? Most of the commentary revolves around $700 wheels, or "LOL! Expensive!". 🤔🙄

 

[Abazigal]

It's funny how the naysayers in this thread tend to gloss over comments like these, isn't it? Most of the commentary revolves around $700 wheels, or "LOL! Expensive!". 🤔🙄

I believe there’s a saying about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I agree. When I saw this article I thought of one thing:

Jokes aside, I do feel kind of bad for those who spent thousands on Mac Pros a couple years ago. That thing is as much as a used car.

My first house cost less than the loaded Mac Pro...

 

[2009 mac user]

Don't feel bad, I got my return on investment in a week or two.

Good for you!

 

[dan98]

The entire Audio Industry lives on Mac Pros.

Simply untrue.
For example the dominant software for audio mastering isn't even available on Mac OS.
Not to mention most of the major DAWs are cross-platform.

 

[Tagbert]

Good for you!

And yet you come in here declaring the Mac Pro a joke based on a single benchmark comparison that ignored all of the software and hardware difference that allow some very heavy duty data processing use cases where the Mac Pro can make people money and the M2 MBP would be completely inadequate.

This whole article is like people doing a 0-60 test and ridiculing a Semi-trailer truck because the latest Kawasaki motorcycle could get to 60 faster. It sounds reasonable to motorcyle riders but the truckers just shake their heads and go on about their business.

 

[Onelifenofear]

My first house cost less than the loaded Mac Pro...

Not sure what your point is. My first Graphics computer was a Qauantel Paintbox and cost ( $250K - the 2022 equivalent £650,000). You can spec a single box Dell ever $250K now.

My Mac Pro cost me $16K and took less than a month to pay for itself.

 

[Onelifenofear]

I agree. When I saw this article I thought of one thing:

Jokes aside, I do feel kind of bad for those who spent thousands on Mac Pros a couple years ago. That thing is as much as a used car.

Weird comment. Did that used car make any money?

Ironically this speaks volumes about he weird attitude people have with the price of computers. People don’t questions the price of tools needed for other trades? That $50K Video camera? CNC machine for $20K? $4K Lawnmower?

Would you feel bad for an Electrician that bought a truck to ply his trade that is now worth less?

My $16K Mac Pro 2.5 years ago
Sells for $10k now
Made me $200k so far.