Considering that the new MBPs can, this should also be able to.
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Alleged 'Mac Studio' Renders Surface Ahead of Tomorrow's 'Peek Performance' Apple Event
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I don’t know how anyone can be so sure what Apple will want to show off at WWDC, given that Apple has never shown new hardware at a virtual WWDC and infrequently at in-person WWDCs prior to the pandemic.
The thickness is a good thing. It means Apple is seriously considering heat dissipation and possibly user replaceable GPUs, RAM and SSD. If it was thinner, it would only lead to slower performance. This might be a stopgap until the M2 Mac Pro appears but at least it will be a fast stopgap.
I agree. The current Mini form-factor seems to have adequate cooling for an M1 Max and probably a souped-up M1 "Ultra", considering that most of the case is just air and the M1 Max seems to run quite cooly in a packed MacBook Pro.
If it were this thick, it would either imply (a) a far more powerful SoC - "M1 Max Duo"?, which seems a bit unlikely (b) Replaceable storage and RAM - also not expected, or (c) masses of port on the rear - also not expected, and in any case the current Mini has space for the expected ports.
The design might be slightly larger to accommodate better cooling, but I don't see it growing this much, unless it is actually a "Pro Mini", with space for full-length PCIe cards, which would be a much larger machine.
I am curious to see what arrives tomorrow however!
Somehow we went from rumors of an Apple TV-like footprint to the footprint of 3 current models stacked on top of each other.
(1) - That would be for the Mn-series Mac mini, unless Apple goes nuts and makes the Keyboard Mac the new Mn-series Mac mini...!
(2) - More like 2 3/4 or so...?
(3) - There is no three...!
For a single M1 Max, $3K might be doable, and that would be my sweet spot as well, unless the dual M1 Max is decently priced.More ssd would be nice too, but 1TB would be okay.
I’m currently waiting (4months!? now) for my 16” M1Max 10/32 64RAM 2TB (4.200€ Deal).
Very keen on a dual SoC Max although my current needs are well serviced by current specs and Would go for desktop setup (mobility not essential as used to be).
But I suspect price will not be attractive considering “just” 500 US$ Discount for “losing” wonderful MBP display😔. If it’s around 1k US$, then I’ll probably flip. Headless+Display combo would allow for “easier on my wallet” future updates. If there’s no All Black edition, Just keep Space Gray and NO white bezels.😉
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One does not limit the other.... I mean there's no reason to make it look ugly.
It can be both performing and good-looking.
"Studio" kinda screams "storage" since most kinds of editing involves lots of assets in large libraries.
Could this be a little "cluster" in a box? Basically a big heat sink with a big slow fan and a couple of slots where you just drop in your Apple Silicon "cards" depending on your needs like RAM sticks and the OS manages it all, utilising the storage and compute power as needed?
A card with the lower tier M1, 256 GB storage, 7 GPU cores, 4 GB RAM and 2 thunderbolts is not a lot on its own, but when you just interconnect 4 of them via thunderbolt, you'd have
1 TB of storage
16 GB of RAM
plenty of GPU and ML cores
4 thunderbolts to drive proper displays, external storage or whatever.
Sell the cards at 600 bucks a pop and over-charge for adapters, VESA mounts, etc.
Could this be a little "cluster" in a box? Basically a big heat sink with a big slow fan and a couple of slots where you just drop in your Apple Silicon "cards" depending on your needs like RAM sticks and the OS manages it all, utilising the storage and compute power as needed?
A card with the lower tier M1, 256 GB storage, 7 GPU cores, 4 GB RAM and 2 thunderbolts is not a lot on its own, but when you just interconnect 4 of them via thunderbolt, you'd have
1 TB of storage
16 GB of RAM
plenty of GPU and ML cores
4 thunderbolts to drive proper displays, external storage or whatever.
Sell the cards at 600 bucks a pop and over-charge for adapters, VESA mounts, etc.
Doubt this is real...if you have Mac Pro 2013, you would know that the bottom vents (like the proposed Mac mini Pro from this youtuber) collects a lot of dust. Doubt Apple would go with a cooling design like it again.
Looks quite big and thick. Hope it has many ports and not priced too high.
Why does everybody keep talking about Apple products and lower price in the same sentence? Not meaning to sound mean or snide, but, when in the entire history of Apple have their products been in the lower price range. In the 80's the original Macintosh 512 was almost $4k, Macintosh IIfx made from '90 to '92 was priced between $9k and $11k. In '91 I bought a used IIcx in Sam Ash music for $3995. At work we got our 2010 MacPro's.....maxed out RAM/GPU/CPU for >$10k.
I can't imagine that Apple will ever have a product for sale in the "lower" price range....imho 😐
I think the chances of this panning out are fairly low, but it'd be awesome. You could also add cards as needed, and they could come out with more capable cards (M2, M3) eventually.
There were some very scary connectors from those days. Some with coax and other exotic connectors. Then the old huge square connectors too. Those were the days. Seemed you paid by the pound for some of those cables. I still had some of the old style Cisco router cables around. I still have a 232 breakout box around. Used it for industrial automation stuff in the end. History...
Our first ethernet connection was between a new machine (a Pyramid 90x) and our old server (a DEC MicroVax), and it was "thick ethernet", where the cable resembled garden hose and you attached transceivers like vampires, with a needle piercing through the insulation into the conductor (you probably know all this but the kids around here won't) - and OMG, it was so much faster than serial connections between the machines. Yeah, somewhere I have a breakout box and a set of cables I used to carry - male and female db9's and db25's that were modular (had RJ45 jacks on the back) along with several lengths of flat RJ45 cables (straight-thru and reversed) - I could piece together a cable to connect any two RS232 devices to each other.
I remember those. Never worked with them though. I worked at a place with thin-net, and a Cabletron repeater. I was always replacing connectors it seemed. I usually had a terminator in my pocket. An earlier job used twinax, and that was a PITA. On a string, or hunk of cable, you could do some damage with one of those t-connectors. Terminators were just epic in over-design. People used to make intricate designs with extra thin-net t's. I still have a box of Amphenol crimp-on connector ends. Frightening. AND Amp RJ8 ends and the dies too. I got pretty quick at custom patch cables for all of it. One thing I never did was token-ring. Don't think I missed much. I was glad to not run into much AUI stuff.
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Yeah, my Trash Can collects a lot of dust....just sitting on a desk.
Do you think Apple will no longer offer 1.5 TB of RAM in the Mac Pro once it gets Apple Silicon? Or do you think there will be a mix environment? Unified memory and standard memory?
I really don't see the need for expandable internal storage these days with the ungodly named USB 3.1 Gen 2 (I think that is the current one???) and Tunderbolt. I have external NVME drives that get about 2 GB/s speeds. I really don't need anything faster than that.
How is SoftRAID? Is there anything better since they have a DIY option? I want to get a device like this, but not that all familiar with SoftRAID or any better alternatives it might support.
Good old thin-net bus topology. And terminators connected to the T-connector at the end of the chain. Memories I'd hoped to have purged from my mind forever, but it was all good fun back in the day. It was faster than PhoneNet, and more affordable than buying an ethernet hub or token ring controller.
As for today's potential announcements: even a Mac mini with an M1 Pro would be something I could deploy pretty widely, let alone the possibility of a dual M1 Max config.