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jdphoto

macrumors 6502
Jan 13, 2014
323
119
Because Apple Silicon is not designed to interface with an external GPU. It is optimized to have CPU and GPU cores and memory all tied directly together on the same package with high-speed interconnects to provide strong performance with exceptional power savings at low thermal loads.

Apple has been filing patents that imply they are looking at interconnects to off-package GPUs, but if they ever bring such to market, it will almost certainly be to Apple GPUs, not nVidia or AMD.
Agreed, and Apple isn't alone in this endeavor; they're actually early. AMD is doing this on the datacenter side with their MI300 that is due out later this year. Nvidia is doing this with their GH200 chip launching soon. Intel is behind in this endeavor but they are working on it (article does a good job of covering the server landscape in this regard also).

I'm not surprised that Apple is ditching external GPUs and DIMM based memory. I do think the reason we didn't see a Mac Pro with the M1 Ultra was because an M2 Extreme was planned. Would have made some sense, use the M1 generation to flush things out and at M2 scale things up one more time. Apparently they couldn't pull it off.

What DOES surprise me to some degree is that Apple is not pumping more power (literal power) into the chip in the Mac Pro. Yes it will move them beyond the chip's optimal perf-per-watt sweet spot but workstation folks generally aren't too conscious of that, and Intel/AMD/Nvidia definitely let their chips/cards boost up well into the "insane power consumption for ultimate performance" range. Apple could have added a toggle in the OS to allow Mac Pro's only (for cooling reasons) , "extreme mode" or similar, that let the cores clock up higher to get some more performance. A tower the size of the Mac Pro has room for the cooling dissipation.
 

canadianreader

macrumors 65816
Sep 24, 2014
1,200
3,267
Has Apple not heard of this magical thing called AI (/s)? Right now available libraries for ML rely heavily on GPU power, NVIDIA tensor cores. The libraries that do make use of Apple technologies do so in sub-optimal ways - either because Apple has not provided the right hooks (GitHub issues pointing to lack of support in Apple frameworks) or because industry is heavily using Tensor cores. Sure, Apple's chipsets may be very powerful, but they are limited by what Apple provides at the framework level.
I agree, for most robust self hosted AI calculations you need 24gb to 32gb dedicated GPUs. I don't see companies buying a mac pro for that, it can't compete.
 

CookItOff

macrumors member
Jun 11, 2023
93
334
The idea that Apple one day might have something to compete with RTX6000/8000 workstation cards or even A100 found in the Nvidia DGX stations is officially wishful thinking now.
Seems like Apple on its Gen 2 GPUs are already getting close. And this is with and application where having RT cores are a big advantage (Blender), which Apple Silicon GPUs don't have, yet (M3?). Kinda crazy what these iGPUs from Apple are pulling off in only Gen 2.

Screenshot 2023-06-11 at 11.36.18 AM.png
 

StupidOpinion

macrumors 6502
May 14, 2021
406
836
a discrete GPU pretty much kills the benefit of the integrated apple silicon chip in the first place. there certainly would be more latency if upgradable RAM and GPU were a thing. i think the biggest issue with the Mac Pro for professionals was that their relationship with intel ended when intel was still stuck on 14nm. if apple still wanted one last go with intel and had a sapphire rapids update, professionals would be very pleased.
 

blazerunner

Suspended
Nov 16, 2020
1,081
3,998
The new Mac Pro is basically meant for some YouTuber that "creates content" shooting in 8K Red RAW.
This is what I don't understand; every time I watch a review on YouTube about almost literally anything, it's always about how it benefits 'content creators' (aka, YouTube douchebags) with their Adobe Premiere / Apple Final Cut work flow.

Since when did the only thing a computer was to be used for and measured on solely for video editors? WTF.
 

CWallace

macrumors G5
Aug 17, 2007
12,496
11,494
Seattle, WA
They could have at least put the SoC on a swappable card. The Mac Pro is essentially a Studio + external PCIe enclosures in a single box. So let people keep the case + PCIe slots by making the SoC replaceable for the next generation Ultra.

That would have added even more cost and complexity. So now it's $9999 instead of $6999 and the howling on this forum would be even more deafening.

My $25,000 1986 HP Vector RS25C had a "processor card" that plugged into the system board and had a 25MHz 80386, a 25MHz 80387 math coprocessor, an external Intel L2 cache controller with 32KB of external L2 cache and 16 DIMM slots (that could take 1MB DIMMs).

HP never released an upgrade card with an 80486, much less the Pentium or Pentium Pro. Part of that was probably because the motherboard only had ISA and the 80486 offered the VESA local bus or PCI so it made more sense to buy a new 80486 with VLB/PCI. I was able to stretch my machine a bit by putting in a Cyrix Cx486DLC, but eventually it was time to retire it for a dedicated 80486DX machine with PCI.
 

Longplays

Suspended
May 30, 2023
1,308
1,158
If only Apple was successful with a M2 Extreme we'd be talking about:

- how anemic 384GB unified memory is
- how amazing the 415W CPU max power consumption is relative to its raw performance
- how expensive the base model is at $10,999
- how physically huge the SoC is that it cannot fit in a Mac Studio
- why in 2023 does it not have Ray Tracing cores

M2 Extreme unbinned would likely have this spec

ChipsM2 Extreme
CPU48-Core
High-performance32x
High-efficiency16x
GPU152-Core
Neural Engine64-Core
Transistors268 billion
Max unified memory384GB
Memory bandwidth1.6TB/s
 
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canadianreader

macrumors 65816
Sep 24, 2014
1,200
3,267
"Fundamentally, we've built our architecture around this shared memory model and that optimization, and so it's not entirely clear to me how you'd bring in another GPU and do so in a way that is optimized for our systems," Ternus told Gruber. "It hasn't been a direction that we wanted to pursue."
I don't know if the above statement is technically correct because Intel chips have an iGPU component with shared memory but once you add a GPU and change some settings in the BIOS the PC will use the dedicated graphics card.
 

CWallace

macrumors G5
Aug 17, 2007
12,496
11,494
Seattle, WA
Since when did the only thing a computer was to be used for and measured on solely for video editors? WTF.

In terms of enterprise customers (the ones who buy Mac Pros not in single units, but by the pallet), I expect video editing in Final Cut Pro is one of the main uses alongside audio editing using Logic Pro.

Apple's dependence on Intel's architecture is what allowed the Mac Pro from 2006-2023 to be a "general purpose" workstation because those are the CPUs Intel made and they were designed to be used with an external GPU since Xeons (generally) do not come with an iGPU.

But now that Apple controls their own architecture, they are emphasizing the things that are important to them, not the general market. And one of those is integrating the CPU, GPU and RAM into a single package.
 

threesixty360

macrumors 6502a
May 2, 2007
723
1,413
Too busy drinking their own kool-aid to care what real pros want.

The new Mac Pro is basically meant for some YouTuber that "creates content" shooting in 8K Red RAW.
My gawd.. it’s so obvious. They CANT do it. Apple Silicon works because it’s everything on the same chip. There is an ultra short path for data between the GPU, memory and other components that speed up the same designs if they were separated from the main CPU like on traditional systems.

The chips are also designed for all their machines, mobile or desktop. So you’re working on lowest common denominator,I.e. the iPhone isn’t going to use PCI graphics cards so why engineer something that will slow down every other use case just to deal
With a few thousand Mac Pro use cases?
It would be madness.

I think they’ve made their choice in architecture to support the full apple line up rather than some niche use cases. People have been given years to work out what they need to do, stay on the apple Silicon train or go to PC. Apple will not be catering for these niche use cases anymore.

And that’s their philosophy, it’s as much about what you say no to than what you say yes to.

The thing they really go wrong maybe is to make M series SOC’s swappable. So you could upgrade when M3 came out with better graphics. To me, without that Mac Pro is just a waste of time for 99% of people.

Also, without drivers for these PCI cards how are people going to use them on a mac anyway? How many companies are making apple Silicon drivers for their PCI cards? It’s going to be an ultra niche market place.

Mac Pro as a long term, best mac you can buy for most people has been dead for a while.
 

rpmurray

macrumors 68020
Feb 21, 2017
2,148
4,328
Back End of Beyond
Apple needs a reason to sell you a new rev of the Mac Pro every 1 to 2 years. So, next years model will likely max out at 256 GBd of RAM, then 384 the year after, 512 GBs, 640 GBs, 1024 GBs then… you get where this is going.
There will be no "next year" model. Maybe in six or seven years, but that's looking even more unlikely considering Apple has all but abandoned the Pro market.
 

blazerunner

Suspended
Nov 16, 2020
1,081
3,998
I hate Windows and have switched to Mac completely. But if I were in the market for a new PC and wanted to spend that kind of money, believe me... it would be something else. At that range, I want complete control over my investment, not proprietary nonsense.
You'd get way better performance for that kind of money too... waaaaaay better. AMD's threadripper CPUs are amazing value for high end users.
 
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CWallace

macrumors G5
Aug 17, 2007
12,496
11,494
Seattle, WA
There will be no "next year" model. Maybe in six or seven years, but that's looking even more unlikely considering Apple has all but abandoned the Pro market.

I think Apple could very well update the Mac Pro on a similar cadence to the Mac Studio and that might be one of the reasons they effectively re-purposed the 2019 model, including using the same 1000+ watt power supply for an SoC that probably draws 100 watts.
 
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singhs.apps

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2016
659
397
Seems like Apple on its Gen 2 GPUs are already getting close. And this is with and application where having RT cores are a big advantage (Blender), which Apple Silicon GPUs don't have, yet (M3?). Kinda crazy what these iGPUs from Apple are pulling off in only Gen 2.

View attachment 2216621
Yes. Apple is getting close … to a 4/5 year old GPU.

The Titan RTX beats the M2 ultra in this benchmark.
 

Longplays

Suspended
May 30, 2023
1,308
1,158
There will be no "next year" model. Maybe in six or seven years, but that's looking even more unlikely considering Apple has all but abandoned the Pro market.

M3 Ultra is likely to come out in Q1 2025 in a 2025 Mac Studio & 2025 Mac Pro.

I see little reason why Apple would not refresh both Macs desktops at the same time.

So you are correct that isn't a next year model but within 19-22 months from today.
 
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CookItOff

macrumors member
Jun 11, 2023
93
334
Yes. Apple is getting close … to a 4/5 year old GPU.

The Titan RTX beats the M2 ultra in this benchmark.
Just the fact that the M2 Ultra is beating any Nvidia card with "RTX" attached to the name in an Raytracing application is crazy. The reason I highlighted the A100 is for the comment I replied to. There are other modern RTX cards that the M2 Ultra is beating.
 
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