Apple May Not Launch Updated Mac Studio With M2 Ultra Chip Due to Similarity With Upcoming Mac Pro

[sam_dean]

Nothing that apple produces will equal the performance of a dedicated GPU. The M1/2 chips aren't even close to a high-end discrete GPU card.

Remove the ability to use real GPU's, and you lose a big chunk of the benefit of using a pro. Add in (which we know) the loss of memory expandability, and that's another chunk. The only thing that's really left is expandable internal storage (and TB4 makes that marginal for a lot of the use cases), and niche PCIe cards for very specific purposes.

That doesn't make for a very big market. Apple's painted themselves in a corner on this. Their chip architecture is amazing for 'canned' computers, but for high-end pro equipment, the design itself creates serious constraints (unless they surprise us all with a socketed machine where you can add multiple Mx chips after purchase).

Look at the power input of comparable Nvidia GPU to the whole system power requirement of a Mac Studio M1 Ultra. That Mac SKU does not use more than 215W. The benched Nvidia chip uses more than that.

Wait for the Mac Pro with all the PCIe expansion slots you want with a M2 Extreme chips (two M2 Ultra chips) and you will be amazed what ~415W system can do vs a >400W NVidia GPU can do!

 

[sam_dean]

Totally agree with these 2 statements.

There is no way you can get Nvidia's levels of performance on the GPU if it is integrated and shares memory with the CPU. It has to be dedicated and suck up huge amounts of power and produce heat.

I disagree it can be done on an SoC when Apple releases the M2 Extreme (four M1 Max SoC).

A Mac Pro with one would by default suck up <415W peak system power outperform any existing Nvidia dGPU part whose TDP is >415W.

 

[sam_dean]

They've ALREADY put the M2 Max chip in the Macbook Pro. It's not like this is some speculative future chipset- it's already being sold. Why in the world would they not just plop it immediately in the Mac Studio as well? There's gotta be a lot of folks holding off buying a Mac Studio JUST because they're hoping for the M2 upgrade of the Max version.

Supply constraints and quarter profit results.

Apple's share price was negatively impacted last quarter as they did not release any new Macs back then.

A video of the 2023 MBP 14"/16" and Mac mini was indicated to be released in Q4 2022.

Odds are China COVID lockdown impacted supply of parts of those 2023 Macs.

Would not be surprised if Mac Studio should have been refreshed last month rather than before WWDC 2023.

 

[anshuvorty]

I disagree it can be done on an SoC when Apple releases the M2 Extreme (four M1 Max SoC).

A Mac Pro with one would by default suck up <415W peak system power outperform any existing Nvidia dGPU part whose TDP is >415W.

I won't be so sure. But we are debating about hypothetical products. So, we can't prove each other wrong with facts at this time.

Let's wait for that Mac Pro to come out and then we can compare the GPU performance.

 

[sam_dean]

I won't be so sure. But we are debating about hypothetical products. So, we can't prove each other wrong with facts at this time.

Let's wait for that Mac Pro to come out and then we can compare the GPU performance.

I am 100% certain about the power consumption of all SKUs. Release of said SoC SKU is highly speculative.

 

[anshuvorty]

Look at the power input of comparable Nvidia GPU to the whole system power requirement of a Mac Studio M1 Ultra. That Mac SKU does not use more than 215W. The benched Nvidia chip uses more than that.

Yeah, but does that Mac Studio M1 Ultra have the GPU performance similar to the Nvidia GPU it competes against? I don't think so.

 

[sam_dean]

Yeah, but does that Mac Studio M1 Ultra have the GPU performance similar to the Nvidia GPU it competes against? I don't think so.

Apple specified RTX 3090 that they have similar performance numbers.

M2 Ultra may have similar results with this year's RTX equivalent.

 

[meboy]

I disagree it can be done on an SoC when Apple releases the M2 Extreme (four M1 Max SoC).

A Mac Pro with one would by default suck up <415W peak system power outperform any existing Nvidia dGPU part whose TDP is >415W.

We've already seen what that style with a dual chip can do with the M1 Ultra and it was nothing special at all.
The software clearly must not be optomized.
Going to take more than gluing 4 of them together.

 

[sam_dean]

We've already seen what that style with a dual chip can do with the M1 Ultra and it was nothing special at all.
The software clearly must not be optomized.
Going to take more than gluing 4 of them together.

Quantify with links?

Those chips are fabbed together. They aren't glued.

When there are imperfections detected they cut em up to be binned.

Any Ultra chip is the ideal outcome of any fab production.

To my understanding Apple did it this way rather than having two chips connected via logic board so that macOS would treat the Ultra as one physical chip hence a near zero reducing of performance.

 

[HDFan]

Gurman's usual guesswork, nothing more.

86.5% accuracy is quite a bit better than guesswork.

Source Leaderboard - AppleTrack

Top Apple Sources in 2022 # Name Accuracy 1 🐟 Ross Young 92.9% 2 🏀 Mark Gurman 86.5% 3 📉 Trendforce 84.5% 4 🎧 52audio 83.3% 5 🕘 9to5Mac 82.8% 6 ❓ MacRumors 72.7% 7 🇨🇳 China Times 72.7% 8 👨‍💻 Ming-Chi Kuo 72.5% 9 🧻 Jon Prosser 69.1% 10 🍍 Max Weinbach 69% 11 […]

appletrack.com

 

[Detnator]

$2k premium is for expandability. The ability to put in PCIe expansion cards.

I'd buy the Mac Studio for it's industrial design. It's a pretty fly looking Mac.

I wish a year 2002 version of it came out more than 2 decades ago. I'd buy that over a Power Mac which had PCI slots that I never used.

Power Mac G4 Cube. 😊

 

[Detnator]

One of the promises of moving to Apple Silicon was REGULAR updates…yet another new pro computer that might be a one off…this is a terrible decision if true.

iMac staying on M1…no updates to the studio…death of the 27” iMac. No design changes to the mini nor colors on anything except the iMac (and the Midnight/Starlight of the Air, which didn’t come to the pros).

Apple Silicon is great, but as usual with Apple, the product line gets confusing and befuddled when they just don’t update things.

I think the “no design changes to the mini” has a lot to do with multiple large companies like MacStadium that have invested millions in custom rack mounts for floors and floors of rows and rows of Mac minis. It would be very expensive for them to have to change that, and for what? Why does the Mac mini need a design change?

 

[sam_dean]

Power Mac G4 Cube. 😊

Cube failed probably for these reasons

- performance was not at par or better than a tower at a lower price point
- SFF PC was not a popular concept in 2000

Cheapest current Mac Pro with PCIe expansion slots starts at $6k.

Most expensive base SKU Mac Studio without PCIe expansion slots starts at $4k

Value of the PCIe expansion slot is $2k without performance improvements.

 

[sam_dean]

I think the “no design changes to the mini” has a lot to do with multiple large companies like MacStadium that have invested millions in custom rack mounts for floors and floors of rows and rows of Mac minis. It would be very expensive for them to have to change that, and for what? Why does the Mac mini need a design change?

It's akin to changing rackmounts ISO standard.

 

[theluggage]

There’s no measurable performance gain to the soldered RAM and SSD.

Agree on the SSD - doesn’t run fast enough for longer leads and sockets to be an issue, evidenced by the Studio and the Mac Pro both having removable/replaceable modules. Even though Apple don’t allow upgrades that’s most likely a firmware issue.

Not true for the RAM though - unless you don’t think speed vs. power & heat counts as “performance” - since the (low power) LPDDR RAM has to be soldered close to the CPU and isn’t available in DIMM form.

 

[duck apple]

The 2023 Mac mini M2 Pro has a very similar raw performance benchmark result of a 2022 Mac Studio M1 Max..

No way!

My Mac Studio Max has 64GB of RAM and 32 cores GPU for memory intensive tasks and much more faster for those benefited from GPU power.

I actually regrets not getting the Ultra model: 10 core CPU with 64G RAM is not enough for even a single heavy duty VM.

 

[StuAff]

86.5% accuracy is quite a bit better than guesswork.

Source Leaderboard - AppleTrack

Top Apple Sources in 2022 # Name Accuracy 1 🐟 Ross Young 92.9% 2 🏀 Mark Gurman 86.5% 3 📉 Trendforce 84.5% 4 🎧 52audio 83.3% 5 🕘 9to5Mac 82.8% 6 ❓ MacRumors 72.7% 7 🇨🇳 China Times 72.7% 8 👨‍💻 Ming-Chi Kuo 72.5% 9 🧻 Jon Prosser 69.1% 10 🍍 Max Weinbach 69% 11 […]

appletrack.com

With regards to the Mac Pro Gurman, like Kuo et al, is guessing. Nothing more.

 

[sam_dean]

No way!

My Mac Studio Max has 64GB of RAM and 32 cores GPU for memory intensive tasks and much more faster for those benefited from GPU power.

I actually regrets not getting the Ultra model: 10 core CPU with 64G RAM is not enough for even a single heavy duty VM.

That's a very good reason why this rumor's bogus.

It will kill the sales of the $2k Mac Studio.

I know the M2 series of chips were up clocked so they have slightly worse power consumption with their performance cores compounded by the extra cores it comes with.

It appears that the 1st generation of any Mac chip on a new node will have performance per watt.

2nd generation will be more about raw performance.

So next year's 3nm M3 series chips will provide for a meaningful boost in performance per watt.

 

[HDFan]

With regards to the Mac Pro Gurman, like Kuo et al, is guessing. Nothing more.

You can't get those high accuracy numbers by just guessing. They use a lot of sources, such as suppliers, to make their predictions. They get some things wrong, but some of that can be attributed to Apple changing its plan. We'll just see how accurate his "guesses" are when the new machine is released. I expect, as in the past, he will be very close in his prediction.

 

[StuAff]

You can't get those high accuracy numbers by just guessing. They use a lot of sources, such as suppliers, to make their predictions. They get some things wrong, but some of that can be attributed to Apple changing its plan. We'll just see how accurate his "guesses" are when the new machine is released. I expect, as in the past, he will be very close in his prediction.

Yes, only time will tell. However, the Mac Pro is a far lower-volume product, and the number of potential sources of accurate information is far reduced- most of the people who know aren't going to tell the likes of Gurman or Kuo anything, because they cannot or will not or both. Accurate predictions about what a future MP will consist of have been far less likely. Gurman correctly got a 'smaller Mac Pro' model (the Studio), but the revised Intel model he predicted at the same time did not appear.
2019: no one got it right, AFAIK.
2013: Again, no one got it right. Kuo didn't even mention the Mac Pro in his predicted roadmap https://www.macrumors.com/2013/01/1...nes-retina-ipad-mini-all-retina-macbook-pros/

 

[dysamoria]

Huh, laissez-faire hypercapitalism sounds just like regular capitalism. Where companies make things/provide services that folks either buy or don’t. I guess hands on capitalism would be the government telling companies what to make and what to charge for it? Has that ever been tried?

You could look up term. You could also allow for there to be more nuance to things than merely “all or nothing”.

Edit: You’re also missing the core point: companies won’t produce what people want. Companies produce what they want people to buy. This means: They target one or two of the greatest profit configurations of products, and ignore anything else, forcing buyers into extremely limited choices (often a lower-priced option is configured specifically to drive buyers to the higher-priced option, something we see Apple do continuously with their configuration options, made worse by eliminating the possibility of after-sales upgrades, and no, I’m not going to argue about goals of engineering vs marketing here).

Profitable products that aren’t “profitable enough” for Wall Street pathology aren’t being maintained regularly enough to stay relevant and cost-effective for buyers, or they aren’t offered at all.

I’m not sure it’s worth my time to try to explain the nuance here, especially when this has all been discussed on this forum before by multiple people.

Look up “the illusion of choice” while you’re reading about laissez-faire capitalism.

 

[andrewdon]

Can someone please tell me what the point of an Apple Silicon Mac Pro would be seeings as it would be fundamentally incompatible with any and all 3rd party GPU/PCI cards?

It made sense when Apple was running x86 had RAM slots and a functional relationship with Nvidea, but in 2023 A Mac Pro makes about as much sense as a chocolate frying pan.

 

[CosmoCopus]

Apple is so wishy-washy with some of their products.

 

[CosmoCopus]

but in 2023 A Mac Pro makes about as much sense as tits on a man.

Well according to many that’s the norm now so maybe there will be a new Mac Pro. Apple transitions to non upgradable Mac Pro... Lol

 

[johnsc3]

Instead of one m2 ultra- stick two in there - and assign that “processor” it a different letter and make it exclusively for the MacPro.