Look who’s in charge of max product marketing. Seems to have changed at the manager, director & vp levels far too often the last few years.
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Apple May Not Launch Updated Mac Studio With M2 Ultra Chip Due to Similarity With Upcoming Mac Pro
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Apologies but I think that's naive in the extreme. They look at what could be done and then compromise in order to have people buy the same device at an elevated price point. Examples: Mac mini M1 - reduced number of ports. M2 - you need to buy the top end model to get 4 Thunderbolt ports. Apple know full well that many people would just buy the cheaper model if it had the same I/O as the expensive models. 2nd example: Apple Studio Display - height adjustment £400 in the UK. 3rd example - Drop the iMac 27" so customers will buy the Studio AND the Studio Display. Need I go on?
I think you're absolutely correct that they will target Pro users to visit the Apple campus - why would they do anything else?
At the end of the day I think it's important to know we're all players in a game and it's a game of benefits and compromises. I like my Apple kit but I'm under no illusions about the features are provided or missing until I buy the next model that could already have included them!
It's now very common in X86 (especially AMD) to provide external PCIe host port consisted of 8 or more lanes for hot plugging PCIe ssd, NVMe blades, and PCIe switch that adds hundred of lanes flexibly divided into ports consisted of different lane count.
This PCIe based storage solution doesn't need any special driver and is way more better than Thunderbolt or USB-4 in terms of performance and cost. In fact, TB3/4 (plus TB3 NVMe enclosure) can't realize 1/2 performance of even the slowest PCIe SSD and NVMe blade, not to mention those 5GB/s beasts.
So, at least on M series desktop, absence of external PCIe port will be more and more unacceptable.
TB4/USB-4 is no competition to direct PCIe in bandwidth and lanes aggregation.
Putting a top end 5GB/s NVMe blade into a TB4 NVMe enclosure and connecting to any Mac is a waste of money.
If you bought based configured Mac except MacPro, you'll never be able to expand storage performed 1/4 of internal NVMe. It's a shame.
Totally absurd.
You are going to need two sets of CPU, chip set, RAM, and bus slots.
This is no different from one Mac and one PC box.
What portion of 2019 Mac Pro users do this?
TB5 80Gbps may address 40Gbps' shortcomings.
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5120 x 1440 in 49"? What a joke!
I'll stick with my 27" 5K iMac used by Mac Studio as an extended display and easily switch to universal control to actually work on it with a single set keyboard/trackpad.
Wouldnt saturating the PCIe bus with SSD data traffic not leave much bandwidth for other parts such as the dGPU?
Even a lower-end consumer Pc system typically has at least 20 lanes of direct CPU connected PCIe on gen 4 or even 5 standards. That’s typically 16 for the GPU and 4 lanes for NVMe.
A “Pro level” or HEDT tower these days will usually support like 128 lanes.
So, no, there’s not a bandwidth issue. even a dozen NVMe drives each saturating 4 lanes each leaves the vast majority of the PCIe lanes open for everything from a Wi-Fi card to thunderbolt ports to multiple GPUs and more.
That is a rant and I think you just are setting the bar at things that you like and then discounting things that millions of other people like, buy and use. While the Macs were revolutionary with their optical interface, then the iPod was revolutionary, and then the iPhone was revolutionary. I also think the iPad was revolutionary. I think the Apple Watch was revolutionary, And I think AirPods were revolutionary. I've used all these devices (the first generation version of them). These things were great and Apple continues to make a market leading version of each of them (well maybe not the music player since the phone ate its market). And just because a tablet existed in some form factor prior to the iPad, that doesn't mean the iPad wasn't amazing when it came out. The truly wireless AirPods were game changers to me when they came out. And the Apple Watch was also amazing and completely blew away the functionality of the market leading wearable of its time (which was the Fitbit that counted your steps).While I like the new chips overall, I would have to disagree with revolutionary. The new SoC chips only created competition (which is good) and now Intel and AMD are catching up and exceeding Apple--so not revolutionary. SoC has it's thermal limits regardless of efficiency, and for Pros, we want options. Apple has also artificially limited its' system in so many ways also stifling possibilities and 3rd party innovation.
"New" is part of "innovation" and I am referring to actually new functionality and purpose. Look at Apple's history--it was different back then. Other start-ups are actually inventing--even larger companies are doing better. Examples are in the fields of VR, AR, 3D printing, AI, robotics, and other things that could actually improve lives. Looking back at Apple's financial bandwidth when they invented revolutionary computers, music devices, and the iPhone, that was incredible! Imagine if they actually used their billions (trillions?) to invent actual new things instead of just bumping up the next iPad or Macbook Pro. What are they doing anyway?? Apple Car, Apple AR, Apple AI devices have all been resurrected and crushed. Why? Because someone says they won't sell. Money, not innovation is what drives them now. I am a traditional Apple fan and I hope they eventually go back to their roots.
Apple, can you at least make one computer that gives US the option to innovate (2019 Mac Pro almost worked)? I still think my 2010-12 Mac Pro is the pinnacle of their computing--full upgradeability with tons of options for addons. Please.
Rant over.
All of my statements are accurate, I use apple products daily. Heck, I am a multi decade stock owner with many thousands of shares. Yet, I call apple for what it is. I see the computer industry and what is happening, and apple is on a path that looks to be very wrong with people that make decisions for purchasing professionals equipment for business. The move to intel was a huge leap that afforded them a second look by many businesses. They were adopting open standards making developers give them a second look. They have effectively undone all of this advantage. Everything is back to proprietary and exclusively standards for development. The home market is limited and when people start finding programs that run on windows exclusively because developers will not port their apps or redevelop software to apple's graphic frameworks, that's a HUGE problem. They can only ride out the fruit ninja style games and tap based photo touch-up apps for so long. Adobe apps are getting worse on apple platforms and it is turning to 1995 adobe is better on PC all over again. I hold no bias. I am worried they are really botching things up with all these drastic changes and unproven proprietary architectures. It is a company losing touch with the computing community and professionals that have been using their product for over 3 decades, like myself. They should have kept standard pc ideology in their pro line of products. perhaps they will surprise us with the Mac Pro. but so far.. it is all grossly overpriced, look cool at Starbucks, nonsense. It's a bicycle for your mind, not an accessory. They serve a generation of iPhone/tiktok users now, not professionals. The last Mac Pro was so promising, but the cost greed just made it embarrassing.
You have to remember that apple at it's core is/was a professional computer company. It is guys like us that kept them afloat. We are the die hards that used the machines professionally even though windows was leading the way to a new era of computing mid 90's. MacOS revived the professional side of Mac and restored its validity as a professional machine. These AirPods and watch markets are not the apple that many of us know or care about. We see an entire legacy of computing being destroyed by apple and it is reminiscent of the 90's again. That's all... If apple can survive on tiktok making consumers and heartbeat monitoring OCD crowds, that's cool. The iPhone is without a doubt revolutionary. I love it. But the price increases and overly complicated product line is literally in the realm of obnoxious now. I don't want 6+ options for iPhones. I want this year model (or last) with the only option being storage size. Anyhow. It is a weird company now with so much proprietary architecture and bad relationships with third party PC component manufacturers (for good reasons, some), if something bad happens internally or they can't keep up their performance with the rest of the industry, that is going to be a very bad thing. Jobs always had the ace in the pocket with moving away from PowerPC to intel. What is the ace in the pocket now. They went in house and they will look like clowns if they find out they can't develop processors or GPU's that keep up with the big boys. Right now they are very much behind with GPU performance. Not saying it is horrible, but it is not anywhere near the speed options you can get on PC's. I am giving them the benefit of the doubt they have plans to increase performance in new interesting ways. It is a new processor after all. But right now, I see Intel with Meteor Lake, Nvidia crushing the GPU performance market and upcoming PCIe and DDR standards being a serious threat to apples performance gain in the next couple years.
You’re also missing the core point being made: companies don’t produce what people want. They produce what they want people to buy. I’m not sure it’s worth my time to try to explain the nuance here.
“They’re buying it anyway” because clearly something is desired over nothing at all. I’m not sure this justifies manipulating markets for optimal profitability while limiting said markets and poorly serving customers.This has never not been the case, though. There’s nothing more special about Apple not making a specific computer than there is a company in the 1920’s that makes milk buckets only making the sizes THEY want people to buy. All companies, and individuals for that matter, producing products that they want others to buy… by default… are producing what they want people to buy.
It’s likely not.
How did it work on Mac systems with DOS-compatible systems installed into expansion slots back in the 90s?
The key word there is "was".
They nearly went bust in the late 90s and what "kept them afloat" was a range of really nice laptops, the consumer-oriented iMac and a portable music player. What made them the mega corp they are today is the iPhone.
In the 80s/early 90s Apple more or less invented the "affordable" (that is, affordable c.f. Sun workstations, Quantel paintboxes etc.) pro media PC workstation market because Macs were technically capable of doing things that IBM's souped-up, pseudo-32-bit CP/M box. That's no longer true, and something like the 2019 Mac Pro is no more powerful than a good Xeon/Threadripper workstation (because it is using exactly the same chips) - and you can get easily get a PC workstation that is better tailored to your needs because there is a vast choice of components and plenty of specialist PC builders that will assemble a bespoke system. The only way the 2019 Mac Pro makes sense is if you are locked in to particular software that is MacOS only and it would cost a fortune in lost productivity to switch to an alternative (although that alternativeprobably exists for Windows or Linux). For Apple, that is going to be a steadily shrinking pool of customers. Worse, it is going to be a shrinking pool of highly conservative customers who are going to have difficulty upgrading to the latest MacOS, let alone switching to a more radical new concept.
This is well said. The industry as. whole is just different obviously. Windows caught up. I suppose apple is just focussing on what makes it different now... The early 2000's was an era of people wanting to burn DVD, CD's and do something with their digital cameras and home movies.... hmmm. point taken.. The iPad/iPhone allows you to do all this on a single device now.
Sounds like you need a PC. So why don’t you buy one at a fraction of the price and give it a rest on these unsubstantiated tirades?having a pcie slot to add a card for firewire should be an option in any pro machine. professionals have hardware needs to swap and add. look at that music studio video the guy posted above. anyhow.. apple doesn't make professional PC's any more. they make glued together, highly production optimized profit machines with forced initial buy upgrades. I have swapped my video card 3 times in 10 years. Apple stopped supporting Nvidia cards and now I am stuck using a 6900XT which is NOT the best option available for 3D rendering in Redshift, but it is the the only option apple supports.
Generally they were complete computers on a card, complete with processor and RAM, but used the host system for display, I/O, storage etc. via special drivers that talked to the host.
The system I referred to a few posts back:
...wasn't a Mac, but a 1990s ARM-based system, and was an exception in that the x86 and ARM shared RAM - the "pc card" really was just a processor and an interface chip plugging into a specialised socket.
It's easier than ever to setup a Windows server that will integrate with your Macbook if you have the money to burn. You could go as far as printing a 3D case just to carry everything together.
But would it be worth it for the average user to set that up instead of having a professional solution?
In some benchmarks.
Real world tests show a Very different story for the Ultra's performance.
Yeah, I know the history of Apple. And just because they haven't delivered a new Mac Pro I don't think that means that Apple has at all forgotten or given up on being a computer company. But the big time pros that you talk about are a relatively small market. Again, I think this is one that Apple honestly wants to service. But I agree that it isn't clear if Apple's Silicon is really going to give them an advantage here. If they can't get there on the GPUs, then we see almost exactly the same failure as the Trash Can Mac Pro. So I do think Apple saw that as a misstep and they must have a plan to not make the same mistake. We just don't know what that plan is yet. So I'm with you that we should give them the benefit of the doubt until the Mac Pro is released. The Mac Studio is an amazing computer (and then the mini and laptops are even more amazing compared to other laptops). But a desktop that starts at $1,999 is not intended to go head to head with the type of PCs that you are talking about. They have a Mac Pro coming and that is the only computer they make that should be compared to the types of PCs you are talking about. So we wait.
why are you so angry? your comment literally verifies my point that apple has stopped being a true professional computer computer. I need to go elsewhere now? hmmm.
Apple could invest a truckload of money in developing a new ARM ISA CPU with huge PCIe and RAM capacity in direct competition with Xeon, AMD (and possibly Amazon et. al. who already have server/high-density-computing-grade ARM chips that are closer to what is needed than Apple Silicon), that could support AMDs latest and greatest GPUs, but the resulting GPU power would be no better than any other PC system stuffed with the same GPUs. So they'd have to invest another truckload of money trying to develop a proprietary GPU that could beat AMD and NVIDIA.... and then recoup that investment from their smallest-selling Mac when their competitors have far larger established markets... and to keep the market for that smallest-selling Mac they'd have to make their whizzy new GPU perform well on legacy software that was optimised for AMD GPUs which limits the extent to which they could do anything radical.
Compare that with the M2 Pro/Max range (presumably to be joined by a M2 ultra at some stage) which scales nicely from a 14" Mac Pro to a Mac Studio Ultra using just one basic die design - and while it doesn't have the GPU to match AMD's latest, what it does do is pretty much perfect for the ultra-portable laptops that are Apple's bread and butter - especially when paired with Apple Silicon-optimised software - giving them a substantial boost over what Intel/AMD can do in a comparable form-factor.
The Trashcan was a noble effort at producing a media creation "appliance" that could hit above its weight when using software that was optimised for using dual GPUs and maybe open up new markets. I think the 3 fundamental mistakes were:
- letting the former Mac Pro PCIe tower get too out of date and then discontinuing it, so the trashcan had to serve as a replacement for something that it wasn't.
- depending on Intel and AMD producing future chips that would work with the thermal design.
- a few years down the line, trying to replace it with the iMac Pro all in one (YMMV - but I suspect that is what actually happened, with the whole mea culpa news conference kicking off just when they'd have been showing iMac Pro prototypes to key customers/developers).
I think Apple's best bet would be to keep the Intel Mac Pro on life support for a few years - maybe a CPU bump if/when Intel offer something better - as well as putting the last Intel-compatible version of MacOS into long-term support (it's not like Pro users with hard-to-change workflows are begging for annual OS upgrades). That leaves them free to "think different" about how the existing Apple Silicon range could scale to some radical new approach to high-end workstations - probably via some clustering system based on M2 Ultra "compute modules" linked by Thunderbolt - without trying to pretend it could be a like-for-like replacement for a traditional tower.
Worst thing they could do would be to kludge together some parody of a tower workstation using M2 tech especially while annoying people by not bumping the Studio to M2. Better to openly sideline the Mac Pro, take the hit, and focus on what Apple Silicon was good at rather than drawing attention to what it wasn't suitable for.
I'm not sure if I understand.
If you consider things solely from a performance perspective (the focus of the Mac Pro), Intel has always been offering something better than the 2019 Mac Pro.
For example, the Intel Core i9 13900 is almost 50% faster than the Intel Xeon W 3.2 GHz, which is the base CPU of the 2019 Mac Pro.
Do you get what we are talking about? A freaking $700 CPU is around 50% faster than a 5-year-old server CPU!
And it is more power efficient to boot, spending only 125W TDP as opposed to 205W!
If that's not a huge deal, I don't know what is.
But suppose you NEED server features, such as ECC memory and very large amounts of RAM available.
If you have money to burn, you can go instead with an AMD EPYC 9659, which is almost 14% faster single thread, and scores 70% faster in CPU Mark:
If you are still NOT satisfied, you can mix and match configurations to every point of your budget.