Apple Silicon Mac Pro Configurations: Everything We Know

[chucker23n1]

I did tell you what a few differences are, but telling you those doesn’t help you if you don’t understand WHY Apple designed their Silicon that way. There are several good articles out there that describe how Apple Silicon’s GPU works, how it’s different and why you won’t see PCIe options (again, unless Apple makes big changes, which they’re free to do) that should help you with your “why’s”.

Display output at boot could be tricky, and maybe they'll skip that and say, "nope, you can only use third-party GPUs for non-primary displays". But other than that, I don't see why they can't do that. I'm not saying they will, but they probably could.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Display output at boot could be tricky, and maybe they'll skip that and say, "nope, you can only use third-party GPUs for non-primary displays". But other than that, I don't see why they can't do that. I'm not saying they will, but they probably could.

I think they “could” in the same way that they “could” bring back support for 32-bit instructions. The day Apple moves away from communicating “these are the processes you use and structures you build to support Apple GPU’s and only Apple GPU’s”, is when they “could”. If they did so, it would be at a WWDC (just like if they decided to bring back support for 32-bit apps). Until then, Apple Silicon supports neither 32-bit instructions nor Non-Apple GPU’s (external bus or otherwise). Well, at LEAST until next WWDC. 🙂

They could maintain this for 20 WWDC’s of Apple Silicon and, even at that time, COULD still decide otherwise. They COULD, also, announce native Apple II support. 🙂 “Could” is a powerful word!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I'm still wondering why Apple wouldn't include full pice busses in the future versions of m-chip?

Is there an explanation?

(Not just to lock out 3rd party solutions.)

Btw, doesn't TB-specs require carrying pciE links?
If m-chip's TB does not do this, can Apple still call those ports TB?

I believe they can carry PCIe links. As long as a vendor provides the drivers, I don’t think there would be much of a problem supporting audio, networking, storage, etc.

 

[chucker23n1]

I think they “could” in the same way that they “could” bring back support for 32-bit instructions.

The analogy isn't quite right, though. Both may be "on the way out", but 32-bit is at this point inarguably inferior; third-party GPUs are not.

The day Apple moves away from communicating “these are the processes you use and structures you build to support Apple GPU’s and only Apple GPU’s”, is when they “could”.

Right.

Until then, Apple Silicon supports neither 32-bit instructions nor Non-Apple GPU’s (external bus or otherwise). Well, at LEAST until next WWDC. 🙂

They could maintain this for 20 WWDC’s of Apple Silicon and, even at that time, COULD still decide otherwise. They COULD, also, announce native Apple II support. 🙂 “Could” is a powerful word!

You didn't have to be a dick about it, but you do you.

 

[toke lahti]

Lets see when Intel announces, that it doesn't support 3rd party gpus in its new chips...

 

[rebl]

I dont know if this has been discussed already:

Why would Apple make a machine with the exact same SoC (M2 Ultra) as the Mac Studio? And why would anyone buy a Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra if the Mac Studio also has it?

There must be either something special about the Mac Pro that we dont know about yet or the rumors are wrong and they dont put an M2 Ultra into it. Otherwise I just expect a "Mac Studio Pro" that has dark grey color and the M2 Extreme in it.

Personally I am hoping Apple is showing some incredible chips that are not within the M series and are meant only for maximum processing power and not for electricity power efficiency at all (comparable to what Nvidia is doing with their top-tier Geforce series)

 

[cupcakes2000]

Personally I am hoping Apple is showing some incredible chips that are not within the M series and are meant only for maximum processing power and not for electricity power efficiency at all (comparable to what Nvidia is doing with their top-tier Geforce series)

I’m half expecting this too. Either this or some kind of incredible modularity which enables vertical stacking of m* ultra/extreme as and when you wish to upgrade. Want to buy a Mac Pro with 2x m2 whatever soc today, but in 5 years time pull out them out and add 6x m* units instead. Entirely modular, entirely upgradable.

 

[Boil]

Why would Apple make a machine with the exact same SoC (M2 Ultra) as the Mac Studio?

Because not everyone has the budget for a M2 Extreme equipped ASi Mac Pro...

And why would anyone buy a Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra if the Mac Studio also has it?

Because the ASi Mac Pro will also have PCIe slots...

There must be either something special about the Mac Pro that we dont know about yet or the rumors are wrong and they dont put an M2 Ultra into it. Otherwise I just expect a "Mac Studio Pro" that has dark grey color and the M2 Extreme in it.

Watch a breakdown video of the M1 Ultra Mac Studio, then explain how a SoC that is literally twice as large would fit into the Mac Studio chassis (more about the much larger cooling hardware than the SoC itself); not to mention the six PCIe slots that are highly rumored to be included with the ASi Mac Pro...

Personally I am hoping Apple is showing some incredible chips that are not within the M series and are meant only for maximum processing power and not for electricity power efficiency at all (comparable to what Nvidia is doing with their top-tier Geforce series)

M2 Ultra / Extreme SoCs (N3/N3E) should be pretty sweet, but the "real" ASi Mac Pro SoCs should come a few years down the road, built on the N3X process...

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Why would Apple make a machine with the exact same SoC (M2 Ultra) as the Mac Studio? And why would anyone buy a Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra if the Mac Studio also has it?

Because, it would potentially have expansion options not available with the Mac Studio? For anyone with a current system that isn’t an M2 Ultra, it would still be the fastest Mac they could buy. And, if it offered support for their internal audio, networking, storage, then it would be the fastest Mac they could buy WITH the options they require.

 

[chucker23n1]

I dont know if this has been discussed already:

Why would Apple make a machine with the exact same SoC (M2 Ultra) as the Mac Studio? And why would anyone buy a Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra if the Mac Studio also has it?

The Mac Pro will likely have 1) the Ultra as the low end rather than the high end, with something higher-end as another config (just like the Studio has the Max as the low end and the MBP has it as the high end), and 2) some more internal expansion options. Possibly PCIe slots, possibly RAM slots.

Personally I am hoping Apple is showing some incredible chips that are not within the M series and are meant only for maximum processing power and not for electricity power efficiency at all (comparable to what Nvidia is doing with their top-tier Geforce series)

I really doubt that, for economic reasons. The M1, Pro, Max, Ultra all use the same cores as the A14 (and the M2 as the A15), just at a higher clock and with additional capabilities (such as Thunderbolt) on the SoC.

They could go the route of e.g. Intel Xeon and add more instructions (such as more SIMD stuff), but given the above, I don't think they will. I think the cores themselves will be the same; we'll simply get more of them. Maybe the SoC has more capabilities (newer memory controller, say).

Most likely scenario: it's basically two M2 Ultras. Double the core count (p, e, GPU, NE), double the memory controllers, and therefore also double the memory bandwidth (which mostly only benefits the GPU, alas).

 

[phrehdd]

I would like to see a variation of the M layout that include some processing that would arbitrate external items such as video and audio along with, as others have mentioned, storage (SSD likely). This would be akin to controllers on board that are dedicated.

 

[toke lahti]

I'm not sure what TB now means to macs.
It used to be "external" pciE-lanes, that you could attach pciE-devices even without internal pciE-slots.

Now, with AS, dGPU is disabled via TB aka via "external" pciE.
Is there even more limitations now?

If there isn't, then if AS-MP will be the same than Studio, but pciE-devices that you would attach to Studio "externally", you can attach to AS-MP "internally", what is the difference other than some aestethics that you need only one box instead of two?

Limitations of using TB as pciE might be just branching. Like with newer low end mbp's, which can handle only one external display. If you could just add eGPU and 2-4 displays to that, that limitation would be meaningless.

To me, the clever way to configure new MP, would be expandability. Same way that you have had a multiple levels of cpu cache in the past (L1, L2, L3, etc.), you could have multiple levels of RAM and other things like storage.
Apple could have brought Fusion Drive (fast expensive small ssd + slow cheap large ssd) to modern macs a long time ago, since it had already developed it a long time ago.
Instead Apple chose to sell world's fastest ssd to millions of users to hold their photos and music, which would be fine with 1% of the current mac's ssd speeds. And beacuse of that fast ssd is so expensive, many people buy a new mac a whole lot sooner, when they need more storage. Or buy more iCloud. Good business.