Apple Silicon Mac Pro Configurations: Everything We Know

[Klapper.cz]

I believe the current M2 Max rumor is up to 12 CPU cores (not 10) and up to 38 GPU cores (not 32), so Ultra/Extreme most likely should multiply that.
Personally I'd expect it to be consistent with M2 family staying at 5nm - when you add few cores and better A15 tech (more for GPU, just slightly more for CPU), you don't spend the 3rd possible way of better performance/efficiency (going to 3nm) at the same time after just one year, you come with 3nm in the next M3 line.

 

[Mr.Blacky]

"Apple Silicon Mac Pro Configurations: Everything We Know"​

1. There will be different configurations of powerful M-chips in Mac Pro

THE END

Edit: Oh, and of course memory and storage to.

 

[jvlfilms]

I am excited for this to come out so I can finally pick up a 7,1 at a decent price

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Given the Studio, the market for these must be miniscule to the point of not being worth it for Apple. Unless it has some unique feature pros like.

 

[RalfTheDog]

I'll say what I always say here on these... We KNOW nothing, because nothing has been announced. The title to the article should be "What we guess..."

If you read the article, it was based on what Apple has done in the past, and on it's previous announcements. We do know about the M1 Ultra and Extreme. We do know about Apple's announcements about the new Pro. We can use what we do know to be the basis of speculation.

I know it is unlikely but I still somehow have hope Apple will surprise us with a way to upgrade memory and add different GPUs to the Mac Pro.

The main question for me is: how will Apple position a new AS Mac Pro in the market, if not for expandability?
A new Mac Pro must have some extra feature over the Mac Studio. They could probably just put the same chips as described here in an upgraded Mac Studio 2, and hopefully they will.
But they need to put a reason on the table to ask these premium prices for the Mac Pro.

With the Studio already delivering extreme power, expandability is the only add on I can think for the Mac Pro. Maybe they will do something for extra RAM upgrades similar to the MPX module they did for GPUs…

Unified memory?
I wonder if the new Mac Pro will be designed to last 4 years like the rest of Apple's lineup.

I don't think Apple can get away from unified memory anytime soon. Having RAM on the same chip as the memory controller and the CPUs/GPUs provides an insane boost to speed. The best they could do would be to have fast RAM, expandable slow RAM, then storage.


The biggest thing they could do with the Pro is have lots and lots of GPU cores. The second most important thing would be lots and lots of storage. After that, it's all about I/O. I would not be shocked to see the new boxes covered in Thunderbolt ports. I can't see any way of including PCI-e without drastically reducing performance. I can't see Apple selling a Mac Pro that is slower than a low end Studio.

 

[cocky jeremy]

If you read the article, it was based on what Apple has done in the past, and on it's previous announcements. We do know about the M1 Ultra and Extreme. We do know about Apple's announcements about the new Pro. We can use what we do know to be the basis of speculation.



I don't think Apple can get away from unified memory anytime soon. Having RAM on the same chip as the memory controller and the CPUs/GPUs provides an insane boost to speed. The best they could do would be to have fast RAM, expandable slow RAM, then storage.


The biggest thing they could do with the Pro is have lots and lots of GPU cores. The second most important thing would be lots and lots of storage. After that, it's all about I/O. I would not be shocked to see the new boxes covered in Thunderbolt ports. I can't see any way of including PCI-e without drastically reducing performance. I can't see Apple selling a Mac Pro that is slower than a low end Studio.

But it's still just speculation. Nothing is 100% known. Like you said, it's just a guess based on the past. We got the same "What we know" articles about how we "know" the Apple Watch 7 will have flat edges and we all know how that turned out.

 

[0134168]

The question is: will have PCIe slots?

 

[MysticCow]

But only because you choose to use obsolete hardware running OS's that are no longer supported, with no new apps available.
Presumably because that arrangement still meets your needs.
Which is of course absolutely fine, but not relevant.
I could use that argument to justify gaming on a Nintendo 64.
Meanwhile in the real world, the PS5 exists.

I can tell you this much about my older hardware:

1. A G3 iMac serves as my Word station, either under OS 9 (Office 2001) or 10.4 (Office 2004 and an older iWork since PowerPoint was not good compared to Keynote then). Office 2004 to me is the single best iteration of Office ever made, so getting a chance to use it is a joy.

2. The G4 tower serves a similar purpose but adds stuff like old Tropico and Sims 1, which I still enjoy playing.

3. The mini runs Windows 10 almost exclusively, not the macOS. 10.13 is inferior in every way to Win 10 as of now. So I run a modern OS on the mini.

Things are only useless when they are decided to be useless.

Curious Post Script—The other G3 iMac is likely going to be used as a recipe holder. Meaning Word, AppleWorks, or WordPerfect 3.5e.

 

[jwdsail]

I hope Apple is not going to charge us $699.00 for the Apple Mac Pro Wheels kit.

Of course not, don't be silly!

They'll rise the price to $769.00, and they'll be color matched to either the standard silver case or the optional space gray case, of course.

 

[deconstruct60]

The M2 chip delivers an 18 percent faster CPU, a 35 percent more powerful GPU, a 40 percent faster Neural Engine, and 50 percent more memory bandwidth compared to the M1 chip. A similar performance delta between the M1 Ultra and M2 Ultra seems likely.

Not likely on all of that. Only the plain M1 was coupled to LPDDR4 RAM. The M1 Pro/Max/Ultra all had LPDDR5 from the start.

"...
The company divulges that they’ve doubled up on the memory bus for the M1 Pro compared to the M1, moving from a 128-bit LPDDR4X interface to a new much wider and faster 256-bit LPDDR5 interface, promising system bandwidth of up to 200GB/s. We don’t know if that figure is exact or rounded, but an LPDDR5-6400 interface of that width would achieve 204.8GB/s. ... "
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1701...m1-max-giant-new-socs-with-allout-performance

Part of the M1 -> M2 transition is just playing 'catch up' to where the Pro/Max have already been. M2 probably isn't going to see a large leap. Memory availability at prices Apple wanted to pay probably played a role in the M1 generation that continues into the M2 generation. Apple probably had a LPDDR5 capable memory controller in the M1 but went with the more available LPDDR4 for the very high volume Mac systems.

Even if handwave massive quantities of 'affordable' LPDDR5x into the M2 Pro/Max the 5-5X transition is only a 33% jump if can find stuff with the absolute maximum clocks that work in Apple's semi-custom, high die access concurrent memory packages. ( there are thermal issues to work out. A 25% increase as opposed to 50% would not be surprising; if Apple can find enough supply at their price point. )


There probably will be improvements but tightly coupling them to the M1->M2 transition that had different bandwidth changes probably is not good expectation management. If there is no 50% boost in memory bandwidth then there are limits to how much quicker the CPU and GPU core can go.

 

[CarAnalogy]

To me the most interesting question is whether and to what extent it will support graphics cards and peripheral cards in general.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Of course not, don't be silly!

They'll rise the price to $769.00, and they'll be color matched to either the standard silver case or the optional space gray case, of course.

Or you can opt for the feet for just $199.

 

[ralph_sws]

You know ….. NOTHING

 

[hovscorpion12]

Judging by the ”Specs” there’s no huge leap from Mac Studio to Mac Pro. The M1 Ultra fully spec’d out compared to the extreme seems to be minimum.

 

[jwdsail]

You know ….. NOTHING

...

Jon Snow!

 

[Realityck]

I'll say what I always say here on these... We KNOW nothing, because nothing has been announced. The title to the article should be "What we guess..."

It seems the less we know the more the article is entitled "The more we know".

 

[crsh1976]

I wonder what kind of add-on accelerator modules will be available for their ARM platform, if any.

Elements that should be out are the multiple GPU/MPX options, which free up a lot of room in the case - if Apple is moving to an all-integrated design for this model too. Even with the 4x "Extreme" configuration, which will need a hefty heatsink (using the Studio as reference, it's essentially a heatsink and a power supply, the rest takes up almost no room at all).

So Extreme SoC+RAM+storage, what else can they throw in there to make it pro-er than the Studio?

 

[DrEGPU]

It'll be interesting to really know how much RAM will be available. Some types of work benefit from more RAM. I use multiple GPU's and have 320GB of VRAM. I could definitely use more!

 

[Mr.Blacky]

Unified memory?
I wonder if the new Mac Pro will be designed to last 4 years like the rest of Apple's lineup.

4 years? How come my first generation 12,9" iPad Pro still works flawlessly?

 

[Moonjumper]

Judging by the ”Specs” there’s no huge leap from Mac Studio to Mac Pro. The M1 Ultra fully spec’d out compared to the extreme seems to be minimum.

It will be interesting to see what a Mac Pro offers over a Mac Studio. RAM and GPU upgrades seem unlikely due to the Apple Silicon format. Multiple SSD slots, more I/O, and much higher spec cooling seem appropriate. I'm not sure if we'll see any more than that. That alone is enough to make them beasts, but maybe not suited to a lot of existing customers.

 

[ruka.snow]

I wonder what kind of add-on accelerator modules will be available for their ARM platform, if any.

Elements that should be out are the multiple GPU/MPX options, which free up a lot of room in the case - if Apple is moving to an all-integrated design for this model too. Even with the 4x "Extreme" configuration, which will need a hefty heatsink (using the Studio as reference, it's essentially a heatsink and a power supply, the rest takes up almost no room at all).

So Extreme SoC+RAM+storage, what else can they throw in there to make it pro-er than the Studio?

Each MPX slot takes a M2 Extreme board with its own RAM, CPU cores, and GPU cores then it all just magically works together is what I imagine. I can’t imagine Apple putting out dedicated cards when they believe all the component parts should scale together so a big box of compute blades seems the most logical and Apple way of doing things.

 

[SymeonArgyrus]

I think it is likely we'll see an Ultra/Extreme (or whatever they call the next step up) combination, along with updated PCIE/MPX module space. This is that prestige product that keeps some very needy pro users happy, so the rest of us can pretend shuffling spreadsheets and PDFs makes us 'Pros', too. I think Apple 'got' that again, after the 2013 'pro' debacle. I hope.

 

[Feek]

Everything We Know

Know?

How do we know this?

Or is it all just guesswork?

 

[TECK]

Where is the Intel Mac Pro that Tim Cook said they'd release?

I'm looking to upgrade to a Mac Pro Intel 2022, I really hope Apple will not drop the ball. From what I see, the new marketing approach is to sell computers that you cannot use more then 2-3 years without upgrade. I have my 5,1 since 2012.

 

[bradman83]

To me the most interesting question is whether and to what extent it will support graphics cards and peripheral cards in general.

ASi Macs can already support peripheral cards via a Thunderbolt external enclosure. Many of them work just fine, it's a question of whether there are compatible drivers that support Apple silicon architecture. Indeed if you plug in an eGPU into an Apple silicon Mac it will be recognized, there are just no drivers to run it (likely because the manufacturer doesn't have ARM reference drivers for Apple to base the macOS drivers on).

Hopefully the Mac Pro will have internal PCIe implementation and lots of available lanes. The biggest limitation to an external Thunderbolt enclosure are that it's limited to the 4 lanes Thunderbolt provides whereas an internal solution can have a proper 16 lanes.