Apple Silicon Mac Pro Reportedly Not Coming at WWDC, Mac Studio Refresh Likely Delayed Until M3

[257Loner]

A very interesting "what if" video for the mac pro:

Jeff Geerling's test of Ampere processors was impressive, but even he admitted that the best x86-64 workstation processors are still faster than the arm64 Ampere processor he was testing. If Apple made an Ampere-like processor to power the next Mac Pro, what would Apple have to advertise about the next Mac Pro beside it being second, third, or fourth best?

 

[corinthos]

ain't nobody gonna buy no $10K+ Mac Pro in 2023 recession, especially if they aren't gonna make it as upgradable and also especially considering how a newer generation Macbook Pro wipes the floor with it in video editing! Congratulations, you just played yourself by paying an ultra premium paperweight!

 

[corinthos]

Or… that the rumor mill overpromises.

Apple has never revealed their actual plans for the products and features.

at least Apple has the courage to overpromise and underdeliver! but we think you're gonna love it!

 

[theorist9]

Just release an Intel 13900k Mac Pro and call it a day. That CPU runs circles around anything and everything Apple has to offer. Jesus christ, it's NOT that hard. A company worth 3 trillion dollars cant sell a good computer? That's embarrassing.

Apple could beat both the SC and MC performance of the 13900K, with less power consumption and thus less heat and noise, by offering the MacPro with an M2 Ultra upclocked to 4.2 GHz. The MacPro certainly has the thermals and power supply to handle it. It's just a matter of whether the M2 can be upclocked, and whether Apple wants to do it. There are rumors they've been experimenting with this.

Using GB6, and the 16" MBP M2 Max scores as starting point for the M2 Ultra extrapolations:

M2 Ultra Upclocked to 4.2 GHz:
SC: 2,734 * 4.2/3.66 ≈ 3,100
MC: 14,383 * 1.5 * 4.2/3.66 ≈ 25,000 (used 1.5x scaling for M2 Max -> Ultra, rather than 2x)

M2 Ultra Upclocked to 4.4 GHz:
SC: 2,734 * 4.4/3.66 ≈ 3,300
MC: 14,383 * 1.5 * 4.4/3.66 ≈ 26,000 (used 1.5x scaling for M2 Max -> Ultra, rather than 2x)

i9-13900K:
SC: 2,940
MC: 19,798

i9-13900KS:
SC: 3,073
MC: 21,477

So it's not CPU performance where Apple doesn't have an answer. It's GPU. Equalling the 4090 will be much more challenging for them.

 

[Hotshoe]

cool, I get too eek a little more value out of my now worthless 2019 Mac Pro. I am genuinely happy for new pro to be delayed, and my current machine performs well, but I won’t be able to resist upgrading one pro /w mac si arrived.

 

[loby]

I think they should do that anyway, but I am certain Apple is not actually concerned about one Mac eating the sales of another Mac... that is purely a stupid Mark Gurman hallucination. If Apple felt that way, they would only make one Macbook model, one iPhone model, and one iPad model, and nothing else.

True..but concerning Mac Pro, they could potentially loose “some sales” to Mac Studio for those on the fence..due to cost factors. Apple loves to trade up on price/purchasing power and not trade down. Apple would rather have buyers pay more for a Mac Pro than buy Mac Pro that only real options is just a modular want buy.

But there is also the philosophy that Apple (it seems) believes:

those who want Mac Studio will buy Mac Studio; those who want Mac Pro will buy Mac Pro - so purchase depends on want or need…

I kind of lean towards complications with modular silicone type of systems as the possible cause for the delays. Apple silicon gets it speeds and power from an all-in-one solution instead of a modular-type singulars all working together.

Apple may have run itself into a corner like Mac Pro 2013…

 

[DavidSchaub]

It's not clear that the whole MacPro concept really makes much sense at this point. We might all be better off if they just concentrated on the Mac Studio.

What's a Mac Pro for if it is just an Apple Studio with slots?

so many niche computer market:
- discrete PCIe GPUs for software acceleration, not video out (Maybe Apple's or third parties),
- high-speed network cards,
- storage controller cards,
- SSD cards,
- proprietary hardware controller boards,
- A/V capture boards,
- Additional I/O boards,
- etc...

Niche stuff, but it adds up to quite a set that is hard for the Mac Studio to compete with.

 

[DavidSchaub]

I need a computer with more than the 128gb of ram that the Mac Studio provides. I'm stuck buying a 2019 Mac Pro with a chip being phased out instead of utilizing an Apple Silicon chip which has tremendous speed and memory improvements. It makes sense, if they are still making 'pro' level computers with higher available ram amounts. Otherwise they should just bow out.

If Apple can get 4x M3 Max working and give us an M3 Quadra, I would expect it would support about 384 GB of RAM. Would that be enough? It would be for a LOT of Mac Pro buyers

 

[InuNacho]

Apple gives us TB4 throughput instead of a zillion different ports, and I approve. Dongles and docks are easy, but first one needs bandwidth.

Dongles and docks cost more money than having a port on the board.
A good Thunderbolt dock is $200+ and my own time playing with docks has been less than stellar. On two different ones hooked up to my Minis over the years have lead to drives not shutting down despite the Mini actually being off and the occasional disconnect.

Also did you know that on the Mini the USB ports are only 5v 900ma, the same spec as USB 2? I can't speak for other Mac desktops but this is 2023. On pretty much every Windows box the USB ports do 2A.
Doesn't sound like a problem? Most bus powered SSDs reach over 1A on their own under heavy read/writes.

Apple's insistance on external hardware is pretty lame to say the least.

 

[ratspg]

If Apple can get 4x M3 Max working and give us an M3 Quadra, I would expect it would support about 384 GB of RAM. Would that be enough? It would be for a LOT of Mac Pro buyers

It would help a lot! I’m currently using 384-512gb on the Mac Pro.

 

[svish]

Wonder when Apple Silicon Mac Pro will be finally available for ordering.

 

[Don Jose Luis Grijander]

Is apple do not develop something with IA soon is going to lose a big chunk of the creative market, now this new market is dominated by nvidia tools and you cannot install a nvidia card on those mac studios... so all creative people is going to go to windows where you can install a nvidia card. If they do not release a mac pro with PCI soon no one is going to develop IA software for the mac so they are going to be out of this market several years if they continue with this strategy and those people who bought this apple silicon would be on a trap.

 

[HVDynamo]

They made such a big deal with the 2019 Mac Pro about how they care about their most demanding pro customers and now it’s back to square one.

They need to either dedicate their efforts to it fully and not half-baked or just end the line. The lack of communication must not be pleasing to professionals.

Here's what I think happened...
- They realized that people actually wanted a Mac Pro that was actually an upgradable tower and decided to re-invest in that market segment due to the complaints from Pro's.
- Then they build a computer that prices out most Prosumers and consumers that just like that form factor thereby cutting the market in half or less.
- Now they decide to not bother as hard with that line of computers again.

Basically, they shot themselves in the foot with it. I wanted one. I didn't need one, but I wanted one. But with a starting price at an absurd $6,000 for an 8-core/32GBRAM/512GB storage computer. HARD PASS. That pricing was pathetic in when it launched, and even more-so now. They needed a starting price at $3000 if they wanted that computer to sell with ANY volume. If you wanted just a nice Pro Display XDR with a stand and a base Mac Pro, you'd be looking at $12,000. Ridiculous.

 

[cable]

The Apple silicon Mac Pro will not be among the new hardware announcements at WWDC 2023, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes.

Speaking on the latest episode of The MacRumors Show, Gurman explained that while he still expects the new Mac Pro to launch this year, it is unlikely to emerge at WWDC in June. This is a significant delay over when the machine was originally expected to launch.

He added that the next-generation Mac Studio will likely not contain M2-series chips, with Apple postponing a refresh of the device until the M3 generation to avoid cannibalizing the new Mac Pro.

Gurman also said that the new 15-inch MacBook Air, which will contain an M2 chip, was originally supposed to launch last year. This apparently means that the 13-inch MacBook Air could run on a separate chip upgrade cycle to the 15-inch model, with the smaller device potentially set to receive the M3 chip well before it comes to the larger model. How Apple plans to align the chip upgrade cycle of the two devices in the long term remains to be seen.

Following up on an earlier report, Gurman said that he now expects the "in-air typing" text input method to be present on Apple's mixed-reality headset when it launches, despite its "finicky" experience. He added that the device's two-hour battery life may be likely to remain through successive generations of the mixed-reality headset, much like how the two standard Apple Watch model sizes have had no battery life improvements since their announcement in 2014.

For more of Gurman's latest thoughts on Apple's upcoming hardware announcements, listen to the latest episode of The MacRumors Show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast player.

Article Link: Apple Silicon Mac Pro Reportedly Not Coming at WWDC, Mac Studio Refresh Likely Delayed Until M3

My only hope, and GOD I hope, they caught some of the early reactions for not having modular RAM and changed course. Please please have modular RAM in the new Mac Pro

 

[Realityck]

They needed a starting price at $3000 if they wanted that computer to sell with ANY volume. If you wanted just a nice Pro Display XDR with a stand and a base Mac Pro, you'd be looking at $12,000. Ridiculous.

Well if it wasn't for the pushing aesthetics it likely would easily have been half the price. When I first saw 2019 Mac Pro, I was thinking how much time it took to create that look in a machine shop.

 

[theorist9]

Mac Studio Pro. They could do that, but it would be far to sensible for them to tolerate.

If Apple can get 4x M3 Max working and give us an M3 Quadra, I would expect it would support about 384 GB of RAM. Would that be enough? It would be for a LOT of Mac Pro buyers

The Ultra uses 16 memory modules. When the M1 Ultra Studio was released, LPDDR5 was limited to 8 GB/module, giving a max of 128 GB. Now there are 12 GB modules (available in the M2 Air), which would max out an Ultra MacPro at 192 GB.

But if they're going to do a Mac Pro, they really should use LPDDR5x memory, which is currently available. The 16 LPDDR5x modules used in the NVIDA Grace CPU (originally slated for release 1H 2023, now pushed back to 2H 2023) provide 960 GB of ECC RAM, so that configuration is potentially available to an M2 Ultra Mac Pro. At the very least, if they went with LPDDR5x, I'd expect them to offer 16 GB modules, which would give 256 GB RAM.

 

[freedomlinux]

No. Then it would be a janky hackintosh experience and not an Apple experience. It will never happen, but you're free to do it right now if you don't care about x86 MacOS support ending soon.

But what if it didn't have to be a janky Hackintosh experience? If something like this existed (which I think is very unlikely anyway), presumably there could be some close vendor partnerships and certification.

Apple did have a similar program back in Mac OS 7 times, though I am not aware of how good compatibility was. One of the major issues would be that officially supporting macOS on third-party systems means a huge variety more hardware combinations to support.

 

[DavidSchaub]

The Ultra uses 16 memory modules. When the M1 Ultra Studio was released, LPDDR5 was limited to 8 GB/module, giving a max of 128 GB. Now there are 12 GB modules (available in the M2 Air), which would max out an Ultra MacPro at 192 GB.

But if they're going to do a Mac Pro, they really should use LPDDR5x memory, which is currently available. The 16 LPDDR5x modules used in the NVIDA Grace CPU (originally slated for release 1H 2023, now pushed back to 2H 2023) provide 960 GB of ECC RAM, so that configuration is potentially available to an M2 Ultra Mac Pro. At the very least, if they went with LPDDR5x, I'd expect them to offer 16 GB modules, which would give 256 GB RAM.

The question is: whether the 4x M3 Max in the M3 Quadra (if Apple can get it to work and ship it) would support 32 memory modules (given the FOUR SoC dies on the package would have the bandwidth to do it... Hence 192 GB * 2 = 384 GB

If they actually can do MORE than that, all the better!

 

[DavidSchaub]

But what if it didn't have to be a janky Hackintosh experience? If something like this existed (which I think is very unlikely anyway), presumably there could be some close vendor partnerships and certification.

Apple did have a similar program back in Mac OS 7 times, though I am not aware of how good compatibility was. One of the major issues would be that officially supporting macOS on third-party systems means a huge variety more hardware combinations to support.

There is zero chance Apple will licence macOS to clones again.

If anything, I could imagine Apple doing the opposite first (still super unlikely): Selling Apple SoC for ARM Linux servers.

 

[JippaLippa]

It's perfect for me, as I was thinking to skip the M2 Ultra generation and update my M1 Ultra Mac Studio to the M3 Ultra.

The Mac studio has been great, and having been the first high end mac I was able to afford, it'll hold a special place in my heart.

The computer is plenty fast and I'm loving the 128GB of Ram (After Effects is very ram hungry), however the GPU is lacking, and I'd really like to see a 50% improvement.
I'm not expecting Nvidia Cuda levels of performance, but with the benefits of the 3nm process I hope we'll see a sizeable increase in GPU power.

Lots of software has been updated to run natively on apple silicon, now we just need a little more graphics power.

Oh and yes, I HATE the current mac studio having only an hdmi 2.0 port...
My display is 4k 120Hz capable, but for this stupid limitation I am limited to 60hz.
And I'd also like to have bluetooth 5.3.

 

[JippaLippa]

Just release an Intel 13900k Mac Pro and call it a day. That CPU runs circles around anything and everything Apple has to offer. Jesus christ, it's NOT that hard. A company worth 3 trillion dollars cant sell a good computer? That's embarrassing.

Pardon me, but if you feel that way about macs, may I ask why you're here?
Also what makes a computer decent is subjective.
Sure a windows computer can be much faster at a lower price, but the power consumption would be through the roof and I strongly prefer macOS.

Mind you I'm not dissing windows, which I have used all my life, surely more years than macOS.

 

[sunny5]

If Apple decided to delay Mac Studio with M2 Ultra just because of Mac Pro, then they clearly have no idea what they are doing. Mac Studio should NOT cannibalize Mac Pro and yet that's what they are thinking. Pathetic.

 

[senttoschool]

No way! We’re getting a MacBook Air 15” atleast. That will be a nice welcome change.

Using a one year old M2 SoC.

 

[urmaster]

AMD doesnt have all the instruction sets for Adobe apps...

Which instruction sets are these? I was only aware of AVX 512 which was implemented in zen 4. I don’t believe Adobe are using the newer instructions targeted at AI which are not yet available on consumer Intel CPUs.

 

[falkon-engine]

Why not just stuff an Epyc Genoa 96-core monster with an rdna3-based monster GPU with maybe an apple silicon accelerator for encoding and neural engines and other tasks and be done with it?

Why does the Mac Pro need to be apple silicon based if it doesn’t do memory expansion or pcie expansion properly?