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

[Boil]

Per Gurman, Apple did make an SoC that used UltraFusion to bind four M1 MAX together. But it was so expensive it would likely have been a nearly five figure option so it would have cost more than the base M1 Ultra configuration (much like the M1 Ultra upgrade on the Mac Studio costs almost as much as the Mac Studio with an M1 MAX, 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD).

So yes, Apple could deliver a Mac Pro with an "Extreme" SoC, but you'd be paying at least $9999 for it with 128GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Then again, the current Intel Mac Pro will run you more than that for similar performance, so maybe it would have been a bargain.

So you are saying a quad Mn Max configuration would cost MORE than a dual Mn Max configuration?

Has anyone going on about how the Mn Extreme is too expensive even bothered to compare it to upgrades in the 7,1? It can go from a $6K entry price to a $55K fully-loaded price real quick!

I would think the real issue is that a quad Mn Max configuration could not provide the GPU performance Apple wanted?

 

[Serqetry]

Per Gurman, Apple did make an SoC that used UltraFusion to bind four M1 MAX together. But it was so expensive it would likely have been a nearly five figure option so it would have cost more than the base M1 Ultra configuration

And you actually believe that?

 

[CWallace]

If we're talking about the Mac Studio, need I trot out that embarrassing graph comparing the RTX 3090 and the M1 Ultra? Apple was comparing their new device to the PCs of that era. They were marketing it directly against their competitors, not specifically the Apple ecosystem, and came up short.

They were comparing power per watt performance and showing how an M1 Ultra needs a lot less power to provide much of the performance of a 3090. Sure, crank the 3090 up to its ~400 watt maximum and it's going to be faster, but until you start closing in on that maximum, the M1 can keep up at far lower power requirements.

And again, the people who care about NVIDIA GPU performance are people not running macOS and macOS applications because gaming and AI are not markets Apple is interested in macOS being in at the moment.

 

[CWallace]

And you actually believe that (Apple created an "M1 Extreme" SoC)?

I do.

We've had leaks of the four-way interposer needed to link four M1 MAX or two M1 ULTRA together and it seems clear Apple wanted the Mac Pro to have an SoC more powerful than just a single ULTRA otherwise they could have released it last year with the Studio or this year at WWDC.

 

[steve123]

"Specifics" from the top of my head: open Blender and do anything with raytraced low quality live preview window just like you'd do normally to model stuff in 3D with nvidia graphics. Try modelling something and see how it goes from there. Or try rendering a final animated piece. Also try using some native and 3rd party GPU heavy AE plugins such as echo/signal/tvpixel/time blend fx. Or custom template effects from AEJuice/ Motion Array. Or use stacks of blur / motion blur for 3D renders in After Effects. Or Element 3D plugin for AE with a lot of objects generated in an array. I can keep going. Stuff that chokes M silicon is still a pleasant, live preview experience on 4090 build. Tech youtubers doing these "stress tests" have no idea how to use the power they are testing, because they are not "pros" working in visual industry. The only thing they can do is some nonsense action applied to a stack of 100 photos with a stopwatch 🙂 Or just keep compressing 8k footage as if that's what pros do..

The only reason I didnt abandon Mac is because I love Mac OS / hate Windows. But I feel I'm being held hostage right now by Apple. It just would be nice to at least know what their plan is - will they pivot and deliver a real pro machine or do they want to put a Mac Studio in a bigger chasis. Cause if that's what going to happen I'm out and trying not to kill myself relying on Windows

It is taking time but Apple has sponsored work on Blender. Are you aware that there is a beta Metal option you can enable? The work is not finished and there are shortcomings but performance has been improved significantly and more improvements are in development.

Introducing the Blender Metal Viewport — Blender Developers Blog

Next to Metal-accelerated computing in Cycles, it is now possible to enjoy improved EEVEE viewport (and UI) performance as well.

code.blender.org

I cannot speak to the lack of development from Adobe but the state of their software is a result of decisions made by Adobe, not Apple. Adobe has chosen to not optimize their software so maybe the criticism of performance of their software should be directed to the visionaries at Adobe.

The strides Apple is making on the ANE front are significant. There has been a lot of progress with development of Pytorch and TensorFlow to optimize for ANE and more progress will come. I referenced the AI benchmark to illustrates an example of the potential of these optimizations. Certain AI problems already run faster on ANE than they do on nVIDIA. We will likely see more of this and we will need to be prepared for the reality that there will be some problems ANE is not as good at.

A bit of patience is necessary. It is a bit of catch 22 for Apple. They released the hardware before any of the foundational software was in place. So, it is taking time for that to catch up. They admitted as much at the beginning of the transition. The first two generations were for early adopters.

Apple said the Mac Pro is part of the AS transition and I believe them. Apple is going to deliver a real machine, it will based on modular compute engines and it will be M3. The work they did with the 2019 MP created the ground work for that and the CEO of TSMC confirmed the M3 Pro Max Ultra are in volume production during his earnings call on Apr 20. I am disappointed Apple has been distracted with crazy projects like ski goggles when they should have been focused on the halo product and completing the transition. It is what it is and I suppose and Tim will have a lot to answer for when the Board gets around to doing their job. I think the WWDC Keynote will deliver some news on this.

 

[Mr Rib]

I'm sure I'll care about ray tracing sometime in the next 5 years, but I'm in no rush. I'll certainly care more when games use full ray tracing instead of just hacking it in for light/shadows.

As for Nvidia, Apple hasn't supported them for ~15 years? Why even ask? The likelihood of it happening is somewhere less than 1% 🙂

But you're not a game developer. Or 3d modeller. Or anyone else for that matter from the realm of visual creation, judging by our little chat here (no hate, just my conclusion). I am talking about workstations for the aforementioned people, from the perspective of one of them - you may not care about ray tracing but what does it have to do with anything? Modellers do care about it. Mac Pro is supposed to be a workstation for "pro users", unless Apple changes it's definition / role in the lineup. And "pro" means many things, including people working in visual creation in the broad sense of the term.
Problem is, apart from dead obvious tests, M1 Ultra doesn't deliver for what one needs to pay to get one. Nor does M2 of course. "Then buy a PC" is not an anwser here, the anwser is: "Apple, do something about it". I don't want to quit Mac OS, I really enjoy using it.

 

[Mr Rib]

Would not all those devs developing on Windows, anyway, since said game would be using DirectX for their APIs?

nvidia game dev software is AI generative/procedural image/3D content creation - it's for artists, not for programmers. I mean, the tools I'm talking about - there are tools for programmers as well of course, but I was referring to the "visual" ones.

 

[Serqetry]

I do.

We've had leaks of the four-way interposer needed to link four M1 MAX or two M1 ULTRA together and it seems clear Apple wanted the Mac Pro to have an SoC more powerful than just a single ULTRA otherwise they could have released it last year with the Studio or this year at WWDC.

I was referring to the absurd Gurman fever dream about Apple trying it but failing after discovering it would be too expensive. Also I believe those leaks about how the connections worked were debunked. But it's still possible Apple is planning this, I just don't believe the details of the "too expensive" thing. Apple sells $1000 monitor stands and $700 wheels, I'm sure they could price it accordingly.

 

[Serqetry]

"Then buy a PC" is not an anwser here, the anwser is: "Apple, do something about it". I don't want to quit Mac OS, I really enjoy using it.

We'd all love for Apple to do something about the shortcomings of their GPUs, but they just don't seem to care. They still don't take gaming seriously. Part of it is due to developers not wanting to use Metal properly though.

I've come to accept it's useful to have a PC around for things Apple doesn't care about, but I use Linux. There's really not many reasons to put up with Windows anymore. 95% of what I do is on MacOS, the rest on Linux (mostly gaming, it runs Windows games great these days).

If Apple really is making a VR headset (I still don't believe it) and they plan to keep ignoring gaming, they're in for some real trouble.

 

[Mr Rib]

If Apple really is making a VR headset (I still don't believe it) and they plan to keep ignoring gaming, they're in for some real trouble.

Maybe they have a secret agreement with Meta to die together, plunging into the tech abyss 😉

 

[kyeblue]

Before your engineers figure out how M1/2/3 works with external video card and memory, is a CPU update on the current Mac Pro so difficult? What could you lose beside some bruising ego?

 

[Realityck]

If Apple really is making a VR headset (I still don't believe it) and they plan to keep ignoring gaming, they're in for some real trouble.

That does seem like a conflict of their current interest's. But if the right emphasis came along they might. The right game can make an amazing justification for a change in attitude. I just don't think anything VR gaming is at this level yet that Apple would use.

 

[257Loner]

well if they had an way to have say dual socket then they can share CPU design and don't really need to make an 1 chip monster chip.

I'd like to give credit to @Boil for quoting Johny Srouji saying that he disprefers that solution:

 

[257Loner]

My bad - M2 Pro memory is 5 times slower, M2 Max memory is "only" 3 times slower than 4090 series cards 😀 Let's not forget it still needs to efficiently manage and allocate the unified memory since, well, it's shared for everything - unlike VRAM in a graphic card which is sitting there empty waiting only for the GPU to kick in. Also that is only my guess but I doubt M silicon is using it's unified memory with 100% efficiency because that would mean all the software needs to be well optimised and coded. And if it's managed by the M silicon, queueing data access will introduce latency.

What does M1 Ultra performance have to do with anything? The absolute cheapest model of M1 Ultra is $4k currently.
$4k buys you a PC which SMOKES M1 Ultra in 3D / AI / Adobe creative suite applications (single core performance is the only important thing with Adobe - because they don't care and didnt optimise their software). The only thing it *might* be faster in is 4K/8K encoding.

All Apple can do when communicating with someone interested in high performance is lie by showing a misleading graph of how M1 outperforms a 3080 series card at low wattage, which has absolutely no meaning in real life. I have no idea who came up with that graph but it was soooo stupid...

M silicon is cool tech which freed Apple from other (sh*tty on their own terms) vendors such as intel and nvidia.
But the path they chose is not for prosumers. And it was a wise move - it's just a tiny niche market anyway, comparing to the buying potential of all other customers. The benefits of closed architecture vastly outweigh the cons. But they should have declared clearly there is no Mac Pro coming in foreseeable future - since they did declare its coming and didn't deliver. After they realised where the tech world is going (good job not noticing it sooner...), it was fair to announce something, even between the lines, what the future holds. Are we getting semi-open M silicon? Are we getting binned version of regular M silicon? Or maybe a dedicated, GPU-enhanced M silicon just for Pro model? I'm in the market for a Mac Pro, I dont know if I should be waiting or just give up. Considering they didn't deliver on their promise, they owe us at least a controlled leak of what's going on...

I agree. Apple's SoCs have worked well so far for:
iPhone
iPad
Apple Watch
EarPods
Apple TV
MacBook Air
MacBook Pro
iMac
Mac Mini

But when customers need the fastest processors that go in large desktop computers, SoCs have not been known to outperform dedicated processors. If a Mac Pro with an arm64 processor can't compete in this market segment, then it's harder to justify why Apple should sell one.

 

[HiVolt]

This is what I believe the Mac Pro debut at WWDC 2023 will be. I expect the sockets/slots will be for "compute modules" that incorporate one or more SoC's.

The only sucky part with that, is for people that need a lot of RAM will have to pay for the unnecessary (or less necessary) CPU & GPU upgrades to get those higher ram capacities, and same with the other way around.

But since when does Apple care about what the customer has to pay, lol... They just bend over and pay.

 

[Realityck]

The only sucky part with that, is for people that need a lot of RAM will have to pay for the unnecessary (or less necessary) CPU & GPU upgrades to get those higher ram capacities, and same with the other way around.

But since when does Apple care about what the customer has to pay, lol... They just bend over and pay.

Is this the old I want to buy third party RAM comparison? SoC with unified memory is a lot faster memory bandwidth.

 

[DavidSchaub]

But you're not a game developer. Or 3d modeller. Or anyone else for that matter from the realm of visual creation, judging by our little chat here (no hate, just my conclusion). I am talking about workstations for the aforementioned people, from the perspective of one of them - you may not care about ray tracing but what does it have to do with anything? Modellers do care about it. Mac Pro is supposed to be a workstation for "pro users", unless Apple changes it's definition / role in the lineup. And "pro" means many things, including people working in visual creation in the broad sense of the term.
Problem is, apart from dead obvious tests, M1 Ultra doesn't deliver for what one needs to pay to get one. Nor does M2 of course. "Then buy a PC" is not an anwser here, the anwser is: "Apple, do something about it". I don't want to quit Mac OS, I really enjoy using it.

That's easy. Apple has given up on those pro use cases. Best to move to Windows. Apple has written those markets off already. 😛

 

[HiVolt]

Is this the old I want to buy third party RAM comparison? SoC with unified memory is a lot faster memory bandwidth.

It's not for graphics memory. GDDR6X in high end GPU's blows the bandwidth of unified memory away.

 

[Ethosik]

No, you will not. Your analysis ignores the huge contribution of Apple's new Unified Memory Architecture (UMA), which changes everything. An M2 Mini tops out at 32 GB RAM, 200 GB/s memory bandwidth. The M2 MBP I just bought has 96 GB RAM at 400 GB/s memory bandwidth (that is 6x), and any Mac Pro will be more than that - - even without some new M3 MP architecture that I expect.

UMA is not magic. Much slower socketed RAM on my Windows systems (one of which is DDR4 and not 5) has better performance in many areas since it is paired with a 10th gen Intel and a 3080Ti GPU.

 

[Ethosik]

If you need RAID cards, 8k video cards, fiber, you've got way, way more options with PC, at lower prices. There are tons of prosumer motherboard choices that can support these slots for PCIe 3, 4 and now gen 5. And a lot of card choices too. Plus all the GPU choices, power supply options, multiple nvme 2.0 slots for tons of SSD storage, just a lot more flexibility than we'll ever see with a Mac Pro.

Compare this to the cheesegrater Mac Pros; it was a pain in the ass trying to do something even as simple as flash a new or replacement GPU in those things. You hoped and prayed the EFI ROMs would work with the Mac Pro mobo and then-current version of OSX. Also, there was a time the "Mac Pro compatible" GPUs with the right ROM were more expensive; also, no one wanted to waste time trying to flash sketchy firmware "patches" to get unapproved PC GPUs to work in Mac motherboards. And that's just the GPU, i.e. one of the simplest things to install. Imagine the headaches with more esoteric gear.

Just don't see a Mac Pro coming out that would offer lanes/support for all these cards and peripherals, let alone the firmware and software to work with M2 silicon. Sounds like a herculean task to develop an entire ecosystem where one simply does not exist.

And this is why macOS is as good as it can get. The currently software on macOS and support by devs will NOT get any better if the Mac Studio is the maxed Mac available. When an Intel i9 and NVIDIA 4090 puts it to shame. Don't expect any more developers to port over their Windows software to Mac any time soon.

 

[Serqetry]

And this is why macOS is as good as it can get. The currently software on macOS and support by devs will NOT get any better if the Mac Studio is the maxed Mac available. When an Intel i9 and NVIDIA 4090 puts it to shame. Don't expect any more developers to port over their Windows software to Mac any time soon.

Well fortunately it's pretty damn good then, because there's really nothing I need that doesn't run on MacOS besides games. I'm curious what Windows software is so great that it's a problem there isn't a MacOS version? It used to be a big problem but it's been years now since there was something I needed to run for any work that didn't have a Mac version. Apple laptops are extremely popular for productivity, and most developers seem to have figured that out finally.

I just want Apple to take gaming and graphics seriously so game developers will port their games to MacOS. The only thing I care about in a Mac Pro is GPU support, which would cover games as well as AI... but aside from that I want Apple to improve their integrated GPUs because expecting people to buy a Mac Pro to play games would be absurd.

 

[Realityck]

UMA is not magic. Much slower socketed RAM on my Windows systems (one of which is DDR4 and not 5) has better performance in many areas since it is paired with a 10th gen Intel and a 3080Ti GPU.

Interesting article from April 2022

M1 Ultra vs M1 Max: Twice as nice, but not always twice as fast

How the M1 Ultra in the Mac Studio impacts pro users' real-world workflows.

www.macworld.com

The Mac Studio M1 Ultra can sometimes double the performance of the M1 Max version, depending on your use case. The multi-core gains speak for themselves–the Ultra is the best of the M1 series. If you’re heavy into ProRes and video codecs such as H.265, having double the accelerators found in the Ultra will give you great performance gains. If you’re a photo editor, the almost identical single-core performance of both models will mean you’re better off with the cheaper version in terms of value. If you do need to do heavier photo work, however, the higher RAM limits of the Ultra can come in handy. Again, recognize what your workflow demands, and then pick accordingly.

There is one workflow situation where you might be better off not investing anything just yet. Professionals whose workflows rely heavily on GPU performance will find that the M1 Ultra with either the 48- or 64-core GPU will offer more brute force than the M1 Max. But those users should wait until Apple reveals its Mac Pro with Apple silicon to see how the company will address the GPU demands made by professionals in the field.

We haven't seen the AS Mac Pro yet as far as what gains something M2 Ultra or better provides and how it compares. It has me curious about what we will see this year? Since we are discussing similar comparisons. Also this was with Monterey.

 

[RandomTox]

Time to move back to x86 already?

Time to switch to PC? Hopefully not.

 

[lysingur]

Engineering is hard and Apple doesn't care if anyone gives them a pass?

A Quad M* Max package is a shockingly complicated engineering challenge. I assume that an UltraFusion PCIe bridge chip they might need is also really complicated.

The plan is the plan until it isn't the plan. Apple's "2 year plan" thing is marketing, as all public statements are. For a huge number of reasons that didn't happen. If people are making personal plans based on a company saying something is going to happen in 2 years, that isn't on the company.

What does "Get out of the way" even mean? You're welcome to give up on Apple, but hanging out on here talking about Apple is your choice, not Apple's. 🙂

Engineering is hard but not that hard. It's not like they're designing a whole new chip from the ground up.

You must know a lot about marketing because as we all know, it's the height of great marketing to fail to achieve the things that you tell your customers that you're going to achieve, in spectacular fashion, I might add. It doesn't even look like Apple will be able to get the ASi Mac Pro out this year. That means they will have missed their own deadline by an entire year! Great marketing indeed. 🙄

 

[AlexMaximus]

Dear Apple,

The Pro Community understands your struggle with the Mac Pro. We are used to it. Here is an idea, how you can mitigate the problem and soften the blow of your ongoing fumble:

Please release the AMD 7900XT driver to finally enable MP 7.1 users to use those updated GPUs.

Sincerely yours,

The controlled life cycle resistance (Your dwindling Pro Market share, … or what’s left of it)..

.. oh, and one more thing:

Please forward your MP development team this phrase for their internal, political enemy (the bean counters):

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”