Apple Silicon Mac Pro Said to Feature Same Design as 2019 Model, No User-Upgradable RAM

[Pezimak]

As suspected, it’s literally going to just be a bigger Mac Studio, and you’ll have a limit to the RAM based on the chips used. More so then with Intel and it’ll be Apples RAM pricing. I guess it’ll have some internal drive bays but I’m very doubtful it’ll offer any PCIE slots, I mean it sounds like it won’t support any GPU’s as that’s all built in.

Basically unless you ‘really’ need the extra power snd RAM ceiling night of the top end chip, get a Studio and save space. It’ll be just like the Trash Can all over again.

So Apples entire lineup of computers will be none user upgradable. The complete opposite of every PC that exists and Apple will be raking that cash in. Share holders on here must be happy with that surely?

 

[Steve121178]

The whole idea that you have to be a special kind of “ hollywood pro” to have the possibility upgrade your computer over time is so fcked up. Every male kid aged 8 to 15 that I know of have a gaming PC with that feature. Get a basic rig for 1200$ at first(i5,3060) , then save up for a new gpu down the line. Already with that basic starter kit, that kid have a more powerful computer for 3d work than 99.99% of the mac users, currently only a macpro with a 6800duo beats it. At 10x the price. It is so freaking provocative that Apple just can’t seem to release machines that are for enthusiasts and for the next gen creatives. When intel cpu/amd gpu was still the mac future, macs where never in such a horrible price disadvantage as now. Apple almost needs to provide a miracle to dig themselves out of this deep hole now. Can they? A sapphire rapids xeon with 7900 duos mpx modules would have been a great workstation and a imac 27” with intel i9 13000 combined with 6700xt would have been fine. Also those could have been expanded to use egpus. Almost in tears thinking of how ruined this is and for no good reason 🥲

Everyone I know with a Mac Pro ditched Apple and went the PC route & didn't look back It's almost like Apple doesn't want the "Pro" business which probably isn't too far from the truth. They would rather focus on releasing hilariously overpriced consumer Macs instead.

 

[wonderings]

This is what Apple misses with their Mac Pro machines. The ability to upgrade and be upgradeable based on what the user needs. Of course this is not good for business on Apple's end as they want to sell you everything rather than you being able to buy what you need at affordable prices elsewhere. Gotta love the Apple that cares so much about the user!

 

[Aggedor]

I guess it’ll have some internal drive bays but I’m very doubtful it’ll offer any PCIE slots, I mean it sounds like it won’t support any GPU’s as that’s all built in.

Yep, the whole point of Apple Silicon is that it's a system-on-a-chip, which means RAM and GPU are part of it. So limited expandability, but as someone else pointed out, the trade-off is that you get far superior performance by virtual of it all being a SOAC.

 

[Pezimak]

Question: is it possible to add an external GPU to the Mac Studio?

No, I believe they only work in an X86 environment, maybe someone will make one for the Mac but as its market would be tiny it’ll cost a fortune. As said drivers do not support the environment. Maybe when PC‘s all move over to ARM..?

 

[Pezimak]

Even in the Windows world, these are niche applications for a small number of customers. PCs are mainly built for gaming. Intel and AMD have a sales decline of 30% y/y. Apple sees what's going on and has changed plans.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but probably 90% of the planet is run on PC’s. Gaming is a tiny tiny part if that.

 

[Basic75]

I don't see it that way. I think the stability and reliability or ram is such that its a not a concern

Well you're wrong unless you don't care at all about your data. The error rate of individual cells is not improving, and RAM sizes are increasing. You do the math. And end-to-end ECC also catches when something goes wrong between CPU and RAM. People are doing online banking on all of their devices. That alone suggests that ECC should be everywhere. Why not prefer an ECC error message over a random crash or silent data corruption?

 

[maflynn]

Well you're wrong unless you don't care at all about your data

No I don't think I am wrong. You have an opinion and I respect that, my differing opinion does not mean I'm wrong. There are decades of anecdotal evidence that supports the reliability of non-ecc ram. I'm not saying workstations should not use it, but I am saying that not everyone should care about it. typical consumer use cases, and even most enterprise use cases are such that its not been missed.

 

[vladi]

Yep, the whole point of Apple Silicon is that it's a system-on-a-chip, which means RAM and GPU are part of it. So limited expandability, but as someone else pointed out, the trade-off is that you get far superior performance by virtual of it all being a SOAC.

This also means GPU will get obsolete faster than CPU and there is nothing you can do about it. Shared memory is also a two edged sword. Great for performance gains but it will turn into a bottleneck in heavy compositions where apps require RAM and GPU memory at the same time unless you have speced your computer with enough RAM to be future proof on the day you ordered it. And that costs a lot of money out of the gate. And then once your total amount of RAM finally kicks sometime n the future your GPU gets obsolete.

 

[robertosh]

Think positive, you can reuse the 500EUR wheels.

 

[Pezimak]

Yep, the whole point of Apple Silicon is that it's a system-on-a-chip, which means RAM and GPU are part of it. So limited expandability, but as someone else pointed out, the trade-off is that you get far superior performance by virtual of it all being a SOAC.

That performance is limited though, Intel and AMD have already surpassed Apples CPU, now sure you can make the argument of power consumption, but that argument collapses when talking about the Mac Pro and it’s target audience, you’ll buy it and think it’s the best thing, but later that year or the year after Intel and AMD will surpass it in general performance. For less probably AND be user upgradable.

Macs now seem to target specific pro uses only, a PC can be made for any Pro use.

As for GPU’s, let’s not even go there as Apple will be embarrassed by AMD and Nvidia and Intel too soon. And you can upgrade their GPU’s as you go. People have been fitting high end AMD and Nvidia GPU’s in their cheese grater, old and new, Mac Pros for a while, well that idea will be gone with this new Mac Pro and you’ll be stuck with what you bought. The new Mac Pro sounds like a glorified laptop really.
I think the Studio is a great machine, it’s small and power efficient so it gains that advantage of using Apple silicon, but a Mac Pro in the same size as the current one? With the exact same limitations as every other Apple Silicon Mac for no doubt thousands? IMO Apples platform quickly loses its attraction then.

Personally I hope to finally get around to buying a new computer this year, despite my love of the iMac design, I’ll end up with a Studio, after it’s upgraded to the M2 chip. Should last me a fair few years then. I am so split on PC of Mac, but I really don’t want Windows outside work lol. Too engraved in Apples eco system these days.

 

[Basic75]

There are decades of anecdotal evidence that supports the reliability of non-ecc ram.

No, there isn't, and there can't be, because without ECC you wouldn't notice when there's an error! That's the whole point! Read up on what Linus Torvalds' has to say on the subject if you don't believe a random internet stranger.

 

[maflynn]

if you don't believe a random internet stranger.

This is not a hill worth dying on. I really don't care and I really don't care to read up on it. Its clear that you're very fervent on this topic. Great, have fun with it, but I'm done arguing the point. Its not important to me, I don't see any issues with apple dropping ecc ram from their mac pro and I'm ready to move on.

Peace out.

 

[GuilleA]

Boring

 

[CARIB_APPLE]

I like the design from 2019

 

[Basic75]

This is not a hill worth dying on. I really don't care and I really don't care to read up on it. Its clear that you're very fervent on this topic. Great, have fun with it, but I'm done arguing the point. Its not important to me, I don't see any issues with apple dropping ecc ram from their mac pro and I'm ready to move on.

Yes, it is a hill worth dying on. Online banking isn't the only application where I'd like things to be as reliable as possible. The problem is then when enough people like you go "I feel like it's good enough" and ignore ram cell bit error rates, and just shrug off random crashes and data corruption, even though there is a well known solution that could be universally implemented, then everybody has to live with systems that are inherently less reliable and stable than easily possible. But if you care so little about your data then you won't be convinced here by me, so yeah, let's end this.

 

[theluggage]

Well, if the rumors are true that the Studio is being discontinued, then people won't have a choice. Apparently the new Mac Pro replaces the higher end Studio and the new Mac mini replaces the lower end Studio.

If the "New Mac Pro" is really just a Mx Ultra without internal expansion and the "new Mac Mini" is a Mx Pro/Max in a box then that would really just be shuffling name tags. If the Mx Pro/Max run cooler "because 3nm" then the Pro/Max Mini could get away with a smaller cooler and be closer to the size of the current Mini.

One possibility is that a Studio-like "Mac Pro" comes out alongside the M1 Max/Ultra Studio but gets an "exclusive" on the new Mx Ultra for a year or so (like they've done with the M1 and M2 MacBook Air).

Or, if Apple do make an Apple Silicon machine that is something like the 2019 Mac Pro with internal expansion then it really won't impinge on the Mac Studio: the current Mac Pro starts at $6000 for a configuration that, even at launch, wasn't much more powerful than a CPU/GPU power of a $3600 top-end iMac or $5000 base iMac Pro (both of which included a display which would cost ~$1000+ stand-alone), until you took advantage of the expandability. An ASi Mac Pro with comparable expandability would likely start at at least $6k - a comfortable $2k over the studio Ultra. Again, the Mac Pro might get an "exclusive" on the new Mx Ultra for a while.

It could be 'off die' but it would still be inside of Apple's package. Amazon's Graviton 3 doesn't put the PCI-e or Memory controllers on the "compute" die.

Not really disagreeing but bear in mind that the Graviton is designed as a cloud-server/high-density-computing chip, whereas the current Mac Pro is firmly a high-powered personal workstation (that's the W in Xeon-W). Apple kinda threw in the towel on true server/HD-computing market when they dropped the XServe and they don't really have a dog in that race any more, and they've pretty much ruled out MacOS as a cloud computing platform.

I understand the function of ECC ram, but it seems Apple may not care, so do people who use workstation class machines really want it in this day and age?

OK, running on Google Wisdom here so correct me if I'm getting it wrong, but: Current workstation class machines use DDR4/5 RAM and Sideband ECC (which means the RAM has to be 72 bits wide to accommodate ECC bits). Presumably the error rate in regular DDR5 is high enough to justify the extra expense of ECC. If Apple have a way of using regular, expandable DDR5 in an ASi Mac Pro then there's no adequately explored reason why it wouldn't be ECC, like previous MPs.

All current Apple Silicon machines use LPDDR4/5 RAM which has significant differences to regular DDR, so the first question is whether the error rate on LPDDR5 technology is sufficiently high to make ECC economically necessary.

If so, LPDDR5 technology supports its own forms of ECC that don't use extra-wide memory - see https://www.synopsys.com/designware-ip/technical-bulletin/error-correction-code-ddr.html - and while the M1 and base M2 processors don't seem to implement this (or Apple would have trumpeted it) but, again, if Apple want to push M2 Max/Ultra as a "pro" processor there's no fundamental reason why they can't implement Link & Inline ECC with on-package LPDDR chips. The snag would be that they have a fairly low upper memory limit on their SoCs and Inline ECC steals a chunk of that RAM. That might improve if the next gen Mx chips can physically use larger LPDDR packages that have become available since the M1 Max launch (not sure of the tech details of that)...

I don't actually think that user upgradeability of RAM is such a big deal for Pro machines - pro users will mostly know how much RAM they need when they buy the system (esp. when they're already paying a huge premium for a M-suffix Xeon that can support 1TB+ of RAM). Apple do gouge on BTO RAM prices, but they gouge on everything else, too (*cough* wheels and monitor stands *cough*). At least with the current Studio range they start with a reasonable (for the target market) 32GB base (remember the $3k iMacs with 8GB RAM?) Anyway, non-upgradeability is a "feature" of LPDDR RAM which relies on short traces and no socketry for speed & power efficiency. The big problem with using apples on-package LPDDR technique is simply the limit on total RAM size.

 

[theluggage]

Yes, it is a hill worth dying on.

...but maybe wait to see whether or not any new Mac Pro really doesn't have ECC before charging into the breach.

As I said in a previous post, if a future ASi Mac Pro somehow includes plug-in DDRx DIMMS then there's no reason they wouldn't be ECC like previous Mac Pros - meanwhile, soldered-in LPDDR5 can do ECC if Apple choose to implement it on the next generation of processors.

It's also meaningless to insist that "I need feature X because reliability" without any figures to back that up, compare with other risks and consider cost/benefits. Having ECC won't guarantee that your computer will never glitch (every processor ever made has an pile of errata, software has obscure bugs especially when you get into serious multi-threading) so if you don't have other checking procedures & error handling in place you're holding it wrong.

Intel have made a lot of profit by making ECC support exclusive to Xeon...

 

[seclusion]

I do miss my 2010 Mac Pro, it was a breeze to open up and clean and add stuff inside the machine. But since then the $ spent to move over to an iMac, dock, extenal HD cases etc was the only affordable solution for soooo long. Looking forward, for doing studio work, audio recording, using many samples, etc. the Mac Studio has enough I/O to replace the iMac. I wish it was easier to open and clean the Mac Studio. I agree the M series has integrated everything, it’s hard to believe the Mac Pro will have some hybrid ram card.
Also curious about expansion slots and there’s no hint of that in the other machines. Certainly the Mac Pro has become a less necessary machine than 10 years ago, it’s hard to see what benefits it will offer above a MS. Alas we wait to see if it even happens.

 

[maflynn]

I do miss my 2010 Mac Pro,

I had a mac pro back in the day, or rather a G5 power mac - they used the same case for the most part. I agree, it was a beautifully designed computer. I absolutely love the current mac case as well. There's no way in hell that I could afford a current Mac Pro, but I'd love to build a computer using the same case.

There as one "company" that said they'll be creating a clone of that case, - dune case. What it turned out was a scam. I didn't lose any money but sadly too many others.

Back to the topic, I think Apple easily out designs anything else in the market and I'm sure this new mac pro will be visually stunning

 

[Basic75]

...but maybe wait to see whether or not any new Mac Pro really doesn't have ECC before charging into the breach.

My point was that I want ECC everywhere, including iPhones and iPads and MacBooks.

 

[Basic75]

Intel have made a lot of profit by making ECC support exclusive to Xeon...

And Linus Torvalds has quite rightly **** on them for it.

 

[Basic75]

I don't actually think that user upgradeability of RAM is such a big deal for Pro machines - pro users will mostly know how much RAM they need when they buy the system (esp. when they're already paying a huge premium for a M-suffix Xeon that can support 1TB+ of RAM). Apple do gouge on BTO RAM prices, but they gouge on everything else, too (*cough* wheels and monitor stands *cough*). At least with the current Studio range they start with a reasonable (for the target market) 32GB base (remember the $3k iMacs with 8GB RAM?) Anyway, non-upgradeability is a "feature" of LPDDR RAM which relies on short traces and no socketry for speed & power efficiency. The big problem with using apples on-package LPDDR technique is simply the limit on total RAM size.

I'm half expecting an AMD Epyc Mac Pro and half expecting them to use the fixed-size on-package RAM as additional cache layer for the "real" off-package RAM that will be user expandable up to at least what the current Mac Pro offers. If you have 128GB of LPDDR5 as LLC you might not even need very fast "real" RAM. And those who don't need more RAM can just use the on-package RAM without filling out the RAM slots.

 

[cpnotebook80]

Maybe we are moving into a future where we do not need a higher desktop machine and bulky ones at that. Maybe we are holding on to what past products (Mac Pro) alluded to what power users need. Times are changing and its not just apple, but also windows in the ARM switch and small factor form. The fact that smaller foot prints and lighter products that provide the same power for high end users, should be a nice welcome for most people.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I'm half expecting an AMD Epyc Mac Pro and half expecting them to use the fixed-size on-package RAM as additional cache layer for the "real" off-package RAM that will be user expandable up to at least what the current Mac Pro offers. If you have 128GB of LPDDR5 as LLC you might not even need very fast "real" RAM. And those who don't need more RAM can just use the on-package RAM without filling out the RAM slots.

Maybe have some RAM for ram disk RAM that holds swap and temp files