I was just talking about the physical case to be honest, but I agree, it would make sense if they update the internals appropriately for their flagship machine.
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Apple Silicon Mac Pro Said to Feature Same Design as 2019 Model, No User-Upgradable RAM
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Just some quick notes because it is late at night.
This doesn't sound good at all, IMO. Many buy the Mac Pro for access to 1.5TB of RAM or even half that. There are apps and usage scenarios that use that kind of memory, even if we don't. ECC is important when dealing with a lot of memory. This has been the case since the G5 which used ECC and had it for a reason.
I thought German meant PCI and not SSD. SSD slots can't handle graphics. But then I can't see the box staying that size with only 2 PCI slots, with Apple Silicon saving so much space as it is. That makes no sense at all. What will they be doing with all the space if only two PCI. Maybe he really means SSD slots after all!
This doesn't sound good at all, IMO. Many buy the Mac Pro for access to 1.5TB of RAM or even half that. There are apps and usage scenarios that use that kind of memory, even if we don't. ECC is important when dealing with a lot of memory. This has been the case since the G5 which used ECC and had it for a reason.
I thought German meant PCI and not SSD. SSD slots can't handle graphics. But then I can't see the box staying that size with only 2 PCI slots, with Apple Silicon saving so much space as it is. That makes no sense at all. What will they be doing with all the space if only two PCI. Maybe he really means SSD slots after all!
It’s not possible with new SoCs. We trade user upgradability for faster/more efficient CPUs and GPUs. I’m all for the trade
If there is abundance of memory, up to 1TB I see nor reason for memory expansion needs.
the only critical expandability needed for a pro machine is the graphics. And I see no limitations that Apple cannot do a PCI-E 5.0/6.0 slot for a graphics card - both nVidia and AMD have ARM drivers and Apple can co-delveop with them as well.
Maybe an M-processor without graphics or a standard M2 Ultra than can use the internal groahics and external graphics at the same time (just like the MBP you can switch?)
and also external PCI-E slots for other expandability like PCI-SSDs and SAS RAID cards
the only critical expandability needed for a pro machine is the graphics. And I see no limitations that Apple cannot do a PCI-E 5.0/6.0 slot for a graphics card - both nVidia and AMD have ARM drivers and Apple can co-delveop with them as well.
Maybe an M-processor without graphics or a standard M2 Ultra than can use the internal groahics and external graphics at the same time (just like the MBP you can switch?)
and also external PCI-E slots for other expandability like PCI-SSDs and SAS RAID cards
No matter what Apple product you buy, they kind of have to charge you an arm nowadays. 😉
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The operating system makes more of a difference than the processor architecture. If Nvidia has drivers for ARM Linux and ARM Windows that doesn't help as much for ARM macOS drivers as x86 macOS drivers would. Do recent Nvidia cards still work on macOS at all?
Totally. But how "pro" does your pro tower really need to be to run FCP or LP? A Mac Pro tower with storage expansion bays and maybe a new version of something like Apple's Afterburner card?
Correct, but Apple can co-develop with nVidia and AMD for macOS like they did for macOS x86 drivers. seeing both AMD and nVidia have arm drivers make this an easier task.
At the least it should mean that the drivers don't depend on the x86 memory model, yes.
From what I saw, it looks like it'll have removable/replaceable SSDs? This will definitely be good regarding the electronics recycling/reselling company I work for, as my boss said Apple could get in trouble with certain laws if they just have computers where the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. This is most likely why the Mac Studio was designed so the SSD can be removed (but not easily replaced), like if the machine needs to be recycled, the SSD can be taken out and destroyed separately.
I was trying to reflect reality, not what was "nice". If Apple have up-sold you to a M1 Max then that is nice - for Apple.
I think they've probably got the CPU cores/GPU cores/RAM choices right for the majority of users - because those requirements do tend to grow together, but that's not so good if your needs vary from the norm, but Apple have always gone for the big numbers rather than try to make bespoke systems.
What Apple have bought themselves with Apple Silicon is a way to make a full range of phones, tablets, laptops and desktops based on essentially the same hardware and software platform, with "more of the same" CPU/GPU cores, neural engines, media engines etc. at each level. That may be what keeps the Mac as a viable platform going forward as the traditional personal computer market gets slowly eaten away by mobile tech and smart devices at one end and cloud computing at the other.
However, I do think Apple are guilty of consumer-centric thinking and may not really "get" the pro/prosumer/enthusiast/techhie market. Simply the uncertainty over the future of the Mac Pro will be losing them customers, and its getting past the time when they needed to stand up and say either "An Apple Silicon Mac Pro with internal PCIe expansion slots [with|without] GPU support and up to [xxx] RAM is coming" or "Stop worrying and learn to love the Mac Studio". Even with the 2019 Mac Pro there was no real effort to promote it beyond existing Mac users, and all the benchmark comparisons on the site were with Trashcans and iMac Pros (probably because non-Mac users would have seen the price and laughed it off the stage).
(sort of aside) The other thing that recent struck me leads me to this challenge: go to www.apple.com and try and find out about Final Cut Pro X or Logic Pro X without explicitly searching for "Final Cut" or "Logic". When I searched for "audio production" I found out how to turn the Mac startup sound on or off... Yes, there are very nice pages for the Apple Pro Apps but if you didn't know they were there you wouldn't find them. I do get the feel that Apple simply take it for granted that their "Pro" users will stay loyal...
I'm going to wager a guess that the people cheering aren't the ones that were made millionaires because of Forstall's influence. They were the ones who actually put in the overtime, did the actual work to build Forstall's vision, and got barely anything more than a pat on the back and a meagre Christmas bonus for their efforts.
Read: Apple had issues with nVidia not kowtowing to Apple's marketing games. Apple had long been pushing both nVidia and AMD to create special SKUs so that they could continue with the "the first workstation to have XYZ graphics" narrative.
That's an old belief that carried over from the old ColorSync days. Apple hasn't had a monopoly on colour calibration for over 20 years now, but that doesn't stop certain urban myths from perpetuating.
That's half the story. The other half is Nvidia not taking proper responsibility for the defective-by-design GPUs they shipped to Apple and everybody else.
10x as many people buy a Mac that's slower and pricier just so they can have internal expansion?
Maybe. Or maybe their data is garbage… like, no doubt there are some people who want/need internal expansion. But there's got to be way, way more people who just want a rather simple high-end desktop.
If someone has an old non-upgraded machine, maybe? If they are running the latest OS, there’s no drivers for it and Nvidia doesn’t even have a developer account anymore.
If those figures are true though, it would confirm that most Apple users do not want their computers to be unexpandable.
Mac Cube...bombed
Trashcan Mac Pro....bombed
And if these figures are correct, the current iteration of Mac Mini and Apple Studio have too.
If these figures are real then Apple need to reverse course on this path sooner rather than later.
Not very Pro at all! You don’t even need a tower.
80% of folks that use a professional app at least once a month (Apple’s definition of their pro market) are using one of Apple’s laptops. That’s likely even MORE true now as Apple Silicon has raised the performance bar and includes “Afterburner” IN the SoC. But, there are always a few that either want or need the highest performance their operating budget can afford. As long as there’s enough of those folks (and I’d imagine Apple has a good idea of how many there are), they’ll continue to make machines that are priced to be profitable PER device sold. And to provide a decent ROI over the lifetime of the product.
Yup, back in 2017, 30% of Apple’s customers were “pros” and only half of those used professional apps frequently. With the transition to Apple Silicon and the success of the MBAir, my assumption is that “pro” percentage has decreased.
Yep, I think it stopped working on about 10.9 - 10.10.....
It is still installed on my G5 though.
DDR5 has built in single bit ECC detection and correction
Yeah, but unless they add another tier of cache - their M2 architecture requires this. At least now there is a justifiable reason