Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
It seems that Apple is going for cost-effective, rather than user-effective! Not everyone has the same needs for their box, yet Apple post-Steve doesn't seem to care, as long as they make money.

Thus, it doesn't surprise me that our organization is moving away from Apple products. Why spend the money on a handicapped product?
How about you wait for the product to be released before you start moaning and bitching!
 
This is amazing, but how on earth does Sonnet get Third Party GPU cards to work with Apple Silicon M[#] Macs and MacOS?!
From their website:
From low-profile, half-length to full-height, full-length in size, Echo expansion modules support every Thunderbolt-compatible, non-GPU PCIe card available.

They don’t.
 
  • Like
Reactions: R2DHue
Is funny this has been known for such a long time and yet when it finally come to news headline people are raging over it.
Yeah, there’s nothing surprising or disappointing. This is precisely what Apple’s current architecture provides for.
 
One of the main benefits (that contribute to the performance) of the M series chips is that Apple uses DDR5 unified memory. Having user upgradable ram would fundamentally break that. I have a lot of doubt regarding this computer (if Gurman can be trusted) but no one should be surprised or worried about this in particular.
The current Intel Mac can be expanded up to 1.5TB RAM. 192GB of maximum RAM won’t cut it for this. This is essentially just a Mac Studio with expandable options (storage & GPU)
 
Last edited:
I’m pretty certain when John Ternus teased the 2023 Mac Pro he was setting the scene for something pretty epic.

Apart from internal storage, unless there’s some clever architecture going on with MP2023 I can’t see it doing well against a fully loaded Mac Studio.

i thought the whole point of Mac Pro was decent expansion and upgrades?

Am I missing the point?

My fully loaded Mac Studio Ultra is currently looking like awesome value.
 
Last edited:
If you want to stop people from being able to extend the life of their products, just design the chip so that the memory has to be soldered onto the motherboard. That way it looks like it's out of your hands even though you designed it that way!
 
I don't see why they can't do both, keep the unified ram and storage and throw a few M.2 slots in for the Pro's. I wouldn't mind a Raid 0 PCI 4.0 sticks.
 
If you're going to charge $6 grand for this thing, the least you can do is let users upgrade their ram.

I understand the ram is tied to the M2, but I'm sure apple's engineering team could design a chip that works alongside user upgradable ram. Intel can somehow do it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Morod
Apple used AMD before they went to Intel years ago. They certainly can design their systems to be compatible. They'd need to work with AMD or Nvidia as well but its doable
Thanks, Mike.

Maybe I’m under the misapprehension that the GPU ISA of AMD and NVidia, (Avid) ‘s newest available cards have become tied to Intel protocols and not the (very different) Apple M[#]/ARM protocols and ISA and overall logic board design/protocols. (Tied to Intel especially since even Macs became effectively PCs that could install Windows via Bootcamp.)

I don’t see Apple working with AMD — and ESPECIALLY not NVidia with whom Apple’s been beefing for years! — because Apple wants to accentuate the message of the “Supremacy” of Apple Silicon graphics hardware and its independence from the need for (”inferior”) Third Party graphics acceleration of any kind. (Sort of “NIH Syndrome” rearing its ugly head.)

Allowing AMD or NVidia GPUs to run on Macs (with Apple’s formal participation) sends the message to Apple customers that “there’s something better out there” than Apple’s own graphics acceleration hardware (even though it’s true!), and Apple doesn’t want to do that (even if it’s to the detriment of its users — especially Pro users). (IMHO.)
 
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 🥲
 
Can we somehow blame Jony Ive for this?
¡Si se Puede!

He should’ve stuck around and said, “No, we mustn’t make it better because that might make it thicker or bigger. And an HDMI port really ruins the…‘inevitability’…of the aesthetic. Besides, aren’t we working toward 100% portless designs and MacBooks with software keyboards instead of hardware keyboards?”
 
  • Like
Reactions: George Dawes
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.

Yep!

Apple are doing a great job of ensuring a lot of the future generations won't be interested in anything Apple beyond some "fashion watch" or "AirPods stocking stuffers"

Robbing the future to pay the present
 
This Mac Pro is going to be a flop if you can't upgrade the RAM, and have limited expansion. Pro users are going to be frustrated with its lack of expandability and compatibility with third-party PCIe cards. And if it's going to still cost $6000 and all they add is PCIe slots, this product is going to be absolute garbage and no one will buy it because it will be a waste of money. That's why I use a 5,1 Mac Pro, because I can actually expand it. Look, I just added a USB type C card AND a 3.0 gen 2 card for faster speeds. And I NEED a FW 400 card for my audio interface to work. So this new Mac Pro is not going to be pro at all. Just my opinion.
 
Yeah, to a degree, but right now, it’s harder for me to justify spending > 3k for a laptop. Apple isn't the only maker pushing the pricing envelope. Razer laptops can easily exceed 3,000 as well
I do that. 🙋‍♂️✋

I know that Apple charging more than double every time you double the internal SSD storage of a BTO MacBook Pro is probably price gouging, but I do it anyway. “Scales of economy” don’t seem to apply to Apple SSDs.
 
I don't think Apple will even allow you to put third party video cards in this new Mac Pro (i.e. AMD), will they?

Adding to my previous point, the only reason why I still use a Mac is because it is a stable platform compared to Windows, and I've bought Mac-specific software, too.
 
The quote from Gurmans letter is better stated on 9to5mac: ”
Gurman says the machine has two spare SSD slots, in addition to slots for graphics, media and networking.

So it is not actually a quote. It is a paraphrasing. The macrumors rephrasing will certainly generate more ad views. *sigh*.

That seems substantively different. Spare SSD slots sounds more "empty by default". Empty by default. If those are M.2 standard slots that is a huge shift. Either Apple is trading the two SATA connector for standard NVMe SSD connectors. Or adding both to the revised logicboard. If so that might placate some folks put off by the missing DIMM slots. They are trading 'type' of slot to play/interact with. (e.g.., if dropped the MPX four x4 PCI-e v3 provisioning for TB controllers then throwing two x4's at M.2 would be very reasonable thing to do. Could toss them on the backside of the logic board where the DIMM slots dissapeared from. Same side as the proprietary SSD models and cooled the same way. )

Also a retreat from the Apple arrogance that only they can properly implement a SSD. (which is kind of ridiculous).

In 2023 , user workstation logicboard that do not have a M.2 slot on them is somewhere close to zero. It is detached from contemporary market dynamics.


And that would open the door for a somewhat cheesy 512GB SSD Mac Pro entry model at a lower price. ( Instead of matching the 1TB norm of the Mac Studio). If the "i hate apple SSD' crowd could simply just pop in a m.2 drive with no adapter. Those folks will be even happier.


So, if this is true (gpu!)the machine might be worth it. Personally I just need 128 ram and solid upgradable gpu that renders stuff in similar speeds as a PC.

If folks are goofing on missing adjective like 'spare' in what is being communicating that is a substantial 'if'. If there is an "AUX power" connectors on the board some folks may just be filling in the blank with 'gpu' when technically those are not necessarily the same thing. For example, a board with a M2 Max on it would need more than 75W bus power. Or some other compute accelerator that went past bus power limits.


I really do hope that there is an “extreme ” variant after all so even cpu bound loads that need more ram is catered for. 48 cores and 384 ram could be a world leading cpu perf workstation.

If there is no ECC the farther they get into the triple digit GB range the more dubious that gets.

The plain M2 maxes out at 24GB. 8* 24GB is 192GB. Folks who have a 128GB workload now would have another 64GB to "grow into" over time if by the max configuration. They are also only 64GB over the 128GB debarkation line that most folks historically have used for making ECC a requirement.

384GB and no ECC is definitely in the dubious zone. At least for folks who care about data integrity.

Unless Apple completely refactored how they were doing memory controller layout, the 4 die extreme probably wasn't going to scale the same on RAM capacity. Certainly not "double" at the same bandwidth increase rates. And if Apple layered a memory controller ECC ability on top the end user usable capacity would drop.


When Apple introduced the M1 Ultra they said that 128GB was something like "an incredible amount of RAM". There is a good chance that Apple looked at the deployed user configurations and saw that 128GB was at the edge of the land of capacity outliers.




A crown that would be cool to have for Apple. (Higher ST perf than all other high core count cpus)

A crown that almost nobody wants to buy isn't much of a crown.
 
Unpopular opinion, might be downvoted badly, but that's ok.

At this point just keep using Intel offering with newer Xeon SKUs for Mac Pro while keeping development AS until have proper expansion capability.
 
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 🥲

That train has left the station. Apple have set their own pace with that SoC thing and there is no coming back. They cannot milk it that much anymore because of present technology limitations, so they have to focus on the Next Big Thing (AR/VR), because their customers and (more importantly) shareholders got used to that.

There is no more room for innovation at present level (apart from that AR/VR thing, which is uncertain at best, but they seem to act all-in with that), and honestly I'd like them to focus more on hw/sw quality and reliability, but I'm afraid that's not possible anymore.
 
Apple has not joined the CXL consortium at all. To be of practical use CXL requires PCI-e v5 . Apple is still 'stuck' on PCI-e v4 . Apple largely used PCI-e v4 in the M1 series to reduce the number of PCI-e lanes provisioned out of the SoC (more edge I/O die space to be allocated to the memory controller paths). They treated x1 PCI-e v4 == x2 PCI-e v3 as a 'feature'. CXL support has to be built into the PCI-e controller and into the internal IOMMU subsystems.
I’m all for integrating as much as possible onto an Apple Silicon die, but might it not be better to use an “off die” PCI controller IC? Macs and Apple devices are trapped for years with whatever version of PCI Apple integrated into their latest Apple Silicon SIP/SoC. And a long and costly Silicon redesign is required just to bump up the supported PCI version/standard/protocol.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.