Well actually, users are being squeezed into the Studio line going forward. Even a few years ago, consumer network speeds were basically slower, cloud was just a wisp, and the syncing world had to calculate in local backups. Not so much now. A massive box is unneeded - just ports for storage. Graphics cards? likely on the SOC. The cheesegrater box and its components form factors are being downsized with functions outsourced to the cloud. Time to pick up an Intel Pro and provision/load it up for utilitarian jobs - even when offline.
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Apple Silicon Mac Pro Said to Feature Same Design as 2019 Model, No User-Upgradable RAM
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What a joke the MP turned out to be. I waited and waited for it to come out and ended up building a windows box with the same 28 core W3275 cpu with 4x water cooled 2080 Tis which smoked the MP and was $10k cheaper in 2019. In 2020 replaced that with a 64 core threadripper 3990x which was and is still 2x faster that that old MP and was only $20k also with 4x 2080 Tis. There are windows laptops today that smoke that rusty old MP. Would like to see Apple give up on this and focus efforts elsewhere. A WORK station has work to do.
One I heard of here in these forums is that there are certain applications (I ask them the details) where if one develops code that takes the unified memory nature of the SoC into account, one can achieve throughput that can’t be attained on Intel/AMD. Other that that case, I haven’t read any other objections to “If you don’t need macOS, you can find better performance on a PC”.
Unfortunately, SAAS/cloud services are the future. I don't want it to be that way, but it's true. Pro Tools costs $100/month for an actually useful version. What individual can afford $100/month software? Same with cloud services. If Apple is going to make us use cloud services to offload our work to, what the heck! Maybe I'm misunderstanding @DailySlow but if Apple is going to remove expansion capabilities and rely on CLOUD SERVICES, I'm honestly going to leave the Mac platform.
1.1 and 2.1 are tick tock, essentially same
3.1 is oddball, much more transition
4.1 and 5.1 are also tick tock
6.1 is trash
7.1 is returning function over form again
Hence I preferred Apple releases "tock" generation with Xeon as 8.1 for additional stopgap. Release AS version as 9.1 when AS architecture has been primed with expansion, extra traditional dimm support, a lot pcie lanes with latest standard (PCIe 5) rather than glorified Apple Studio.
3.1 is oddball, much more transition
4.1 and 5.1 are also tick tock
6.1 is trash
7.1 is returning function over form again
Hence I preferred Apple releases "tock" generation with Xeon as 8.1 for additional stopgap. Release AS version as 9.1 when AS architecture has been primed with expansion, extra traditional dimm support, a lot pcie lanes with latest standard (PCIe 5) rather than glorified Apple Studio.
“Bean counters” are very much in charge at Apple now. Visionaries are largely gone.
“Doable” in this case essentially means that “the legal and technical issues preventing it aren’t impossible to overcome.” That’s the extent of that. Practically speaking, the biggest technical hurdle is that Apple handles all graphics via the internal GPU, there is no “packaging of the content by the CPU then sending it via a fast connection OFF the CPU over to a GPU which does the work of building and displaying the scene” (which is literally what’s required for AMD/NVidia solutions to function at all). And, while yes it would be “doable” for Apple to change that core function, until we hear about that in some upcoming WWDC meeting, any GPU that’s not an Apple GPU just can’t be used for any Apple Silicon platform.
Good post. I too with many of the same devices you list - except 5300 that NEVER caught fire and ran great with a Metricom Ricochet wireless radio modem. I believe though that we're in an eddy and that Apple has something up its sleeve. This is THE biggest game in town and I hope Apple takes all the chips.
I doooonnnnn't know... A proprietary gateway/port/"standard"requiring licensing for GPUs could be under development - even in partnership with NVIDIA, AMD, et. al.
Exactly the question most would ask concerning his latest spinning. In the past we have seen Mac Pro's with a lot wasteful space, many fans too, but none of us know how Apple plans to provide better connectivity for expanding what this model can do? We still don't know what kind of SoC arrangement it offers? Is it modular?
basically they haven’t figured out how to do designing without Jonny Ive
The upcoming high-end Apple silicon Mac Pro will feature the same design as the 2019 model, with no user-upgradeable RAM given the all-on-chip architecture of Apple silicon.
In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has revealed that Apple's upcoming Mac Pro, which is the final product to make the transition to Apple silicon, will feature the same design as the current Mac Pro from 2019. Unlike the current Intel-based Mac Pro, the upcoming model will also not feature user-upgradeable RAM.
Gurman has reported that Apple has canceled plans to release a higher-end model of the upcoming Mac Pro with 48 CPU cores and 152 GPU cores given its high cost and likely niche market.
Article Link: Apple Silicon Mac Pro Said to Feature Same Design as 2019 Model, No User-Upgradable RAM
Yep, my point exactly. In my opinion, even the Mac mini/Mac Studio should have upgradable storage and RAM at the very least. It's very frustrating how even now, Apple makes you pay $6K for a computer that's worse than my 5,1 Mac Pro. The RX 580 that's in the base config is an absolute joke, and so is the 8-core crap of a Xeon. How is that "pro" at all? That's why I'm worried about this new one, that it's going to be the same deal.
Apple's belief is they would rather rob you at purchase because you are gonna want to future proof the machine since you are gonna keep it for a long time. They realized with the Intel model, user upgradable RAM was leaving money on the table. All of this is strategic. I'm surprised the storage is upgradable, but it sounds like third party video card support might be available.
Questions for the smart people and engineers here:
What are the possibilities of user-upgradeable RAM running alongside the M-chip-connected RAM? Maybe the rumor is true, but doesn’t mean there will be NO slots for expansion?
Also, what’s the reliability rate been like so far with the M chip RAM vs RAM that can be easily swapped if it goes bad? Anyone know?
What are the possibilities of user-upgradeable RAM running alongside the M-chip-connected RAM? Maybe the rumor is true, but doesn’t mean there will be NO slots for expansion?
Also, what’s the reliability rate been like so far with the M chip RAM vs RAM that can be easily swapped if it goes bad? Anyone know?
That is true but, to be honest, you can't be a visionary/innovate all the time. There are limitations. And there should be room for slowing down pace and for polishing and improvement of existing products, but Mr Cook deliberately chose the trajectory of pleasing customers and shareholders with bells and whistles, new-exciting-features™ and stuff, along with insane profits and market saturation, which cannot be sustainable log term, especially having in mind current state of the world economy, recession and all that.
Apple customers have transitioned from nerds, techies and pro users to upper middle class kids who love shiny gadgets, and that's double edged sword, because you have to feed them with candies 24/7. Not to mention hungry and demanding shareholders.
Right now in terms of official support they do not. There is zero eGPU support in macOS on M-series whereas it is supported on macOS on Intel. So there is currently a policy shift.
Is it technologically possible? Yes. Are they doing it now? no.
Are they planning to do it. It doesn't look like it. DriverKit has no abstraction for display GPU cards like the previous IOKit did. Some folks will hand wave that Apple is just going to do it all themselves in the kernel with zero 3rd party GPU vendor input. That is kind of dubious position. GPUs migh want to avoid DrierKits leveragin of iOMMUs, but Apple doing it all themselves is also a problem.
The major problem if Apple is doing this all in some super duper secret Area 51 laboratory with secret alien technology is that GPU driver tend to be like trying to balance a stick on a pin. When lots of different 3rd party applications get thrown at them bugs start to pop out of the 'woodwork'. Intel's dicrete GPU drivers have had massie problems. Even AMD 7000 series drivers seem to have a number of teething pains. Maximally hiding from just about everyone and stable drivers tends to be mutually exclusive.
It would have been far, far more useful for Apple to get out some extremely long 'beta' GPU driver iterations out on eGPUs for last year that they could iterate to being production ready in a reasonable amount of time closer to Mac Pro lunch. The more buried in the basement they have been the further they are going to be from being 'prime time' ready.
In the past, Apple's GPU drivers have not particularly tried very had to chase every possible gaming hack possible to maximize frame rates. On Windows there have been "Pro" GPU drivers which tended to offer more stability and workstation app focused optimizations. And a more chaotic gaming focus drivers that consumer sector. Apple didn't have enough market share to follow two paths at the same time so mainly have followed characteristics of the "Pro" driver path on the Windows side. ( Also Apple's GPU tended to arrive closer to "Pro" card launches than consumer GPU launches. Coincidence? Maybe not ).
The problem with "it is going to be more stable" notion applied to macOS on M-series is that they done a whole lot of nothing. If they were trying to incrementally grow a stable driver solution they should have put it out there to get bug feedback by now. They could be doing things with heavyweight NDA's , but that isn't broad testing. Often those kinds of set ups just cherry pick the problem issues.
All the incremental improvement GPU driver and stability work over the last two years has been directed at Apple GPUs. Apple wants those to be rock solid stable even if they have to deprioritize everything else.
You really think that most people that buy Apple products are upper middle class? You be amazed at how prevalent iPhones are through all classes.
Guess you haven’t been paying attention to Apple Silicon M<n> chip design for the last two years.
I understand that adding upgradeable ram will fundamentally break the main benefit. But for certain workloads, especially workloads that require a big machine like a Mac Pro, 128 GB is not enough. It sounds to me like Apple have painted themselves into a corner.
My guess is that it can support multiple SoC packages.
I bet the lowest ssd in the mac pro, if released, will still be 256 or 512 with 16gb ram...the windows machines and cpus from amd and intel are looking pretty good right about now.
Maybe in the US, not so much here in Europe, but that doesn't change my point, which is major shift in customer base, from techies to shiny gadget lovers. Apple knows that very well, so they were willing to sacrifice entire Pro market.