MP All Models Apple sleeping on the mac pro is comically bad timing

[Omega Mac]

I agree with the idea, but Apple needed to do more than just keep a refreshed/reheated “updated” version of the M2 Pro. I think they should have and could have done more with the platform to capture this part of the market.

Imagine a Pro with adequate PCIE lanes to run blade-style M-Ultras in each PCI slot.

Or go back further in time and resurrect the idea of the PCI RAM disk, allowing the pro to utilize terabytes high-speed swap for model and context buffering.

That’s the type of hardware that would’ve differentiated the Pro platform from the Studio platform.

Back in Jan (2026) the concept and discussion of a new approach for the Pro using Mac Blades came up here and might be of interest https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/whats-happening-with-the-mac-pro.2475418/post-34362251

 

[leman]

Back in Jan (2026) the concept and discussion of a new approach for the Pro using Mac Blades came up here and might be of interest https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/whats-happening-with-the-mac-pro.2475418/post-34362251

We’ve been discussing this concept here ever since M1 got announced. Unfortunately, this is not happening - data routing would make it too expensive for a consumer product. For their own ML server farms, Apple uses a much simpler concept, which essentially boils down to having a bunch of Macs on a shared fast network interface, only packaged more efficiently.

 

[theluggage]

No one has claimed that it would still be unified memory. So that’s a straw man argument on your part.

Seriously?
You literally "corrected" my statement that "GPU expansion is incompatible with unified memory."

 

[teh_hunterer]

There is as new wave of people setting up computers locally (both personal and business) for AI inference.

It is striking to me that right before this happens, Apple discontinues the Mac Pro which was perfectly suited for this. We go decades with the Mac Pro having sluggish sales and then the year that it will actually start selling like hotcakes, it's gone!

I guess Nvidia captures the market share with RTX Spark, that they announced a couple of days ago.

For the uninitiated, running a local LLM requires enough VRAM to fully fit it in memory. Models get huge very quickly. Because of the unified memory, this means you can fit much larger models on a mac instead of a traditional machine that has a separate video card (the video card has its own RAM and video cards with a lot of RAM are very, very expensive)

What does the Mac Pro have to do with any of this? The Mac Studio and Mac Pro had the same SoC and memory options.

 

[teh_hunterer]

the much maligned 7 year old Mac Pro can stuff 1.5TB of RAM and/or 4xAMD GPU in them if economically justified for their work. There simply isn't an option for anything close with Mac right now.

How is that going to help you with AI? The benefit of unified memory for AI is that it's accessible by the GPU.

 

[ThomasJL]

It’s so typical how on previous threads (not this thread) about the Mac Pro, Tim Cook supporters, who probably none of have ever been in work-related situations that needed the power of a Mac Pro, pathetically tried to justify the previous Mac Pro not having user-upgradable RAM and user-upgradable main storage, and now pathetically try to justify the discontinuation of the Mac Pro. To them, Cook can do no wrong.

 

[leman]

It’s so misinformed how on previous threads (not this thread) about the Mac Pro, Tim Cook supporters, who probably none of have ever been in work-related situations that needed the power of a Mac Pro, pathetically tried to justify the previous Mac Pro not having user-upgradable RAM and user-upgradable main storage, and now pathetically try to justify the discontinuation of the Mac Pro. To them, Cook can do no wrong.

Datecenter solutions used to train largest language models in the world don't have upgradeable RAM. It really helps understanding the tradeoffs and limitations of technology when discussing wishes.

 

[ignatius345]

The bean-counter approach to anything that isn't for sale at Walmart. MBAs like to keep things simple to manage. That doesn't mean that companies like Apple are not making a profit on things like MBPs. Just a little more complex to manage.

Apple is a gigantic corporation. They pay the most attention to the things that make the most money. It’s always been this way. There was a time when desktop computers were their bread and butter, but that’s changed.

 

[teh_hunterer]

It’s so typical how on previous threads (not this thread) about the Mac Pro, Tim Cook supporters, who probably none of have ever been in work-related situations that needed the power of a Mac Pro, pathetically tried to justify the previous Mac Pro not having user-upgradable RAM and user-upgradable main storage, and now pathetically try to justify the discontinuation of the Mac Pro. To them, Cook can do no wrong.

Do you have such an example of something you did that needed the "power" of a Mac Pro that the Mac Studio is not powerful enough to do?

Don't say AI, because the user upgradeable RAM in the older Mac Pros can't be addressed by the GPU and is thus useless for AI.

 

[kwikdeth]

So, slightly off-topic, but do you think the MP has a chance at life again with Ternus at the helm?

 

[teh_hunterer]

So, slightly off-topic, but do you think the MP has a chance at life again with Ternus at the helm?

No. What did the Mac Pro even provide?

* User upgradeable RAM - no longer a thing with Apple silicon, and largely pointless in a world where we are moving towards unified memory that both the CPU and GPU can utilise

* PCIe GPU - no longer a thing with Apple silicon. The world of PCI GPUs is going away anyway. The advantages of having the CPU and GPU in the same SoC with memory that both can utilise is the future. Even Nvidia is moving towards that. All high performance computing is moving towards that. It's undeniable.

* PCIe expansion - also basically pointless now. Audio cards are moving to Thunderbolt. "Afterburner" type encoding cards are pointless now that those encoders are built into the SoC. Anything that people needed to put inside their desktop on a PCIe slot can be done via thunderbolt expansion.

* Performance - every Mac Pro ever created is utterly destroyed by the current Mac Studio.

I genuinely think the main people who are rallying against the death of the Mac Pro now are people who are just attached to the desktop tower form factor because it is how they LARP as some sort of elite super interesting tech genius.

 

[Schmedly]

There is as new wave of people setting up computers locally (both personal and business) for AI inference.

It is striking to me that right before this happens, Apple discontinues the Mac Pro which was perfectly suited for this. We go decades with the Mac Pro having sluggish sales and then the year that it will actually start selling like hotcakes, it's gone!

I guess Nvidia captures the market share with RTX Spark, that they announced a couple of days ago.

For the uninitiated, running a local LLM requires enough VRAM to fully fit it in memory. Models get huge very quickly. Because of the unified memory, this means you can fit much larger models on a mac instead of a traditional machine that has a separate video card (the video card has its own RAM and video cards with a lot of RAM are very, very expensive)

The problem is twofold: Nvidia fracture and bandwidth. The Apple Ultra UMA has great bandwidth (key for LLM), but an extra card obviates this. Nvidia cards have great bandwidth internally, but there aren't any official Apple drivers for it. It was a cleaner path to just go with UMA rather than partner with AMD for competitive hardware.

 

[seek3r]

It’s so typical how on previous threads (not this thread) about the Mac Pro, Tim Cook supporters, who probably none of have ever been in work-related situations that needed the power of a Mac Pro, pathetically tried to justify the previous Mac Pro not having user-upgradable RAM and user-upgradable main storage, and now pathetically try to justify the discontinuation of the Mac Pro. To them, Cook can do no wrong.

I’ll be honest, I work on SaaS data platforms these days, have for a long time, and long ago mostly HPC before that, so big tech corp america and govt/uni science before then, and I’ve rarely seen anyone actually even try to get their workstation upgraded post-purchase at work

Usually the company just writes off the hardware at the next refresh cycle and you get a new machine.

As expensive as, say, a fully loaded studio (before the ram shortage made them unavailable) is, it’s a rounding error in the cost of employment of anyone using it, so it makes way more sense to frontload the cost and deprecate and replace the machine in 3-5 years.

Corporate buyers, which is the target for professional machines, dont care whether the ram is upgradable because it’s likely never going to get upgrades even if it is.

Hell, at work right now IT’s been trying to get me to upgrade off my M1 Pro MBP right now and *I’m* resisting because I’m holding out for next year’s rumored redesign. So I’m actually past the refresh cycle and IT sends me a polite nastygram about it periodically.

 

[Larry-K]

There is as new wave of people setting up computers locally (both personal and business) for AI inference.

It is striking to me that right before this happens, Apple discontinues the Mac Pro which was perfectly suited for this. We go decades with the Mac Pro having sluggish sales and then the year that it will actually start selling like hotcakes, it's gone!

I guess Nvidia captures the market share with RTX Spark, that they announced a couple of days ago.

For the uninitiated, running a local LLM requires enough VRAM to fully fit it in memory. Models get huge very quickly. Because of the unified memory, this means you can fit much larger models on a mac instead of a traditional machine that has a separate video card (the video card has its own RAM and video cards with a lot of RAM are very, very expensive)

So, slightly off-topic, but do you think the MP has a chance at life again with Ternus at the helm?

How many did they ever sell? The base model was $6K, and fully outfitted it was $64K or something like that, with Xeons!

I owned every Mac Pro till that model, but when Apple started wheels for $600, and $1,500 Monitor stands, I knew I wasn't in that demographic.

I like my Studios, they were the long-awaited "Headless Mac" I wanted for decades, waiting for an M5 one.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Do you have such an example of something you did that needed the "power" of a Mac Pro that the Mac Studio is not powerful enough to do?

Don't say AI, because the user upgradeable RAM in the older Mac Pros can't be addressed by the GPU and is thus useless for AI.

Hash cracking. Any FP64. Even a cluster can't touch any Mac Pro except the 2023. Y'all really need to stop trying to tell us what we need. 😂

 

[keksikuningas]

The bean-counter approach to anything that isn't for sale at Walmart. MBAs like to keep things simple to manage. That doesn't mean that companies like Apple are not making a profit on things like MBPs. Just a little more complex to manage.

also Macs are the only things that support the iOS/iPadOS structure due to being the only officially allowed platforms for development for these OSes. So they definitely have to exist in one way or another for Apple

 

[mattspace]

also Macs are the only things that support the iOS/iPadOS structure due to being the only officially allowed platforms for development for these OSes. So they definitely have to exist in one way or another for Apple

As I've mentioned here before, one of the BIIIIG games Apple commissioned, and financed for Apple Arcade, a well-known IP that has existed since the Apple II, for which Apple paid to produce broadcast-TV commercials with celebrity actors in costume, and which won a string of awards in gamesdev...

The total Mac presence in its development was a single Mac Mini in a server cabinet, that the entire studio used as a build server when they plugged iPhones, iPads etc into their PC workstations to build for device from Unreal.

The Mac is essentially just a USB licence dongle, depending on your development process.

 

[teh_hunterer]

Hash cracking. Any FP64. Even a cluster can't touch any Mac Pro except the 2023. Y'all really need to stop trying to tell us what we need. 😂

Oh my goodness LARP harder 🤣

 

[Omega Mac]

We’ve been discussing this concept here ever since M1 got announced. Unfortunately, this is not happening - data routing would make it too expensive for a consumer product. For their own ML server farms, Apple uses a much simpler concept, which essentially boils down to having a bunch of Macs on a shared fast network interface, only packaged more efficiently.

I take your point, and I suppose I missed all that from the M1 onwards until that topic when it struck me as a way forward.

However, lets' tease this out a little more and pull from a recent good news context.

Look at the NEO, apple went into very un-Apple space and game out on top in the low end, and in the end it was their own silicon at this option in time that allowed them do this.

So why not the top end? - How about a bit of that NEO effect in the top end, wow yea it's madly powerful, and man equally as expensive, but brilliant, blade M packages all you can eat to beat the band, have it your way, at $cale!

There is a high possibility with Ternus as the new CEO to make something novel like this happen, and then in a flash Apple is in every market segment competing on its own terms and everyone is happy on MR they have more things to complain about! 😉

- - -

Continued thinking, if Apple are all-in and so-good at their M-Chip On Memory packages configs, firing out memory blades that are CPU integrated, sure what's the loss, it's there sic lion, economy of scale.

Now I just got 10 blades, it's almost 1TB of memory, and i have 10 CPUS, yea expensive but only Apple do this this way etc. and isn't it the case 1TB of integrate package ram is superior when it comes to some task (Ai?) versus larger amounts of traditionally configured RAM?

Here Apple innovate blades with larger integrated men package, and that trickles down means all the power users can dip in too and benefit. The Ai market is now right there when the Fab squeeze happens. Swings and round abouts, but never look a gift horse in the mouth.

I dunno it seems to em Apple coudl do somethign incredibly innovate here in term of the server/data-farms, I jsut saw some random video in the X feed about buying racks and racks of minis and making own server farm being cheaper than renting, ownership hands down one when it came to the $$$ numbers.

M-Blades sans housing and production breaks has to be easily cheapest approach for massive yet low-powered array computing?

Data centres are hot and controversial topic right now across the world, for being resource hogs. Underling for many and finally proving for others all the "carbon" stuff has been very obviously a scam, and probably a form of gaslighting.

I'm not as technically literate on the minutiae of the hardware packages, so I appreciate the schooling and correction, but keep in mind it's "What-If", but if Apple are so good (excepting RAM/production context in the Ai craze phase) at making up those packages, surely then they have a real shot at going into the space all Silicons Blading!

As they say, where there is a will, there is a way.

Is Ternus the JIT will about to go the way?

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

There’s no reason why Apple wouldn’t reintroduce a tower Mac in the future.

Note what they said in their original response (to 9-to5 Mac, I believe); they had no plans to release a successor to Mac Pro.

Based on this, and the fact that allegedly Apple was starting to not like the ‘Pro’ moniker for the XDR display, they would release a new tower under a different brand.

We’re already hearing that the touchscreen MacBook and foldable iPhone could be labelled ‘Ultra’. I think it would make perfect sense for this to be the next tower, if indeed they choose to design one.

Apple is clever in its wording, and I believe that if they truly had no desire to introduce another tower in the future, then they would have been more specific.

 

[Bug-Creator]

and now pathetically try to justify the discontinuation of the Mac Pro.

There is nothing to "justify". A MacPro that is more than a MacStudio with PCIe slots would need custom silicon that wouldn't be useable for any other product Apple makes (unless they want to go into data centers).

On the other hand you have so many use cases that needed a PowerMac/MacPro 20 years ago that will now just fare fine with a Studio (or even a Mini or MacBook) leaving just not enough potential costumers to make it viable.

Do I know the numbers? Of course not but a fair guess is such a chip with a 2 year update cycle would need at least 1 billion in revenue. So 100000 units at $10000? Or 50000 at $20000? Now convince Mr Ternus that such a market exists and has the potential for further growth.

 

[thelion7]

There is as new wave of people setting up computers locally (both personal and business) for AI inference.

It is striking to me that right before this happens, Apple discontinues the Mac Pro which was perfectly suited for this. We go decades with the Mac Pro having sluggish sales and then the year that it will actually start selling like hotcakes, it's gone!

I guess Nvidia captures the market share with RTX Spark, that they announced a couple of days ago.

For the uninitiated, running a local LLM requires enough VRAM to fully fit it in memory. Models get huge very quickly. Because of the unified memory, this means you can fit much larger models on a mac instead of a traditional machine that has a separate video card (the video card has its own RAM and video cards with a lot of RAM are very, very expensive)

No, they made the right choice.

The Mac Studio exists now.

The only way the Mac Pro tower would be useful today is if Apple allowed for modularity again.

Where you could have a build with 2 or 3 hypothetical M5 Max or ultra chips working together efficiently.

I feel apple silicon has created a performance scope so high that most professionals will manage fine on a fully spec’d studio.

So it’s not viable to push the wall even higher with multi silicon builds for an already niche market

The Mac Pro made sense in the intel era where you needed much better cooling and higher power requirements.

Now the CPU, RAM and GPU are all on the same silicon you don’t need that tall tower.

Apple tried with the Apple silicon Mac pro and although it was a great machine, its existence didn’t make sense next to the just as capable yet cheaper studio.

 

[Omega Mac]

There is nothing to "justify". A MacPro that is more than a MacStudio with PCIe slots would need custom silicon that wouldn't be useable for any other product Apple makes (unless they want to go into data centers).

On the other hand you have so many use cases that needed a PowerMac/MacPro 20 years ago that will now just fare fine with a Studio (or even a Mini or MacBook) leaving just not enough potential costumers to make it viable.

Do I know the numbers? Of course not but a fair guess is such a chip with a 2 year update cycle would need at least 1 billion in revenue. So 100000 units at $10000? Or 50000 at $20000? Now convince Mr Ternus that such a market exists and has the potential for further growth.

Personal compute is under direct assault, and Apple can not walk away from this reality, their entire business model is hardware linked, the "you'll own nothing, and be happy" BS is an Apple biz model killer is it not?

Yea they have services but the Hardware innovation curve is not over.

Personal compute can mean anything, a single device, to multiple devices, to your own server farm/array, heating your house. The whole concept is being broadened out daily, and a huge part is Ai now love it or hate it, but also the simple ubiquity of devices, which Apple made possible in terms of market leadership.

I had thought about server compute boxes distributed to homes far in advance of the Nvidia pitch (I forgot the 3rd party company involved), as it's kinda obvious, and laughed when I saw it pop-up recently, but I was thinking beyond that, for example in colder climbs where you could heat the home, every home is now built with a compute array node centrally to keep you snug and warm, fry an egg on it!

Personal compute is really important, from hardware to OS, we can't lose this, everything will got to super shyte, if we do, and I don't think we will, because the people behind the own nothing be happy are essentially functionally retarded by they ideological poesseion and need real people to build wha they think they can replace real peopel with, essentially playing Gods here, but no, the system will always balance out, depute the maniacs.

So once again, NEO allowed Apple dip into some of that "broader" realm of ever expanding personal compute.

I don't see how Apple jumps to the OpenAi/X side as such, I don't want a robot, don't need it, maybe Ternus has other ideas, but it should be encouraging right now that a Hardware guy is at the helm, it cements hardware is still King and Software can remain Queen.

 

[Omega Mac]

There’s no reason why Apple wouldn’t reintroduce a tower Mac in the future.

Note what they said in their original response (to 9-to5 Mac, I believe); they had no plans to release a successor to Mac Pro.

Based on this, and the fact that allegedly Apple was starting to not like the ‘Pro’ moniker for the XDR display, they would release a new tower under a different brand.

We’re already hearing that the touchscreen MacBook and foldable iPhone could be labelled ‘Ultra’. I think it would make perfect sense for this to be the next tower, if indeed they choose to design one.

Apple is clever in its wording, and I believe that if they truly had no desire to introduce another tower in the future, then they would have been more specific.

I missed this news about the Pro until I read this topic (busy) but I think you have it there, they are clearing the way for some re-alignment, making space in lieu of new / innovation if and when required.

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

No one has claimed that it would still be unified memory. So that’s a straw man argument on your part.
The point is simply that, technically speaking, Apple could certainly integrate the interface to connect a GPU.

That is completely contrary to how Apple silicon works