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Apple Unveils New Mac Pro With M2 Ultra Chip and More
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Far from “mainly GPUs”… we use many different types of video capture cards, network interfaces and NVMe HBA cards which require at least 8-lanes for full functionality.
These simply cannot be used to their full capacity over Thunderbolt. Our current workflow using these cards via Mac Studios with external Thunderbolt chassis is crippled, and is the reason why we will be buying several M2 Mac Pros at launch.
All Apple Silicon chips with media engines do support H.265 (HEVC) encode/decode in hardware.
Zero - Apple wouldn't digitally sign the Turing drivers Nvidia developed. In addition, there doesn't appear to be enough power connectors for a dGPU.
Ya obviously I could tell that much...my question was who is that person? Film studios? Animators? I thought they targeted all those people with the Mac Studio?
By the end of the day, we’ll be able to tell from their developer session videos what their plan is for at least 2023/2024. If there’s no mention of additional GPU capabilities other than Apple GPU, then there’s nothing else planned at LEAST until 20204’s WWDC.
Where they will, most likely, continue to indicate how the Apple GPU is the only GPU for Apple Silicon systems.
So no gpu support? why the 6 slots?
The same spec Mac Studio is 3500$ cheaper!
seem the better option as you can so so much using TB4.
The same spec Mac Studio is 3500$ cheaper!
seem the better option as you can so so much using TB4.
Well, as long as the person’s trading in their old Mac Pro, then, it WOULD be a cheaper price than for those NOT trading in a Mac Pro.
I don't see Apple adding support for any 3rd party GPU's going forward
Nobody should really need this unless they are billing their time. Mac Pros (all workstations basically) are bad investments unless you are billing out your time to do something only they can do or at least do faster. Those that claim that buying a tower helps them future-proof their investment because they can always upgrade it have really not understood the last 2-3 decades of computing advancements.
On this page:
PCIe cards you can install in your Mac Pro (2019) - Apple Support
Learn about the Apple MPX Modules and some of the third-party PCIe cards you can install in your Mac Pro.
Look below “Third-party PCIe cards” (excluding Afterburner cards). These are, potentially, cards that COULD be made compatible with Apple Silicon with proper driver support. So, it’s a good idea of the kinds of cards that are possible at this time.
We've been hearing rumours specifically of a higher end CPU ... that never materialized and seemingly delayed announcement by almost 1yr.
So using the same M2 Ultra chip, with RAM, and on-board storage configuration seems VERY knee-jerk move to me for a machine that is supposed to be 1 level below a fully functioning server.
Again we'll see what the performance is yet I worry initial 1st year sales will be lack luster than before.
OH, I don’t either.
I just use WWDC as a confirmation that “it’s still not happening”.
To me, this product seems like a throwaway to 'complete' the promise of an M(x) Mac Pro. They realized they couldn't do much more than the Mac Studio and had basically boxed themselves into a corner with their promise of a new M(x) Mac Pro. Promising a Mac Pro that was (once again) boxed into a 'corner'.
So, they said wtf and just put this thing out there as the new Mac Pro. Not because it promises anything more than the studio, but because they "promised" there would, in fact, be a NEW Mac Pro.
Prediction: This is a one-off. We will NEVER see this machine updated.
I imagine in the next ATP podcast, John Siracusa will say something similar. This product is a complete dead end.
So, they said wtf and just put this thing out there as the new Mac Pro. Not because it promises anything more than the studio, but because they "promised" there would, in fact, be a NEW Mac Pro.
Prediction: This is a one-off. We will NEVER see this machine updated.
I imagine in the next ATP podcast, John Siracusa will say something similar. This product is a complete dead end.
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much more cheaper than a MP 2019. at USD8000 you were just staring in the base config on the 2019. Now with that money you got the top one
even the biggest apple fanboys would probably have preferred an updated Intel based Mac Pro than whatever trash this thing is.
Those rumors were from folks that weren’t paying attention for the last almost three years now (or that valued social media attention highly).
Apple’s been telegraphing what Apple Silicon will be this entire time. There will be a baseline processor, and every more performant tier will differ by number of cores. And, by the time of the Mac Studio, there were still those thinking that whatever the Mac Pro was was NOT going to follow a very clearly set out pattern.It’s not a knee-jerk move, it’s what it was going to be all along. It’s not supposed to be 1 level below a fully functioning server, it’s supposed the be the fastest Mac someone, that WANTS a Mac, can buy, which also happens to offer PCIe slots as a feature.
Considering that the Mac Pro at it’s HIGHEST yearly unit sales likely never amounts to over one half of 1% of Apple’s yearly revenues, the sales of the Mac Pro, good OR bad, won’t have a material affect on Apple’s bottom line.
And that is the biggest problem.
The Mac Pro (1,1 - 5,1) were general purpose workstations - fast, powerful, and were priced within a couple hundred dollars of their HP & Dell competitors. Any field that needed performance could (and many did) run with a Mac Pro. They were also cheap enough that power users (like myself) could purchase them.
Then P.T. Barnum & Sir Idiot Boy decided to try the Cube again - the Mac Pro (6,1) became a dongle for Final Cut & Logic.
Since the release of the trashcan, each version of the Mac Pro is targeted to a smaller and smaller group of customers. That is why this thing is so expensive. It is only good for legacy customers that are unwilling (or unable) to leave the OSX ecosystem. It won't be bringing in new customers, and growing the user base - especially if the Mac Studio is thousands cheaper and performs at the same level.
Personally, I find it hilarious watching people go from We can have up to 2tb of ram! to Why do you need 192gb of ram?
$400 for 2tb of storage (I can get a 2tb SSD for less than $100 USD.)
$1,600 for 192gb of ram (192gb of ram is less than $600 USD).
And the wheels are $400
And you obviously haven't spend a single minute in the Mac Pro forums, apparently. As a reminder, we went over 2,000 DAYS between the 6,1 & the 7,1.
We still have people upgrading Mac Pros that are almost old enough to vote.
All of the original cheesegraters were very easy to upgrade and future proof.
Look at my sig - that was the configuration of my last Mac Pro when I decommissioned it. And I moved 2 of those cards over to my current Ryzen box.
I ran that cheesegrater for 9 years; I replaced the CPUs, the GPUs (three times), upgraded the optical drive, replaced all of the hard drives (twice), and filled all of the PCIe slots. Two of those PCIe cards have since transitioned to my current computer.
I know Apple is still holding a grudge with NVidia for things that happened a decade ago.
BUT... if Apple allowed NVidia RTX or Quadro cards to work in the new Mac Pro... they would sell a ton of them to the kinds of people who need CUDA and other things. Right now those customers are forced into Windows machines.
The Mac Pro only appeals to a small niche market... so why are they making it even smaller?
🤔
BUT... if Apple allowed NVidia RTX or Quadro cards to work in the new Mac Pro... they would sell a ton of them to the kinds of people who need CUDA and other things. Right now those customers are forced into Windows machines.
The Mac Pro only appeals to a small niche market... so why are they making it even smaller?
🤔
If one does video and audio work and do not use equipment that expects to plug into a PCIe card, then the Mac Studio is likely the optimum macOS platform for them.
But there are people who do video and audio work and use equipment that expects to plug into a PCIe card, so the Mac Pro might be the better option for them (especially if they have a number of these PCIe cards).
Apple touched on it a bit in the Mac Pro presentation, including high-speed networking cards (25Gbps+); storage cards (that have multiple M.2 SSD slots); cards to connect to audio and video equipment.