Well it was originally planned to have an "Extreme" SoC with the power of two Ultras/four Max, but it proved to complex and expensive so they dropped back to using the Ultra SoC.
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Apple Unveils New Mac Pro With M2 Ultra Chip and More
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Well it was originally planned to have an "Extreme" SoC with the power of two Ultras/four Max, but it proved to complex and expensive so they dropped back to using the Ultra SoC.
This is a machine that is 95% for business users, so that's not a problem.
They took a Mac Studio SoC and slapped a Mac Pro label on it. Then you get PCIe breakout inside of a case.
It is 100% for a niche of macOS users. And 99.9999% of the people on this forum, much less the people posting in this thread, are not part of that niche.
What!? So no support for external GPUs whatsoever? Well that’s the end of my Mac Pro journey then. I'm kinda speechless.
No I meant can we bring our 2019 Mac Pro to Apple and have them swap the guts out to the Apple Silicon MB guts.
I wonder why this took an extra year to get out the door-- was adding PCIe expansion that big of a challenge? Or is this a so-called "stopgap" because they couldn't get where they wanted just yet? (M1 / M2 Extreme, etc)
Indeed. Apple just finally announced an updated MacPro, but they're giving more air time to adding photos to incoming call screens. It's been interesting watching the transition over the decades from "There's just one more thing..." to "Oh, by the way,"
One (just 1!!) minute of keynote time says it all. It’s an afterthought. They could’ve done this last year.
Yes, there are less people that need a Mac Pro each year, but there are certainly people that need it. And a Mac Pro with just 192 GB just isn’t gonna cut it if you want to use this device for 5 years. As a Webdeveloper 32 GB RAM is the bare minimum these days. I can’t image people working with 8K+ video and RAW phots having enough RAM. Apple could probably introduce a 256GB model in 6 months, but that’s far off from the 1.5TB Mac Pro introduced years ago. The 1.5 TB might’ve been overkill, but in certain circumstances it’s useful (AI/data training). Apple now killed that marked.
Yes, there are less people that need a Mac Pro each year, but there are certainly people that need it. And a Mac Pro with just 192 GB just isn’t gonna cut it if you want to use this device for 5 years. As a Webdeveloper 32 GB RAM is the bare minimum these days. I can’t image people working with 8K+ video and RAW phots having enough RAM. Apple could probably introduce a 256GB model in 6 months, but that’s far off from the 1.5TB Mac Pro introduced years ago. The 1.5 TB might’ve been overkill, but in certain circumstances it’s useful (AI/data training). Apple now killed that marked.
Seems like they did the absolute minimum just to fulfill the promise of delivering a "Mac Pro". Which begs the question, why did it take so long?
It was supposed to have an SoC twice as powerful as the Ultra, but that did not pan out.
Because a literal handful of people watching this keynote are actually interested in the Mac Pro as a product they plan to buy. And a fair number of them likely have dedicated Apple sales and technical contacts to ask whatever questions they have about it.
Cue the speculation threads about the M3 Mac Pro 😂
It all depends on nVidia and AMD GPUs to be made compatible driver with Apple Silicon/macOS. They already have ARM drivers so this should be no problem.
With compatibility of Other PCIE cars such as SSDs, Network, Audio, this is the best upgrade ever.
192GB not enough? For what exactly? For those 5 people who run supercomputers in their basement on climate simulations?
With compatibility of Other PCIE cars such as SSDs, Network, Audio, this is the best upgrade ever.
192GB not enough? For what exactly? For those 5 people who run supercomputers in their basement on climate simulations?
EPIC FAIL. Apple cant even make Pro computers anymore. Since M2 Ultra is not even close to RX 3090, that's a joke.
Just one M2 Ultra
No RAM upgradbiliy
No 5.0 PCIe slots
No GPU upgradability
Way more expensive than Mac Pro 2019
$1000 more for less
That is not even a workstation, it's just another Mac Studio with PCIe slots.
Just one M2 Ultra
No RAM upgradbiliy
No 5.0 PCIe slots
No GPU upgradability
Way more expensive than Mac Pro 2019
$1000 more for less
That is not even a workstation, it's just another Mac Studio with PCIe slots.
I hate to say it, but I don't think the Mac Pro is ever going to be much more than this. The ASi SoC model just doesn't allow for much upgradeability/expandibility. They've done what they can do, but I don't think it's going to have "upgradeable everything" with ASi as it is.
I think just shows that Apple silicon doesn’t scale well to workstation class chips. Also no mention of ECC memory. It just sounds like an expensive mac studio.
The fact that this was announced way early in the keynote just shows this is below expectation and they know it. Should have gone M3 God.
