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Apple Unveils New Mac Pro With M2 Ultra Chip and More
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I would expect not, and even if you could, it would be orders of magnitude slower than the on-package RAM.
It is possible that Apple looked into offering off-package RAM (via an additional memory controller) and found the performance to not be acceptable or it might have caused some type of issue that made it an undesirable path to follow.
Hybrid GPU isn't going to be much use to the use cases Apple targets. What would have been nice is the idea of a compute accelerator, adding up to 4 M2Ultra's as expansion cards which work could be dispatched to - kind of like cluster computing inside a single computer case.
HP Z workstations already supports PCIe 5.0
Blimey! With this nifty, pro-level design, the poor souls who had no choice but to ponder the Mac Studio are finally saved! Now they've got a proper professional option on the cards, innit?
Wow. Just Wow. This machine is bizarre.. They must have really failed to achieve their original plan. I would’ve never believed they would ship something like this for Mac Pro. I have here the 16c 2xVegaII 192gb from 2019 and dont know what to do now. I really WANT Apple Silicon, but that lack of GPU expandability, wow. I have a sonnet raid card installed, which wound be nice to keep, and would be the only reason to go to a New mac pro over the studio with m2 ultra… or do I just wait for the m3 Mac Pro!? It sucks that they talked so little about it, so it gives you absolutely NO idea what their plan forward is for this machine category!!
If the new Mac Studio with M2 Ultra starts at $4,000... and this new Mac Pro with M2 Ultra starts at $7,000...
Is it worth it paying $3,000 for PCIe slots? Especially if you cannot use GPUs in those PCIe slots?
🤔
Is it worth it paying $3,000 for PCIe slots? Especially if you cannot use GPUs in those PCIe slots?
🤔
This is a problem for professionals. They are going to need more VRAM and higher bandwidth as generative images become a normal part of the workflow. Photoshop already has this. Mac is very slow at this...it will be a serious problem for professionals making a choice.
Leave it to Apple to be a generation behind yet make it sound like it's brand new.
We'll need to wait to see if they made any differences that will require special Apple Silicon Wheels.
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To your point, why have a Mac Pro at all then? The Mac Pro is supposed to be the expensive, upgradeable, expandable workstation - CPU and GPU options, 256+ GB of RAM, dozens of TBs of storage, add-on cards for networking, a/v acceleration, etc
This one is a Mac Studio set in a larger case, for no reason, with the same limitations.
So, If it's not possible to install any GPU in there, the Mac Pro and the Mac Is dead for me.
A Thunderbolt port supports 4-lane PCIe tunnelling, with effective bandwidth slightly less than that.
We use Mac Studios with PCIe chassis for video capture, and this setup is severely limited when using most capture cards which are 8-lane devices. Only half the video capture bandwidth can be used.
We also use dual-port 25Gb SFP28 Ethernet cards, which are limited to a single port via Thunderbolt.
So no, an M2 Mac Pro with PCIe slots will not be ‘the same thing’ as a Mac Studio with TB chassis.
You can't order wheels for the Studio. So there's that.
As others have noted, this is going to be one of the most product-packed WWDCs in a decade - we're an hour in and we have yet to talk about xrOS and the Reality Pro headset.
The hard specs on this Mac Pro will likely come out later this week and there will probably be one in the Media Center so we should see deeper reviews from the Usual Suspects like Annandtech soon.
The hard specs on this Mac Pro will likely come out later this week and there will probably be one in the Media Center so we should see deeper reviews from the Usual Suspects like Annandtech soon.
I've had 3 years of solid use out of my Mac Pro and it's paid for itself now and is mainly running as a VM host (it's a 12 core with 144GB Ram so does a great job at that)
I don't think I'll even bother with getting a new desktop as I don't need any more performance than the M2 16" MBP gives me, but if I did I think I'd get a studio rather than a Pro: I don't need the PCIe slots and from what I can see, that's pretty much the only difference!
Yep, the new Sapphire Rapid's based machines support PCIe Gen 5 but to be honest, more emerging storage tech will probably be the one thing to come close to fully utilizing that amount of bandwidth.
HP, Lenovo, and Dell all have their updated machines supporting PCIe gen 5 with Intel SR.
Would have been nice to see PCIe Gen 5 on this new AS Mac Pro, but I can also see if whether it's needed for the user base of these machines.
Exactly. A huge premium for a non-upgradeable Mac. If you buy the 8 core Intel Mac Pro you could at least upgrade to a 28 core down the line and add more GPUs and RAM as needed. Apple should be offering a motherboard for current Intel Mac Pro owners and an upgrade path for the new M2 Ultra Mac Pro. This new Mac Pro will probably receive annual updates. Imagine spending $7,000 every year to stay current.
ah we are back to trashcan days… or i think maybe more accurate the G4 cube…. it seems like the announced ram was a mistake? a workstation normally has between 256 and 1TB of ram. so it seems like an actual mistake the 192? but anyways the PCIe 4 is a weird joke. the lack of .M2 storage options, is a cruel joke, in general this is a disaster, and apple will never regain the high end creative market which is sad… I had hoped they would buy Avid revive softimage and really lean into 3D and FX and film… instead we have this crap
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Ok, I guess it's time to grab a M3 Macbook Pro when it's released and just buy a PC if I need some serious GPU power. I want to squeeze my workstations dry - I am NOT buying a stationary workhorse machine with NO option for upgradable GPU. Who in the right mind would make such an investment with GPU-heavy AI taking over every single piece of software... I don't want my Adobe suite to be laggy in 3-4 years.
This is probably as disappointing Mac Pro announcement as the trashcan. Just terrible. I'm speechless
This is probably as disappointing Mac Pro announcement as the trashcan. Just terrible. I'm speechless
Apple has officially ceded any claim to HPC.
192GB is pitiful.
192GB is pitiful.
I literally have no idea who is this machine for apart from some super-duper niche music makers who need an edge in power and PCI slots. This is like 0.00007% market share. W T F