Apple Unveils New Mac Pro With M2 Ultra Chip and More

DFZD said:
3x faster than the last Intel Mac isn’t the flex Apple thinks it is.
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I'm wondering about this.
I really like Apple hardware but use a lot of Windows programs - hopefully going forward it'll be a viable Windows machine too.
 
ojfl said:
Wow, this is very expensive. It is truly for Pros and we are not one of those. I guess our family will have to choose between a new MacMini, which seems to have too little memory at the max, or the MacStudio. But we will have to buy new external enclosures for our eSATA external hard disks. We will also have to boot from an external hard disk as Apple's prices for storage are on the expensive side. Our Intel MacPro is already too old and has no supported software updates. It will become another Linux server at the home.
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why would you need to boot from external enclosure? you should not have any files other than your os on the system drive anyway so even 256GB should be enough to run system fast definitely store files on TB drives. none of this are new problems either? all recent macs aside from the last Mac Pro had these limitations
 
Nick_P said:
Huh? All the hardware was very brief. The Mac Pro, Studio, and the 15" Air could have been the entire keynote. They are flying through because of the googles coming up.
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Nope. If the AS MacPro were truly groundbreaking (M3 Extreme CPU, Hardware Ray Tracing, Modular AS GPU's, 1 TB LPDDR5x RAM, PCIe 5.0), they would have announced it in a separate event from the headset, in order to brag about it like they did when they announced the 2019 device. It's only because it's incremental, and not an entirely new design (same as all the other hardware, with the posible exception of the 15" Air), that they decided to slip it into this event. Apple is not locked in to a fixed number of events per year. They tailor it to what they have to announce.
 
kingtj1971 said:
I understand this "niche" customer for these systems. But it still seems like a ridiculously overpriced solution for a problem that could be solved other ways. Every one of these PCIe audio cards I've seen could be designed to work just as well as a stand-alone device that plugged into a Thunderbolt port.
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They could, but they haven't. And I don't say that to be flippant or snarky. And if all of your PCIe cards were also made available as separate external boxes, you would have multiple boxes on your desk, which was a major complaint and pain point of the 2013 Mac Pro for such users and they pushed Apple to add back internal PCIe expansion for the 2019 Mac Pro (and surely pushed to keep it on the 2023 model).
 
theluggage said:
You can get external thunderbolt-to-PCIe enclosures for the Studio. You can get a bracket to neatly mount a Studio + PCIe cards in a rack for under $2000. We'll have to see what the specs, bandwidth etc. of the MP's PCIe slots are to know how much better it is going to be than such a setup. But then, this isn't something that Apple spent a fortune on developing so they don't have to fly off the shelves - whereas developing a Xeon/Threadripper-killer version of Apple Silicon would have been a huge investment.
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maybe so but if you rely heavily on racked mac pro you can just upgrade your existing setup without rethinking everything, just transfer the cards and you're done. anyway now there is no way to get more ram in a new mac; so if you do need more ram keep your old intel version for the time being (no reason it won't evolve).
 
kingtj1971 said:
I understand this "niche" customer for these systems. But it still seems like a ridiculously overpriced solution for a problem that could be solved other ways. Every one of these PCIe audio cards I've seen could be designed to work just as well as a stand-alone device that plugged into a Thunderbolt port.

At that point, you'd really have no good reason to pay $6000+ for a Mac Pro vs. a Studio. (If you're saying you'll pay a premium of thousands just because it's more rack-mount friendly? Well, I guarantee rack ears can be made to put a Mac Studio in real nicely for less than that.)
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I agree the niche segment of this machine is steep. My take: The big Hollywood houses don't care about the price. They just care about their systems running reliably, since these machines flip the investment for them quickly. As long as they're stable, and output good work & performance, I think that's all they care about, in regards to the machine.

For most people, the Mac Studio is going to be more than enough. And if people that own a Mac Studio, find themselves needing PCIe, they have the expansion TB cases. A similar footprint too if you look at the Sonnet cases. 5U of space if you rack mount the Mac Studio and the Echo chassis.

I agree with you, 6K+ is steep for consumers/prosumers compared to a Mac Studio. For the likely infinite budget of these Hollywood studios, they probably just want everything integrated (internally, less cables), and running reliably, so the Mac Pro is a quick decision. Also, if you are a working professional, this machine could make sense if you like the Mac Pro. I understand the Mac Studio makes even more financial sense, but some people like to own the top tier, or like to buy just in case they see themselves fit in the "hey I might need PCIe expansion later".
 
theluggage said:
You can get external thunderbolt-to-PCIe enclosures for the Studio. You can get a bracket to neatly mount a Studio + PCIe cards in a rack for under $2000. We'll have to see what the specs, bandwidth etc. of the MP's PCIe slots are to know how much better it is going to be than such a setup. But then, this isn't something that Apple spent a fortune on developing so they don't have to fly off the shelves - whereas developing a Xeon/Threadripper-killer version of Apple Silicon would have been a huge investment.
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thunderbolt as stated elsewhere in this thread is PCIe 4x limited, so this is not an actual solution until thunderbolt is PCIe x16
 
Adreitz said:
It feels like highway robbery. But I bet Apple look at this like a corporate price for corporate customers. No prosumer is going to buy this.
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yes because that's absolutely not the market for this and it never was. you've got the studio and mini for that.
 
sunny5 said:
M2 Ultra wont even come close to RTX 3090 and Nvidia already have RTX 4090.
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...aaand the future, at least next 5-10 years, are GPUs. Nvidia made their gamble, apple made theirs - they both did well financially, it's people like me who want a pro workstation made a mistake. Mistake of waiting for Apple to deliver.
 
seabasstin said:
thunderbolt as stated elsewhere in this thread is PCIe 4x limited, so this is not an actual solution until thunderbolt is PCIe x16
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...its mainly GPUs that need more than 4x PCIe per card so unless Apple have added PCIe GPU support (I think they'd have said) that's not such a big issue.

We've yet to find out what the bandwidth/number of lanes is on the new Mac Pro and where they pulled those PCIe lanes from on the M2 Ultra.
 
Bokito said:
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.
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A Mac Studio with 64GB of RAM does just fine with 8K video and RAW photos from a Nikon Z9 in FCPX.
A Mac Mini with 8GB of RAM does fine in Logic Pro X with 128 tracks and multiple effects on each.

RAM requirements have not been the same on AS as on x86.
 
So their only expandable option in their entire lineup starts at $7k. It seems like they want this to fail so they can stop developing it and just focus on the Studio instead.

"See, nobody wants expandable options anyway!"
 
theluggage said:
...its mainly GPUs that need more than 4x PCIe per card so unless Apple have added PCIe GPU support (I think they'd have said) that's not such a big issue.

We've yet to find out what the bandwidth/number of lanes is on the new Mac Pro and where they pulled those PCIe lanes from on the M2 Ultra.
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pci-e 3.0 X4 (best case and not shared with video data) is to slow for
storage just 1 m.2 card can max it out and they have 4.0 cards out now
high speed networking
video in (they have X8 cards for that)
even with stuff that can run at X4 you will one TB bus just for each device you want to use + leftover ones for the video out
 
Ouch. The starting price of the 2019 one was already crazy. This makes it a no go for me. I guess I will stick with the Studio, I just hope they fixed the AWFUL whine with the updated version. I will wait for reviews. $3,000 additional cost is NOT worth it to eliminate the whine.

$6,599.00 Mac Studio
  • Apple M2 Ultra with 24‑core CPU, 60‑core GPU, 32‑core Neural Engine
  • 192GB unified memory
  • 4TB SSD storage
  • Front: Two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one SDXC card slot
  • Back: Four Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, one HDMI port, one 10Gb Ethernet port, one 3.5 mm headphone jack
vs

$9,599.00 Mac Pro
  • Apple M2 Ultra with 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine
  • 192GB unified memory
  • 4TB SSD storage
  • Stainless steel frame with feet
  • Magic Mouse
  • Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad - US English
Ouch, just ouch. I could upgrade to 8TB with the Studio and it would be $7,799.00.
 
I honestly thought they'd do a fast unified RAM / slow expandable RAM split. Where you basically fill the unified RAM first, and then you hit the slow RAM (and maybe limit what goes there with flags/rules). But apparently, no.

For the M3 version, perhaps?
 
So you can actually upgrade the 13” M1 MBP with the 13” M2 SoC/board. Honest questions, does that mean that the MacPro is less processor upgradable than the 13” MBP?
 
Eric_Z said:
I honestly thought they'd do a fast unified RAM / slow expandable RAM split. Where you basically fill the unified RAM first, and then you hit the slow RAM (and maybe limit what goes there with flags/rules). But apparently, no.

For the M3 version, perhaps?
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ram disk ram used an swap may work.
 
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