Apple Unveils New Mac Pro With M2 Ultra Chip and More

[Ethosik]

I think they said the new Studio is six times faster than the fastest Intel iMac...

But I could be wrong... it was an hour ago. I'll have to go back and watch the keynote again later.

You are right, I recall it saying iMac too.

 

[trusso]

Very happy they've kept this in the lineup, and finally upgraded it to Apple silicon.

But $5000 for (essentially) some PCIe slots? Outrageous.

At least 1TB SSD is standard now.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Kinda sad the PCIe slots are only PCIe 4, not 5 or 6.

Honestly, I had 764gb of RAM in my 2019 and my M1 PowerBook did laps around it. I felt like I wasted my money

Could the SPEED be worth the lowered physical amount of RAM @cable ?

 

[jasoncarle]

All I wanted was ECC memory and I would have bought. Is that really too much to ask?

 

[DeepIn2U]

Lol @ everyone thinking Apple wouldn't want Studio and Mac Pro competing against eachother. The specs are basically identical, aside from drastically different pricing for PCIe (v4 no less). Makes the studio look like a BEAST in that package.

This just shows how bold Apple is...they dgaf.

oddly enough I posted just a few days ago in another thread that we've just passed 3yrs of the promise of Cook stating 'about 2 years' to complete the transition.

THIS ... Mac Pro 2023 using the M2 Ultra seems like a SERIOUSLY knee-jerk rush of a product! Of course I'm not the target market buyer for this but common ... seriously?

We'll see what it can REALLY do. I haven't watched the keynote at all.

 

[darngooddesign]

I wasn’t expecting a 2X or 4X Ultra chip, but I was expecting high bandwidth connection for multiple Ultras and a lot of RAM. I’m not the target bit I am kind of disappointed that this is the best Mac Pro Apple could do. Kind of demonstrates that Apple Silicon will never scale beyond desktop computing.

 

[Nick_P]

oddly enough I posted just a few days ago in another thread that we've just passed 3yrs of the promise of Cook stating 'about 2 years' to complete the transition.

THIS ... Mac Pro 2023 using the M2 Ultra seems like a SERIOUSLY knee-jerk rush of a product! Of course I'm not the target market buyer for this but common ... seriously?

We'll see what it can REALLY do. I haven't watched the keynote at all.

I don't think it was knee-jerk. We have been hearing rumors of this exact machine for at least 2 years. Same form factor as the 2019 only with Apple Silicon inside. It just didn't happen 2 years ago for whatever reasons.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Apple today updated its Mac Pro desktop tower with the all-new M2 Ultra chip, which features a 24-core CPU, up to a 76-core GPU, and support for up to 192GB of memory. Apple says the new Mac Pro is up to 3x faster than the fastest Intel-based Mac Pro.

The new Mac Pro has the same overall design as the previous Intel-based model. The tower is equipped with eight Thunderbolt 4 ports, two HDMI ports, six PCIe slots, and dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. A rack-mounted version remains available.

Like the new Mac Studio, and the latest MacBook Pro and Mac mini models, the Mac Pro now supports faster Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

The new Mac Pro will be available to order starting today, and it will begin arriving to customers and launch in stores on Tuesday, June 13. In the U.S., pricing starts at $6,999, whereas the previous Intel-based Mac Pro started at $5,999.

Article Link: Apple Introduces New Mac Pro With M2 Ultra Chip, Available to Order Starting Today

Ok hold ON a minute here!!!

This thread of the Mac Studio with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chip states the following:

Apple Announces New Mac Studio With M2 Max and M2 Ultra Chips

Alongside a new Mac Pro desktop tower, Apple today announced second-generation Mac Studio models with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips. As expected, the...

www.macrumors.com

Apple says the new Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra chip is up to 3x faster than the previous Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra chip.

BUT But .... Here with the 2023 Mac Pro M2 Ultra thread (this discussion) ... Apple is stating:

Apple says the new Mac Pro is up to 3x faster than the fastest Intel-based Mac Pro.

What in the actual Hmmmf?

How is it that the Mac Pro with the same CPU die specs can perform 3x faster than THE fastest Intel based Mac Pro when the Mac Studio already outperformed it on the M1 generation? We know this from multiple real world posts in the forums as well as GeekBench 5/6 results. So is Apple by these statements actually saying the Mac Pro M2 Ultra could be SLOWER than the Studio M2 Ultra?!

Something isn't right here!

 

[ssgbryan]

If they need or want fast internal expansion, they will purchase it. Want the fastest SSD storage, internet PCI v4 is the option they would need. Mac Pro it is then.

Pcie 5.0 is available now on either Intel or AMD consumer grade boards. There are only 2x16 PCIe 4.0 slots in the machine - the other 4 are x8 - so forget PCIe 5 storage - bandwidth simply isn't there.

What!? So no support for external GPUs whatsoever? Well that’s the end of my Mac Pro journey then. I'm kinda speechless.

That is why I left in 2019.

You can get a much faster machine for about 1/3 of the price.

Also, for those that say 192GB is hilarious, what are you doing to fully completely saturate 192GB of system RAM? Most people don't even fill up 64GB of RAM. Let's see who the primary user base that actually need 1.5TB of RAM are.

3d art, at the hobbyist level. Many poorly coded Adobe apps. This is a mac pro forum, not a mac mini forum.

The only reason I am not using 192gb of ram right now is because my AM4 platform doesn't support it. Consumer grade AM5 & X790 series (AMD & Intel) either do or will with a bios update. A CPU/MB transplant ($400 USD) and I am golden.

MPX is proprietary apple slot. With this move Apple moves 100% to PCIE which is a great step.

Any grpahics card can now be *in theory* installed to MacPro if the Driver and vendor support comes to macOS

Not if Apple refuses sign off on drivers - Nvidia made OSX drivers for the RTX 2000 series, but Apple refused to sign off on them. That won't change going forward - it isn't a technical issue - it is a corporate ego issue. A long, long time ago, Nvidia cost Apple a lot of money due to a series of bad video cards.

*facepalm*

Get over the RAM upgradability when you have a hundred and ninety-two gigabytes of it. Not even mentioning the RAM allocation of Apple silicon being significantly more efficient compared to x86 architecture.

There are NO PCIE 5.0 cards available in the market from nvidia and AMD yet. It's not the interconnect speed that limits the performance of the GPUs.

No GPU upgradability is not yet been mentioned. With drop of MPX in favor of PCIe, Apple may be moving to 3rd parties who wish to upgrade the GPUs.

That is some serious copium, Anaxarxes. This is a Mac Pro, not a Mac Studio (96gb limit - what I had in my Mac Pro 15 years ago).

Go read the press release again, and then go read the footnotes; there is a reason there are no numbers - if the numbers were good, they would have shouted them from the roof tops. Added bonus - those i9 Mac studios were down tuned from their base clock speeds because the enclosure couldn't keep them cool.

More importantly, it isn't what you need today - it is also what you will need tomorrow. This thing doesn't have a lot of tomorrows in it.

Now that the specs have gone live, it is even worse than I thought.

16 big/8 little CPU cores - this is a $600 CPU.

No H.265, No AV1 encoding

2 x16 PCIe 4 slots; 4 x8 PCIe 4 slots

1 PCIe 3.0 slot X4 for I/O?

This is AM5 or X790 level (consumer grade motherboards)

AFA GPUs from AMD/Intel/Nvidia - don't hold your breath - not enough power connectors to provide power to the cards.

This thing is for people that are trapped in the Apple ecosystem - it won't be bringing in new customers.

 

[Cristim74]

The price difference between a similarly configured Mac Studio and Mac Pro is "just" 3k$.
You just need to decide for yourself if that's worth the extra benefits you get with the Pro.
(larger case with better airflow, better power supply, PCIe slots, upgradable SSD, better I/O).

 

[Ethosik]

The price difference between a similarly configured Mac Studio and Mac Pro is "just" 3k$.
You just need to decide for yourself if that's worth the extra benefits you get with the Pro.

Just $3,000? I can get a pretty decent laptop with just the difference!

 

[misterwise]

As a cg artists I was holding out hope for the new AS Mac Pro. For redshift this will be slower than my iMac Pro with 2 AMD 6900xt egpus. What a joke.

 

[rumz]

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.

Yeah. But I also feel like those were things they might have done a spring event for but weren't quite ready, perhaps. Really different to see some hardware updates (all relatively minor) just get fired off at the beginning of the event. Still, glad to see some updates.

 

[jasoncarle]

As a cg artists I was holding out hope for the new AS Mac Pro. For redshift this will be slower than my iMac Pro with 2 AMD 6900xt egpus. What a joke.

And I doubt they will offer ANY updated hardware for intel Mac Pros as well.

 

[Gudi]

Really surprised Apple went with this kind of architecture. They needed a blowout product.

No, they don't. The Mac Pro never was a product, merely a marketing gimmick. The vast majority of pro customers couldn't even take full advantage of the M1 Ultra Studio. It's just too fast already.

 

[bcortens]

I don't think it was knee-jerk. We have been hearing rumors of this exact machine for at least 2 years. Same form factor as the 2019 only with Apple Silicon inside. It just didn't happen 2 years ago for whatever reasons.

We’ve been hearing rumours of a 4x Max series (double an ultra), that appears to have been what was cancelled. I was hoping we’d see a tiled chiplet architecture like intel is currently using so that Apple could do up to 48 CPU cores and up to 152 GPU cores across something like 8-12 tiles.

I am also disappointed that we didn’t see M3 this year- the apple silicon cadence slowdown continues with once again an update cycle that stretches beyond a year…

 

[Pezimak]

Starts at 7 grand????😂🤣😂😂 with a HUGE memory cap over its predecessor which will limit its capabilities quite a bit. And how then hell they got PCIE to work with it I'll never know.
Mac Studio kinda blows this Pro computer out the water for a lot less. You seriously will need that PCIE to buy it.

 

[Michael Sanders]

That price tag is hilarious! Who has £7,000.00 unless you are running a business and looking to write off against your tax bill?

If you are running a top flight video or audio post facility where some rooms are running at £1K an hour and this machine works and saves you time it will pay its self of in months.

 

[Gudi]

Wow, this is very expensive. It is truly for Pros and we are not one of those.

iPhone Pro, iPad Pro and MacBook Pro are all very expensive. When Apple calls something "Pro" they mean it. A pair of earphones for $250? Jesus Christ!

 

[MacCheetah3]

Also, for those that say 192GB is hilarious, what are you doing to fully completely saturate 192GB of system RAM? Most people don't even fill up 64GB of RAM. Let's see who the primary user base that actually need 1.5TB of RAM are.

Using browser tabs as bookmarks while never rebooting their computers so the caching is a runaway train wreck. Jeez! Get with the trend.
🤣😆😂

Most ML uses GPUs, not CPUs, so the 1.5TB in the old Mac pro wasn't going to be an ML/data training machine.

Now the 192GB ultra boxes, well, those are apparently really interesting to ML people.

Indeed a good example. Think, for example, 128GB GPU. And Apple’s (M2 Ultra) 800GB/s memory bandwidth isn’t far off from GDDR6X.

Micron GDDR6X Increases Bandwidth and Capacity

16Gb memory supports industry-leading speeds up to 24Gb/s, ideal for gamers and content creators...

www.globenewswire.com

 

[MichaelDroste]

I was really hoping for the M2 extreme chip

Looks like I’ll stick with my 2019 and move into an M3 ultra Mac Studio that comes around in a few years

 

[Ethosik]

Using browser tabs as bookmarks while never rebooting their computers so the caching is a runaway train wreck. Jeez! Get with the trend.
🤣😆😂


Indeed a good example. Think, for example, 128GB GPU. And Apple’s (M2 Ultra) 800GB/s memory bandwidth isn’t far off from GDDR6X.

Micron GDDR6X Increases Bandwidth and Capacity

16Gb memory supports industry-leading speeds up to 24Gb/s, ideal for gamers and content creators...

www.globenewswire.com

And people love to point to Adobe software. Even if you have 1TB of RAM, by design Adobe apps will use ANY and ALL of it as much as it needs. Doesn't mean your works requires that much. I have a basic 1080p sequence in After Effects that maxes out my 128GB of RAM Mac. But that same AE project works well with my 32GB Windows system with i9 and 4090. Similarly, uses up all that RAM too.

 

[dandeco]

So in a way, it's like a Mac Studio but in the Pro's "Cheese Grater" tower and with PCI slots and a replaceable SSD! Color me impressed!
But for my purposes, I'll still be happy with an M2 Pro Mac Mini as my first Apple Silicon Mac desktop (especially since I rarely work with 4K footage and never anything higher, or do any really intensive graphics or animation work).

 

[ikramerica]

That price tag is hilarious! Who has £7,000.00 unless you are running a business and looking to write off against your tax bill?

30 yrs ago the IIfx started at $9000. People bought those. Although they knew they would be infinitely upgradable.

 

[toke lahti]

dGPU support?

eGPU support?

("It can't be done with M chips!")
Next year MP with expandable slower RAM starting from $7999!