Apple Working on Redesigned Mac Pro With Smaller Form Factor and Apple Silicon Chip

[08380728]

Such a bad idea.
Swap out the 28 core W-3275M that costs $7k+ for an AMD Ryzen 5950X for $799, it slaughters the Xeon, the Mac Pro could then be at a lower more reasonable price point for the rest of us non hollywood millionaires.

 

[08380728]

Well fujitsu is number 1 (top500 super computers) and its powered by arm, so yes they can do equal or better than x86

Dude, they don’t put 500 CPUs in a Mac Pro…and the ARMs are not beating x86 on IPC…it’s only the significantly more cores than have them ARMS topping those charts.

 

[iZac]

I'd love a little midi thing that had enough room for one full length double height GPU and a couple of slots for NVME sticks.

 

[08380728]

That should even be do-able now with a microATX sized board with 4 PCIe slots based on Ryzen 9 5950X or a lower power 6 core AMD Ryzen 5 5600X. Easily the machine could be about half the size of the current Mac Pro, so many more config options to target price points…Apple again pushed themselves onto a dark corner lol again and again, how many times to they have to f_ _ _ it up.

 

[simonmet]

I'd love a little midi thing that had enough room for one full length double height GPU and a couple of slots for NVME sticks.

Make it a triple height. Some of those 3080/3090 cards are pretty big!

 

[arkmannj]

For the pro models I’m as/more interested in what partnerships Apple has got in place for software. Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, etc. people care about performance and the software they run. Most won’t care what actual processor is in there as long as they can do the things they want/need on the machine.

I’ll also be interested to see what the GPU world looks like. and how much ATI (err AMD) and Nvidia will charge as a premium for “custom” chips. (like we had in the G3/4/5 days) I have an after market ATI Radeon in my quicksilver G4 to this day. It was a very nice card but cost considerably more than its PC equivalent.

 

[omenatarhuri]

I dont quite understand who on earth a smaller Mac Pro would be for..
Mac Pro is either for professionals (expandability, cooling, space for dedicated gpus), or its a Powerful Mac Mini - which is a consumer item not prosumer.
But i’m happy to be proven wrong when it comes

Basically for all the people that appreciate the power of desktop components and discreet GPUs in the PC world and build them in mITX, ITX or ATX cases. The people that don't need (or can't afford) Xeons or other pro gear, but would rather have the power and expandability that comes with a tower vs the iMac.

 

[08380728]

Make it a triple height. Those 3080/3090 cards are pretty big!

I don't follow you, those are Nvidia RTX cards, what's the use case in a Mac?, bootcamp?

 

[iPadified]

Who says it will support AMD/NVIDIA GPUs? It can just as well be a place holder for dedicated Apple cards like graphics, afterburner, larger neural engines or a cluster of A14Ts.

A cheaper Apple display is needed.

 

[08380728]

Who says it will support AMD/NVIDIA GPUs? It can just as well be a place holder for dedicated Apple cards like graphics, afterburner, larger neural engines or a cluster of A14Ts.

A cheaper Apple display is needed.

They are talking about they just wish Apple made smaller Mac Pro than the one we have, one that's still Intel/AMD based.

 

[Ekbart]

The Mac Pro was one of the worst products Apple has ever made. Many years late, it has the worst performance/price ratio of any apple product in 10 years. Firstly it is huge but doesn't have much inside. Secondly, it isn't very fast. They foolishly used air cooling, which shows how long ago they started designing it, which limits the amount of CPU power they can add. Crazy decision. Thirdly, the huge metal case has holes in it, and is non-functional, and collects dust. Fourthly they once again used proprietary video parts so that you will never be able to upgrade the video on it. Fifthly, who is stupid enough to pay $1000 for a monitor stand or for the casters, which don't even lock. You can buy a small sofa at Ikea for the price of their stupid wheels.

It shows the creative bankruptcy of Apple, how utterly mediocre they have become internally; having a fancy outside but ordinary crap inside. Luckily Apple hasn't assigned these engineers to their really important products like the iPhone which is still top notch. But let's face it, this product is only slightly better than the execrable trash can machine it replaces which was also stupid.

Why didn't they put in a bank of M2 slots so you could do RAID? Why not make a docking module to hold hard drives for those that need terabytes? What were they thinking? They weren't thinking; inside their spaceship building they have no clue what an actual user thinks, and they don't get out much, because the cafeteria is too good!

 

[SDJim]

Curious where this will slot in with the Mac Mini? Seems to me like this is likely a misinterpretation of ARM coming to Mac Mini. With the improved thermal efficiency of the ARM chips, an ARM Mini could push past the already exceptionally capable Intel Mini without needing a larger enclosure for heat management. Six cores at 3GHz with 32GB DDR4 and ultra-fast SSD's for $2k??? All it needs is an eGPU or an option for internal dedicated GPU's and this niche is already nicely filled. rMBP's used to have a discrete graphics option box. Why not just bring that option to an ARM Mini?

I suppose internal expandability is lacking, but that's what Thunderbolt3/USB-C is for...?

Honestly, I would love it if there is a new product called just "Mac", giving us a linear product family that mirrors iPhone: Mac Mini, Mac, Mac Pro.

On a tangential note - the "Air" demarcation has been so bastardized at this point in the MacBook and iPad families, I really wish they would get rid of it as it no longer communicates the products' place in their respective lineups at all.

 

[ian87w]

return of the trash can Mac Pro.

 

[08380728]

They foolishly used air cooling

Agree on all points except all your points on Air Cooling, if you have Water in mind then you should look deeper, those water systems are very noisy and take up a significant amount of space with the huge radiators needed to cool no better than a Noctua D15.

 

[SDJim]

Without the bays to hold additional drives, people might as well buy a mini and an eGPU.

Was going to reply with this. The Mini is already so powerful, the only thing it is missing is a discrete graphics card, which is solved with an eGPU.

 

[simonmet]

I don't follow you, those are Nvidia RTX cards, what's the use case in a Mac?, bootcamp?

Wishful thinking... 😭

 

[pearvsapple]

With Arm processors, do they even need tower chassis anymore? Lol must be the highly inefficient and slow AMD Vega GPUs in there.

 

[HiRez]

The new ‌Mac Pro‌ is said to have a design that looks like the current design, but in a more compact enclosure that's "about half the size."

Love it. Now add "about half the price" and you have a sale.

 

[pearvsapple]

This is a mainstream tower for creatives and gamers. I will buy it instantly.

What games? iOS shovelwares? LOOOOL!

 

[Boil]

Such a bad idea.
Swap out the 28 core W-3275M that costs $7k+ for an AMD Ryzen 5950X for $799, it slaughters the Xeon, the Mac Pro could then be at a lower more reasonable price point for the rest of us non hollywood millionaires.

Threadripper would have been better, more RAM, more PCIe lanes...

 

[PickUrPoison]

Only if the price is not insane. Given that Xeon CPUs in Mac Pros are insanely expensive, it will be interesting to see what ARM Mac Pro can do.

If it is 1999$ and has the same or exceed the current Mac Pro performance.....it will be an insane yes for me.

My guess would be $3,999-4,499. The 8-core Xeon in the $6k base MP is barely more than an i9. A smaller case, power supply, and a handful fewer RAM/PCIe connectors don’t save a lot of BOM cost.

Of course it’ll be de-featured to segment it; no afterburner slot, no (or maybe one) MPX slot, maybe fewer cores. Other obvious differences like less RAM, maybe three PCIe slots, etc.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

There IS a market for the in-betweens...

There is, also a market for a Cube type thing, a MacBook that’s essentially a thick portable desktop, and an X-Mac. However, the market for each of these are really tiny. Apple has historically felt that it’s not large enough to create products for.

Will it be Apple Silicon GPUs?

I’ll also be interested to see what the GPU world looks like. and how much ATI (err AMD) and Nvidia will charge as a premium for “custom” chips. (like we had in the G3/4/5 days) I have an after market ATI Radeon in my quicksilver G4 to this day.

There won’t be any non-Apple GPU’s.

 

[Maximara]

Those are the cores I was more referring to - not the low end 8 cores, which you're pretty insane to buy if you're going to bother with a Mac Pro imho.

For what it's worth I'd guess they're not using the M part as IIRC that's for bigger memory support beyond 1 TB...

I did a quick google search and here is what I got (What are the Meanings of Intel Processor Suffixes? How-To-Geek):

• C – Desktop processor based on the LGA 1150 package with high performance graphics
• H – High performance graphics
• K – Unlocked
• M – Mobile
• Q – Quad-core
• R – Desktop processor based on BGA1364 (mobile) package with high performance graphics
• S – Performance-optimized lifestyle
• T – Power-optimized lifestyle
• U – Ultra-low power
• X – Extreme edition
• Y – Extremely low power

So "M" does not mean memory but mobile (which I suspected as I seem to remember reading this was the case for graphics like NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 1 GB which is aimed at a "medium sized notebook")

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I did a quick google search and here is what I got:

• C – Desktop processor based on the LGA 1150 package with high performance graphics
• H – High performance graphics
• K – Unlocked
• M – Mobile
• Q – Quad-core
• R – Desktop processor based on BGA1364 (mobile) package with high performance graphics
• S – Performance-optimized lifestyle
• T – Power-optimized lifestyle
• U – Ultra-low power
• X – Extreme edition
• Y – Extremely low power

And I thought I read somewhere recently that W series were bound for Macs. Did you see that?

 

[patent10021]

As a senior product manager with 70 years of experience in alternative energy, may I make a suggestion. Customers already have CPUs from existing Macbooks and iMacs. So lower the energy footprint by not including the CPU. This will save on energy consumption. Customers can simply repurpose their existing CPUs. If they don't already have Macbooks and iMacs they can purchase CPUs for $2000 at checkout.