...probably won't work.
Practically, MacOS for Apple Silicon most likely won't run on non-Apple ARM chips, even if Apple never lift a finger to deliberately prevent it.
This is the question that's burning for me. I use discreet GPUs for 3D professional work – the on chip graphics are children's toys compared to what I need.
Good points, I also really liked your points from a enterprise perspective of the risk of changing over processor platforms altogether with the expensive Mac Pros.
Hey Apple how 'bout throw us tcMP folks a bone and have a guerrilla project to deliver a low cost AS board replacement kit to get some new life and comp for the thermal mistake? (yeah, never gonna happen).
If you mean ARM-based Hackintosh they won't have to put any energy into stopping workarounds, but the Hackintosh community would likely have to put an enormous amount of effort to get MacOS to run on a non-Apple Silicon ARM chip, if it were possible at all.
Not easily make with the same motherboard. This rack model is just rotated 90 and a new container built for essentially all the same internal components.
The hard part would be getting another motherboard "green lit" as a project with relatively small volume. The XServe disappeared because Jobs said "Nobody was buying". That is probably not literal, but on the weekly dashboard of Mac sales the Apple execs do if the pie chart slice so small you can't see it ... that amounts to "nobody". Apple isn't run like Dell/HP/Lenovo.
The Mac Pro 2009-2012 was "rack hostile" with the handles getting in the way of rotating and inserting into a standard width rack. This 2019 "rack option" is mostly just an option of a better optimized container for the horizontal position. Other than that it isn't trying to be a different product. There is a use-case where folks put Mac Pros into equipment bays , utility carts , etc. The racking here is just to enable that. (same target group that wants several cards , but mounted horizontal. Mostly this is not super hard core data center temple folks. More ruggedized Macs than trying to fit in next to the Mainframe. Similar for the sky high priced wheels for the tower version. Folks rolling it from place to place. )
Similarly, the Mac Pro 2009-2012 had a CPU tray not so much because Apple worships at the alter of ultra-modularity , but so that they could do a single socket and dual socket versions with one shared logic board and chassis. Apple didn't want to build multiples. Apple isn't out to build everything for everybody with dozens of Mac products to choose from.
macOS isn't trying to be a scale out pizza box operating system. So not sure who these 1U models would really be gear too. Likely some of the first complaints will be that it doesn't have dual , hot swappable power supplies. Can't native boot VMware VSphere/ESXi ... etc. etc.
As far as microserver density ....
https://www.macstadium.com/virtualization
23 Mini per shelf. 10 shelves ... 230 Macs per rack side. Double sides that 460. 1U pizza boxes isn't going to beat that. Granted a bit abnormal tall.
[ standard 42U rack would if had double Max count SoC , that would be 84 and two side-by-side => 168. Still several hundred of that 460 mark. Even at 3 x 42 = 126 1Us. ]
If put a M1 Max in each of those , then that 460 Max's in a rack. That is probably enough for a sizable number of folks and workloads.
If the "half sized" Mac Pro shaved off half the box height, then they could fix two 5U on custom slider mount that took two side by side. In a 42U rack, they could get up to get in 16 systems instead of 8. If had need for a set of systems with dual socket 40GbE and a large inerternal SSD those would probably be "good enough" for a decent number of folks.
As a 1U that is out to displace generic Supermicro , Inspur , Dell , HP 1U boxes running some non-MacOS hypervisor on bare-metal , I highly doubt Apple is interested in that.
the size of the "Mac Pro" box is probably more going to be driven by which and how many PCI-e cards they want to throw out the "supported" window. If it is 'all of them' then the that 3-stack-mini would be about the right size.
If throwing out true full length and aux powered cards then can shrink each dimension of the current MP 2019 case.
If they are trying to hold onto the full height , full length cards ( e.g. a large multiple M.2 SSD holder RAID card. ) that will be at least as large ( or bigger ) constraint that the cooling issue. Although 4 x 85W => 340W would not be a "laptop like" thermal problem.
Is there a gap between a Mac Pro and Mini for servers? Yes. Is it big enough for Apple to do yet another product? Probably not. Apple is not going to be poor house if they skip that product.
But CUDA is the "de facto" standard for machine learning.
Guess you kind of underestimate all of this. Running on standard Intel CPUs with standard AMD GPUs is easy.
Adding more cores only does so much depending on what is being run on the computer, how the OS is managing the processes, and how the chip is managing the cores. That's why in the current M1's hitting a point of diminishing returns for the average user. For pro-consumer work in audio and video they are close to hitting point of diminishing return. For pro-level work in video then more cores could benefit, but all depends on the management at both OS and chip levels. They are like the old mainframe computers with lots of processors, memory, fast buses, but those mainframe were running many app's at a time. Like an mainframe would be a waste for typical user so will be a huge SoC. So who does Apple see its future customer being and for what types of applications. All we know is AI is their big focus, what AI needs that much computing power? Interesting to think about.
Since 2020, Apple has been working to eliminate Intel chips by transitioning the entire Mac lineup to Apple silicon chips, and 2022 is expected to be the year when the transition is completed. One of the major Mac lines still using Intel chips is the Mac Pro, but a refreshed model is in the works for 2022.
This guide covers everything that we know about Apple's plans for the updated Mac Pro.
Design
Apple is rumored to be working on two updates for the Mac Pro. The first machine is a direct successor to the 2019 Mac Pro with its modern, lattice design and modular casing, while the second is a new addition to the lineup that's smaller in size.
The larger Mac Pro is expected to continue to use the same stainless steel frame and aluminum housing with dual-sided logic board and easy access to the interior for adding and removing components. There's been no word on whether the thermal architecture will change, and it will still feature the same three-dimensional interlocking hemispheres for heat dissipation purposes.
As for the smaller Mac Pro, it's been described as looking similar to the existing Mac Pro, but with a more compact enclosure that's half the size. It will have a mostly aluminum exterior, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said that it could "invoke nostalgia" for the Power Mac G4 Cube.
Hit-and-miss leaker Jon Prosser has claimed that Apple's smaller Mac Pro could look like "three to four Mac minis stacked on top of one another" with a "compute unit on the bottom" and a "big heat sink on top."
Apple Silicon Chips
According to Gurman, the larger Mac Pro will continue to be equipped with Intel chips while the smaller model will adopt Apple silicon.
Apple is developing some super high powered Apple silicon chips for the Mac Pro, but the earliest versions may not be able to compete with Xeon processors for heavy duty workloads, and there may also be concerns about software compatibility. For that reason, we could see an Intel Mac Pro and an Apple silicon Mac Pro released side by side to meet all of the needs of professional users.
The half-sized Mac Pro is expected to come with the "equivalent of either two or four M1 Max chips," which will make it much more powerful than the 2021 MacBook Pro models that include the M1 Max chips. The first Apple silicon chip is expected to feature 20 CPU cores and 64 graphics cores, while the second more powerful chip could feature 40 CPU cores and 128 graphics cores.
Back in November, The Information said that Apple would adopt a version of the M1 Max chip that has at least two dies to support a higher number of cores than are available with the standard M1 Max in the MacBook Pro, and that future versions would have up to four dies.
For the Intel-based Mac Pro, Apple could use the Intel Lake SP chips, which are Intel's third-generation Xeon Scalable processors. Signs of these chips were spotted in an Xcode 13 beta prior to the launch of macOS Monterey.
Release Date
The Mac Pro is expected at some point in 2022, and it could be introduced as early as June, perhaps at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple could preview the machine at the event and then release it later this fall, giving developers some time to prepare pro software for the more powerful Apple silicon chips.
Article Link: Apple's 2022 Mac Pro Refresh: What We Know So Far
Yep.. only you look at it as an investment.... but I think they are just too dumb...
I have been thinking this for a while. They had the CEO of OTOY (Octane) featured on the MacBook Pro launch film. His product thrives on discrete graphics. The AS MBPs without eGPU support don’t make any sense for Octane. Octane starts to work well with two very powerful cards - better with four. So I couldn’t square his appearance with the M1 Max capabilities apart from thinking there must be some sort of Apple GPU solution in the pipeline.
Loved the post. However, since I’m no expert, I have a question on my mind regarding SoC: Why have “dedicated” computing power/cores in an unified architecture? Conceptually, wouldn’t it be more effective to have computing power assigned on task basis, which would adapt to workload, rather than have “pre-assign” cores? I see this “compartment computing” as a “legacy” from 3rd party modular components architecture, which unified architecture could avoid. Off course probably there may be tech constraints to prevent this that I’m uneducated about. Also wouldn’t the modular architecture be “highly “ bottlenecked by PCI-e v5 x16 (hopefully ?) bandwidth? 64GB/s vs 200-400GB/s?One of several significant problems with the "not slots" position is that it runs 100% counter to Apple's move and focus on SSD drives as being the primary target storage media. Having one, and only one, internal drive doesn't really met the requirements of a lot of "high bandwidth" workloads. Apple even admitted as such in their April 2017 "dog ate my homework" session on why the MP 2013 had stumbled.
So admitting that and they hypocritically releasing yet another Mac Pro with exactly the same problem will get tons of blowback. Maybe not necessarily. AUX powered. , triple wide slots. But enough to stuff 2-4 M.2 SSDs inside on a x8 PCI-e v4 socket would be a basic minimal not to repeat the same mistake they clearly said they saw before. It doesn't have to provisioning for fire-breathing GPU cores, but there needs to be something.
And some 2.5" SATA 3 SSD really isn't a modern , high bandwidth load storage drive anymore. That's a secondary, maybe even back up drive.
AFPS is highly skewed to SSD properties. They've put macOS on a SSD path ... just one SSD for an iPhone/iPad is fine but in "Mac Pro" space that's lame. If Apple wants to do that call it something else. "Mac Max" or something.
And frankly "half size" means there is room for a card. The large hang up is that the M1 Max die doesn't provision for substantive PCI-e lanes. ( capped at relatively paltry for this class of system : x4 PCIe v4) They need another die. ( it could be about the same size die and swaps 3-4 Thunderbolt controllers for just a 1-2 x8 PCI-e v4 controllers. ). They can't just pour Thunderbolt ports on the system like ketchup. Past 4 ports probably has relatively low utility versus actually provisioning some internal PCI-e v4 (or better). Again Apple admitted they "leaned too hard on Thunderbolt" back in 2013. To do it again on the same product is a bozo move.
Apple made a big deal about being able to host 4-5 Pro Tools HDI cards in a Mac Pro 2019
DSP Audio System for Music and Post - Pro Tools | HDX
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They don't have to do 4-5 HDX cards, but they should be able to do at least one. It is not a high wattage or ultra bandwidth card but it is a more than half length one. It largely needs a full length, full height slot. It fills the slot bay in the picture above.
If can't do a "Mac Pro thing like HDX cards" then don't have a Mac Pro. Apple themselves set that baseline metric in their 2019 dog and pony show.
If Apple chucks that down the toilet then pushing groups of folks away. Probably on a "3rd strike".
At some point Apple has to make a die that is not just super optimized for laptops. If the MBP 16" is going to be their almost sole focus then they aren't going to hold onto what is left of the core Mac Pro user base.
Dumping video cards will not please the AMD and Nvidia fanboys (and Apple probably can live with that) , but all the cards is a bridge too far. Literally dozens of high utility cards that do not have 'crazy thermal drama' problems and tossing down them down the drain. ( also substantively helps the ecosystem for the TB expansion boxes for laptops and Minis also. )
Hopefully they’ll do both: “mini” Mac Pro aka “the cube”; “regular” Mac Pro. Maybe modularity will be offered in a new concept, more “in sync” with SoC unified architecture…
I feel unified architecture presumes a new approach to computing power management. A way to this would be to let AI neural engine assign computing power according to momentum workloads.
