Bloomberg: Apple Silicon Mac Pro May Feature Up to 32 High Performance Cores, 128 Core Option for Graphics

[deconstruct60]

So Apple's headless desktop offerings will consist of:

$600 M1 mini with 8 cores.

$x,xxx Mac Pro with 20 or 40 cores.

For the love of pete, can we just get something in the $2,000 range that has 10 or 12 cores?

That would be the updated "high end" Mac Mini and the large screen iMac . That MBP 16" SoC with 10-cores is going to get thrown into the Mini also ( explicitly mentioned in Bloomberg article

"... The company is also working on a higher-end Mac mini desktop and larger iMac ....
Apple has also been working on a more powerful version of the Mac mini (code name J374) with the same chip as the next MacBook Pro. It’s expected to have four ports versus the pair available on the current low-end version and to sit above the current entry-level M1 Mac Mini. "
....

)

Same SoC design used multiple products. Exact same playbook Apple uses on the iPhone and iPad line ups. This Soc probably won't trickle down to the iPad Pro though. Starting to shape up as

iPad Pro "share" SoC -- lowest end of Mac line up ( MBA , MBP affordable , small screen iMac , more affordable Mini )
MBP 16" SoC -- MBP 14-16 , high end Mini , iMac large screen ,
( and if it is chiplet interconnect enabled die ... also low end "Mac Pro" with soldered RAM and default iGPU ).

So the whole line up in about two dies. About the same chip. Multiple wrappers around the chip. The primary target of the design is deeply grounded mobile. The desktop usages is pretty close to just "trickle down".

 

[velocityg4]

Nothing will shut PC gear heads up. Folks will just buy the Mac with the performance they require and enjoy it! I think “delighting our customers and not “shutting up PC gear heads” is higher on Apple’s list of requirements for their future endeavors.

If someone gets the 32/40 core model and fully saturates all cores. They definitely aren't getting something which meets their requirements. They simply are settling for the fastest option available. If this is a for profit machine where speed is important. As soon as Apple makes something faster. They'll buy that.

This is a very tiny percentage of buyers facing this problem though. Assuming their workload cannot be transferred to Windows/Linux. If it can be and they'd make more money Windows/Linux machine. After factoring all costs. Yet stick with macOS. They are just being stubborn.

Most are just arguing hypothetically. That or they want some sort of crowing rights about Macs being the fastest workstations out there. Sort of like the sports fan mentality when "their team" is winning.

 

[Digital Skunk]

1.) would love to see the 17" MBP model make an epic comeback.
2.) I hope that the MacPro or any of the higher end systems aren't just STUFFED with M1 chips.

3.) CAN .... NOT. .... WAIT. These machines are smoking hot. IDCWPSATC I love it!

 

[Stephen.R]

I don't think it's odd at all.

There are (few) people who do need those insane amounts of RAM, PCIe GFX-cards and soon, but I don't see Apple investing in developing such a complex motherboard for a niche of a niche.

With a Xenon based MPro they can start with whatever eval board/schematic Intel sends them which is at least 2/3 of the way.

I don't disagree that it's a niche market for the Mac Pro, but I think you're underestimating Apple's willingness/ability to create an Arm based equivalent, or ignoring the effort they put into the 2019 Mac Pro, while already planning for the switch to Arm.

The MPX slot is a good example of this. They could have very easily said "connect displays to the TB3 ports on the card" and most people wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

There's another thread that theorises a 'last' Intel Mac Pro will use an Intel i9. Which makes even less sense - it's missing a bunch of the features that give the Mac Pro it's capabilities (PCIe lane count, memory support).



But all of that is missing the bigger picture. Apple very rarely holds onto the past - its always a forward move. I can see them continuing to sell the existing Mac Pro, possibly even for a period after the Arm replacement is announced. But investing in anything but minor speed bumps seems very odd to me, and unless they're going to bump the lower tier models up in base spec/drop the prices, there's not a lot they can do in terms of speed bumps: there's no "newer" Xeons for that socket, right?

 

[Wildkraut]

128 cores? Could it mine crypto?

Yeah, with a hashrate of 0.001 🤣

 

[portland-dude]

If it invokes memories of the G4 cube that would be a huge step backward! It would be just like the non-expandable (internally) trash-can model. Booooo. Although I have to say it would SO be like Apple to have a Mac Pro that was abandoned after launch with no real upgrades since that day (the current Mac Pro) for shiny new tiny Mac "Pro" with AS. hahaha. If this happens, that'll be the *checks notes* at least the 4th time Apple has **** on their pro users.

 

[BeefCake 15]

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You can when it goes on sale.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The NeXT cube had slots. But a PCI-e slotless , soldered RAM Mac Pro is to draw a large number of "boo's and hisses" from a large fraction of the Mac Pro crowd. That is drifting back the MP 2013 ethos which got lots of "hate" for many years. ( actually somewhat even more of backslide if the RAM is soldered down ).

Oh there will always be hate, some warranted, some not so much. I always look at FCP for a picture of Apple’s temperament towards Pros. “This is what we’re going to do. We know you won’t like it, but yeah. This is what we’re doing. And, no, we’re not supporting both side by side.” Expect similar ultimatums in the future.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

K, great. What about the larger iMac, Bloomberg????

I have a feeling the larger iMac will be 32”. Lets see what happens…

 

[deconstruct60]

That is pretty amazing graphics performance. If it scales with the number of cores which it should because graphics operations are highly parallelizable, here are some comparisons.

Only scales if scale up the memory subsystem with it. Too many cores and not enough "fresh" data being pumped in and performance won't linearly scale unless can hide all the local computation in the local cache. Apple probably did bulk up the momory I/O to also keep the larger number of high performance cores feed , but at some point all the cores feeding off the same shared cache can be a dual edged sword. Cutting down on copying overhead but also possibility increasing a choke point.

The slippery slope is when Apple gets so fixated on part reuse across products that the higher GPU count could get closer to being an edge case that perhaps isn't so thoroughly optimized. ( cost more in deviant design work than they are willing to spend for the increment performance bump. )

Current M1, with 8 graphics cores, does 2.6 TFlops. That is just below an NVidia GTX 1650 at 2.9 TFlops.

Extrapolating, 64 graphics cores would do 20.8 TFlops, which is just over the NVidia RTX 3070, at 20 TFlops.
128 graphics cores would do 41.6 TFlops, which beats the NVidia RTX 3090, at 36 TFlops.

If Apple is doing chiplets to get to 128 GPU cores then the super embarrassingly compute will line up that way. The on screen frame refresh probably won't line up with the monolithic and dedicated VRAM store numbers of the 3070 and 3090. Pretty good chance this won't be some "gamer frame rate" wonder GPU.

It will be a more than good enough iGPU for more than a few folks though in the target markets that Apple is primarily after. ( Adobe Photoshop , FCP , LogicX , etc. )

 

[Lemon Olive]

I have a feeling the larger iMac will be 32”. Lets see what happens…

Gurman says today simply: 'Development was paused'. Sigh.

 

[Lemon Olive]

Congrats on the least perceptive comment of the day.

If the M1 Mac Mini was going to be the only Mac Mini, it would already be the only Mac Mini. Look at the Intel Mac Minis that are left in the lineup, they will replace those models with Apple Silicon model(s). It's literally impossible for Apple to telegraph their Mac Mini plans more obviously.

Right. Least perceptive comment that literally describes the current lineup, and unless Apple comes through with a high end Mac mini, and a display, it will remain the same.

 

[MysticCow]

Alongside the faster, more powerful processor, the new Mac Pro will feature a smaller design that "could invoke nostalgia for the Power Mac G4 Cube," according to a previous Bloomberg report.

So throw more cores at the problem...zero internal expandability due to the form factor...seriously, this is a PROFESSIONAL model?

Why buy this when a Mac mini is going to likely provide better external expandability due to the old USB port that the "Pro" won't likely have?

 

[Lemon Olive]

I truly hope that Apple will create a high-end Mac Mini using the 8+2 chip rumoured for the MBP, although it will be priced higher.

More cores than that, I don't know.

According to the actual report, not the bastardized version posted here, they are doing exactly that, but may or may not release it.

 

[Bug-Creator]

I don't disagree that it's a niche market for the Mac Pro, but I think you're underestimating Apple's willingness/ability to create an Arm based equivalent, or ignoring the effort they put into the 2019 Mac Pro, while already planning for the switch to Arm.

None of Apple's chip has a significant number of PCIe-lanes (recent LLT video suggest its just 4 for the M1).
None of Apple's fully owned design (aka anything that didn't start with a working Intel eval board) has expandable RAM.
-> all AS based PCBs are relative simple.

So for a full on AS-MPro Apple would need to create an SoC that has >40 PCIe lanes and a memory controller that can run signals to to at least 6 slots that may or may not be occupied with modules of various sizes over 100mm.

And it needs to do all that as fast and reliable as Threadripper or Xenon based one from vendors with decades of experience.

On top of this all this work is for very few units and is 100% worthless for all other products.

So unless Apple wants to partner with some ARM based server company (to get economy of scale) I expect to absolute insane money no matter top end to stay Intel (starting at 8000$) to be accompanied with a G4-Cube/TrashPro style AS MPro that you have to buy just the way you want it to be.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

If someone gets the 32/40 core model and fully saturates all cores. They definitely aren't getting something which meets their requirements. They simply are settling for the fastest option available. If this is a for profit machine where speed is important. As soon as Apple makes something faster. They'll buy that.

This is a very tiny percentage of buyers facing this problem though. Assuming their workload cannot be transferred to Windows/Linux. If it can be and they'd make more money Windows/Linux machine. After factoring all costs. Yet stick with macOS. They are just being stubborn.

Most are just arguing hypothetically. That or they want some sort of crowing rights about Macs being the fastest workstations out there. Sort of like the sports fan mentality when "their team" is winning.

I’d actually say regardless of Intel or Apple Silicon or AMD, if they don’t EVER saturate the cores, then they’re working with an application that’s poorly designed for multiple cores OR they really didn’t need all the power you bought.

 

[dgdosen]

I'm really interested in the size of these dies, related chip economics, and what this bodes for when they get to future TSMC nodes.

Will Apple be the first 'retail' chip maker to ship 100 billion transistors in a CPU? it seems like this will be a race between AMD and Apple, and the first out of the gates on TSMC 3nm might get there...

Get ready for all computers to be obsoleted...

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I’m still thinking chiplets is what you do when you have to create a general purpose part for a general purpose audience and you want to provide a VERY wide range of specialized solutions. Apple and TSMC are in a position where they know precisely what the hardware/software requirements for this chip is and are just zeroing in on that.

 

[ValueArb]

I bet Apple will turn todays high end macbook pro into a middle tier model and the new high end macbook pro line will start at $6,000 with the same chip the mac pro has but with less expandability and connectivity than the pro has. Why would Apple spend so much creating Apple silicon if it couldnt find a way to make even more expensive computers with it? A portable mac pro would be on a whole other level, not just talking about price.

Apple cares about margins, not pricing. The M1 costs them around $65 vs. the $200+ Intel was charging for MacBook Air CPUs. So for M1 Macs, they didn't increase prices, actually lowered some and put rest of it into higher margins.

They will be saving a couple hundred bucks switching to Apple Silcon from Intel on MacBook Pros, I guarantee they won't be raising prices. Instead they are going to put that money into new or returning features like Magsafe, MiniLED screens,

Apple likely pays something close to $1,000 for each Xeon, while it's 40 Core version of the M Series is likely to cost them no more than $400. I'm betting on some price cuts for the Mac Pros.

 

[Stephen.R]

None of Apple's chip has a significant number of PCIe-lanes

None of the bottom tier, consumer oriented CPUs are high on PCIe lanes. What a shocker.

Like I said, I don't think it's outrageous or uncharacteristic (of Apple) to suggest the current model will stay on sale for a little while.

I do think it's very uncharacteristic (of Apple) to suggest that they won't ever replace the current Mac Pro with <something>, and will instead just keep iterating on one single Intel model.

 

[ValueArb]

I realize it's a niche, but the entire purpose of this design was to provide modular upgrades. It would say a lot to those early adopters of this gen of Mac Pro if Apple offered a $1,000-$1,500 M1X or M2 CPU card that allowed an upgrade without the need to repurchase the entire Mac Pro. I imagine the Mac could dynamically adapt which CPU it would use based on whether the app is optimized for Apple Silicon (and, perhaps, even magically use the MacPro's discreet graphics cards where there was an advantage to doing so). This would allow those users to maintain backward compatibility, Windows compatibility and preserve their investment. It could also be billed as a more "green" upgrade than just a wholesale replacement. Realistically, I don't see that happening, but it would be a cool thing to do.

it would be also nice if Apple made the Mac Pro hover using anti-gravity technology, and make power out of the air so you could just pull it from one spot to another without having to ugh, roll it, and unplug/replug cables.

 

[Bug-Creator]

None of the bottom tier, consumer oriented CPUs are high on PCIe lanes. What a shocker.

M1 compared to lower tier Intel/AMD? I'm pretty sure M1 would loose that count.

Point is not that Apple couldn't do it but that these features are off little to no use for anything but a full scale MPro.

 

[Scotticus]

Unless AMD has a 30-or-so watt part with 20 cores, seems these will already rock past AMD.

Yeah, I don't really get why people think this won't handily spank anything else on the market. And I'm saying this as someone whose desktop is an AMD/Radeon rig I built myself.

 

[Stephen.R]

M1 compared to lower tier Intel/AMD? I'm pretty sure M1 would loose that count.

Point is not that Apple couldn't do it but that these features are off little to no use for anything but a full scale MPro.

When I said "none" I meant the M1, in it's existing variants, should not be surprising anyone with low numbers of PCIe lanes, because it's in entry level products, that have very limited expandability, even with TB3/USB4.

I wasn't commenting on the M1 relative to entry level Intel/AMD CPUs.

And my point is that an MPX slot and MPX cards are of no use for anything but a Mac Pro, yet they still created those things.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

They will be saving a couple hundred bucks switching to Apple Silcon from Intel on MacBook Pros, I guarantee they won't be raising prices. Instead they are going to put that money into new or returning features like Magsafe, MiniLED screens,

Gotta say, I was surprised to see MagSafe return not as a particular plug, but as “anything we make that magnetically sticks one thing to another thing for power delivery”.