MP 14,8 I bought an M2 Ultra Mac Pro.. Here's Why

[rondocap]

I have been a big fan of the 2019 Mac Pro, it's been one of the best systems I have ever owned. (Including enthusiast level PCs, it's just great for productivity)

With the newer macOs 18 and further, I think my 2019 Mac Pro just became a bit long in the tooth with its overall performance. 28 Core, 192GB of RAM, and W6800x Duo - so plenty powerful.

First, I decided to see if I could make my desktop setup work with a well-optioned MacBook Pro M3.

I work with R3D Raw, and the MacBook M3 felt pretty much just as fast as the 2019 Mac Pro. There was one problem...

The amount of external thunderbolt enclosures and cables needed to make it work for me really made my desk a huge mess, even with good cable management.

Thunderbolt enclosures and docks are also expensive, and some of them are very noisy. 2019 Mac Pro just fit so much storage and PCIe cards in there that I forgot how good it was!

Oh, and the lack of ports on a MacBook Pro made a big difference too, you need a TB dock.

Next, I tried my Mac Studio to see if the extra ports and different form factor would make any difference. The ports helped, but it did not eliminate the external devices.

I finally caved and bought a 2023 M2 Ultra Mac Pro, got a great price on it around $1400 off at Microcenter brand new.

Finally! Just like the 2019 Mac Pro, it's a masterpiece in engineering.

Even better, I moved my PCIe cards from my 2019 Mac Pro, and everything works perfectly.

Sonnet 8X4 PCIe card that can hold 8 NVME in slot 1.
Sonnet 4x4 with 4 NVME in slot 2.
Sonnet 2.5 SSD raid card in slot 6
OWC Accelsior 4M2 with 4 NVME in slot 4.

Hard drive cage can fit up to 3 more hard drives.

6 Thunderbolt ports +2 USB A.

No more external devices, and it is super silent!

Now, all devices show up and function under macOS 18 Beta.

Of course, due to the way Apple does the PCIe, my pool A is around 181% and pool B 59%.

Obviously using all of them at once will limit bandwidth, but they do work.

I use most of the storage as sequential Time Machine backups, so speeds are good, and I'll just need one large NVME array to work off of so the PCIe limits never really become an issue.

Considering the noise, clutter, and expense of external thunderbolt devices - the extra money towards the Mac Pro with PCIe is more than worth it for someone like me who needs tons of storage. The extra ports are more useful than you'd think, too.

Neatness and organized area aside, even similarly equipping external devices with a Mac Studio ends up pretty much a wash with the Mac Pro, which can the internal space.

And it's beautiful, feels good to work off a machine that inspires. (Sorry, I am a Mac Pro fan since the PowerMac G5 days)

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Enjoy your new computer. It's great that the cards transferred and all work.

This is an Apple-biased site so most should be happy for you. A few haters may question the buy. But who cares what anyone thinks: it's YOUR money and you bought what YOU wanted. Enjoy your new Mac. Hopefully, it serves you well for a long, long time to come.

 

[avro707]

With the newer macOs 18 and further

Where did you get them?

I thought I was bold being on developer versions of 15 - which seemed bleeding edge at times. If you can send me the next lotto numbers will be grateful.

I question the lack of expansion in memory with the newer Mac Pro but the large enclosure with room to add more drives is worthwhile. I also don’t like my desk cluttered with add on boxes that people say should be connected to a Mac Studio.

 

[rondocap]

Where did you get them?

I thought I was bold being on developer versions of 15 - which seemed bleeding edge at times. If you can send me the next lotto numbers will be grateful.

I question the lack of expansion in memory with the newer Mac Pro but the large enclosure with room to add more drives is worthwhile. I also don’t like my desk cluttered with add on boxes that people say should be connected to a Mac Studio.

Ha, yeah I meant version 15, 18 is for iOS..

I have been monitoring my RAM usage for a while, and I rarely even get close to 64GB of usage with my workflow. It usually stays in the 40GB or under tops.

The M2 Ultra Mac Pro can still fit tons of storage, and it is the only Mac that can do that now. I'm really liking it, I avoided switching over for a long time, but M2 Ultra is much snappier than the 28 core for regular use, and does really well in video editing too.

 

[avro707]

I’m lucky that I can wait and see what comes next, I have two of the 28 core machines here both very high spec.

They are held back by RAM and I need to upgrade that but I also have other expensive unexpected things I need to sort out so the memory upgrades will have to wait.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I think my 2019 Mac Pro just became a bit long in the tooth with its overall performance. 28 Core, 192GB of RAM, and W6800x Duo - so plenty powerful.

I think this is the one part of your post that I'm struggling to get here. I know it's not Apple Silicon, but even a 28-core 2019 Mac Pro, let alone one with 192GB of RAM and a W6800X Duo (which I think still benchmarks as being faster in GPU tests in all but the most optimized of apps than even the 76-GPU core variant of M2 Ultra GPUs) shouldn't feel long in the tooth at this point. I guess that's entirely workload specific. But it still seems...weird?

From one computer enthusiast to another, I DEFINITELY get wanting to get an Apple Silicon Mac Pro, even alongside a 2019 Mac Pro. If space and money were both not an issue, I'd own both machines too.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Having both a Mac Pro with two W6800X Duos and a MacBook Pro M3 Max, I would still wholeheartedly recommend the Mac Pro for DaVinci Resolve work, where real-time playback is important (also often coupled with a need for plenty of storage). There are other isolated GPU-workload scenarios where the 6800s work well, but you need to research and see if your situation would benefit from these GPUs.

It's much easier to recommend Apple Silicon these days for general use as it typically "just works", as it were. Many signs point to AS becoming an even more powerful platform as more and more software gets properly hooked up.

 

[rondocap]

I think this is the one part of your post that I'm struggling to get here. I know it's not Apple Silicon, but even a 28-core 2019 Mac Pro, let alone one with 192GB of RAM and a W6800X Duo (which I think still benchmarks as being faster in GPU tests in all but the most optimized of apps than even the 76-GPU core variant of M2 Ultra GPUs) shouldn't feel long in the tooth at this point. I guess that's entirely workload specific. But it still seems...weird?

From one computer enthusiast to another, I DEFINITELY get wanting to get an Apple Silicon Mac Pro, even alongside a 2019 Mac Pro. If space and money were both not an issue, I'd own both machines too.

If you put a specific workload with the W6800X, it is definitely faster, no doubt.

But for Final Cut Pro, the majority of my R3D raw is pretty close in performance with the M2 Ultra, not a big difference.

And in normal use, the M2 Ultra feels snappier, things open faster, photoshop behaves faster, etc.

Plus, it draws a lot less power - the 2019 Mac Pro would heat up my office a lot faster, ha.