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rondocap

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Jun 18, 2011
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According to this article from Mac World, the M1 version of the Mac Pro that we thought was coming in some extreme flavor, seems cancelled for now. Apparently Apple is focusing on M2 for now, together is supply issues that are ongoing.

This actually makes sense, considering we haven't even seen a small teaser yet like we thought may have happened at WWDC.

IMO the GPU part of the 7.1 Mac Pro is still really strong for workflows that use it, the Ultra Mac Studio is still very far behind in pure GPU power. It excels in certain optimized tasks of course, like Pro Res, other codecs, etc.

I wonder if this opens the gate for one more GPU upgrade as AMD releases their next generation this or next year before it's completely done.


 
I’m not sure the AS Mac Pro was cancelled, merely delayed. Apple built a prototype with M1 Ultra, decided it wasn’t fast enough and so they are waiting for the M2 Ultra before they ship.

More confirmation that AS Mac Pro will essentially be a suped-up Mac Studio.
 
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I think that all of this is very reactive to the supply chain issues. The M2 is speculated to enable 4-way configuration as opposed to the 2-way configuration that the M1 supports so the idea might have always been for the the Pro to be M2-based or at least launch with a 4xM2 option and it just wasn't ready in time. I don't think it changes the AS Pro strategy at all but if I'm understanding your question correctly, then it certainly extends the life of the 7,1 and tactically it is possible that new 7,1 GPU cards from AMD are released (that was a possibility irrespective of the ASI Pro but I'd say is more possible now). As to what's in the AS Pro, that's the million dollar question explored extensively in other threads. Pretty sure whatever it is though has been fully defined probably since before the 7,1 was released and was probably designed at the same time.
 
It is probably more like was reported awhile back there seems to be no fix for it according to MIT.

Apple's M1 chips have an “unpatchable” hardware vulnerability that could allow attackers to break through its last line of security defenses, MIT researchers have discovered. The vulnerability lies in a hardware-level security mechanism utilized in Apple M1 chips called pointer authentication codes, or PAC.
 
It is probably more like was reported awhile back there seems to be no fix for it according to MIT.

Apple's M1 chips have an “unpatchable” hardware vulnerability that could allow attackers to break through its last line of security defenses, MIT researchers have discovered. The vulnerability lies in a hardware-level security mechanism utilized in Apple M1 chips called pointer authentication codes, or PAC.
This is not the real reason, Apple still sells 2019 Mac Pros, that have dozens of Intel un-patchable vulnerabilities that can only be partially mitigated. There is no system without vulnerabilities/bugs/etc. All M1 based Macs (2020 M1 Mac minis/Air, 2021 iMac and MacBook Pros) are still being made to this day except the 13" MacBook Pro that is the first and only M1 Mac that production was ceased to this day. 2022 Mac Studio are also based on M1.

The most probable reason could be that the 4x M1-Pro for the Mac Pro was extremely late because of all the COVID-19 issues and not really good enough - you can also account that M2 probably was already being made by TSMC and in the validation process with Apple when this decision was made.
 
Makes me super happy I got the 7,1 in 2019. It wasn't clear then, but the gamble that apple would continue you to bumble and not deliver timely updates paid off big time.

Furthermore, if apple release a new Mac Pro that does not have multiple PCI cards, that Mac Pro will be DOA and the 7,1 will be my last Mac. Also, the value of the 7,1 will go through the roof if the 8,1 does not have multiple PCI cards that can seamlessly use regular PC PCIe cards, including common graphics and audio/video cards.

Let's hope they at least learned from their trashcan disaster. One thing they clearly didnt learn is how to timely provide updates to their professional/enthusiast users.
 
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According to this article from Mac World, the M1 version of the Mac Pro that we thought was coming in some extreme flavor, seems cancelled for now. Apparently Apple is focusing on M2 for now, together is supply issues that are ongoing.

How it can be 'cancelled' if they are working on the M2 generation version? Delayed? Yes. Cancelled is an inaccurate connotation. Reportedly there were multiple 'large' screen iMacs prototypes worked on. If it never made to to production validation testing or even engineering validation then never really made it out final 'green light' stage of approval.

The AirPower was "all done and ready to go" too (Apple had even started to print up boxes to ship it) and it never got over the deep scrutiny of engineering and production validation.

The problem if go to the video where Gurman makes this "all done" characterization is that when asked when Apple will ship this M2 version it is "No not January .... Spring maybe ... maybe even early Summer ... maybe not even announce at end of 2022 " . That doesn't 'smell' like a 100% fully baked , problem free infrastructure simply waiting on a speed bump SoC upgrade.

if apple has composed a SoC packaging design that is way, way , way to hard to make in decent numbers then it was never really "all ready to go". Like AirPower had a concept but not a solid product. Would not be surprising if Apple made 100's of prototypes but production wise it doesn't work. So it is "not done in the first place" more so than "cancelled".


This actually makes sense, considering we haven't even seen a small teaser yet like we thought may have happened at WWDC.

If they can't make them inside of a 6 month window then it probably won't get announced.


I wonder if this opens the gate for one more GPU upgrade as AMD releases their next generation this or next year before it's completely done.

Probably not one way or another. If Apple's plan 1-2 years ago was to do 7000 series then it is probably still on track. If Apple had no plans for a 7000 series MPX module then I highly doubt the next Mac Pro sliding has any impact there. [ a sudden desire to throw money at the Intel Mac Pro probably won't not get greelit. ] If Apple had settled on limping along with unchanged hardware then limping along for 6 more months isn't a big deal. Apple squatted on the MP 2013 for 6 years. Squatting on the MP 2019 for 4-5 years would be easy.

The crux would be whether Apple had previously planned to sell both the 'going stale' MP 2019 and the new Apple Silicon version side by side for 1-2 years. If so, then perhaps already had a plan to use 7000 series GPUs to make that less painful for the intel model.

Drivers for macOS lag on AMDGPU releases 1 or 2 quarters anyway. If Apple was shooting for a 7700 and that lags a weeks , months behind the 7900/7800 then that would have been late Spring - early Summer 2023 anyway. Apple is not likely at all to pay extra to jump to the front of the AMD GPU release line. Those cards wouldn't have helped the intel Mac Pro in 2022 whether Apple ships a AS Mac Pro in 2022 or not.

Extremely unlikely that a 7000 series card could play any significant role as a 3-6 month "gap filler". So plus/minus 6-9 months on new Mac Pro won't make any significant difference .



if the 7900 is consuming up in the 400-500W range I'm not sure Apple is going to want to touch that. Similarly if there are no Infinity Fabric links on the 7800 GPU SoC ... again may not want to touch it. ( many of these out of spec, too large cards to handle the heat aren't going to fit. )

AMD also has lots of other irons in the fire than to sink effort in 2022 or very early 2023 into a dead end platform.

The cheapest path for both Apple and AMD is to add some general 6000 series optimizations and a few tweaks for the 6*50 cards and just let folks who need "single" , non fabric connected GPUS just use those. If the crypto GPU card crash continues Apple's cards priced into falling prices on 6800/6900 isn't going to work well.
 
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Furthermore, if apple release a new Mac Pro that does not have multiple PCI cards, that Mac Pro will be DOA and the 7,1 will be my last Mac. Also, the value of the 7,1 will go through the roof

Probably not. if there is enough demand, then Apple will keep selling them. The Intel Mini is still being sold around 1.75 years after the M1 Mini release. Looks like the M2 Pro Mini won't come until Fall so very good chance that is going to make to a effectively a whole 2 years. If there is a huge mismatch in slot count , there is a pretty good chance that Apple will just "cash cow" the 7,1 for another year or so. If Apple Silicon version slides then just take on some extra Quarters to that year or so. They probably would dump the 5000 MPX modules in 2023 , but there are 6000 series replacements for those.


if the 8,1 does not have multiple PCI cards that can seamlessly use regular PC PCIe cards, including common graphics and audio/video cards.

Without drivers there is no "seamlessly use" . It isn't about hardware , it is primarily about software/firmware drivers. "Common Graphics cards" are a non starter right now. No indication that they are coming with macOS 13 (Ventura ) either.

Random older A/V cards probably has issues also with modern drivers for DriverKit. (if zero new driver development resources allocated to the cards then it is dead in the water. )


Let's hope they at least learned from their trashcan disaster. One thing they clearly didnt learn is how to timely provide updates to their professional/enthusiast users.

2020 W5700
2021 W5500 , W6500 , W6800 , W6800 Duo , W6900

They have done updates. The 5500 and 6500 were largely "freebies" (another Mac moved those forward). The others are work for the Mac Pro specially. Some may not like the scope of the updates , but they exist. Won't be surprising if a tweak for 6850 and 6960 show up at some point late in 2022. ( largely a factory overclocked die so primarily just letting it off the chain in the firmware. )

Folks who bought a Vega II Duo in January 2020 have a major performance boost available in August 2022 if the upgrade to a W6800 Duo.

.
If talking new logical boards and sockets. Dell / HP are squatting on Xeon W3200 boards also ( largley skipped W3300 ).
 
Also, the value of the 7,1 will go through the roof if the 8,1 does not have multiple PCI cards that can seamlessly use regular PC PCIe cards, including common graphics and audio/video cards.
I agree....:p
Look how many people are buying 4.1/5.1 macs today 12+ years later.
 
Honestly, I can't believe Apple pulled off a complete hardware/software architecture change during a pandemic and then total supply chain breakdown later on. I think the Mac Pro is probably the last one to get the love from Apple silicon because it's the one almost nobody buys. It probably just didn't make sense timing wise, and if the AS Mac Pro was the only casualty of all the hardware updates throughout the pandemic, color me impressed.

That doesn't mean it's not bugging me though. :) I'd never actually buy a Mac Pro--I just want to see what a Mac Pro with Apple silicon can actually do. If the Mac Studio was any indicator, it will be a beast.
 
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Honestly, I can't believe Apple pulled off a complete hardware/software architecture change during a pandemic and then total supply chain breakdown later on. I think the Mac Pro is probably the last one to get the love from Apple silicon because it's the one almost nobody buys. It probably just didn't make sense timing wise, and if the AS Mac Pro was the only casualty of all the hardware updates throughout the pandemic, color me impressed.

That doesn't mean it's not bugging me though. :) I'd never actually buy a Mac Pro--I just want to see what a Mac Pro with Apple silicon can actually do. If the Mac Studio was any indicator, it will be a beast.
I am happy they don't have a M1 Mac Pro. The longer the 2019 sticks around the longer support for MacOS on Intel will last.
 
I am happy they don't have a M1 Mac Pro. The longer the 2019 sticks around the longer support for MacOS on Intel will last.

There is likely a limit to that. The Intel Mac Pro all by itself can hold back the tide. Just not enough volume to move the needle all by itself. Apple is probably going to transition the Mac Pro 2019 (7,1) to Vintage/Obsolete as quickly as their rules allow. Decent chance the "countdown" clock will start when a Apple Silicon Mac Pro is release even if that system is not a direct replacement and Apple continues to sell side by side for a year or so.

From reports the Intel Mini is going to disappear in late 2022. When the Mac Pro is last system standing, it will be on thin ice as far as making Apple spend lots more money to keep just it running. Lots of Pros sit on macOS releases for about as long as they can. A substantial number of those folks is more a liability than an asset to get Apple to extend the clock.

The iMac 27" apparently got replaced late. The last Intel Mini is definitely getting replace quite late. those have helped extend the time at least as much as the trailing Mac Pro.
 
I agree....:p
Look how many people are buying 4.1/5.1 macs today 12+ years later.

That is due in large part that the firmware is hackable and Apple is actively pouring lots of resources into new versions of Intel MacOS ( and new drivers for embedded GPUs that other new Macs were getting over time). The Mac Pro 7,1 doesn't have as hackable firmware and Apple is going to turn off the spigot when the Mac Pro goes onto the Vintage/Obsolete list. Kernel extensions are going away so even hacking the kernel is going to to get harder. Lots of Intel Darwin contributions are going to dry up where Apple is supplying the momentum.

Apple has deprecated kernel extensions so where the new DriverKit development dollars are going to be spent is going to highly skew to M-series systems after the last intel Macs drop off the market. When kernel extensions drop away the Intel Macs are not going to be on a growth path.

Post PPC->Intel transition, was there a huge crowd driving the PowerMac prices sky high? Not really over an extended period of time. Apple's investment in new drivers for PPC equipment went way down over time. The walked away from the operating system altogether over time.

Once things are all about making an unsupported hackintosh... (even a hackintosh with a Apple label on it) those hyper modularity, used system buying folks are far more likely to drift into the used general PC market buy an Apple system. It will be about saving money and "control" more than Apple compatible at that point.
 
There is likely a limit to that. The Intel Mac Pro all by itself can hold back the tide. Just not enough volume to move the needle all by itself. Apple is probably going to transition the Mac Pro 2019 (7,1) to Vintage/Obsolete as quickly as their rules allow. Decent chance the "countdown" clock will start when a Apple Silicon Mac Pro is release even if that system is not a direct replacement and Apple continues to sell side by side for a year or so.

From reports the Intel Mini is going to disappear in late 2022. When the Mac Pro is last system standing, it will be on thin ice as far as making Apple spend lots more money to keep just it running. Lots of Pros sit on macOS releases for about as long as they can. A substantial number of those folks is more a liability than an asset to get Apple to extend the clock.

The iMac 27" apparently got replaced late. The last Intel Mini is definitely getting replace quite late. those have helped extend the time at least as much as the trailing Mac Pro.
The "vintage" 7 year countdown starts when the Mac Pro is withdrawn from the market so if the 7,1 is discontinued next year it will become vintage some time in 2030. I don't expect new Intel versions of MacOS until 2030 but I would expect them until at least 2025 and probably 2027.

The last 27" iMac was introduced in August of 2020 and discontinued earlier this year when the Mac Studio was announced. It was only on the market for 18 months so I doubt it was replaced that late. It is possible that the Intel Mac Mini is the last Intel Mac to be sold. AWS buys a large number of them and they are also popular as build servers. Apple may use them itself for Xcode Cloud. iOS apps can use M1 Minis of course but Intel MacOS apps are still being built.
 
Except that Mac Pro 6,1 just lost support in Ventura less than 3 years after it was discontinued in December of 2019 (with the introduction of 7,1.) All bets are off on timeline.
 
Except that Mac Pro 6,1 just lost support in Ventura less than 3 years after it was discontinued in December of 2019 (with the introduction of 7,1.) All bets are off on timeline.
That is true. OTOH The 6,1 was introduced in 2013 so it had eight years of new MacOS releases and another two years of security updates since its introduction. Also, I doubt many people were buying it in 2019, even the 2018 Mac Mini was faster and the iMac Pro was introduced in 2017.
 
Except that Mac Pro 6,1 just lost support in Ventura less than 3 years after it was discontinued in December of 2019 (with the introduction of 7,1.) All bets are off on timeline.

"all bets are off" is probably too extreme.

The MP 2013 (6,1) in a normal context would have be superseded by 2017 or so. Indeed in 2017, Apple actually pragmatically cut the price of the 6,1 by barrel shifting the "good , better , best" configurations 'left' and boosting the entry system specs ( shifted to "better , best and BTO options" ). ( it was also around where Apple was going to hit the well over 1000 days stale mark and tech press was starting to regularly throw 'shade' on them for gross inaction. It was "new" in terms of pricing for a short while. ). When was last time Apple did a system price cut of a 'sold as new' product? There is several kinds of "abnormal" about the 6,1 timing on the market.

Also to a high degree of overlap the iMac Pro 2017 was a partial replacement of the 6,1. Not completely, but same literal desktop workstation role. 17 + 5 = 22 . Apple painted themselves into a financial corner by selling the 6,1 for so long. They are cutting their losses by dropping the macOS support.


It is indicative though that if replacement for the MP 2019 (7,1) takes "too long" that Apple is probably not going to give a huge extension to the 7,1 lifetime. So if the 2018-2019 plan was to release 8,1 in Fall 2022 and the 8,1 slides to Summer 2023 that is unlikely to tack extra years onto the 7,1 support. 7,1 likely has a 5 year countdown window once Apple starts the clock.

If Apple sells 7,1 and 8,1 side by side for a while. Pretty good chance that will be treated as a replacement in terms of Vintage/Obsolete. Even more so if no new MPX GPU modules appear to help the 7,1 coast longer in a more market competitive fashion and no 3rd party GPU drivers show up on M-series macOS. Apple would be more so just selling a 'container' to keep a narrow faction happy just a little bit longer, but that isn't going to motivate them to add extra time on Intel macOS long term. However, if Apple does something to make a new configuration of 7,1 last longer competitive wise, then the clock is more likely to start when they stop selling. They are doing more than just purely milking the 'cash cow'.
 
That is true. OTOH The 6,1 was introduced in 2013 so it had eight years of new MacOS releases and another two years of security updates since its introduction. Also, I doubt many people were buying it in 2019, even the 2018 Mac Mini was faster and the iMac Pro was introduced in 2017.

People buying in 2019? Not so much. Companies? In a large enough niche for Apple to keep a slow motion production going; hosted web services. MacStadium bought two pallets (or more) of 6,1 systems on the day before the 7,1 went on sale. . The 6,1 maxed out at 128GB RAM. If doing virtual machine hosting then Mini doesn't go that high. Same reason why Apple is still selling the Intel Mini almost two years after the M1 Mini introduced. For high memory aggregate workloads the Intel system is more preferment. That is mostly not literal people using to system to web browse and hobby compute tasks though. The volume is low but the profit/system is pretty high. Apple's 2nd year of security updates is a bit flakey, but for "fixed in time" server OS configurations it may work.

Will the 7,1 last almost two years on the market after the 8,1 is introduced? We'll see. No configuration updates at all then probably not. With some configuration changes they could; sold the 6,1 for two more years after 2017. But that wasn't an extension on Vintage/Obsolete.

The iMac Pro was discontinued in 2021. It only has 4 years left. The only 2018 Mini still left is mainly targeted at web services hosting. Those will likely be on a hardware retirement rotation that will take many of them out of front line service in 4-5 years. If there are 5 years of security updates coming from this point in time, they probably aren't going to care much. The M1 and M2 Mini are going to be so much better on vast majority of software workloads that I doubt folks will hold onto the Mini 2018 longer than necessary. Amazon, MacStadium , etc. have all started M1 Mini deployments. If there is a M2 Pro Mini that Intel is likely over for new deployments (even if Apple had been tempted somehow to keep it around. ) .

Note at the Studio keynote Apple said there was only "one more Mac to go on the transition". In some sense, they are already consider the Mini 'replaced'. Won't be surprising for the 2018 Mini to fall off the wagon in 3-4 years (because clock is already running. )


P.S. some folks may be tempted to say Mac Pro is special because 2012 got longer macOS coverage than 2010. But that was all in the context of Apple actively working on a new Intel macOS versions anyway. There was millions of other Intel Macs paying the freight there. When those millions disappear that is a big problem. Every year going forward millions more Intel Macs are going to drop out of helping to pay for Intel macOS upgrades. The pot of money to pay for this is going to crater rapidly over next 4 years. The countdown clock on the 7,1 is going to start whether or not Apple chooses to do extra time milking the cash cow or not. It is more about what happened to the rest of the Macs.
 
P.S. some folks may be tempted to say Mac Pro is special because 2012 got longer macOS coverage than 2010. But that was all in the context of Apple actively working on a new Intel macOS versions anyway. There was millions of other Intel Macs paying the freight there. When those millions disappear that is a big problem. Every year going forward millions more Intel Macs are going to drop out of helping to pay for Intel macOS upgrades. The pot of money to pay for this is going to crater rapidly over next 4 years. The countdown clock on the 7,1 is going to start whether or not Apple chooses to do extra time milking the cash cow or not. It is more about what happened to the rest of the Macs.
This is my fear with it as well. Apple has been rushing to end support for a lot of Intel models already. My old 2012 Macbook Pro got support all the way up until 2019, about 7 years after its release, and it's still getting security updates for Catalina to this day (although those will likely end later this year). With Ventura, Apple has even cut off a lot of 2017 models and is restricting it to 2018+ on some lines of the Mac (such as the Macbook Air, where the 2017 models were still sold as new even in 2018).

I doubt they will be quite as fast to do this on the Mac Pro, but I don't expect them to be particularly generous with it either (Apple was surprisingly quick to phase out the PowerPC Macs during the transition, supporting many of them for only 3 or 4 years). The Apple-Silicon Mac Pros will blow the Intel models out of the water anyway, so it will probably be advantageous for a lot of studios to upgrade quickly, but it does beg the question: Does it make any sense whatsoever to buy a Mac Pro new today? What will happen to those who have bought one recently?

I suspect that Apple has something new up its sleeves with the upcoming M2 models in a way that we haven't seen yet. They've already stated that PCI-E will be supported, and I'm curious if RAM will be upgradeable as well. These sorts of things are probably part of the hold up for Apple, and I imagine they want to make sure they get it right before they release it to the masses on their most premium lineup. They're probably just waiting until they are able to deliver the best that they have to offer, but every year that they wait is another year that they will have to spend the money to support Intel Macs. If most of the standard consumer market is already off of Intel by the time that the Apple-Silicon Mac Pro arrives, Apple has less incentive to support the existing Intel Mac Pro models for any remotely extended period of time. I suppose we will see, only time will tell.
 
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