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Yes, the "another day" comment means we'll see a new Pro later, probably end of this year or next year, per the recent Gurman and Kuo rumors. That will be an expensive piece of kit but the performance should be mind blowing. Given what they've done with the Ultra, I think it should put to bed any idea that Apple is going outside for any GPU options ever again.
 
OK, so the new M1 Ultra in the Studio is impressive, and at the end they said "One more to go, but Mac Pro is for another day".

Also said that Ultra was the "last" M1 .

Have to get to the upper end of a follow on generation to roll out to get "Mac Pro" ... unless going to use this "Ultra". From the pictures there are no new PCI-e v4 allocations. So basically have two x4 PCI-e offerings from the two dies. (unless want to Rube Goldberg some x4 PCI-e v3 from one of the Thunderbolt feeds with an internal perhierpal controller to pull PCI-e back out. )

IF the "quad" is attached to the M3 generation ... it is will be a more distant day.


Apple appears to have killed off the 5K iMac Intel model without replacing it. A Mac Pro without a real "feature to features" is entirely possible from folks who would do that. Going to finish the transition in 2 years because ghosting models into completion.
 
That's what they made me believe in the end. Mac Pro is still coming, with some more than than ASi Max, more than ASi Ultra. So what it is called then? ASi M1 Black Hole? They didn't call this a Max Duo or Double or anything.

This Johny Srouji is kind of fascinating. He is so in to it. I like him.

I still hate the fact it's all in from the start price/purchase from now on. No ever never upgrades no more what so ever.
 
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OK, so the new M1 Ultra in the Studio is impressive, and at the end they said "One more to go, but Mac Pro is for another day".

Wow, that's going to be insane. The Ultra is already faster vs a single W6900x or the 28 Core in the 7.1 Mac Pro.

It can't match the cool big tower in looks, though. Let me hold on to that one at least. lol!
Mac Studio is not a tower, its not even 4 inches high.
 
And it's still to see if it matches a 6900XT by 1.8x as stated. You wouldn't want to pick your benchmarks for the sole purpose of proving supremacy, but rather try the apps preferable to your needs and workflows.

I'd like to be surprised though. This time by Apple.
 
The Studio configs really seems targeted to those who would flock to iMac 27" with i9 + GPU + RAM upgrades in the past. I'll hold onto iMac19,1 with VEGA for awhile. Augmenting or beginning the transition to M1x can wait until the roadmap is clearer.

There probably should be a future where the screens/displays of the lower end iMacs are salvageable with an upgrade if Apple wants to continue to push sustainability. Maybe the 27" starts that trend.

...and now the 27" iMac is officially discontinued.
 
Yes, the "another day" comment means we'll see a new Pro later, probably end of this year or next year, per the recent Gurman and Kuo rumors. That will be an expensive piece of kit but the performance should be mind blowing. Given what they've done with the Ultra, I think it should put to bed any idea that Apple is going outside for any GPU options ever again.

Who do you think this Mac Pro will be for? High end extensive 3D usage? For any video editor the Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra should be plenty

 
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Who do you think this Mac Pro will be for? High end extensive 3D usage? For any video editor the Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra should be plenty

People who need PCIe, and more everything in a single box. (and those with deep pockets, duh)

Wonder if this also kills the rumor of the half-sized Mac Pro. Hope not (foolishly).
 
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When they said "modular" during the keynote I got excited, until I realized they were talking about the separate desktop and monitor. I'm kind of surprised they killed the 27" iMac. I like that they separated it though. I'm also surprised they are still selling the Intel Mac mini because the Studio basically is the high end mini.

I know the Studio is faster than the 7,1 Mac Pro, but I like the fact you can buy a base 7,1 and upgrade it as needed over time. You can't do that with the Studio. Even the 6,1 can be upgraded so I wouldn't call the Studio a replacement for the 6,1. Now I know my next Mac will be a 7,1. Eventually there'll be an AMD GPU that triumphs the M1 Ultra. I don't mind staying 1 release previous. My 6,1 still works great for me so I'm keeping it.
 
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Also said that Ultra was the "last" M1 .

Have to get to the upper end of a follow on generation to roll out to get "Mac Pro" ... unless going to use this "Ultra". From the pictures there are no new PCI-e v4 allocations. So basically have two x4 PCI-e offerings from the two dies. (unless want to Rube Goldberg some x4 PCI-e v3 from one of the Thunderbolt feeds with an internal perhierpal controller to pull PCI-e back out. )

IF the "quad" is attached to the M3 generation ... it is will be a more distant day.


Apple appears to have killed off the 5K iMac Intel model without replacing it. A Mac Pro without a real "feature to features" is entirely possible from folks who would do that. Going to finish the transition in 2 years because ghosting models into completion.
The fact the Mac Studio did not replace Mac Pro shows that the Mac Pro will be different. we just have to wait and see.
 
People who need PCIe, and more everything in a single box. (and those with deep pockets, duh)

Wonder if this also kills the rumor of the half-sized Mac Pro. Hope not (foolishly).

What kind of PCI-E cards are people running in these that I don't know about? I assume it's for more industry specific things, but I was under the impression the crazy graphics included in the Apple Silicon chips should be more than enough.
 
Really gonna be interesting how „modular“ a new Mac Pro will be.
I have my 7.1 16c with Vega duo and 192 gb of ram plus an internal 8TB SSD raid.. so It’s not worth “upgrading” to a studio yet- even though the single core and gpu performance gains probably would make it almost worth it.
Sigh.

My office colleague is a tech influenced and getting his studio in the coming days- is there anything particular I should ask him to test?
 
This looks great. My 7.1 handles my workload just fine, so I don't need to buy one, but I think the pricing is good for the performance you get.

I think they'll be popular with digi op's on photoshoots and DITs. A strength with the trashcan was that you could fly with it in hand luggage if you wanted to. The Mac Studio is a lot of power to carry around in a peli case.

I think the upgradability point is a bit overstated on here. The 7.1 is a maximum slotbox but is limited by the CPU socket. There are no new CPUs that will work with it that weren't around on the day of release in 2019 and there won't ever be. You can add more ram, but I can't get the software/OS to ever get close to using all the 192GB of ram I have in there... 128GB would be fine for me. In terms of PCI slots I have an Afterburner (now integrated in AS) and a GPU (probably easily outperformed by the M1 Ultra).

It's very hard to call this anything but a very impressive product.
 
From the rumors I was expecting a physically larger Mac-Mini with an M1 Max and more ports today that would be renamed the Mac Studio. And we got that.

Then I expected a 1/2 size Mac Pro with perhaps two M1 Max's, or a new SoC, late this year. The M1 Ultra fills that bill, but I was really surprised we got it today, and surprised it was in the same "larger Mac mini" form factor with no internal expansion.

But for me personally, that is good thing because I'm happy not to have to pay several $K's for a more elaborate chassis to support the next Mac Pro's configurable internal storage, PCI slots, power supply, and cooling for something along the lines of a dual M1 Ultra variation in a 1/2 size current Mac Pro case, even if there is to be an entry level single M1 Ultra version.

Based on the M1 Ultra Mac Studio's $4K-$5K price, I expect the next Mac Pro will again have a $6K-$7K entry level price starting at a single M1 Ultra level of performance and go up from there. So I pulled the trigger and ordered the M1 Ultra Mac Studio today. It seems like a good price point for my needs.
 
The fact the Mac Studio did not replace Mac Pro shows that the Mac Pro will be different. we just have to wait and see.

no electrical x16 PCI-e ve or v4 slots and still a 'Mac Pro' ? Not really. They could slap that name on it, but it really won't be. To get to something deserving of a Mac Pro by the criteria they laid out back in 2017 and 2019 (highest bandwidth , etc. ) , they need another SoC. They aren't any other M1's .. so ...
 
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Mac Studio is the half sized Mac Pro. Gurman mentioned that yesterday.

Got quote/source?

This afternoon he said it was not.

"... They had to say it about the Mac Pro to avoid people believing the Mac Studio (with all of its performance) was the Mac Pro’s replacement. ..."

March 7th

"... Another note: I think it will be odd for the M2 to be announced alongside an M1-series Mac mini/Mac Studio/Small Mac Pro — so maybe we should look for that as part of the May-June cycle. ..."

Perhaps this one..

"... Am told the Mac Studio (smaller Mac Pro/more powerful Mac mini) plus the new monitor running iOS are “ready to go” - so I believe they should arrive tomorrow. ..."


Studio Display running iOS ? That wasn't a moment of clarity either. I don't think that parenthetic comment about smaller Mac Pro was a moment of clarity. More spitballing that objective reporting.
 
Should be interesting. Apple has shown the flex they have, and it looks like sky’s the limit for them. I’m thinking the future Mac Pro will retain upgradability, but probably with a twist — maybe a subscription system or packages that can be purchased.

Also, why wouldn’t they have a rack version? With all of this power and efficiency, I would imagine that these could be used for cloud services on a large scale — or am I completely delusional on this point?
 
What kind of PCI-E cards are people running in these that I don't know about? I assume it's for more industry specific things,

There is nothing particularly industry specific about more than one internal storage drive



On that page:
1. a 4 x M.2 card
2. a dual U.2 card

3 Dual port 10GbE card.


The Studio only has one of those ( storage drive or Ethernet port ). Ever decreasing numbers of people are using SATA for storage drives in workstation. The non-Apple SSDs are all some PCI-e dependent. Since Apple provides no standard M.2 or U.2 slots/sleds a simple card can provision those. Furthermore, x4 PCI-e v4 SSD are starting to roll out in numbers now. By 2023 there will be x4 PCI-e v5 SSDs out there. Thunderbolt isn't going to do much for those; much less for groups of 2-4 of those.




At WWDC 2019 for the Mac Pro introduction



m24x4-apple-wwdc-p-1600.jpeg



The Sonnet TB expansion 'compatible cards" docs indicate that most of the above cards will work. ( the two port 10GbE expected to have updated drivers in Q2 '22 ) but some don't (I think the AJA don't have M1 drivers yet . But some Blackmagic Declink have them. ).

Networking (mostly to SAN/NAS storage ) and Storage (internal ) are just generally useful for larger data sets; doesn't matter what the data is.


but I was under the impression the crazy graphics included in the Apple Silicon chips should be more than enough.


There are over 100 cards on the Sonnet compatibility card list for TB external PCI-e enclosures. There are a large number of cards that are not GPUs. Many of those do going into more specific workloads though.

Nevermind that Apple isn't enabling any 3rd party GPU drivers on macOS on M-series, that alone doesn't warrant killing off internal slots across the line up.
 
Also, why wouldn’t they have a rack version? With all of this power and efficiency, I would imagine that these could be used for cloud services on a large scale — or am I completely delusional on this point?

Rack of this studio? Probably not. Just do the same thing folks do with Mini. Tilt it on its side and put several brackets to lock them into place on a shelf.

image


This Studio is about 4" tall. The Mini is about 1.4" tall. if use one Studio for every three Mini on a shelf in picture above about 8 per shelf on that rack. There are 10 shelves on front side of that rack so 80 Studio's per side. Not quite as good as several hundred Minis but that is still alot more than would get with 1U pizza boxes in a standard height rack.

I would be easier on the infrastructure to just replace a Mini with the same case but a M1 Pro/Max inside. That would be better density.

But this really only works for macOS hosting. Cloud hosting of Windows/Linux images with lots of multitenant virtual machines on individual nodes; neither Mini or Studio would be good at the hyperscale. The missing ability to put in a DPU/IPU virtual storage network card is a liability.
 
Rack of this studio? Probably not. Just do the same thing folks do with Mini. Tilt it on its side and put several brackets to lock them into place on a shelf.

image


This Studio is about 4" tall. The Mini is about 1.4" tall. if use one Studio for every three Mini on a shelf in picture above about 8 per shelf on that rack. There are 10 shelves on front side of that rack so 80 Studio's per side. Not quite as good as several hundred Minis but that is still alot more than would get with 1U pizza boxes in a standard height rack.

I would be easier on the infrastructure to just replace a Mini with the same case but a M1 Pro/Max inside. That would be better density.

But this really only works for macOS hosting. Cloud hosting of Windows/Linux images with lots of multitenant virtual machines on individual nodes; neither Mini or Studio would be good at the hyperscale. The missing ability to put in a DPU/IPU virtual storage network card is a liability.
I was referring to a rack version of a future upgradable, modular Mac Pro. Besides the ability to add a network card, what else would hold it back?
 
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