MP 7,1 Mac Pro 8.1 - WHAT IF...

[maikerukun]

Yea not sure I fully buy into that being accurate overall. But it does suggest that they may be a touch more significant than mere nothing.

That's what I was thinking as well. It's pretty wild if it was more significant than the iMacs...but that said...It also does make sense in a way, because companies would invest in the most powerful hardware and that's clearly not the intel version of the iMac or the M1 for that matter. 2019 Mac Pro was ultimately and still objectively, the most powerful system that Apple has made to date.

 

[mode11]

They finally added a multi column browser to ther pro file browser on windows.

You Should Replace Windows 11's File Explorer With This App

Don't like the new File Explorer in Windows 11? Wishing for something more useful? The free Files app is all you need, to add custom touches, and seamless file management.

lifehacker.com

Looks great, thanks for the tip. The article also links to another with a bunch of great apps - https://lifehacker.com/7-apps-to-get-the-best-mac-features-on-windows-1849891578.

 

[Calaveras]

Here's how Apple customers use their Macs, says report - 9to5Mac

Last week CIRP released a report showing the mix of Macs owned by customers with MacBooks making up the majority....

9to5mac.com

View attachment 2230926
I would argue that margin on Mac pros is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than other brackets, and so the actual profit/revenue share of Mac pros punches way above it's weight and could make up 20%. So not as marginal as many speculate.

Furthermore, it’s important, not to ignore the lessons of the past. The importance of the halo "think different" users shouldn’t be ignored ... it is the old lost argument that somehow the John Scully era of making more money but losing the halo "think different" influence (because innovation/development went to poop and the think different crowd moved elsewhere) was a good course of action, and history has soundly proven that wrong (eg see apple's many "think different" ads apologizing for being non innovating losers and that they've changed back to their non-Scully innovative roots).

thing is we used to need a Mac Pro to have any hope of editing video or other similar throughput intensive tasks.
These days a MBP and an external SSD will be more than adequate. Last couple of companies I worked for all their Macs were laptops. The exception being a graphics team with fiber attached storage which required a machine with PCIE slots to house the proprietary fiber adapter.

That aside, Apple is making their computers less amenable to enterprise and education IT depts.
They give us tools for managing them, but repairing? You can't. Gone are the days of frankensteining one good Mac out of 3 dead ones. The machine specific storage really undermines the "workstation" part of Mac Pro.
Nobody in a deadline oriented team wants to wait for Apple repair to fix a machine, esp when they say they wont be liable for data loss!

 

[seek3r]

thing is we used to need a Mac Pro to have any hope of editing video or other similar throughput intensive tasks.
These days a MBP and an external SSD will be more than adequate. Last couple of companies I worked for all their Macs were laptops. The exception being a graphics team with fiber attached storage which required a machine with PCIE slots to house the proprietary fiber adapter.

That aside, Apple is making their computers less amenable to enterprise and education IT depts.
They give us tools for managing them, but repairing? You can't. Gone are the days of frankensteining one good Mac out of 3 dead ones. The machine specific storage really undermines the "workstation" part of Mac Pro.
Nobody in a deadline oriented team wants to wait for Apple repair to fix a machine, esp when they say they wont be liable for data loss!

Critical data should be backed up… otherwise if your drive was the part that got hosed in a machine with removable storage you’d have a similar problem. Dead storage isnt portable. If you need people to be able to immediately switch hardware and get back to work after a failure you need to have their data mirrored somewhere, no matter whether the local drives are movable

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

thing is we used to need a Mac Pro to have any hope of editing video or other similar throughput intensive tasks.
These days a MBP and an external SSD will be more than adequate. Last couple of companies I worked for all their Macs were laptops. The exception being a graphics team with fiber attached storage which required a machine with PCIE slots to house the proprietary fiber adapter.

That aside, Apple is making their computers less amenable to enterprise and education IT depts.
They give us tools for managing them, but repairing? You can't. Gone are the days of frankensteining one good Mac out of 3 dead ones. The machine specific storage really undermines the "workstation" part of Mac Pro.
Nobody in a deadline oriented team wants to wait for Apple repair to fix a machine, esp when they say they wont be liable for data loss!

"we used to need" applies to many, but not all. Many others need real upgradable machines. Apple gave the finger to those users with the trashcan and again with the 2023 Mac Pro.

 

[Calaveras]

Critical data should be backed up… otherwise if your drive was the part that got hosed in a machine with removable storage you’d have a similar problem. Dead storage isnt portable. If you need people to be able to immediately switch hardware and get back to work after a failure you need to have their data mirrored somewhere, no matter whether the local drives are movable

its not about data like projects in progress, every place I've worked at had backups, networked massive raid storage and robust DR plans. Rather its all the damn applications and plugins with various copy protection schemes. One graphics team would take me 2 full work days to install/update/auth all the software and plugins when we refreshed their Macs every 2 years. That was 5 or 6 Macs.
Some of these companies have gone to subscription model since then. But its still a concern for media production types of setups.

 

[Calaveras]

"we used to need" applies to many, but not all. Many others need real upgradable machines. Apple gave the finger to those users with the trashcan and again with the 2023 Mac Pro.

Trashcan is upgradeable though? I've upgraded CPU, ram and storage on mine.
The GPUs are the pesky non-upgradeable part. But they are replaceable.

 

[seek3r]

its not about data like projects in progress, every place I've worked at had backups, networked massive raid storage and robust DR plans. Rather its all the damn applications and plugins with various copy protection schemes. One graphics team would take me 2 full work days to install/update/auth all the software and plugins when we refreshed their Macs every 2 years. That was 5 or 6 Macs.
Some of these companies have gone to subscription model since then. But its still a concern for media production types of setups.

so image the whole machine nightly? Also bulk license management and installs should be able to be handled by tools like JAMF.

All the work software I use that needs a local license has a corp license, so if my drive died on my work laptop IT can provision me a new MBP pretty easily and drop ship it to me. I don't work in media, so I suppose maybe that's harder in that space. Setting up my local extra apps, prefs, dev env, etc is more of a pain, but I wrote a bash script a long time ago that I maintain from time to time that handles all the main things I want installed. Just kick it off and go make coffee when I get a new work laptop 🙂. Most annoying part of a new machine really is just re-logging into everything

 

[seek3r]

Trashcan is upgradeable though? I've upgraded CPU, ram and storage on mine.
The GPUs are the pesky non-upgradeable part. But they are replaceable.

Yup, mine too. It's definitely more of a pain though than working on a 5,1 or a 7,1, and PCIe cards need external TB enclosures (or, I suppose, if you're really brave I guess you could use an external drive and use the 4 pcie lanes for the SSD with an adapter for a pcie card lol, never tried but I imagine it would work, you'd still have to pull power from a bench psu or something for most cards though).

You can also, with some pain, use an eGPU on them. Have a blackmagic 580 hanging off mine right now, though TB2 definitely bandwidth limits it.

 

[Adult80HD]

thing is we used to need a Mac Pro to have any hope of editing video or other similar throughput intensive tasks.
These days a MBP and an external SSD will be more than adequate. Last couple of companies I worked for all their Macs were laptops. The exception being a graphics team with fiber attached storage which required a machine with PCIE slots to house the proprietary fiber adapter.

That aside, Apple is making their computers less amenable to enterprise and education IT depts.
They give us tools for managing them, but repairing? You can't. Gone are the days of frankensteining one good Mac out of 3 dead ones. The machine specific storage really undermines the "workstation" part of Mac Pro.
Nobody in a deadline oriented team wants to wait for Apple repair to fix a machine, esp when they say they wont be liable for data loss!

Enterprise IT hasn't been involved in cannibalizing computers to repair on in decades, so this is a straw man. I spent a 25+ year career in mid-level enterprise IT and I don't think we did anything like that after maybe the mid to late 1990's. Technology changes too fast, machines are rapidly depreciated and cheap enough relatively speaking to just replace.

The Mac as corporate "workstation" was a minute niche market and nothing about the new models will really change much about that.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Trashcan is upgradeable though? I've upgraded CPU, ram and storage on mine.
The GPUs are the pesky non-upgradeable part. But they are replaceable.

Agreed, the trashcan is a step up from the 2023 MP.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Enterprise IT hasn't been involved in cannibalizing computers to repair on in decades, so this is a straw man. I spent a 25+ year career in mid-level enterprise IT and I don't think we did anything like that after maybe the mid to late 1990's. Technology changes too fast, machines are rapidly depreciated and cheap enough relatively speaking to just replace.

The Mac as corporate "workstation" was a minute niche market and nothing about the new models will really change much about that.

they replace HDD's in servers and places like banks are able destroy the old disks.

 

[Calaveras]

Enterprise IT hasn't been involved in cannibalizing computers to repair on in decades, so this is a straw man. I spent a 25+ year career in mid-level enterprise IT and I don't think we did anything like that after maybe the mid to late 1990's. Technology changes too fast, machines are rapidly depreciated and cheap enough relatively speaking to just replace.

The Mac as corporate "workstation" was a minute niche market and nothing about the new models will really change much about that.

Suppose it depends on the company. In several Corp and one govt place I worked we did it pretty regularly.
If you have a VP that regularly destroys laptops you kind of have to (he backed his fricking Audi over a laptop 'by accident' once).

 

[Calaveras]

so image the whole machine nightly? Also bulk license management and installs should be able to be handled by tools like JAMF.

All the work software I use that needs a local license has a corp license, so if my drive died on my work laptop IT can provision me a new MBP pretty easily and drop ship it to me. I don't work in media, so I suppose maybe that's harder in that space. Setting up my local extra apps, prefs, dev env, etc is more of a pain, but I wrote a bash script a long time ago that I maintain from time to time that handles all the main things I want installed. Just kick it off and go make coffee when I get a new work laptop 🙂. Most annoying part of a new machine really is just re-logging into everything

JAMF is really cool for more vanilla deployments with standard stuff. But when it came to 3D rendering software and all those plugins it wasn't viable. TBF that was an edge case scenario with a micromanaging art director and very limited windows to make changes to the workstations. We probably could have gotten JAMF to work if given enough time.
That all aside I'm still thinking about how you indie videographer navigates all this.

 

[prefuse07]

Agreed, the trashcan is a step up from the 2023 MP.

On the money here, now think about that for a minute.... Isn't that just sad?

Instead of going forward, we're somehow going.... backwards?... into some sort of bizarro land

As much as I am happy that my AAPL stock is where it's at, I really cannot wait until Cook steps the **** down, and fades away into oblivion. In fact, I would happily trade my stock as an investment/funding toward the development of a real Mac Pro, and I imagine there are many others like me out there.

Edit: I've thought about the latter so much, that I sometimes imagine creating a little startup that only focuses on modular Macs. Of course Apple would have a field day in court if anyone tried that, which is a total shame.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Zooming out for a second, I think Apple has, from the very beginning of the Macintosh, always been shuffling between several competing philosophies of what the Mac is/is for.

On the one hand, beginning with the original 128k, Apple has often conceptualized the Mac as more appliance than modular computer. You buy it and use it; when you need different/more capability you buy another Mac. The Mac as an all-in-one form factor has reached iconic status in the public consciousness. On the other hand, beginning with the Mac II, Apple has also continued to sell some form of modular desktop Mac, often (though not always) marketed more towards professionals. Never as modular as PCs, but offering many of the same types of upgrades. They never really settled on one or the other approach.

On top of that, the Mac has always been a 'premium' product in terms of cost (if you weren't around then, just look at all those 'adjusted for inflation' MSRPs of early Mac models on Wikipedia! 😳). Those of us (myself included) who have been annoyed for decades at the lack of upgrade flexibility can vouch for the fact that in a certain sense nothing has really changed since the beginning - Macs have always been expensive and have always been less easy to modify and upgrade.

So in a sense this is an unresolved conversation that has been going on since 1984.

Beyond the design philosophy discussion, the additional wrinkle is that since 1984 the desktop computer itself has gone from being the core of Apple's business to an also-ran, verging on niche-market product. The company as it exists today is driven by mobile and wearable computing - product sectors where upgradeability is either of secondary importance or not even a thing.

You could reasonably conclude from this mini-history that the product Apple is least likely to produce in the future is a more affordable and/or more modular desktop computer, even though they have yet to abandon the modular desktop concept.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Zooming out for a second, I think Apple has, from the very beginning of the Macintosh, always been shuffling between several competing philosophies of what the Mac is/is for.

On the one hand, beginning with the original 128k, Apple has often conceptualized the Mac as more appliance than modular computer. You buy it and use it; when you need different/more capability you buy another Mac. The Mac as an all-in-one form factor has reached iconic status in the public consciousness. On the other hand, beginning with the Mac II, Apple has also continued to sell some form of modular desktop Mac, often (though not always) marketed more towards professionals. Never as modular as PCs, but offering many of the same types of upgrades. They never really settled on one or the other approach.

On top of that, the Mac has always been a 'premium' product in terms of cost (if you weren't around then, just look at all those 'adjusted for inflation' MSRPs of early Mac models on Wikipedia! 😳). Those of us (myself included) who have been annoyed for decades at the lack of upgrade flexibility can vouch for the fact that in a certain sense nothing has really changed since the beginning - Macs have always been expensive and have always been less easy to modify and upgrade.

So in a sense this is an unresolved conversation that has been going on since 1984.

Beyond the design philosophy discussion, the additional wrinkle is that since 1984 the desktop computer itself has gone from being the core of Apple's business to an also-ran, verging on niche-market product. The company as it exists today is driven by mobile and wearable computing - product sectors where upgradeability is either of secondary importance or not even a thing.

You could reasonably conclude from this mini-history that the product Apple is least likely to produce in the future is a more affordable and/or more modular desktop computer, even though they have yet to abandon the modular desktop concept.

I think that is a reasonable capsulation of it. Even before that Woz argued with Jobs about slots on the Apple2. Then when Jobs came back he made the iMac but also and ode to think different people that needed real power and versatility.

Always some ying and yang and thats the point, to me, of RAGING against it when they go too far to a uselessly un-upgradable and un-adaptable direction. You can change things. But you have to scream bloody murder before apple notices. You have to humiliate them and shame them before they move.

And there have been huge stretches of time with hyper upgradable systems. Mac2, cx, ci, G3, G4, G5 towers, 1,1-5,1 Mac Pros, and even the 7,1.

If anything, the non upgradable periods, have thankfully, been shorter IMO.

So dont just sit and take it. RAGE AND HUMILIATE apple when they f'up. That's the only thing that seems to help course correct. People need to do so here. And in social media. Because the Apple Pravda press wont even mention that a pathetic i9 intel processor DUSTS the M2Ultra.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

As long as Apple continues to sell a Mac Pro, there will a be a dedicated cadre of Mac Pro users who demand more modularity and lower cost...yet are also still willing to buy the next iteration of Mac Pro, even if they find it expensive and not as modular as they would ideally like. This tension has been going on for decades. Though the long-term trends are pushing this sector into ever smaller niches.

And there have been huge stretches of time with hyper upgradable systems. Mac2, cx, ci, G3, G4, G5 towers, 1,1-5,1 Mac Pros, and even the 7,1.

I'd argue (just for fun) the 'Peak Modular' era was probably the roughly 20 years between the PowerMac 9500 and the Mac Pro 5,1. That's probably also when the 'Pro' Macs were at their 'cheapest.'

You had Mac Clones for a brief period, SCSI was finally done away with, various forms of Windows compatibility, media become more cross-platform with Zip drives, USB and the prevalence of CDRWs....the Hackintosh emerged during that period too. My favorite 'upgradeable' Mac is probably the G4 tower series, for the simple reason that my G4 tower is the most radically upgraded Mac I have owned.

 

[iPadified]

On the one hand, beginning with the original 128k, Apple has often conceptualized the Mac as more appliance than modular computer.

True. Interestingly, the vast majority of peoples computing needs are today met by appliances like the laptops, tablets and smart phones. Apple has never really competed with PC in terms of upgradability and/or price/performance. Macs real strength is MacOS, not really the HW taking the price into the account. The exception is the Ax and MX for appliance type of devices as these SoCs seem cost efficient. They just don’t scale well to high end workloads. Pity that.

Apple has always addressed the non nerd markets from the beginning. GUI, all in ones

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

As long as Apple continues to sell a Mac Pro, there will a be a dedicated cadre of Mac Pro users who demand more modularity and lower cost...yet are also still willing to buy the next iteration of Mac Pro, even if they find it expensive and not as modular as they would ideally like. This tension has been going on for decades. Though the long-term trends are pushing this sector into ever smaller niches.


I'd argue (just for fun) the 'Peak Modular' era was probably the roughly 20 years between the PowerMac 9500 and the Mac Pro 5,1. That's probably also when the 'Pro' Macs were at their 'cheapest.'

You had Mac Clones for a brief period, SCSI was finally done away with, various forms of Windows compatibility, media become more cross-platform with Zip drives, USB and the prevalence of CDRWs....the Hackintosh emerged during that period too. My favorite 'upgradeable' Mac is probably the G4 tower series, for the simple reason that my G4 tower is the most radically upgraded Mac I have owned.

Reasonable argument.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think that is a reasonable capsulation of it. Even before that Woz argued with Jobs about slots on the Apple2. Then when Jobs came back he made the iMac but also and ode to think different people that needed real power and versatility.

Always some ying and yang and thats the point, to me, of RAGING against it when they go too far to a uselessly un-upgradable and un-adaptable direction. You can change things. But you have to scream bloody murder before apple notices. You have to humiliate them and shame them before they move.

And there have been huge stretches of time with hyper upgradable systems. Mac2, cx, ci, G3, G4, G5 towers, 1,1-5,1 Mac Pros, and even the 7,1.

If anything, the non upgradable periods, have thankfully, been shorter IMO.

So dont just sit and take it. RAGE AND HUMILIATE apple when they f'up. That's the only thing that seems to help course correct. People need to do so here. And in social media. Because the Apple Pravda press wont even mention that a pathetic i9 intel processor DUSTS the M2Ultra.

Another instance, that if apple gets enough flak, they will do a 180...

In a historic about-face, Apple publicly supports right-to-repair bill

The iPhone maker now says repair access "is good for consumers’ budgets and good for the environment."

grist.org

 

[maikerukun]

As long as Apple continues to sell a Mac Pro, there will a be a dedicated cadre of Mac Pro users who demand more modularity and lower cost...yet are also still willing to buy the next iteration of Mac Pro, even if they find it expensive and not as modular as they would ideally like. This tension has been going on for decades. Though the long-term trends are pushing this sector into ever smaller niches.


I'd argue (just for fun) the 'Peak Modular' era was probably the roughly 20 years between the PowerMac 9500 and the Mac Pro 5,1. That's probably also when the 'Pro' Macs were at their 'cheapest.'

You had Mac Clones for a brief period, SCSI was finally done away with, various forms of Windows compatibility, media become more cross-platform with Zip drives, USB and the prevalence of CDRWs....the Hackintosh emerged during that period too. My favorite 'upgradeable' Mac is probably the G4 tower series, for the simple reason that my G4 tower is the most radically upgraded Mac I have owned.

This is 100% truth. I've been happy as a bee with my Puget System and between that and the M2 Max MacBook Pro, I'm having a hard time finding a reason to keep the 2019 Mac Pro around outside of nostalgia. I have an ad on Craigslist ready to post putting it up for $15k and I keep not posting it out of nostalgia. Cuz reality is I'll likely buy the M3 Ultra Mac Pro that way I can give my MacBook Pro a break.

 

[MacPoulet]

This is 100% truth. I've been happy as a bee with my Puget System and between that and the M2 Max MacBook Pro, I'm having a hard time finding a reason to keep the 2019 Mac Pro around outside of nostalgia. I have an ad on Craigslist ready to post putting it up for $15k and I keep not posting it out of nostalgia. Cuz reality is I'll likely buy the M3 Ultra Mac Pro that way I can give my MacBook Pro a break.

How often do you take on extra employees or interns? The 2019 could go to one of them, even if it’s for a short term contract.

 

[maikerukun]

How often do you take on extra employees or interns? The 2019 could go to one of them, even if it’s for a short term contract.

Not often. I have the same team of 5 contractors I pull up when necessary and honestly, I wouldn't want them working on that machine lol. I hate to say it, but if they're doing 3D I want them on a PC and anything else works better on an Apple Silicon MacBook or Mac. They've effectively killed the 2019 Mac Pro.

 

[maikerukun]

In fact, the next big thing for me is the Apple Vision Pro. The ONLY thing that will get me hyper on the Mac Pro line again will be an Apple Silicon based Mac Pro that can beat the most maxed out 2019 Mac Pro. They can get render speeds above the 2 w6800x duos in there...then we are back in business. It wouldn't be faster or even close to my Puget System, but what it WOULD do, is allow me the ability to replace my M2 Max MacBook Pro as my current desktop for the Apple side of my pipeline "which is still 99% of my pipeline. It's all running on Mac outside of 3D which is now exclusively on the Puget". It would be fantastic to have a Mac I can edit all formats of footage on in butter smooth FCPX that ALSO have the rendering power of the 2019 Mac Pro maxed...or even more power!"

What iteration of the AS Mac Pro do you guys think will be able to beat the render power of the old 2019 Beast???

Think M3 Ultra has a chance? Think they'll have found a way to slot 4 M3 Ultra's by the release of the M3 Ultra? Think it'll never happen? What say you!!!?