I'm not...and that's for 2D and music only.
OK, but going with your premise for a sec why would it make sense to even have the machine in the lineup at all if it's just a bigger studio? Wouldnt the cost of an entire production line be a huge waste of money in the same way you're saying but writ large? If they're going to do this machine without the expandability then, unless I'm missing something, it's going to be more of a waste than spending the effort to have expandability.
They should have a PC. Specifically if those “fastest graphics” they need is because their software utilizes proprietary Nvidia methods.
They'd have to build a whole interconnect system and re-implement message passing and scheduling abilities like what they used to have with xgrid but much more generalized for that to be useful - and it'd only really benefit *highly* parallel workloads. If they're going to spend the time on that I would think it would make more sense to just breakout RAM and GPU from the SoC instead.
It makes for an effective doorstop or paperweight. That is, if you exclude the wheels.
Aaaah, the Processor Direct Slot: I remember it with such fondness…
More likely, it never existed in the first place. People saw the trick Apple pulled with the Ultra and made assumptions.
They at least made prototypes of it, so there was truth behind it. It is hard to know how committed Apple was to the concept though.More likely, it never existed in the first place. People saw the trick Apple pulled with the Ultra and made assumptions.
Because as far as they know PCIe slots are ONLY for storage and GPU’s. Apple has a page that lists all the current use cases for current Mac Pro’s, I’d imagine those hardware vendors are working on Apple Silicon drivers (because they likely don’t have a lot of competition, it’s easy money!).
They’re only insulting the folks who aren’t/weren’t buying it anyway, which is fine. Apple’s pretty good at focusing their products on the specific folks that will buy them in enough numbers to make them profitable, while at the same time ignoring all the folks that are complaining about how they’re going to not buy a product that Apple doesn’t mean for them to buy.
I’m surprised no one is saying to just NOT buy it. Apple, unless they’ve misjudged their products, will sell in the neighborhood of 20-30 million Macs this year. By the time they get to selling another 20-30 million next year, they’re bound to have made changes that MIGHT make it worth it for them. And, if Apple doesn’t release anything they may want, there’s always the next year or the year after that.
This is the key, though. Apple will likely sell 20-30 million Macs, many configured just like this, to folks who don’t care because it’s still WAY faster than their 2018 Mac, for example. If Apple’s only market was “folks that bought Macs last year”, then I can see how that might force them to ensure incremental increases year over year on a particular model. However, as half of that number (roughly 15 million) will not have used a Mac before OR not have used ANY computer before, it’s hard to have a “call to action” for that person NOT to buy a thing that’s perfectly fine by them.
I'm pretty sure they're aware of my existence, what with my multiple services I'm subscribed to. I'm also well aware of the limitations of my now eleven year old computer as I do IT at a school with many M1 MacBook Airs floating around and am typing this on an M1 13" MacBook Pro. Still, with 128GB of RAM and a 6000MB/sec SSD PCI RAID in my tower at home, and three monitors (two 4k) it still runs Lightroom, Photoshop, and even FinalCut Pro with aplomb. Definitely looking to replace it soon enough with an M2 Pro mini or a Mac Studio (mainly for power saving, but the much improved speed is also welcome), but my coffers are pretty low at the moment and so long as my MacBeasht keeps on keepin' on, I'ma save my pennies. My original reply was more of an obnoxious semantics observation in that Apple definitely *has* made expandable machines, and in fact still ships one, and probably you meant "going forward" they won't, which is indeed possible (however undesirable that may be). But hey, this is the internet and inarticulate language apparently compelled me to be "that guy."
I think what's more likely is that Apple has been developing a secret "X1" chip or some such that does in fact support PCI GPUs and perhaps even "application memory" in addition to the baked in RAM. So the on CPU memory of this unicorn machine would act like it does in the M series, but if you've a really RAM hungry application you could throw some RAM sticks in the thing to feed that program, but the OS would always just use the baked in stuff. Maybe down the line they bring eGPU options back to Pro level laptops with an M3x chip or something. Like others, I can't imagine there being enough of a market for a crazy expensive tower that only offers non-GPU PCI expansion. Mac Studio was kept secret until the very end, so maybe they can keep some wild new chip under wraps as well? Of course this is all just wild speculation.What would be really cool, though highly unlikely, is if the M2 Ultra is a coprocessor with an Intel Xeon for the first gen AS Mac Pro, leveraging the x86 chip for extra expandability. It's not unprecedented, the Apple II for ex, but it's unlikely
My guess would be… not that many. Folks spending that much are likely in the camp of “I need a really fast Mac to do Mac things on in order to make money”, so every minute it’s booted into Windows is a minute it’s not running Final Cut or Logic or the Mac versions of programs that user needs to make money. Those folks don’t have a problem giving up BootCamp because they never used it.
Wow. I hadn't even considered this.
Also, there's a more recent example of coprocessor shenanigans— the discontinued iMac Pro with its Intel Xeon CPU and T1 chip for I/O and SSD control and such. Thing is, that machine was a hot mess, at least the one my 3d modeling friend got was. Man did he hate that thing. So I'd wager Apple would shy away from any future chip mixing.What would be really cool, though highly unlikely, is if the M2 Ultra is a coprocessor with an Intel Xeon for the first gen AS Mac Pro, leveraging the x86 chip for extra expandability. It's not unprecedented, the Apple II for ex, but it's unlikely
Mac Enthusiasts are JUST getting around to noticing this?
(I’m sure I can find one of my old posts somewhere out there…)
