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Mac Pro Enthusiasts Raise Concerns Over Upgrade Limitations of Apple Silicon
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That's the only other option (or some kind of CPU daughter board). But even with that, you're still stuck with Mx GPU speed, which still can't hold a candle to the top Nvidia/AMD cards.
This! It's not really "think different," I think that was done with the SOC for computers. This is more like "Think logically" and stop being so stubborn. Apple was lauded when the last Pros came out, they were lauded for the M1 and going in a new direction; it would be stupid of them to now, once again, deliver a device that handcuffs the user.
This is likely gonna have two effects:
2019 Intel Mac Pro's will be kept for longer and likely go up in price on the second hand market.
Trigger a further exodus for Pro work from the Mac. They have pretty much lost the CG industry to: Linux, Windows Dell, HP.
You would think after 2013's Mac Pro, they would at least understand that Apple Silicon must have some flexibility in the lineup. Concessions can be made in the case of the Mac Studio, Mini and MacBooks. But a tower desktop is such a different form factor, it demands being modular. I could understand if Apple says, ok, we are gonna sell you Apple approved RAM if you do decide to do upgrades on your own. Quit the crap and work with AMD and nVidia to have modular GPUs. Creatives want that.
2019 Intel Mac Pro's will be kept for longer and likely go up in price on the second hand market.
Trigger a further exodus for Pro work from the Mac. They have pretty much lost the CG industry to: Linux, Windows Dell, HP.
You would think after 2013's Mac Pro, they would at least understand that Apple Silicon must have some flexibility in the lineup. Concessions can be made in the case of the Mac Studio, Mini and MacBooks. But a tower desktop is such a different form factor, it demands being modular. I could understand if Apple says, ok, we are gonna sell you Apple approved RAM if you do decide to do upgrades on your own. Quit the crap and work with AMD and nVidia to have modular GPUs. Creatives want that.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Apple could go any way they want. There are no requirements.
The benefits of "as is" is speed. It's generally much faster to build it all on a single piece of silicon.
However, the differences of that speed- while easily and very tangible in benchmarks- are not necessarily as noticeable in typical use. Defense arguments being offered in other threads about M2 half-speed SSD as "good enough" and "99% won't notice" apply here too.
IMO though, there is no all or nothing here. Apple could deliver BOTH. Silicon with fastest RAM and SSD embedded AND not quite as fast traditional RAM and not quite as fast traditional SSD options too. Such a Mac Pro could both address the purist fan view of "Silicon is best in every way" AND Mac Pro distinctions of flexibility, expandability & customizability INSIDE a case.
Need more RAM? Load up on the speediest Silicon RAM and then add whatever additional you need in RAM slots. Yes, the latter will be a little slower but not noticeably slower unless you measure it with benchmarking tools.
Need more storage? Load up with the speediest Silicon SSD and then add whatever additional SSD you need in m.2 slots. Yes, the latter may be a little slower but not noticeably slower unless you measure it with benchmarking tools.
Any doubts? Dust off any Intel Mac you have and use it for your day-to-day functions. Do they seem noticeably slower because you are using an older processor, traditional RAM and traditional SSD? Almost anyone able to be objective would likely say no. Yes, of course there are exceptions where Silicon as configured is noticeably faster but a key to this post is imagining a Mac Pro without dumping what makes a Mac Pro different than a Mac Studio.
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and why have an build in apple only added ssd? when there are lot's of good / fast / way cheaper m.2 pci-e ssds out there.
The real problem with the Apple chips is that they do not do virtualization. On my Studio, I had hoped to be able to run Parallels with Windows subsystem for android, but that is impossible.
Don't think too hard - A fully tricked out Studio Ultra is "only" $8k, and unless this "M2 Ultra" is something completely different from the M1 Ultra, the only way you could make one cost $53k would be to gold plate it. Or make it entirely out of Mac Pro wheels.
A more "courageous" Mac Pro would consist of a 2019 MP-sized box into which you could slot maybe 6-8 Mx Ultra compute modules (at several k$ a pop).
Exactly this. The trade-off here is upgradability versus performance. The unified memory and integrated controllers are what make Apple's systems so freaking fast. If Apple were to stick standard DDR5 modules and M.2 drives in there, people would complain about the Mac Pro being slower than a Macbook Air.
Maybe this will be called the most affordable MacPro. It'd have to have upgradable and fully populated RAM and GPUs for it to cost 53k 😆
Ha ha ha and apple will take the old Mac corpse and put new innards in it and sell that for $53,000!
I wonder if there ever will be an AS MP?
I'm not remotely near being a MP customer or user, but unless there's pro use cases where PCI slots are needed that Apple wishes to serve, I can't see why they'd make a new AS MP now that we have the Studio.
The future of Apple's products is obviously putting as much components that they can onto SoCs.
If Apple could ever manage this, I think that their preferred approach would be to have one giant SoC with all supporting chips on it on all their products, completely non-upgradeable.
I'm not remotely near being a MP customer or user, but unless there's pro use cases where PCI slots are needed that Apple wishes to serve, I can't see why they'd make a new AS MP now that we have the Studio.
The future of Apple's products is obviously putting as much components that they can onto SoCs.
If Apple could ever manage this, I think that their preferred approach would be to have one giant SoC with all supporting chips on it on all their products, completely non-upgradeable.
Has anyone seen it? Or is that all rumblings on what could be?
Apple could design a box with Apple Silicon and lots of PCI card slots.
And they could offer a card to plug in with 2 TB of RAM.
Or decide to add something like 16 additional RAM slots on the motherboard, if they like.
Have memory near the CPU and more RAM with higher latency on a card or on slots to store more data. In that case the RAM need the CPU is more like a L4 cache.
If there a PCI slots, doesn't that imply, that you could add cards?
Especially Apple could do their own graphics card. While producing all the M2 MAX, there may be a few where the GPUs are fine, but some CPU core or Neural Engine is broken. Those could be put on a card just like a M2 extreme (4 pieces) and then just act as additional GPU cores.
Anyway, we look forward to what Apple produces.
Apple could design a box with Apple Silicon and lots of PCI card slots.
And they could offer a card to plug in with 2 TB of RAM.
Or decide to add something like 16 additional RAM slots on the motherboard, if they like.
Have memory near the CPU and more RAM with higher latency on a card or on slots to store more data. In that case the RAM need the CPU is more like a L4 cache.
If there a PCI slots, doesn't that imply, that you could add cards?
Especially Apple could do their own graphics card. While producing all the M2 MAX, there may be a few where the GPUs are fine, but some CPU core or Neural Engine is broken. Those could be put on a card just like a M2 extreme (4 pieces) and then just act as additional GPU cores.
Anyway, we look forward to what Apple produces.
Might be time to change the paradigm and go back to when Apple actually supported CPU/logic board upgrades on their systems.
Honest question: who uses a Mac with 1.5 Tb of RAM, and what for? Also: how many of you are there? I doubt it’s a number that impresses the Apple accountants😉
I think a good part of the performance come from being on the same die, or tightly packaged.
More smoke and mirrors from Apple. They should just admit "We're a consumer to prosumer company" and be done with it. The Prosumer machines work perfect for me and I'm a professional graphic artist.