Mac Pro Now Starts With 512GB of Storage and Radeon Pro W5500X Graphics

[maikerukun]

Dead Mac walking — or rolling, with the optional wheels ?.

I would definitely buy a Studio today over this, but I also don’t need expandability or Windows support — so no judgement if you opt for this.

And your'e skipping one very important fact, GPU expansion for those of us who spend all day doing VFX and 3D Animation. This Mac Studio is nowhere near what I need. It's not even half as fast as my Mac Pro in Octane Render and Redshift. My 28core with 2 w6800x DUO GPU's is equivalent to 3 RTX 3090's in realtime GPU Rendering and frankly, that's ALL that matters for us.

I ordered a Mac Studio for the Music Studio upstairs, but replacing my Mac Pro in the post production studio is absurd even to consider lol. Hell, even the upcoming Ultra Quad Mac Pro in December isn't going to be able to replace my Mac Pro unless Apple finds a way to make it expandable and the GPU's upgradable.

 

[Snahbah]

And your'e skipping one very important fact, GPU expansion for those of us who spend all day doing VFX and 3D Animation. This Mac Studio is nowhere near what I need. It's not even half as fast as my Mac Pro in Octane Render and Redshift. My 28core with 2 w6800x DUO GPU's is equivalent to 3 RTX 3090's in realtime GPU Rendering and frankly, that's ALL that matters for us.

I ordered a Mac Studio for the Music Studio upstairs, but replacing my Mac Pro in the post production studio is absurd even to consider lol. Hell, even the upcoming Ultra Quad Mac Pro in December isn't going to be able to replace my Mac Pro unless Apple finds a way to make it expandable and the GPU's upgradable.

This. All day long, this.

Without even being able to add eGPUs to the AS macs, the MP 7,1 is peerless in the Mac lineup for anyone who uses 3D render engines.

Apple knows this. They didn’t feature a 3D/SFX studio in their film. The CEO of Octane was featured in the M1 launch film. I have faith.

 

[jeffpeng]

Hell, even the upcoming Ultra Quad Mac Pro in December isn't going to be able to replace my Mac Pro unless Apple finds a way to make it expandable and the GPU's upgradable.

Like I said - technically they can do that. If you look how much silicon in the Mac chips is actually GPU, and how little is anything else, it's not far fetched to believe that Apple could essentially turn an M1 Max into a GPU and Accelerator card/external device. And frankly: if they want to serve your small but highly profitable audience they will have to do that.

Up until now I kinda expected them to simply stick with the intel MacPro for at least two more years. But since they kinda hinted at the MacPro coming to the ARM family "soon" .... who knows. I still believe Apple silicon coming to the Mac Pro could mean plonking M1 Max on a card into the current intel Mac Pro. I'm pretty certain the interconnect could be repurposed as a PCI-e link (possibly with additional hardware). Would bring all the accelerators, would bring Apples GPU into the fold, give applications time to gel with the new hardware, and it would not immediately invalidate a 10+k$ investment people made in good faith just two years ago.

And I know people might now think "but meh then the CPU goes to waste" .... who cares? The W6900X costs north of 5 grand. For 5 grand apple could put two M1 Max with 64 gigs each on a board and still make a lofty profit. Plus it's not unfeasible to still use those CPU cores for distributed computing or things like ray tracing locally.

Edit; I mean what traditional GPUs are bringing is pretty much what M1 Max is: lots of general purpose shaders, high bandwidth memory connection, highly specialized hardware for encoding and decoding tasks and dedicated low-precision matrix multiplication hardware for machine learning. M1 Max IS a GPU, just that it also has a few ARM cores on it for general purpose computing. Apple didn't put the GPU into the CPU - they did it the other way around.

 

[svish]

Should have been a bare minimum of 512 GB for Mac Pro when it was launched. Anyway now it is better to wait for Mac Pro with Apple Silicon.

 

[guzhogi]

Granted, from what I remember, multi-CPU Macs were mostly a late Mac OS Classic (or early PPC, if you want to look at it from that perspective) thing. I certainly wouldn’t expect Mac OS Classic to be good at multi-CPU support, after all.

You could buy both the PowerMac G5 and the original MacPro with dual socketed CPUs, and both configurations resulted in a NUMA. Frankly, properly implementing NUMA support in an OS isn't a simple task, and it's also not trivial to properly support this in any single application.

I'm old enough to remember the Daystar Genesis/Millennium and the Umax S900 having dual CPU sockets as well.

 

[HiVolt]

I don't think so. They'll probably release the new Pro with an M1 Extreme (or whatever they're going to call it) and then we'll see an M2 sometime later in the low-end machines - Mini, Air, etc.

I doubt they want to get on an annual release cycle with chips - it's just too difficult to sustain. A new base chip every 2 years seems more appropriate. Start with the base then over a couple of years, roll out the Pro, Max, Ultra, Extreme.

Thats funny, cuz when Intel had delays, Apple complained because they couldn't do a yearly spec bump.

 

[guzhogi]

This. All day long, this.

Without even being able to add eGPUs to the AS macs, the MP 7,1 is peerless in the Mac lineup for anyone who uses 3D render engines.

Apple knows this. They didn’t feature a 3D/SFX studio in their film. The CEO of Octane was featured in the M1 launch film. I have faith.

With the M1 Ultra basically being 2 M1 Maxes with an interposer, and things like Nvidia's NVLink, I wonder if Apple will develop something similar to add additional GPUs?

 

[Kierkegaarden]

And your'e skipping one very important fact, GPU expansion for those of us who spend all day doing VFX and 3D Animation. This Mac Studio is nowhere near what I need. It's not even half as fast as my Mac Pro in Octane Render and Redshift. My 28core with 2 w6800x DUO GPU's is equivalent to 3 RTX 3090's in realtime GPU Rendering and frankly, that's ALL that matters for us.

I ordered a Mac Studio for the Music Studio upstairs, but replacing my Mac Pro in the post production studio is absurd even to consider lol. Hell, even the upcoming Ultra Quad Mac Pro in December isn't going to be able to replace my Mac Pro unless Apple finds a way to make it expandable and the GPU's upgradable.

I hope Apple reaches out to every Mac Pro user and gets their thoughts on what they wish to see in the AS Mac Pro. You make good points and have specific needs that should be met. I can’t believe that it won’t be expandable like the current Mac Pro.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

You spelled greed wrong

But at least you are 'allowed' to add memory to it. How many systems does Apple sell currently that mere mortals can add more memory too? One? The Mac Pro?

 

[dysamoria]

Most will buy a studio instead of an AS Pro because there has never been a Mac with the kind of performance that the studio has. This product serves a tremendous swath of the professional market. Only the highest of high end will be needing the AS Mac Pro.

If it doesn’t throttle once it heats up...

 

[Macative]

If it doesn’t throttle once it heats up...

It has 2 lbs of copper as a heat sink. I think it will be fine.

 

[dysamoria]

I tried 2 configs with similar performance. One high-end Mac Pro and one high-end Mac Studio with a base SSD.

For 75% less you can buy the Mac Studio. The Mac Pro is irrelevant nowadays.

What do you mean you tried them?

What about throttling from heat?

 

[Snahbah]

If it doesn’t throttle once it heats up...

I think high-end pros like me don't mind waiting a few months if we've got £20K per machine ready to go.

 

[dysamoria]

How many people actually need more power than this Studio has? Like 1 out of 1,000,000 users?

Anyone doing content creation work that uses more media types than text can be better off with more speed, and then more speed later, and then more speed again later...

And don’t worry: software developers will always bloat their products to consume the performance boost made available by new hardware. We have mostly been upgrading hardware just to not fall behind when software is “upgraded” (I’m including iOS and Mac OS in this condemnation).

 

[peter2]

Unless someone needs Intel there really is no point of this product.

Anyone who needs more than the pathetic 128GB of RAM and needs macOS needs this product.

 

[dysamoria]

But you get none of the AS benefits with an Intel Mac Pro. That means a degraded software experience in macOS, that means slower memory and an uncertain software upgrade path, as AS is clearly the future.

AS' performance is tremendous, but if you want to take a ride on the ARM spaceplane, I think people will have to be prepared to make some sacrifices with how they expect the machines to work.

I’d love to know how much of the SoC is being utilized at any given moment.

The RAM, CPU, and GPU cores get used just by starting more software that actively processes something, especially from anything doing graphics.

But what about the specialist cores? Does Mac OS utilize them for anything, or are they sitting there doing nothing most of the time, without third-party software written to use them? Is it like owning an Afterburner card in a Mac Pro but never doing video production?

 

[dysamoria]

Who still buying this? Or is Apple losing money on this?

Losing money... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ?

 

[peter2]

How many people actually need more power than this Studio has? Like 1 out of 1,000,000 users?

Anyone doing some serious numerics for which maximum of 128GB of RAM in 2022 is a really bad joke. Proper (2-socket) workstations can have up to 4TB of RAM these days.
Not everyone is just editing videos / photos / music.

 

[grrrz]

Unless their specific software requires intel... that is probably one of the only reasons this is still be offered.

people buy mac pro to be able to use specialized PCIe cards; you can't do this with the studio. of course right now it's better to wait for the AS version

 

[dysamoria]

You must love those Windows VMs to want to buy this at this stage in the game.

If it hadn’t cost so damned much, I’d have bought a Mac Pro so that I could run Mac OS and Windows natively both in one computer.

I do nothing but gaming on Windows, so running Windows in a VM is a non-starter for me. But I DO want to some day get a chance to play modern games that only run on Windows. I’ve not played any GPU-demanding games developed beyond 2010.

Ever since the transition to Apple Silicon started, it was clear that Bootcamp was ending and that I’d have to have a Mac AND a gaming PC, doubling my computer purchase, which is being funded from a tiny computer savings.

I can only afford to buy one high-end computer per decade. I’ve been holding off for ages and my existing equipment is so far out of support that a new system is now a cutoff for lots of software and hardware I use.

Due to the planned obsolescence of Apple and several OTHER jackass hardware vendors, this upgrade will probably be well beyond $10K, when forced to buy all my RAM and storage up front and associated third-party hardware is included (audio interface, graphics tablet, etc). I don’t have that kind of money!

I’m poor and I hate PCs/Windows. I’ve bought NOTHING for years because of lack of income and perpetually bad timing by the industry. I don’t want a console for gaming. Hell, people can barely buy a new console or GPU now because of covid’s impact and crypto bro BS.

I’d even be tempted to buy a current intel Mac Pro today, if the pricing wasn’t obscene (and the Mac Studio makes the Mac Pro even more obscene). But here I am, still waiting, because buying anything only makes sense if you’re a business or a person with lots of disposable income.

Apple kept not updating the Mac Pro, so I waited. Then they replaced it with a thermally-compromised machine with no internal upgrade potential, and no Retina display. So I waited.

Then they offered a proper machine that only a corporation could afford. So I bought a used iMac and waited (that machine has been a PITA).

Then they started killing Bootcamp and Windows on Mac hardware.

Now they have this Mac Studio thing that can only be another 2013 Mac Pro in terms of thermals and is even less upgradeable, demanding you buy it with as much RAM and storage as possible on DAY ONE.

??‍♂️

It never ends. I wish I hadn’t developed every hobby around computers because I frelling HATE computers anymore.

 

[dysamoria]

Well since Apple is a for profit company they are in the business of making money. There are other alternatives out there.

Stop it. Demanding ALL THE MONEY!! instead of only a healthy profit is NOT a sane capitalistic choice.

 

[dysamoria]

In 2022, the price of Mac Pro at that specification is a total rip-off.
I don't care how good Apple's Mac eco system is, it's 2022 people. Instead of humiliating its customers, Apple should just discontinue the product line, then re-introduce when a new model is ready.

Or, and hear me out, maybe (just maybe) Apple could take a slightly smaller profit on the machines, rather than not sell them at all.

The concept and trajectory of profit have become utterly ludicrous and unsustainable.

 

[dysamoria]

You could buy both the PowerMac G5 and the original MacPro with dual socketed CPUs, and both configurations resulted in a NUMA. Frankly, properly implementing NUMA support in an OS isn't a simple task, and it's also not trivial to properly support this in any single application.

Somehow I was under the impression that modern operating system kernels presented multiple CPUs as unified resources to their software. Am I thinking of something unique to BeOS?

 

[dysamoria]

But at least you are 'allowed' to add memory to it. How many systems does Apple sell currently that mere mortals can add more memory too? One? The Mac Pro?

Mere mortals with access to lots of money...

 

[dysamoria]

It has 2 lbs of copper as a heat sink. I think it will be fine.

Six pounds of copper wouldn’t be enough if there’s not enough surface area and airflow to carry the heat away.