MP All Models MacPro 9,1 Wishlist

[JesterJJZ]

I know there's still a bunch of us waiting to see what's next for MacPro, if at all.

I feel a lot has changed in tech in the last several years, as well as many of our needs.

If a new Mac Pro were still coming out, I think I'd be hoping for at least the following:

• Mini-Tower (or similar sized design)
• M5 (or better) chip architecture.
• 10GBE Standard
• 6 Thunderbolt 5 ports
• 2 USB-A 3.0 ports.
• 2-4 Empty PCI-E slots.
• 2 additional internal NVME slots
• 2 additional internal 3.5" SATA Bays.

We can assume CPU/RAM/GPU will be in one package, but if they can figure out user upgradable RAM and Graphics options that would be a plus.

A taller Mac Studio is basically all we would need.

 

[avro707]

We can assume CPU/RAM/GPU will be in one package, but if they can figure out user upgradable RAM and Graphics options that would be a plus.

This might allow those evil 7,1 users who are holding out from upgrading to keep holding out and give them a way to upgrade to newer GPUs under MacOS. If Apple does allow GPU upgrades, they must design a way to prevent the users of the 5,1 and 7,1 from taking advantage of this. /s

Actually, does anything under MacOS really need a modern dedicated GPU eg Nvidia 6000 series or 5090RTX?

I think what's most like is we will never seen another Mac Pro. The users of the top level machines (the really high spec ones) have probably moved to PC workstations and the users of the lower spec machines probably got MacBook Pros or the Mac Studio.

 

[AdamBuker]

I think that if it’s possible, Apple should have the whole SOC package on a replaceable daughter card so that you could upgrade CPU/GPU/RAM.

Allow unused thunderbolt ports to re-allocate their PCIE lanes to the internal slots.

Tweak the tower case design to allow removal of the case without having to unplug peripherals.

2-4 NVME slots without needing a PCIE card.

2-4 bays for traditional HD storage.

Dual 100Gb ethernet

Beverage holder

heated seats

And a partridge in a pear tree 🌳

 

[avro707]

Tweak the tower case design to allow removal of the case without having to unplug peripherals.

This x1000!!

Absolutely infuriating to have to disconnect all the cables to open the case. I mean you can get around it if you want to vandalise your case (by cutting the bottom section away) but you'd never do that with something that nice.

Direct plugin NVME slots would be very neat - but in my mind Apple would prefer you to spend $4000+ on their storage kits which would require a Doctorate in advanced Mac configuration and repairs to make them work. 😉

 

[JesterJJZ]

Being able to use AMD or Nvidia GPUs for compute would be a dream. We don’t need them for display out, just additional processing.

There have been rumors of Apple taking the GPU off the SOC. Maybe even Apple M series GPU cards to add optionally.

 

[mattspace]

Being able to use AMD or Nvidia GPUs for compute would be a dream. We don’t need them for display out, just additional processing.

You literally have that backwards.

What we absolutely need user-upgradable GPUs for is display output, because adding compute capability can be done by plugging extra machines in via TB / Ethernet.

Increasing the number or size of connected displays is a hard limit of Apple silicon, where you're stuck with whatever the config you brought can do. Even today, you can drive more displays from a 7,1 than any other modern Apple machine.

 

[AdamBuker]

You literally have that backwards.

What we absolutely need user-upgradable GPUs for is display output, because adding compute capability can be done by plugging extra machines in via TB / Ethernet.

Increasing the number or size of connected displays is a hard limit of Apple silicon, where you're stuck with whatever the config you brought can do. Even today, you can drive more displays from a 7,1 than any other modern Apple machine.

I think that if Apple were to put the SOC on a daughter card, they could find room for a second daughter card with SOC and that would give support for up to 16 4K displays, 16 6K displays, or 8 8K displays. Plus you could have 1TB ram, 160 core GPU, 64 core CPU. I think that would cover the needs of many and any needing more than that aren't looking to buy macs anyway. I think such a setup would give roughly a 1.5x-1.75x increase in overall performance above a single SOC system.

 

[mattspace]

I think that if Apple were to put the SOC on a daughter card, they could find room for a second daughter card with SOC and that would give support for up to 16 4K displays, 16 6K displays, or 8 8K displays. Plus you could have 1TB ram, 160 core GPU, 64 core CPU. I think that would cover the needs of many and any needing more than that aren't looking to buy macs anyway. I think such a setup would give roughly a 1.5x-1.75x increase in overall performance above a single SOC system.

Apple's plan for the Mac is to be an iPad, and ONLY an iPad. You buy it as a locked spec, and you buy a new one when you want a different spec. You're never going to get new Macs with daughtercards, or any facility to upgrade their fundamental specifications post-purchase.

The more likely change to happen going forward, is for the machines that have storage on physically replaceable modules to have the module capacity locked to the machine serial number.

While we'd all like to believe Apple will make GPU modules, and while Apple could make AS-based GPUs, even based on PCI, the business model of driving revenue by rationing progress is too attractive for the sort of people at Apple these days.

 

[realLucaR]

I know there's still a bunch of us waiting to see what's next for MacPro, if at all.

I feel a lot has changed in tech in the last several years, as well as many of our needs.

If a new Mac Pro were still coming out, I think I'd be hoping for at least the following:

• Mini-Tower (or similar sized design)
• M5 (or better) chip architecture.
• 10GBE Standard
• 6 Thunderbolt 5 ports
• 2 USB-A 3.0 ports.
• 2-4 Empty PCI-E slots.
• 2 additional internal NVME slots
• 2 additional internal 3.5" SATA Bays.

We can assume CPU/RAM/GPU will be in one package, but if they can figure out user upgradable RAM and Graphics options that would be a plus.

A taller Mac Studio is basically all we would need.

Only thing I disagree on is mini tower. That is BS honestly, because the main reason we use Mac Pros is for them to be vastly expandable. Making the Mac Pro smaller would obviously remove that capability. Besides, why do people care so much about the size of their PCs. It's a desktop, it does not matter how big it is.

 

[avro707]

Being able to use AMD or Nvidia GPUs for compute would be a dream. We don’t need them for display out, just additional processing.

My 7,1 will run more 6K displays than the M series macs can do. That’s why being able to run a modern GPU is useful.

I think that if Apple were to put the SOC on a daughter card, they could find room for a second daughter card with SOC and that would give support for up to 16 4K displays, 16 6K displays, or 8 8K displays

Apple isn’t going to do that. They would prefer you lost a lot of money trading your existing computer in and buying that spec as a fully built computer you cannot upgrade for huge money.

 

[AdamBuker]

Apple isn’t going to do that. They would prefer you lost a lot of money trading your existing computer in and buying that spec as a fully built computer you cannot upgrade for huge money.

I fully realize this, but the title of this thread is “Mac Pro 9,1 Wishlist”

 

[JesterJJZ]

Only thing I disagree on is mini tower. That is BS honestly, because the main reason we use Mac Pros is for them to be vastly expandable. Making the Mac Pro smaller would obviously remove that capability. Besides, why do people care so much about the size of their PCs. It's a desktop, it does not matter how big it is.

I don't disagree with you. I'd love a giant honkin MacPro too. I'm just being conservative based on Apple's view that something like that isn't needed anymore.

Would you rather have a smaller MacPro or no MacPro at all is more where I'm coming from.

 

[realLucaR]

I don't disagree with you. I'd love a giant honkin MacPro too. I'm just being conservative based on Apple's view that something like that isn't needed anymore.

Would you rather have a smaller MacPro or no MacPro at all is more where I'm coming from.

Well in that case the latter 😅

I personally still don't get the appeal of a Mac Studio. Most professionals and studios I know don't give a **** if it's a full tower desktop or a mini PC, so for me at least the Studios form factor is still somewhat unnecessary.

 

[JesterJJZ]

I'm one of those weirdos that still likes everything inside the case for the most part. Once you calculate external PCI enclosures and drive docks, the premium on a MacPro vs the MacStudio isn't that much.

Either way, I want some sort of official word from Apple on what the plan is going forward before I decide on the Mac Studio for my next upgrade. I'm generally on a 6 year cycle so the time is now.

 

[JesterJJZ]

Honestly, I think the Mac Studio is a pretty great base for the modulat MacPro we were all clamoring for years ago.

Just imagine the Mac Studio with a series of modules you can get to stack under it.

• PCIE Cage
• SSD Modules
• Hard Drive Bays
• Processing or GPU modules

All connected with Thunderbolt or some sort of stacking connector. I feel like they could actually make something like this now.

 

[keksikuningas]

mac pro is not something i can justify owning due to my work only really requiring a lot of ram and not a lot of processing power.

But if i were to have one for whatever reason, i'd love to have 10gbe standard on it and 4 sata + 2+ standard m.2 connectors straight on the motherboard at the minimum. More PCIe lanes would be cool but idk what would use them outside of 100+Gbe networking and NVMe 4 disk raids
I would list stuff like GPU support and whatever, but that will never happen so i wont even dream of it

 

[avro707]

so for me at least the Studios form factor is still somewhat unnecessary.

It's not exactly that small either, it's quite a hefty big brick of a thing, especially compared to a M4 Pro Mac Mini.

 

[keksikuningas]

It's not exactly that small either, it's quite a hefty big brick of a thing, especially compared to a M4 Pro Mac Mini.

it looks deceptively small on pictures, I agree. The first time I saw one IRL in a store I was surprised to see how chonky it actually is. Felt like 2.5x M1 Mac Minis visually

 

[SDAVE]

I know there's still a bunch of us waiting to see what's next for MacPro, if at all.

I feel a lot has changed in tech in the last several years, as well as many of our needs.

If a new Mac Pro were still coming out, I think I'd be hoping for at least the following:

• Mini-Tower (or similar sized design)
• M5 (or better) chip architecture.
• 10GBE Standard
• 6 Thunderbolt 5 ports
• 2 USB-A 3.0 ports.
• 2-4 Empty PCI-E slots.
• 2 additional internal NVME slots
• 2 additional internal 3.5" SATA Bays.

We can assume CPU/RAM/GPU will be in one package, but if they can figure out user upgradable RAM and Graphics options that would be a plus.

A taller Mac Studio is basically all we would need.

I think the Mac Pro is dead finally (Thanks Apple!) here's why:

1. Slow updates last several years (Last update was M2 lol)
2. There's no way Apple will allow a PCIe GPU due to the way their system works right now with their SoC GPU, requires a huge architectural update for a very niche product.
3. Mac Pro's are not selling well and most folks moved on who really needed it
4. Mac Studio is a decent alternative (unless you desperately need PCIe slots, you can get Thunderbolt 5 external chassis + Mac Studio)
5. New Studio Display XDR is 27" and they killed off the Pro XDR monitor that's 32" which signals that they don't care about the Mac Pro
6. The M5 Ultra (which will show up in the Mac Studio) is a at least an 80 Core GPU, which will reach RTX5080/touch the 5090 performance. The M5 Max MacBook Pro's just announced is already a beast especially at the max configuration.

It's sad but it is what it is.

 

[Nugget]

Less than 3 months ago, in mid-December, Apple sent M3 Studio clusters to a handful of tech YouTubers along with a giant box of thunderbolt cables and instructions on how to enable RDMA over thunderbolt. This is a new feature that was just added in macOS 26.2. Three examples:

This hardware stack of Studios and a spaghetti mess of thunderbolt cables delivers significant AI runtime performance even with the relatively modest thunderbolt interconnect speed and rivals NVIDIA architecture solutions that require 10kilowatt+ three phase power and datacenter-level cooling. Four 512GB Studios (RIP) give an addressable 2TB of space to run large, unquantized, frontier-caliber models.

Now imagine a hypothetical future Mac Pro solution where the slow thunderbolt cables are replaced by motherboard traces, or pluggable GPU/NPU daughterboards to significantly increase the RDMA interconnect speeds in between M5 Ultra chiplet resources.

All the tech to accomplish this exists and is working in the real world as shown with the demonstrator M3 Studio clusters that Apple proactively chose to send out to even some really small (but targeted niche) tech reviewers. I think Apple has a vision for this tech and I think their choice to promote this use case in the media is a strong hint about what Apple may be planning for future high end solutions.

I think the reality is that Final Cut Pro and Logic are no longer the tech-hungry tasks that drive high end desktop hardware development and sales. It just doesn't take bleeding edge hardware to do those tasks any more. The old Mac Pro catered to markets that don't need a Mac Pro any more. AI is the new challenge that the industry is reshaping to address, and Apple's architecture choices with Apple Silicon make it a particularly suitable platform for exactly this style of workload.

 

[JesterJJZ]

I think the cluster idea is interesting and it's something many of us dreamed about in some way. But I think the implementation isn't there yet for what many of us would want it for. If clustering more Macs together could be used with Adobe and other video editing solutions that would be pretty amazing, but I don't think it works that way. As far s I know right now it's more of a distributed rendering or workload approach. It's something we could already do in apps like After Effects since forever over a network. What we really need is expandable power for working on things, not just post processing.

 

[StuAff]

As ever, we will know what Apple plans to do with the MP when it does it. Despite the use case looking increasingly sparse (there's now at least one 25GB Ethernet option for Thunderbolt 5 that isn't £££££), it's still being sold. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it got killed off, but…it remains entirely possible that they will do a new version. Whether it's an M5 Ultra bump to the current model or something a bit more radical…pass. Hope it continues, though it'll probably be out of my price range unless the lottery numbers come up.

 

[JesterJJZ]

It's pretty evident that Apple will be updating the Mac Studio to M5 in the near future, probably by summertime. I just hope that when they do, there will be some official word on the state of MacPro.

 

[conmee]

I think Apple releases at least on more Mac Pro. Since four Studios can be hooked together, why can't Apple configure the existing Mac Pro case for say 2 to 4 "slots" so to speak for multiple M5 Ultras? Even if inside the case, you just snap in an extra SoC into some sort of bay and manually plug it in/daisy chain it to the base/other SoCs... there's more than enough space and power in the Mac Pro case. Would be a cleaner solution than having four Studios, multiple TB cables, four power cables, etc. If Apple allowed that kind of expansion in the Mac Pro, it would be interesting.

 

[Nugget]

If clustering more Macs together could be used with Adobe and other video editing solutions that would be pretty amazing, but I don't think it works that way.

Yeah, that’s my take too. I don’t think video editing is what’s driving workstation performance innovation any more. I think a lot of the confusion I see about the future of the Mac Pro stems from a failure to see this new reality.

Video editing isn’t on the frontier of desktop/workstation performance any more.