they need something to be able to power high end VR applications, and right now they have absolutely nothing in their lineup that comes close.
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Mysterious New 'Compute Module' Found in Apple Beta Code
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This is still my bet.
M2 Ultra sold exclusively on a daughter card for the Mac Pro, which will have 4-8 slots. Two daughter cards won't perform as well as the theoretical Extreme on real-time effects performance, but it should do very well on big number-crunching tasks...and it would be expandable to many more CPU, GPU, and RAM cores.
And my long bet...
M2 Ultra GPU will have the ray tracing capabilities that they (reportedly) tried to put in the lastest iPhone (but it killed battery life). This will be needed to compete on the PC workstation side. Otherwise, why even have a Mac Pro when it will be trounced by NVIDIA on apps like Blender?
This would perhaps make it more like a quasi-M3 Ultra...which again, may not be an issue if it is sold exclusively on the Mac Pro.
An upgradable Mac Pro where you can swap out the SoC? Multiple SoC's? A SoC that just assists with rendering? I don't know enough about computer architecture or whatever to guess, but surely Apple has something very special planned for the ARM Mac Pro.
This could also be the support for the A13 processor that is in the studio display. It is only used for spatial audio and the webcam but is hugely overpowered. The M1 processor can efficiently process that.
So maybe they are going to do something with that extra power. And we can allocate that extra processor for work on the mac.
And if I can think a little further, maybe if an iPad or iPhone is connected, or plugin modules with Mx or Axx processors can be allocated and used. Then you get a real machine. That is almost supercomputing in a single box.
So maybe they are going to do something with that extra power. And we can allocate that extra processor for work on the mac.
And if I can think a little further, maybe if an iPad or iPhone is connected, or plugin modules with Mx or Axx processors can be allocated and used. Then you get a real machine. That is almost supercomputing in a single box.
Maybe this supports the daughterboard theory, and you build you Mac Pro out of how many Mac Studio's you want inside the case lol.
The iPhone 11 series with A13 has model identifiers of iPhone12,x. The fact that the compute module is ComputeModule13,x suggests that it's based on A14/M1-generation silicon, not A13.
I think we will see Mac Pro evolves into a computer for a really niche market, and will be priced rightfully so. Many people that was using older Mac Pros probably can be served with Mac Studio just fine.
That would be cool. If I had the know how and resources, I'd love to make a company that specialized in custom motherboards. Have a bare minimum board, and have the customer decide what kind of processor and how many (eg 1 Intel i9, or 2/4 Xeons). That would determine how many PCIe lanes there are. Again, let the customer decide how many of each type (ie how many x16, x8, x4, x2, and x1 slots) as well as M.2 or U.2 slots. If I wanted to go really crazy, maybe provide NVLinks or something. Besides that, don't put any USB, audio, video, networking, etc. Let the customer choose.
But more on topic, I also have to wonder if Apple might design some sort of blade server-like system. Do a compute module, networking module, secondary storage module, etc.?
CPUs & GPUs built into a lego brick for the Mac Pro. When the M3 gets released, you can buy an updated Lego Brick and swap.
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If they make the AS Mac Pro actually modular it could be adapted to serve a pretty broad audience.. the Mac Studio makes a lot of sense to me as a Trash Can owner.. but the lack of ram and gpu in the MS is a concern. IF the base AS MP system is not $6000 and useless in that config, but more like $4000? to start and you can configure that into what you need, CPU/ram/GPU.. they will have a winner. I could see myself sinking $1000's every year or two into upgraded modules.
My guess: Expandable Apple Silicon GPU modules for Mac Pro.
Add 19 or 36 GPU cores with one click in a slot. Add another 36 GPU cores into second slot.
Add 19 or 36 GPU cores with one click in a slot. Add another 36 GPU cores into second slot.
Compute module could just be an addition to the SOC (to replace the 'afterburner card')
I think Apple using their own chips and SOC have killed any sort of modularity (other than maybe secondary ssd storage and internal thunderbolt hubs). Their last two mac pros have shown that by the time you get around to upgrades the base unit is already obsolete, and the difference between M1 and M2 is great enough that you would never consider putting more money into M1.
As far as video cards are concerned, we are two + years into M1/M2 and eGPUs are still not compatible. Why would they do so now when they are making huge strides with the video processing on the SOC. The whole point of the SOC is fast communication between the cpu and gpus ram and ssd - is Apple going to ruin that with buses for removable modules?
Say that you get a mac pro with M2 SOCs on daughter cards with 3 more slots to expand. You are likely to buy what you need up front, maybe a second daughter card.
In a year, the M3s are out and you need more power. Are you going to buy 2 more M2 cards, or are you more likely to sell what you have and buy a new M3 with the power you need (which is likely going to still be faster, more ram, more s or faster storage, use less energy, have additional features etc), or buy M3 cards which will likely have a limitation on the old base hardware and likely be almost as much as a new tower - then what do you do with the old cards which will have tanked in value once the next gen is out ? Are you going to wait for others M2s to go up for sale and upgrade your workstation with used parts?
I just don't see it - I think most people, especially the type of people who actually need the power, are in a position where they will just buy the latest machine and write off whatever loss they incur.
I think Apple using their own chips and SOC have killed any sort of modularity (other than maybe secondary ssd storage and internal thunderbolt hubs). Their last two mac pros have shown that by the time you get around to upgrades the base unit is already obsolete, and the difference between M1 and M2 is great enough that you would never consider putting more money into M1.
As far as video cards are concerned, we are two + years into M1/M2 and eGPUs are still not compatible. Why would they do so now when they are making huge strides with the video processing on the SOC. The whole point of the SOC is fast communication between the cpu and gpus ram and ssd - is Apple going to ruin that with buses for removable modules?
Say that you get a mac pro with M2 SOCs on daughter cards with 3 more slots to expand. You are likely to buy what you need up front, maybe a second daughter card.
In a year, the M3s are out and you need more power. Are you going to buy 2 more M2 cards, or are you more likely to sell what you have and buy a new M3 with the power you need (which is likely going to still be faster, more ram, more s or faster storage, use less energy, have additional features etc), or buy M3 cards which will likely have a limitation on the old base hardware and likely be almost as much as a new tower - then what do you do with the old cards which will have tanked in value once the next gen is out ? Are you going to wait for others M2s to go up for sale and upgrade your workstation with used parts?
I just don't see it - I think most people, especially the type of people who actually need the power, are in a position where they will just buy the latest machine and write off whatever loss they incur.
I think something like this or possibly additional proRes encoder modules like the current Afterburner cards.
Based on every computer made to date, it would appear the Mac Studio is just an outlier. Every other machine identifier has been based on iteration, not processor. The M1 iMac, for instance, is iMac21,2. I wouldn't read into that too much.
Seems like expandability is going to have to be a flagship feature of Mac Pro (though Apple has defied that rule once before and it was very unpopular among Pros).
“There is also a chance that the compute modules could be designed for Apple's upcoming mixed-reality headset or something else entirely.”
Got it….basically there’s something new there and nobody knows what it’s for!
That article could have been reduced to a single sentence without any loss of information!
Got it….basically there’s something new there and nobody knows what it’s for!
That article could have been reduced to a single sentence without any loss of information!
We already have a replacement to the afterburner card: The Media Engine in all M Series SoCs since the M1 Pro
Just one Media Engine outperforms the Afterburner Card, effectively turning it into retroware
And the Max chips got 2 of these, the Ultra chips having 4.
So this compute module is something else entirely.
IMO I don't think there is a market for the MAC PRO any Longer, unless they can get the Mac Pro aimed at a new market other than content creators, Mac Studio Ultra is plenty for 99.9% of content creators
You should stop with the kool-aid.
Apple has the best design, yes. However, Apple has been stagnant for a while. The M1 was a great start but it slowly faded. Transition is still not complete and Apple can't compete with high end GPU cards. HW Raytracing is still missing among other things. Sure, for video editing etc. their dedicated encoders help massively but overall they didn't overtake the market nor do they have the most powerful silicon. What they do have is the best performance per watt but thats not enough when you need to get the job done and the hardware&software combo is basically not working as good.
There is a reason why any serious 3D/VFX artist can't use Macs for work as its designed for it nor there is support. Apple always boasts about great relationship with this vendor or that vendor but they are not pushing anything. Maya is industry standard for 3D and yet most VFX houses use Linux and PC as the support is lacking heavily.
Nvidia smokes Apple out of the water on pretty much everything related to 3D. Just look how Apple killed Shake which at one point was industry standard.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Apple computer and Apple stuff but I'm also being realistic and critical.
M transition was a great start but thats about it. Apple is stagnant - just look how they updated one product with M2 chip and left iMac for example without anything. Some of their upgrades (like ram/ssd) are insanely expensive compared to alternatives and because they switched away from Intel we have to fork out money to Apple as we can't upgrade it ourselves cheaper. (27" iMac was awesome for ram upgrades!)
They charge $400 just so you have height adjustable stand for your monitor - that is not innovation, that is pure insult.
So, Apple does few things well but overall they are stagnant. Lets be more critical as Apple needs to know that they can't get away with anything
Apple has the best design, yes. However, Apple has been stagnant for a while. The M1 was a great start but it slowly faded. Transition is still not complete and Apple can't compete with high end GPU cards. HW Raytracing is still missing among other things. Sure, for video editing etc. their dedicated encoders help massively but overall they didn't overtake the market nor do they have the most powerful silicon. What they do have is the best performance per watt but thats not enough when you need to get the job done and the hardware&software combo is basically not working as good.
There is a reason why any serious 3D/VFX artist can't use Macs for work as its designed for it nor there is support. Apple always boasts about great relationship with this vendor or that vendor but they are not pushing anything. Maya is industry standard for 3D and yet most VFX houses use Linux and PC as the support is lacking heavily.
Nvidia smokes Apple out of the water on pretty much everything related to 3D. Just look how Apple killed Shake which at one point was industry standard.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Apple computer and Apple stuff but I'm also being realistic and critical.
M transition was a great start but thats about it. Apple is stagnant - just look how they updated one product with M2 chip and left iMac for example without anything. Some of their upgrades (like ram/ssd) are insanely expensive compared to alternatives and because they switched away from Intel we have to fork out money to Apple as we can't upgrade it ourselves cheaper. (27" iMac was awesome for ram upgrades!)
They charge $400 just so you have height adjustable stand for your monitor - that is not innovation, that is pure insult.
So, Apple does few things well but overall they are stagnant. Lets be more critical as Apple needs to know that they can't get away with anything
IMO I don't think there is a market for the MAC PRO any Longer, unless they can get the Mac Pro aimed at a new market other than content creators, Mac Studio Ultra is plenty for 99.9% of content creators
An all-new "compute module" device has been spotted in Apple beta code, hinting that new hardware may soon be on the way.
The new "ComputeModule" device class was spotted in Apple's iOS 16.4 developer disk image from the Xcode 16.4 beta by 9to5Mac, indicating that it runs iOS or a variant of it. The code suggests that Apple has at least two different compute modules in development with the identifiers "ComputeModule13,1" and "ComputeModule13,3."
The modules' purpose is unclear, but speculation argues that they are designed for the Apple silicon Mac Pro – potentially serving as a solution to enable a modular interface for swappable hardware components or add additional compute power via technologies like Swift Distributed Actors. There is also a chance that the compute modules could be designed for Apple's upcoming mixed-reality headset or something else entirely.
Yesterday, recent Apple Bluetooth 5.3 filings were uncovered, a move that often precedes the launch of new products, so the compute module finding could be the latest indication that new Apple hardware is likely on the horizon.
Article Link: Mysterious New 'Compute Module' Found in Apple Beta Code
In a nutshell, Apple has to produce something special for other markets, other than content creators and normal users