New Mac Pro and Mac mini HAVE to be announced this year

[rm5]

(Edited from original post, which had a few mistakes)

They still have to replace the Intel-based Mac Pro, and in keeping with their 2-year transition, they HAVE to do that THIS YEAR.

So, here are my predictions for next month's event:

1. New M2 Mac mini - almost been 2 years since last Mac mini, so that has to happen, unless it's going to be like the Trashcan Mac Pro... The M2 Mac mini will also replace the old Intel Mac mini, and you'll have to pay an extra $200 or so to upgrade to the M2.
2. Apple Silicon-based Mac Pro - also HAS to be announced to keep with their 2-year transition. I don't know which chip(s) it will have - maybe M1 Ultra to start and then whatever the higher-end version of the Ultra will be called.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[ondioline]

has to happen, or else what?

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

has to happen, or else what?

He won't buy one this year! 🐁

 

[LeeW]

They will arrive if and when Apple decides. Simple as that.

 

[Homy]

With the pandemic and chip shortage they don't have to stick to the old two-year schedule. They could announce Mac Pro with a sample M3 chip and deliver in spring 2023, since TSMC has started the production of N3. Or they announce it and you can buy it in spring with delivery in summer when volume production starts.

 

[ADGrant]

Tim said the transition would take two years at the 2020 WWDC. Its already been more than two years.

 

[deconstruct60]

(Edited from original post, which had a few mistakes)

They still have to replace the Intel-based Mac Pro, and in keeping with their 2-year transition, they HAVE to do that THIS YEAR.

"Announce" and "replace" are not necessarily the same thing.


Apple has painted themselves into a corner with that "only one more to go, talk about that later" tease back in March. At some point Apple is going to have to talk about it later. Not necessarily ship but at least 'talk'.

Pretty good chance it is a "sneak peak" for the Mac Pro. We'll show you this now but it will be 4-8 months before you can actually order one. The Mac Pro 2019 would not be replaced by that, because the new one isn't shipping for a decently long time. But folks would know about the upcoming "orderly" transition between old and 'new' Mac Pro.


Note also though Apple gave themselves a huge 'out' with that "only one more to go" quip. That the Mini was already "transitioned" . So in the 'done' column. If they don't replace the last Intel Mini in 2022 , it doesn't matter because the Mini was already done. Lame? Yes. But it is a viable "dog ate my homework" excuse.


[ No , the Mac Studio isn't a viable replacement for Mini in dense computation rack contexts. It is 3x as big and not 3x as much computation (on CPU ) side. So it is a backslide too. What is missing a Mx Pro in the current classic Mini chassis. Period. ]

So, here are my predictions for next month's event:

1. New M2 Mac mini - almost been 2 years since last Mac mini, so that has to happen, unless it's going to be like the Trashcan Mac Pro... The M2 Mac mini will also replace the old Intel Mac mini, and you'll have to pay an extra $200 or so to upgrade to the M2.

The M2 Mini isn't the problematical transition device. The M2 is still too much of backslide off the Intel Mini to be a viable replacement. The max RAM went up to 24GB . Which is still less than half of what the Intel Mini does. Half!! Anyone who has a workload RAM footprint of 32GB the M2 is still a *fail*. It is still a crippled backslide on video out also.

What is missing is a M2 Pro Mini. Probably still somewhat of a backslide from the old Intel 64GB, but not a comical less than half backslide. And the video out is not crippled. And the TB port count isn't kneecapped.

Yes no M2 Mini in 2022 would be lame excuse for product management, but that isn't an egg-on-the face transition blown moment. "Going to transition to Apple Silicon in about two years" promise absolutely squat about the pace of future Apple Silcon SoCs. Lots of folks presumed they were going to get iPhone A-series frequency updates, but Apple blew that out of the water last Fall. Only self delusion if still laboring under that now at this point.

1. Apple Silicon-based Mac Pro - also HAS to be announced to keep with their 2-year transition. I don't know which chip(s) it will have - maybe M1 Ultra to start and then whatever the higher-end version of the Ultra will be called.

If Apple announces in October that it is coming in "Spring 2023" and this is what it looks like and "let's watch a demo of it working", then that is probably good enough. Yeah technically they didn't finish in 2022 , but in the same two year period there was a world wide pandemic. That a smaller subset came in a Quarter or so late is not really the end of the world.

The much bigger hole that Apple would dig would be to say nothing. It would turn into a crisis like back in 2017 when lots of chatter was building that Apple was going to maybe hit 2,000 days of no Mac Pro updates. WTF are they doing? And then got the "we are going to do something" pow-wow meeting in April 2017. Same thing here. They would "have to" come out and do some "dog ate my homework" song and dance about how it was just going to take much longer than they thought. ( and if it is more than 6 months out that would be all you get. ). Most folks are going to interpret that "Later" comment in March 2022 to be "later in 2022". ( there was already a bunch of folks that whipped themselves into a frenzy that 'later' was WWDC 2022... which was not really well grounded. But again adds to their failed expectation management communication impact. )


Around April 2018 , Apple did a session where they said "not this year". That put folks off of trying to impact wild stuff detached from reality ( new MP at WWDC 2018 ). They would need to come back this Fall with something like "Much later ... as in sometime in 2023".

Personally I think they had queued up exactly what they had done in 2013 and 2019. Wanted to do sneak peak in June ( WWDC 2022). "stuff happened" and things slid into 2023. Not extremely far into 2023, but enough so that if they needed to stick to the "say nothing before a six month lead time" rule, that they had to move the "sneak peak" to Fall 2022. Decent chance October. If there is something seriously wrong then maybe Dec 2022 (and sliding much , much deeper into 2023). If very badly wrong then "recast it with a very broad 2023.

Very good chance the next Mac Pro is not going to make all current Mac Pro customers happy. Some are going to have a negative reaction whenever they do the announcement. If the new one is pretty far off the MP 2019 in slot count , 3rd party GPU support , ability to "raw iron" boot Widows , DIMM slots , etc then selling the current MP longer is, in the end, going to make those folks happier over the interim. Trying to rush a new Mac Pro to market when it isn't ready is only goes a bigger dust up with that customer base. For the narrower subset of folks they are targeting though it needs to be rock solid offering. There is already going to be a group of angry folks. Don't want to feed more folks to the mob that has going to gather around the product.

 

[rm5]

Tim said the transition would take two years at the 2020 WWDC. Its already been more than two years.

Technically the transition started in Nov 2020 with the first M1 Macs, but the transition was ANNOUNCED back in June 2020... so maybe @deconstruct60 is right, it will be released in 2023. But I was hoping they would do what they did in 2013 and 2019 and offer a "sneak peek" at WWDC, but that never happened. So it's probably going to be October, or maybe even March of 2023, who knows...

 

[deconstruct60]

Tim said the transition would take two years at the 2020 WWDC. Its already been more than two years.

No, he said that it would take "about two years". They gave themselves and out. That wiggle room will basically evaporate at the end of the 2022 though . Past 2.5 years naturally rounds to 3 not 2. Apple probably invented that "about 2 years" notion before the pandemic began so there is unaccounted for "noise" in that estimate in that case. If it goes to 2.75 and taking the 'floor' of that (rounding back to nearest integer ) is not that bad of a 'miss'. If they do a "sneak peak" in 2022 with a 6 month lead time , then they have presented a roadmap for folks to start collecting funds to pay for the Mac Pro ( which probably will not get much cheaper.... if it doesn't go even higher entry price. ) .

 

[iPadified]

The iMac is likely much more important than the mini so that will get the M2 before the Mac mini. I would not be surprised there will be an Oct/Nov event with "pro" stuff in it. Mac Pro will likely be "teased" in a video in that event for released in 2023. Intersting to see if MBP M2 Max will coexist with Mac Studio M1 Max.

PS. I like "Ultra" better than "Pro" as Ultra does not confuse "professional" with the amount of performance needed for a given computing task: Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Ultra. DS

 

[kschendel]

My thoughts? One might possibly want to look up the definition of "forward-looking statement."

 

[MajorFubar]

I think there will be two new Minis:

1) M2 Mini : a direct replacement for the current M1 Mini, which basically had the same guts as the 13" Pro, as will its M2 replacement.
2) M2 Mini Pro : to replace the current Intel Mini. It will have have the same guts as the 14" and 16" M2 Macbook Pro models, which surely Apple also will launch, considering there is now ridiculous disparity between their Macbook architectures, where the £1249 M2 Air has better single-core performance than a six grand fully loaded 16" Macbook Pro Max.

Mac Pro? Not sure. Apple won't convince fully-loaded Mac Pro users with 1.5TB RAM that Apple silicon is so magic they can now make do with 192GB, and that's assuming the rumoured M2 Extreme actually exists.

 

[Boil]

Mac Pro? Not sure. Apple won't convince fully-loaded Mac Pro users with 1.5TB RAM that Apple silicon is so magic they can now make do with 192GB, and that's assuming the rumoured M2 Extreme actually exists.

How many 7.1 Mac Pro users actually have 1.5TB of RAM though...? Apple charges a hefty $25,000 while OWC can get you there for a paltry $9,800; too bad OWC couldn't provide SSD blades for the 7.1 Mac Pro at a similar savings level...

If we go by RAM levels with the M1 Max & M1 Ultra SoCs (64GB & 128GB), then a theoretical M1 Extreme would support 256GB of RAM...

But the M2 SoC went from 16GB RAM limit to 24GB, so if we extrapolate for the higher powered SoCs, a M2 Extreme SoC could support up to 384GB of RAM...

If Apple can source enough high-density 64GB LPDDR5X chips, then a M2 Extreme could go up to 1TB of RAM...!

 

[Sydde]

Think Differently

The Studio Ultra already dusts the '19 Pro for the majority of work, for a third of what a comparable machine would cost, so the pressure on Apple is not as great as the OP makes it out to be. Apple is not really in a corner at all, except in the opinions of a few people.

The Mac Pro market must be no larger than a few thousand, and most of them will do fine on 7,1. The AS Mac Pro will be a whooaaa box, and it is better that Apple take the time they need to insure no socks remain on when they roll it out.

 

[maflynn]

I would think that if Apple were to update the mini and rollout a new Mac Pro, they have to do it within a month. They'll want to capture the holiday buying season, and for professionals, many budgets roll over on the calendar year so they too need to start using up their budgets sooner then later

Personally, I don't think anyone will hold Apple's feet to the fire if they miss their self imposed deadline. I can only speak for myself, but I'd rather have them roll out the products in a manner that makes sense and when its ready. Far too many companies roll out products before they're complete and it shows.

 

[kasakka]

I think there will be two new Minis:

1) M2 Mini : a direct replacement for the current M1 Mini, which basically had the same guts as the 13" Pro, as will its M2 replacement.
2) M2 Mini Pro : to replace the current Intel Mini. It will have have the same guts as the 14" and 16" M2 Macbook Pro models, which surely Apple also will launch, considering there is now ridiculous disparity between their Macbook architectures, where the £1249 M2 Air has better single-core performance than a six grand fully loaded 16" Macbook Pro Max.

Mac Pro? Not sure. Apple won't convince fully-loaded Mac Pro users with 1.5TB RAM that Apple silicon is so magic they can now make do with 192GB, and that's assuming the rumoured M2 Extreme actually exists.

I have a hard time figuring out who the Mac Pro is for at this point.

It used to be that you bought it because you wanted to cram in tons of RAM, needed full blown discrete GPUs, expandability and higher performancance, something that no other Apple product offered. There was always this huge gap for people who didn't need server grade motherboards, terabytes of RAM etc but needed something better than a Mac Mini but less than a Mac Pro. The iMac was not it. So they reluctantly bought the Mac Pros.

Now the Mac Studio is finally filling that gap so the Mac Pro to me sounds even more of a niche audience product. Since it cannot accept GPUs from AMD or Nvidia, RAM is unlikely to be replaceable then what is left?

 

[dandeco]

I think there will be two new Minis:

1) M2 Mini : a direct replacement for the current M1 Mini, which basically had the same guts as the 13" Pro, as will its M2 replacement.
2) M2 Mini Pro : to replace the current Intel Mini. It will have have the same guts as the 14" and 16" M2 Macbook Pro models, which surely Apple also will launch, considering there is now ridiculous disparity between their Macbook architectures, where the £1249 M2 Air has better single-core performance than a six grand fully loaded 16" Macbook Pro Max.

Mac Pro? Not sure. Apple won't convince fully-loaded Mac Pro users with 1.5TB RAM that Apple silicon is so magic they can now make do with 192GB, and that's assuming the rumoured M2 Extreme actually exists.

That's what I am sure is going to happen. Apple probably wants to wait until the M2 Pro and Max are ready with the next-generation 14" and 16" MacBook Pros before refreshing the Mac Mini line, that way the entire Mac Mini lineup can be revised at once.

 

[theluggage]

New M2 Mac mini - almost been 2 years since last Mac mini, so that has to happen

No, it doesn't. Not saying there won't be a M2 Mini this year or early next year - it's perfectly possible & a M2 Mini makes sense - but there's no real pressure on Apple. Historically, the Mini has often gone for years without love (e.g. 2014-2018).

Apple can keep selling the two Intel Minis as "legacy products" as long as stocks last & as long as MacOS is still supported on Intel.

Tim said the transition would take two years at the 2020 WWDC. Its already been more than two years.

"about two years" - that was hardly a binding contract (and if it had been a biding contract, the pandemic, chip shortage, energy crisis etc. would probably have fallen under the force majeure clauses that any such contract would invariably contain).

Anyway, the MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro, the Mac Mini, the small iMac have all transitioned, the Mac Studio/Studio Display has replaced the high-end iMac and iMac Pro, and the lower-end 5k iMac is probably dead for the foreseeable.
While we're probably going to see an Apple Silicon Mac Pro I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility that it will just be an officially sacntioned rackmount kit & supporting accessories for the Mac Studio.

It used to be that you bought it because you wanted to cram in tons of RAM, needed full blown discrete GPUs, expandability and higher performancance, something that no other Apple product offered.

Well, cramming in "tons" of RAM would be part of the point of the rumoured Extreme 4x processor (which would presumably have twice the RAM of the Ultra + whatever developments in LPDDR5 device capacity happen in the meantime). Or it could be done with some NUMA-like multi-processor system. Beyond that, perhaps you could add an expandable off-chip RAM disk to act as swap, or something...

I don't think there are any laws of physics that say Apple Silicon can't support external GPUs - it's just a case of whether it is profitable to develop & support the required drivers, or strategically a good idea to distract developers from optimising apps for tile-based rendering. Likewise, PCIe slots aren't an Intel exclusive - and have lots of uses other than GPUs, such as storage controllers, internal storage and, particularly, specialist A/V interfaces.

I guess Apple know how many Intel Mac Pros they sold, and have contacts with high-profile customers. So it comes down whether they think the market is there, or how important it is to keep the Apple logo in the credits of major movies...

How many 7.1 Mac Pro users actually have 1.5TB of RAM though...? Apple charges a hefty $25,000 while OWC can get you there for a paltry $9,800;

Bear in mind that Apple have gone for the M-suffix 24- and 28- core Xeons, which cost twice as much as the regular versions, just to get that > 1TB RAM capacity. That doesn't make sense unless theres a large (or strategically important) market for that. Unfortunately, with Apple Silicon they're painted into the corner of how much LPDDR5 RAM they can mount directly on the chip package.

where the £1249 M2 Air has better single-core performance than a six grand fully loaded 16" Macbook Pro Max.

...silly comparison, because you don't buy a M1 Max anything just to get more single-core performance. The M1 Max will still wipe the floor with the regular M2 on any real-world job that a reasonable person would pay the money for.

In other news, the single-core score for the top-end Mac Pro isn't significantly better than the entry-level Mac Pro or even the i7 Mini.

However, the relatively modest improvement between the regular M2 and the cheapest "binned" 8/14 core M1 Pro might be why we didn't get a M1 Pro version of the Studio (call it a Mini if you prefer - but it would need the I/O ports of a Studio and possibly the extra cooling).

 

[MajorFubar]

...silly comparison.

No, it isn't. But I'm not using what would be wasted keypresses to explain why, when it won't change your mind anyway.

 

[deconstruct60]

The iMac is likely much more important than the mini so that will get the M2 before the Mac mini.

It wasn't in 2020 with the M1 introduction sequence.
Mini -- Nov 2020
iMac -- April 2021


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Just three iMacs in the top 20 (and one of those is an Intel imac. finally out of stock.). [ #13 , #15, #19 ; nothing top 10] It is a "computer to do work" skewed sampling (dominate system is Mac Studio) but still puts some quantitative grounding on the issue.

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top 50.
3 Minis ( all M1's )
2 iMac ( one, renewed Intel model. Price probably being the major driver as beats the lowest priced Mini by a few places).


Now that Apple has significantly lowered the "low fratricidal" competition barriers between the Mini and iMac ( both have exact same SoC) the Mini is winning. Would be even worse if Apple was not holding back a Mx Pro Mini from the line up.

The Mac Studio replaced the 27" iMac which was a substantive large chunk of the aggregated iMac footprint. That also shrink the 'iMac' as a category in the overall Mac Product line up.

If believe the Gorman rumors, the iMac is on back burner until M3 generation. [ A bit hard to believe as sliding in a new M2 into the current iPad-on-a-stick should be just as easy as sliding a M2 into the current Mini chassis or the M2 into the classic MBP 13" chassis. Unless the M2 SoCs are extremely scarce, the iMac should get an update along with the Mini. The iMac isn't going to hit the two year old mark until next Spring. the Mini will hit that this Novemeber. so not only can't push Intel off the line up in two years... products already going two years stale on M-series also ( supposedly one of the 'problems' with Intel.. stale SoCs. ) ]

I would not be surprised there will be an Oct/Nov event with "pro" stuff in it. Mac Pro will likely be "teased" in a video in that event for released in 2023. Intersting to see if MBP M2 Max will coexist with Mac Studio M1 Max.

m2 Pro Mini ... not surprising at all as it likley would rop one of the last two INtel models from the line up.

PS. I like "Ultra" better than "Pro" as Ultra does not confuse "professional" with the amount of performance needed for a given computing task: Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Ultra. DS

That is what is whacked about that. In the more professional system buying sampling more folks are buying "Ultra" and "Max" than "Pro" or plain. ( although at the moment Apple isn't given them a choice in desktop form factor to get a Pro. )

 

[iPadified]

That is what is whacked about that. In the more professional system buying sampling more folks are buying "Ultra" and "Max" than "Pro" or plain. ( although at the moment Apple isn't given them a choice in desktop form factor to get a Pro. )

Apple naming conventions are driving me crazy at the moment. Seem to be no logic al all. The watch is nice and easy to understand but the rest...

 

[wilberforce]

Apple naming conventions are driving me crazy at the moment. Seem to be no logic al all. The watch is nice and easy to understand but the rest...

This reminds me of the way many car manufacturers use monikers.
For example, BMW used to reserve their "M" logo for their top-of-the-line racing and performance oriented models.
This was until BMW realized they could sell more cars by plastering "M" logos over everything.
This made some "M" fans completely lose their minds.

Likewise, Apple is going to stick "Pro" on everything if it sells more.

 

[theorist9]

[ No , the Mac Studio isn't a viable replacement for Mini in dense computation rack contexts. It is 3x as big and not 3x as much computation (on CPU ) side. So it is a backslide too. What is missing a Mx Pro in the current classic Mini chassis. Period. ]

Actually, the max computational (CPU) density obtainable from the Studio is 3.4 x what you can get from the Mini: One perf core ≈ 4 eff cores, so the Ultra effectively has 16 + 4/4 = 17 perf cores, while the Mini effectively has 4 + 4/4 = 5 perf cores. Thus with 3 x the size you get 17/5 = 3.4 x the CPU computational power. So it's not a backslide in that sense.

Still, a Mini Pro would be beneficial in these rack environments, because with a Mini Pro you would have twice the computational density you get from the Mini, thus exceeding what's available from the Studio. Also, no one wants to reconfigure all those Mini racks to replace them with Studios.

Plus, at least currently, based on the lack of availability, the Ultra Studio isn't a viable replacement for the Mini.

 

[deconstruct60]

Actually, the max computational (CPU) density obtainable from the Studio is 3.4 x what you can get from the Mini: One perf core ≈ 4 eff cores, so the Ultra effectively has 16 + 4/4 = 17 perf cores, while the Mini effectively has 4 + 4/4 = 5 perf cores. Thus with 3 x the size you get 17/5 = 3.4 x the CPU computational power. So it's not a backslide in that sense.

That is only because you are capping the Mini chassis with the M1. The Mac Studio has two SoCs, why can't the Mini? The Mini capped with solely just the M1 is so handicapped it can't even supersede the 4 year old Intel model . If Apple simply put a modern x86-64 6 core (yes unlikely , but drawing attention to what is available now as opposed to two-to-four years ago) or a Mx Pro in the Mini chassis it would have better computational density.

On the Intel side: 3 * 6 = 18 cores. Ultra 16 P cores and 4 E so effectively 17 P cores. Core count wise, yes it is a backslide ( granted, 4 year old Intel cores are slower , but that is more so due to inaction on Apple's part). Memory footprint 3 * 64GB > 128 GB . Again a backslide. [ Intel Gen 12 would have to stick with 6 cores to fit in the 65W base TDP window. AMD Zen 4 7000 will likely do 6 cores for better modern competitive context (when the none 'X' turbocharged models eventually arrive. Gen 12 > 8 cores and the 'X' series of Zen4 blow the thermal budget. ]

The Studio's case is built for the Ultra and yet Apple leaves the Mini case half empty with the plain M1. The M1 Pro could easily fit inside there. [ That configuration won't win any "even quieter" objective , but in many server contexts that is far from a priority. ]

3 * 8 P cores is 24 which is more than what the M1 Ultra SoC can do (likely more than the M2 Ultra if all it adds is 2 E cores per die).

Furthermore, the Ultra is going to be at a deficit at cost effectiveness. Most of the Ultra SoC is allocated to GPU cores. GPU cores doesn't make web server, XCode , and a whole host of CPU focused workloads go faster. So paying Apple gobs more money for relatively little impact. To go from a the entry Max on a Studio to the first Ultra is $1,400 (never mind the required RAM bump). That should be approximately the same price as a Mini Pro. That is a substantial amount of money for mostly dark , powered down silicon.

Most people pay for web services compute to get to cheaper costs , not higher ones. For more web services workloads the Ultra is not cost effective.

Still, a Mini Pro would be beneficial in these rack environments, because with a Mini Pro you would have twice the computational density you get from the Mini, thus exceeding what's available from the Studio. Also, no one wants to reconfigure all those Mini racks to replace them with Studios.

The Studio would work where the server services were far more skewed toward GPU core workloads. That is what the silicon inside the Studio is weighted toward. Most current "macOS off in the cloud" services business is skewed toward CPU workloads , but if that changed the Studio would get more traction.

Plus, at least currently, based on the lack of availability, the Ultra Studio isn't a viable replacement for the Mini.

In a limited part, probably due some folks doing this

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in an ad hoc or custom fashion. In audio/video contexts that are racked for movement or studio Studio Ultras are probably getting traction. If need to concurrently ingest 4 8K video streams and transcode them the Studio Ultra is a better fit. [ there are 10's of thousands more Minis deployed in more general services though. ]

The Studio's compactness in design did likely have some rack destinations in mind when prescribed its size constraints.

 

[theorist9]

[ No , the Mac Studio isn't a viable replacement for Mini in dense computation rack contexts. It is 3x as big and not 3x as much computation (on CPU ) side. So it is a backslide too... ]

Actually, the max computational (CPU) density obtainable from the Studio is 3.4 x what you can get from the Mini: One perf core ≈ 4 eff cores, so the Ultra effectively has 16 + 4/4 = 17 perf cores, while the Mini effectively has 4 + 4/4 = 5 perf cores. Thus with 3 x the size you get 17/5 = 3.4 x the CPU computational power. So it's not a backslide in that sense.

That is only because you are capping the Mini chassis with the M1. The Mac Studio has two SoCs, why can't the Mini? The Mini capped with solely just the M1 is so handicapped it can't even supersede the 4 year old Intel model . If Apple simply put a modern x86-64 6 core (yes unlikely , but drawing attention to what is available now as opposed to two-to-four years ago) or a Mx Pro in the Mini chassis it would have better computational density.

You've gotten yourself confused. I was responding to your top post, in which you compared the CPU computational density between a Studio and current Mini, and concluded that Studio's was less. I showed that was incorrect in the 2nd post.

Now, confusingly, you're suggesting my analysis somehow isn't valid because it didn't account for a hypothetical Pro Mini. No. I didn't address a Pro Mini because I was confining my response to the inaccuracy in your statement comparing a current (non-Pro) Mini to a Studio.

It's as if you said the base Tesla Model S has less horsepower than 80's era Ferraris, and I pointed out that's incorrect, and you responded by saying "That's only because you're confining yourself to 80's era's Ferraris" (!).

Plus I already acknowledged that things would change if you had a Mac Mini Pro, in a separate paragraph here:

Still, a Mini Pro would be beneficial in these rack environments, because with a Mini Pro you would have twice the computational density you get from the Mini, thus exceeding what's available from the Studio. Also, no one wants to reconfigure all those Mini racks to replace them with Studios.