New Mac Studio Likely to Be Introduced at WWDC

[theluggage]

Are you sure a PC can heat up a room when it’s cold? I guess you can hug the PC case when it’s really cold and not turn on the heater.

A PC consuming X Watts of power will release heat into the room at a rate of X Watts - all that energy has to go somewhere. That RTX 4090 GPU that some people are salivating about draws 450W. A Threadripper/Xeon class CPU can draw a couple of hundred watts. So a powerful PC can easily end up releasing heat at a rate of ~1000W and the effect of that on your room will be just the same as running a 1kW electric heater. I.e. probably not enough to single-handedly heat a large room on a cold night but certainly enough to help.

Now, if you have really efficient thermostatically controlled heating with sensors in every room and no unheatable cold spots that keep it running indefinitely, the "help" from your computer should mean it doesn't have to run for so long at a time and reduce the amount of fuel it uses.

As for "saving" anything - that's complicated. You could see that as a saving if you regard the electricity bill for running your computer as a "sunk cost" - however, your heating may be running off a cheaper fuel (don't know about elsewhere, but in the UK gas is still significantly cheaper per kWh than electricity - let alone solar/heat pump etc.) so you'd still save money by using a lower powered computer.

I checked last year and my Mac Studio was using 15W at idle... which (at the current sky-high UK fuel prices) added up to £40/year (or would, if I left it running 24/7). Even a relatively modest "regular" PC could use 5-10x that much, so we're not talking negligible sums of money here.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Even if electricity bills are of no concern, one benefit of a more efficient processor is that you get the benefit of desktop form factors that normally wouldn't be feasible on PCs.

Take the M1 iMac for example. You are not going to find a PC equivalent that's just a screen. Likewise, the Mac Studio is small enough that you can tuck it under the Studio Display and not have it take up any extra space, in addition to being fairly quiet to operate. I believe Linus reviewed a similar mini desktop by HP and the conclusion was that it throttled way too much because the components generated way more heat than the small enclosure could handle, to the point where you would almost never get the performance advertised.

I think this is where the Mac Studio shines (and as its name suggests, it's likely aimed at creative professionals who are working primarily from home). By virtue of the M1x chip being way more efficient, it is able to compete on "niceness" and offer perks that Windows PCs simply can't offer. I admit that I can't quantify the benefits of a smaller form factor or a quieter working environment the same way I would with more ram, a faster processor or better graphics, but this doesn't mean they don't matter to their target audience.

While form factors like these are cool, in practice they’re a headache. Desktops are plugged into a wall so they don’t need to be as efficient and that efficiency becomes a bottleneck. The change to Apple Silicon was fantastic for the Macbook, quiet fans and absurdly long battery. It has made the Macbook the #1 laptop in the entire industry, consistently outselling competitors. But for desktop…I mean sure the fans are super duper quiet now…but that’s pretty much it.

The Apple silicon transition has made a mess of desktop Macs

Apple's switch to its own processors has brought speed, performanceu2014and confusion.

www.macworld.com

Professionals do not want this efficiency for their desktops. They want power and hardware acceleration. The Mac Pro doesn’t need efficiency, and if it gets it, then it’s going to considerably slow down their workflow

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Yeah, this is the correct rumour. Nevermind when he tweeted that the Mac Studio was going to be discontinued after 1 generation.

Is there additional info on the lifespan of the Mac Studio?

 

[KaiFiMacFan]

I don't think Gurman ever claimed the Mac Studio would be discontinued after one generation, but he did say it might skip an update because it would be "too similar" to the Mac Pro. That rumor never made sense to me. If the Mac Pro is "too similar" to the Mac Studio, then the Mac Pro isn't good enough. That’s not a dig at the Mac Studio, but the idea that they would keep both product lines around, knowing that to update one would obsolete the other never made sense. The only options at that point would be: discontinue the Mac Studio (not happening, apparently) or wait on the Mac Pro until it can’t be eclipsed by a Mac Studio update (what seems to be happening).

 

[Chancha]

I don't think Gurman ever claimed the Mac Studio would be discontinued after one generation, but he did see it might skip an update because it would be "too similar" to the Mac Pro. That rumor never made sense to me. If the Mac Pro is "too similar" to the Mac Studio, then the Mac Pro isn't good enough.

Assuming his sources weren't duds or he straight made stuff up, that actually made sense when noise of Mac Pro prototypes were surfacing, and that the M2 Extreme couldn't happen so the Mac Pro was only being tested with an M2 Ultra. At that point the existence of M2 Ultra Studio means both forms will share the same top end chip and is obviously not ideal.

It looked like at a later point Apple decided for the Mac Pro to wait for the M3 gen which means the Studio gets the pass to be released with M2 Ultra, that is next Monday. In fact one may argue the Mac Studio line up itself has had a role of stop gap filler until the eventual Apple Silicon Mac Pro happens, because Apple couldn't figure out the 4x Max silicon from the get go.

 

[Serqetry]

Assuming his sources weren't duds or he straight made stuff up, that actually made sense when noise of Mac Pro prototypes were surfacing, and that the M2 Extreme couldn't happen so the Mac Pro was only being tested with an M2 Ultra. At that point the existence of M2 Ultra Studio means both forms will share the same top end chip and is obviously not ideal.

It looked like at a later point Apple decided for the Mac Pro to wait for the M3 gen which means the Studio gets the pass to be released with M2 Ultra, that is next Monday. In fact one may argue the Mac Studio line up itself has had a role of stop gap filler until the eventual Apple Silicon Mac Pro happens, because Apple couldn't figure out the 4x Max silicon from the get go.

No, it never made sense, period. KaiFiMacFan is 100% right in that it would mean that the Mac Pro isn't good enough. And if it's not good enough, it shouldn't exist.

I haven't seen anything that makes it look like Apple decided to wait for the M3. It actually looks like they may have reconsidered making a new Mac Pro at all. All it takes for them to complete the "2-year transition" to Apple Silicon, is to just change their minds about bothering with a new Mac Pro at all.

Of course, they still might pull it off... but I don't think the M3 is any more of a solution than the M2. Once M3 is the current gen, a new Mac Pro would be right back to having a hard time justifying its existence next to all the the other M3 Macs. Apple needs to do a lot better than that. They need a different chip design that is too powerful to fit in a Mac Studio.

 

[Chancha]

No, it never made sense, period. KaiFiMacFan is 100% right in that it would mean that the Mac Pro isn't good enough. And if it's not good enough, it shouldn't exist.

I haven't seen anything that makes it look like Apple decided to wait for the M3. It actually looks like they may have reconsidered making a new Mac Pro at all. All it takes for them to complete the "2-year transition" to Apple Silicon, is to just change their minds about bothering with a new Mac Pro at all.

Of course, they still might pull it off... but I don't think the M3 is any more of a solution than the M2. Once M3 is the current gen, a new Mac Pro would be right back to having a hard time justifying its existence next to all the the other M3 Macs. Apple needs to do a lot better than that. They need a different chip design that is too powerful to fit in a Mac Studio.

I agree that never made sense in a marketing point of view, but I mean the "rumor" made sense in that the Mac Pro prototype was existing in the form of a 7,1 tower but with only a M2 Ultra, at that point someone looking at this machine can conjecture the Mac Studio coexisting alongside this in an eventual Mac line just don't make sense, so one or the other has to go. I am of course only pulling hairs but it seems the Studio won that battle, which is just common sense really, because as you say a Mac Pro with only M2 Ultra is obviously not good enough.

Again I am not saying what Gurman has said made much sense at all, in fact he frequently contradicts himself, but I am just trying to outline the one special scenario where these rumours could made sense together.

 

[KaiFiMacFan]

Right, at this point I don’t think the fact that we don’t have a Mac Pro is because of M3, it’s because it can’t be made modular and upgradeable with ASi as it is, so what we’re waiting for is Apple to come up with a modular solution for Mac Pro. Maybe that means waiting for M3, but right now the Mac Studio is the pinnacle of ASi.

Another rumor that never made sense was “the Mac Pro will be a Mac Studio in a different chassis”. No way. The Mac Pro will offer the the same expandability advantage that it has always offered or it won’t exist. The Mac Studio and Mac Pro can’t coexist unless the Mac Pro offers a significantly different format, not just an “extreme” chip. That’s why I thought it was always between discontinuing the Mac Studio or keeping it but offering a truly modular Mac Pro.

Not that I actually know anything of what’s coming. But I think I’m right.

 

[HiFiGuy528]

Seriously. Can we finally just all admit that he doesn't actually know anything? Why can't people remember this? He only gets things right when it's commonly known info.

He didn't know about the Mac Studio, and he doesn't know anything about the Mac Pro either. All his rumors are garbage.

IKR! when he say xxx is not coming there is no way to verify. I guess when you throw enough out there, one or two will stick and that makes you right. lol

 

[theluggage]

Another rumor that never made sense was “the Mac Pro will be a Mac Studio in a different chassis”. No way. The Mac Pro will offer the the same expandability advantage that it has always offered or it won’t exist. The Mac Studio and Mac Pro can’t coexist unless the Mac Pro offers a significantly different format, not just an “extreme” chip.

First - I'm just speculating here, but its quite plausible that Apple uses 2019 Mac Pro cases to house test/evaluation platforms for new chips, like the M2 Max & Ultra, maybe even with motherboards with PCIe for storage and networking (rather than including storage and networking on short-lived lashup PCBs). That would explain "sightings" of M2 Ultra "Mac Pros" with PCIe slots.

Second - the issue isn't the expandability of the Studio but the RAM capacity and I/O bandwidth of the Mx Ultra SoC itself (which has widely been discussed). Even an 4x Extreme chip would still only offer a fraction of the 1.5TB max RAM of the 2019 MP and maybe the same 64 lanes of PCIe. Its not even clear that M3 would solve those problems.

 

[name99]

Since the Mac Studio is supposedly only going to get a chip update, I guess there's no hope for a Studio Display update before the M3 computers start shipping in bulk, huh?

Not necessarily.
The usual deal with these things is that along with the headline HW announcements (presumably glasses and either a Mac Studio update or a Mac Pro) there are often other pieces of HW announced simply by press release at the same time.

I see scope for at least one obvious (but not worth keynote publicity) HW update:
- an iMac update to M2.


As far as Studio Display goes, I think one year is too short to assume an update. There hasn't been any sort of obvious reason (big leap forward in display tech, or whatever) to justify this, and this sort of utility HW tends to go two or three years between updates.
The one new feature I could see them adding to Studio Display is WiFi. Do that and it can become an AirPlay client which makes it just that little bit more useful. Specifically, it means that you can now operate it wireless (apart from power) which is just that little bit more convenient, especially if it is acting as a display for a laptop.

 

[Nick_P]

I was really hoping the entire Mac line would move simultaneously to the new M chips every year. 2021 they all get the M1. 2022 they all get the M2. 2023 they all get the M3. Etc. On the same day preferably. I don't like the staggering at all. I don't think doing this would hurt their sales at all. Maybe it would even help sales.

All this cannibalizing talk by the "analysts" of a Studio Ultra eating a Mac Pro is stupid, imo. They must not have read the Steve Jobs biography and what he thought of marketing "strategies" to not cannibalize.

 

[name99]

I was really hoping the entire Mac line would move simultaneously to the new M chips every year. 2021 they all get the M1. 2022 they all get the M2. 2023 they all get the M3. Etc. On the same day preferably. I don't like the staggering at all. I don't think doing this would hurt their sales at all. Maybe it would even help sales.

All this cannibalizing talk by the "analysts" of a Studio Ultra eating a Mac Pro is stupid, imo. They must not have read the Steve Jobs biography and what he thought of marketing "strategies" to not cannibalize.

As I've said before, that day may come but we are not there yet because the base, Pro and Max chips are basically different IP, not just mix-and-match of pre-existing components. The high-end functionality required by Ultra (which then ships on Max, which then will ship on Pro if that is just a cut-down Max) is under active development, but there was clearly a desire not to hold back the base M2 till this was ready. And it may still not be ready. It's still unclear if we will ever see an M2 Ultra, and if we do it may ship with only half of the full multi-chip co-ordination scheme that Apple has in mind.

The long term plan is, apparently, as you suggest. There is a (recent) Apple patent for a design methodology based on this, basically design a single high-end scalable chip (a Max), specify the chop lines you want for Pro and base variants, and run a single set of validation tests against all three as design proceeds. This is NOT what has been done to date; the whole point of the patent is to mechanize this process rather than going through at least two, perhaps three, somewhat separate SoC designs.

But staggering will probably remain because of other issues. Different items require different tooling and the design of a manufacturing procedure, and there are only so many experts in the company doing that. They will work on one device then move to the next then the next. Likewise volumes that have to be manufactured. Apple has a massive boost (in financials, yes, but also in having to deal with number of workers and so on) every iPhone quarter. Obviously they want to balance that (again, financially, but also in terms of workers and volumes of goods moved) across the whole year, so everything else gets staggered to balance as best it can.

 

[Algr]

What if the Mac Pro is a box containing 4-10 Studio motherboards networked together via PCIe?

 

[wideEyedPupil]

Give it a day and he'll post another rumour predicting that there won't be a Mac Studio announced at WWDC. Or has he already done that, hedging his bets.

And MaxTech on YouTube will selectively repeat these rumours in umpteen videos, one or the other, for the next year or so.

 

[wideEyedPupil]

If it's "just" a speed boost by moving from M1 to M2, I wonder why it took Apple so long. Not that I complain about the upgrade, I just don't understand why switching CPU takes Apple so long. Is it a production chain limitation ?

the M² Ultra SoC required extra work pairing two M² Max SoCs.

 

[Serqetry]

What if the Mac Pro is a box containing 4-10 Studio motherboards networked together via PCIe?

Maybe you are just joking, but that would be a waste of 4-10 Studio motherboards. There's a reason why we can't even get more than one CPU in a computer anymore. Things are so fast now that connecting them in any way besides inside the SOC itself creates such a bottleneck that there is no point. I wish it wasn't that way, I miss the days where you could just stack CPUs to get a faster computer.

 

[dwmc]

I love my Mac Studio M1 Ultra with 128G RAM. It's become my primary software development machine, which I didn't expect (and was not the reason I bought it). For my workloads (C++ development), it's faster than my Threadripper 3960X with 256G of RAM and the fastest PCI Gen4 NVMe I could buy. Same compiler (clang++), same build system (make -j...). A few weeks after I bought the Studio, and after a lot of measuring and shaking my head, I wound up moving my time-is-money work to the Mac Studio.

It's a somewhat jaw dropping experience for someone accustomed to having a hulking water-cooled workstation under their desk. Might be the biggest 'wow' I've had buying a computer since the 1990's.

I want competition in the space I occupy (developer workstation), and I like Intel and AMD. Apple planted a flag on the moon with the M1 Ultra. No one else has followed yet, and they clearly weren't ready for it. I wasn't either. What I'm hoping is that others follow, maybe with RISC-V (let's see some competition from a license-unencumbered base ISA!).

TLDR: will be very happy to see Apple keep this spot in the lineup alive and updated. The Studio M1 Ultra has been a fantastic primary software development machine for me. And it cost less than my Threadripper 3960X machine.

 

[LillDrutten]

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has confirmed that Apple is nearing the introduction of what appears to be a refreshed Mac Studio model, indicating that it could be announced at WWDC next week.

On Twitter, Gurman explained that the new Mac in question is codenamed "J475." The current Mac Studio is codenamed "J375," suggesting that the new machine is indeed a next-generation Mac Studio model.

Earlier this week, Gurman reported that Apple is testing two desktop Macs equipped with the M2 Max and ‌M2‌ Ultra chips. The M2 Max was released in January upon the launch of the latest 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, but the M2 Ultra chip is new and would succeed the M1 Ultra chip that Apple uses in the Mac Studio.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1664389724801302529

According to Gurman, the M2 Max Mac in testing features eight high-performance cores, four efficiency cores, a 30-core GPU, and 96GB RAM. This is the same as the chip in the M2 Max version of the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

The M2 Ultra Mac apparently has 16 high-performance cores and 8 efficiency cores, and a 60-core GPU, though prior information suggests that the M2 Ultra could feature up to 76 GPU cores. Different configurations feature 64GB, 128GB, and 192GB of memory.

Apple is believed to be testing these new Macs just days ahead of the WWDC keynote, and Gurman says that he expects multiple Macs to be introduced at the event, including an all-new 15-inch MacBook Air model. Gurman has stopped short of saying the new Mac Studio will be introduced at WWDC, but it seems highly likely at this point.

Article Link: New Mac Studio Likely to Be Introduced at WWDC

Seems very strange to have the same CPU as the top Mac Mini. (M2 Pro Max) without any other real improvements.

 

[chucker23n1]

I was really hoping the entire Mac line would move simultaneously to the new M chips every year. 2021 they all get the M1. 2022 they all get the M2. 2023 they all get the M3. Etc. On the same day preferably. I don't like the staggering at all. I don't think doing this would hurt their sales at all. Maybe it would even help sales.

This would create a lot of coordination hassle with little benefit.

 

[_Spinn_]

This makes far more sense. Especially since I doubt we will see the new Mac Pro.

 

[Pressure]

What if the Mac Pro is a box containing 4-10 Studio motherboards networked together via PCIe?

Apple don't use PCIe internally. Besides there are much faster interconnects available.

 

[The point and shoot pro]

Are you sure a PC can heat up a room when it’s cold? I guess you can hug the PC case when it’s really cold and not turn on the heater.

I always love these comments. It's total BS. I have had as many as six PC towers in my office running at the same time 2 or 3 at full honk and the room never went up a degree. I think the people who claim this are doing it wrong and pouring gas on the pcs and lighting them on fire or something.

 

[The point and shoot pro]

A PC consuming X Watts of power will release heat into the room at a rate of X Watts - all that energy has to go somewhere. That RTX 4090 GPU that some people are salivating about draws 450W. A Threadripper/Xeon class CPU can draw a couple of hundred watts. So a powerful PC can easily end up releasing heat at a rate of ~1000W and the effect of that on your room will be just the same as running a 1kW electric heater. I.e. probably not enough to single-handedly heat a large room on a cold night but certainly enough to help.

Now, if you have really efficient thermostatically controlled heating with sensors in every room and no unheatable cold spots that keep it running indefinitely, the "help" from your computer should mean it doesn't have to run for so long at a time and reduce the amount of fuel it uses.

As for "saving" anything - that's complicated. You could see that as a saving if you regard the electricity bill for running your computer as a "sunk cost" - however, your heating may be running off a cheaper fuel (don't know about elsewhere, but in the UK gas is still significantly cheaper per kWh than electricity - let alone solar/heat pump etc.) so you'd still save money by using a lower powered computer.

I checked last year and my Mac Studio was using 15W at idle... which (at the current sky-high UK fuel prices) added up to £40/year (or would, if I left it running 24/7). Even a relatively modest "regular" PC could use 5-10x that much, so we're not talking negligible sums of money here.

See my response. it's BS.

 

[Algr]

Apple don't use PCIe internally. Besides there are much faster interconnects available.

Optical built into the chip, with connectors running through the heat sink?