I remember thinking the same thing around 2000, during the Shuttle XPC craze, yet here we are.
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MP All Models The Mac Pro is Dead, This is the End?
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I remember thinking the same thing around 2000, during the Shuttle XPC craze, yet here we are.
I do understand that, but technology changes and the future of technology means less repairability. A good example would be a television set. It was this huge thing where you could open the back, replace tubes, adjust settings, etc.. Then most of the tubes went away, but you could still make a few internal adjustments, and it was fairly repairable. Now a TV looks like a painting you hang on a wall and for the most part is not repairable. Sure I have some nostalgia for old school televisions, but I would not want to go back to that. The screens were small and the resolution was terrible.
I’m not talking about the occasional dusting because that’s absolutely necessary. I’m talking about people that think they need to detail their computer like it’s a car on a weekly basis. Nothing wrong with that if it’s entertaining. Everyone has their hobbies
When you say how an airline prices seats I’m guessing you mean how first class is ridiculously more expensive than coach and kind of funds the cheaper seats? I never thought about it that way.
Simply no. I fully disagree with the OP. Sorry but I do not have time to refute each point. However I will specifically disagree with the comment: "...lame value proposition the ultra version of the chip is when it's introduced this late."
Apple announces M3 Ultra—and says not every generation will see an “Ultra” chip
It could explain why we’re getting an M3 Ultra this deep into the M4 rollout.arstechnica.com
M4 Max vs M3 Ultra : l'étrange choix d'Apple avec le Mac Studio
Annoncé le 5 mars 2025, le nouveau Mac Studio passe des puces M2 Max et M2 Ultra aux puces M4 Max et… M3 Ultra. Un choix incompréhensible pour le grand public, qui devra choisir entre une puce de quatrième génération surpuissante et une puce de troisième génération encore plus puissante. Le...www.numerama.com
No M4 Ultra Chip? Apple Confirms the M4 Max Chip Lacks UltraFusion
A spokesperson for Apple has told French technology website Numerama that its M4 Max chip lacks an UltraFusion connector, which would have paved the...www.macrumors.com
These articles talks about maybe there will be an M5Ultra if the M5 has an ultra fusion. The M5 will still be 3nm if the rumors are to be believed. The big step up would be the M6 at 2nm. It's not clear if going to 2nm would somehow help bring back the ultra fusion, or as the article speculates, there would need to be an all in one M5 ultra rather than via the fusion connector.
The article points out and apple confirms that making the ultra version of the chip just takes more time. Which explains their ass backwards introduction o the ultra chip last, rather than first. Which makes you never want to get an ultra machine because as soon as you get it, a couple of months later the next Max version of the chip eclipses the current ultra. If they started with Ultra and went down to the other versions of the chip it would make more sense.
The price difference between the M4max (which has better single core performance) to the M3max really highlights how much of a lame value proposition the ultra version of the chip is when it's introduced this late.
But apple has shown, it just doesnt care.
Which gets to my belabored point. I think the Mac Pro is dead. They didnt even bother slapping the M3ultra in the current body of the Mac Pro. I see no reason to believe why they would make an M5 or M6 ultra when they couldnt even be bothered to update the current lame duck M2ultra Mac Pro, which they oddly are still selling. Out, not with a bang, but with a withering whimper.
Apple could not be more mismanaged, lazy, thoughtful, and unproductive, and the complete lack of statement towards Mac Pro users is more evidence of that assertion. I hope Im wrong on that.
And for those of us that need "real" storage, the joke 16TB for $4800 is spitting in our eye, when we can get probably 2 30TB U.2 drives for that price now, and for those of us that need the extra SSD speed and capacity, the lunchbox glorified MacMini is not enough. Sadly, this feels like the nail in the coffin of the Mac Pro.
So truly sad.
The M3 Ultra with TB5 and up to 500 GB RAM available is a great value proposition for certain workflows.
I'm going to make a wild guess and say because Apple bought a lot of the yield from TSMC's N3B process they probably have some left over to keep churning out more M3s. They'd obviously want N3E/P capacity for more high volume products.
OK, but I'm not sure the analogy entirely holds. I'm happy to take that approach with my phone or iPad. Even my laptop. These need to be as thin and energy efficient as possible, and there's no ecosystem of upgrades for them anyway. But for a desktop computer, the only entity this benefits is the manufacturer. It's no accident that 95% of Mac sales are laptops - they make a much better case for themselves than the desktops.
Well sure. Though I'm not sure Mac users are especially dispassionate about their computers either; they're likely too busy buying matching accessories.
Kind of. It's more that society has tiers of wealth, and you want to extract the most money from the market with a given offering. So if you have a plane, a small proportion has hugely expensive seats (M3Ultras with 16TB SSDs), a larger proportion has mid-priced seats (MacBook Pros), then the vast majority of the plane is cheap seats (256GB MacBook Airs). Economy passengers can't afford first class regardless of how nice it is; there are also relatively few people with more money than sense.
The goal is to stop the mid-priced buyers from 'getting away' with buying the cheaper, less profitable options e.g. not allowing someone to have a big GPU without also buying the biggest CPU, regardless of whether they need it.
I know I was not the original poster being quoted, but I posited the same theory, so my answer is "yes".
The main advantage the N+1 Max will have on the N-1 Ultra is in single-core speeds and anyone buying an Ultra for primarily single-core workflows...
And to be honest, if your workload is a balance of single-core and multi-core/multi-GPU, if you can afford an N-1 Ultra for the "heavy stuff", you can also afford an N+1 Mac mini or MacBook Air for the single-core stuff and have the best of both worlds.
There are few reasons, yes, but not zero.
Audio capture cards. 100Gbps or higher network cards. High-capacity on-card RAID.
Too many people focus solely on dedicated GPU cards as the only thing one would ever put inside a computer case.
This is often the justification for Apple pro desktops. Work backwards from what they deign to release, and say 'well it's ideal for this very specific niche of people'. I mean, sure, but it would be nice if they had more general appeal. It's hard to do that within the constraints of the SoC approach, though.
So basically, Apple treats their highest-end computer on the basis of getting round to it when they have some spare fab capacity on an older process, and need to fill it with something? That's OK from a business POV, but shows where the Studio fits in their priorities.
Again, though, they have few options based on their SoC approach. They could e.g. make a model with Nvidia PCIe GPUs, but it would involve costs and compromises that wouldn't make sense for them. Better to just cede that part of the market to PCs. Apple are primarily a smartphone company anyway; the Mac brings in similar revenue to AirPods.
The Mac Pro IMO died with apple silicon and the lack of GPU support, soldered ram, soldered CPU, etc. I doubt they're paying much attention to it because all the 2019 Mac Pro users are probably migrating to PC's at this point or Mac Studios. Many use cases for the 2019 Mac Pro. Very few Use cases for the M2 Ultra Mac Pro. Its a glorified Mac Studio with PCI.Apple announces M3 Ultra—and says not every generation will see an “Ultra” chip
It could explain why we’re getting an M3 Ultra this deep into the M4 rollout.M4 Max vs M3 Ultra : l'étrange choix d'Apple avec le Mac Studio
Annoncé le 5 mars 2025, le nouveau Mac Studio passe des puces M2 Max et M2 Ultra aux puces M4 Max et… M3 Ultra. Un choix incompréhensible pour le grand public, qui devra choisir entre une puce de quatrième génération surpuissante et une puce de troisième génération encore plus puissante. Le...No M4 Ultra Chip? Apple Confirms the M4 Max Chip Lacks UltraFusion
A spokesperson for Apple has told French technology website Numerama that its M4 Max chip lacks an UltraFusion connector, which would have paved the...
These articles talks about maybe there will be an M5Ultra if the M5 has an ultra fusion. The M5 will still be 3nm if the rumors are to be believed. The big step up would be the M6 at 2nm. It's not clear if going to 2nm would somehow help bring back the ultra fusion, or as the article speculates, there would need to be an all in one M5 ultra rather than via the fusion connector.
The article points out and apple confirms that making the ultra version of the chip just takes more time. Which explains their ass backwards introduction o the ultra chip last, rather than first. Which makes you never want to get an ultra machine because as soon as you get it, a couple of months later the next Max version of the chip eclipses the current ultra. If they started with Ultra and went down to the other versions of the chip it would make more sense.
The price difference between the M4max (which has better single core performance) to the M3max really highlights how much of a lame value proposition the ultra version of the chip is when it's introduced this late.
But apple has shown, it just doesnt care.
Which gets to my belabored point. I think the Mac Pro is dead. They didnt even bother slapping the M3ultra in the current body of the Mac Pro. I see no reason to believe why they would make an M5 or M6 ultra when they couldnt even be bothered to update the current lame duck M2ultra Mac Pro, which they oddly are still selling. Out, not with a bang, but with a withering whimper.
Apple could not be more mismanaged, lazy, thoughtful, and unproductive, and the complete lack of statement towards Mac Pro users is more evidence of that assertion. I hope Im wrong on that.
And for those of us that need "real" storage, the joke 16TB for $4800 is spitting in our eye, when we can get probably 2 30TB U.2 drives for that price now, and for those of us that need the extra SSD speed and capacity, the lunchbox glorified MacMini is not enough. Sadly, this feels like the nail in the coffin of the Mac Pro.
So truly sad.
Energy efficiency is still important for desktop computers. Think about how many Mac computers are out there around the world. Apple is big on environmental savings so if your computer is using 50 watts instead 500 watts that’s a huge difference when you’re talking in mass numbers.
You have a point. People do like having a nice looking set up whether it’s a Windows user repaying his CPU weekly or a Mac user with a matching keyboard. I don’t think either one is wrong, but neither is practical so not related to the actual efficiency of the device.
I could make some comment about how this resembles something else in society, but I don’t think it’s permitted in this forum 😂
Smaller form factor is quite silly when it means stacking another big box on the desk to fit all the extra storage and addon cards that previously went inside the computer. And even worse having messy cables all over the place.
My desk is much neater with just two tower Mac Pros. Even better given they can both run Windows natively so I don’t need to have a dedicated windows computer. One of them has a separate drive with W11Pro for Workstations installed on it. There isn’t the room for another separate PC.
These computers are used for work, not a “tinkerer” or “cashed up hobbyist”. Before anyone says that.
I don’t think they make any add-on cards for the Mac studio. The only external device would be a storage. That’s one extra cable and one box. There shouldn’t be messy cables all over the place. If you configure it right, it’s small enough to hide the entire thing unlike the Mac Pro. You could have a set up we’re just all you see is the monitor and the monitor cables. Especially if you’re using Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it would look really neat. I’ve seen lots of setups that looked pretty good with the Mac Studio.
Unless they’re the latest 2019 Mac Pro models you could replace both of them with Mac minis. Two Mac minis would be easily hidden, and you would have an absolute clean looking desk.
And year after year, people forget what an amazing accomplishment this is. Just a comparison of single threaded performance between Intel/AMD’s high end of a generation and low end of a generation shows how Apple’s bringing a massive amount of performance to the table that Intel/AMD would never bring.
Nah, this was the plan from the beginning, they’ve just been able to close up the leaks from the supply chain.
I don’t think people are considering that a Mac Pro because it’s very similar to the Mac Studio internally. It doesn’t have any of the upgrade slots or a modularity that the Intel Mac Pro had. Does it even have user upgradable storage?
That’s true it definitely smokes the competition when it comes to portable computing but if you’re just throwing a bunch of power at a CPU you can get more
PCIE cards/extensions can be used for adding up to 32 TB storage. I may eventually replace my Linux work station with Mac Studio Uktra but an updated Mac Pro gives option of additional storage that can be added.
So by adding these cards, you can install a regular SSD or hard drive? I guess this makes sense if you really must have internal storage and it in theory would be faster than external storage in the Mac Studio.
It doesn’t have cards to offload graphics, processing, or other tasks. That would be really cool.
Yes. Internal storage is expandable in the AS Mac Pro. The also do have slotted AS storage but unlike on the Studio or the recent Mini, Apple themselves even sells aftermarket upgrades for it (though unsurprisingly not at any better pricing that getting it at device sale since they are still the only official channel for that kind of storage).
That was more true for the M1 and M2 Max/Ultra. The M3 Ultra/M4 Max however should be very competitive with top end consumer/lower end workstation Intel/AMD CPUs in single thread and multithreaded performance - obviously not with a 192-core EPYC monstrosity but that's a different class of product where the CPU alone costs as much if not more than even a fully loaded Studio. We don't have numbers yet for the M3 Ultra but the M4 Max does quite well, often with better ST performance than Intel and AMD's latest and greatest desktop CPUs (285K/9950X) and MT performance ranging from 30% behind (e.g. Blender v3.3 Classroom CPU) to 10% behind (CB R24) to 20% ahead (GB 6.4) - numbers in comparison to the 9950X (the 285K does better in the former two, worse in the latter). The M3 Ultra is expected to be 20-50% more powerful than the M4 Max, again depending on the benchmark.
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As for the OP's lament, I would be hesitant to write off the Mac Pro just yet. Depending on the device identifiers we are expecting Mac 17's before the next OS launch. If these M3 Ultra Studios aren't them (M3s are Mac 15s, M4s are Mac 16s), then there are likely to still be Mac Pros launching with M5s before the next OS release. If that is so, and it may not be (we'll have better info in a few weeks when the devices are out and Apple updates the identification lists), then it wouldn't make sense to release Mac Pros with M3 Ultras only to replace them in a few months. Obviously the Mac 17s could also refer to non-Mac Pro M5s released before the next OS. But then it isn't clear why they would be separated like that.
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The Mac Pro is the most irregularly updated product they have (maybe the Vision Pro can top it). It's not dead. The M5 Extreme is coming.
Unless? They are in my signature.
I have a Sonnet PCI-E card with a whole stack of NVME storage on it. It is very, very fast. That's how I run Windows 11, it is installed on one of those NVME blades, the others are used for storage. It seems like you've not seen or used these. The Sonnet card takes up to 4 NVME on it and is very reliable.
I believe talk of M5 Extremes, M6 Insane, M7 Ludicrous and M8 Out of This World when these paper-processors become reality and are in the online store to order.
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Nvme drives, apparently there is 64 TB support not. Here is one of those PCIE extension cards.
OWC Accelsior 8M2
Created to be the fastest drive you can use in any workflow. Eight on-board NVMe SSDs offer speeds up to 26,926MB/s and industry-leading storage capacity.
www.owc.com
Think about how many Mac computers could extend their service lives, if you could e.g. upgrade the RAM or storage in a MacBook Air. The energy used in manufacture dwarfs the power consumption.
Apple Silicon power efficiency is certainly impressive, and all things being equal is highly desirable. Bear in mind though that computers generally aren't pegged at 100% 24/7. A PC browsing the MacRumors forum isn't using that much power either.
No PC user repastes his CPU weekly. I doubt many would do so more than once every couple of years (I wouldn't bother unless upgrading the CPU). In general I think the whole repasting thing is a bit of a fetish; I repasted the CPU / GPU of my MBP 2015 before selling it last year and it didn't make a blind bit of difference, despite being almost a decade old. The fans were still just as noisy.
That one's gone over my head. Give me a clue?
Pouring many millions into a niche product like the Mac Pro and its chip each year or so isn't necessarily great management.