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What's Next for the Mac Studio

Ethosik said:
This is my frustration with Apple. They severely over-engineer a basic desktop computer. We don't need that. Just have a basic box like a Dell / basic PC and be done with it. The R&D will be a drop in the bucket to their other budgets and the pro market will like it.
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I respectfully disagree. My apple desktops so far have been all beautifully designed thermally* delivering quiet predictable performance, whereas my dell notebook was the loudest piece of equipment in my home, and my dell tower was also well audible while also ginormous. I do appreciate the effort apple put in their thermal designs* and would continue paying a premium for that.

* sans the m4 mini which throttles notably in the pro variant.
 
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Same design, latest M# + Max/Ultra, faster SSD. Maybe a new display but it’s a different product.
Most useless article I’ve seen in a while.
 
nexusrule said:
So they should drop what distinguishes them and renounce to their competitive advantage to make a product that’s like the competition and therefore already exists? What sense does it make? As far as pro machines Apple always catered mostly to freelancers with the basic/mid tier pricing and to big movie/music studios with the high tier, they never cared a lot about the middle ground, and considered how they are positioned in the market is the most sensible approach. Today’s most freelancers don’t need more than a Mac Studio and big studios probably mostly use the cloud for high processing needs, so the Mac Pro has almost no place in Apple line up given today’s market. It is what it is.
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The other option is to severely over engineer causing a $3,000 premium for the same performance? Causing it to be even more of a niche product that they can just drop because of sales. A basic box is better than how they are treating it right now.
 
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darkblu said:
I respectfully disagree. My apple desktops so far have been all beautifully designed thermally* delivering quiet predictable performance, whereas my dell notebook was the loudest piece of equipment in my home, and my dell tower was also well audible while also ginormous. I do appreciate the effort apple put in their thermal designs* and would continue paying a premium for that.

* sans the m4 mini which throttles notably in the pro variant.
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My basic box with a 5090 and other hotter components stay just as cool.
 
Eric_WVGG said:
It’s gonna be like fifteen years before there’s a design refresh on this thing.

literally designed themselves into a box
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Well, yes, because it is a box. It's a system-on-a-chip in a box with a power supply and ports. The next version will be a box containing a better SoC. That's all that's needed. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Especially if the "fixing" is done by the same geniuses who came up with the Mac Mini power button & reduced the number of ports on the M4 Pro Mini.

It's not like a laptop or tablet where there is room for new ideas about ergonomics, displays, battery technology etc. and it's not something you take to Starbucks as a status symbol.
 
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Have an M4 Max Studio but wish they would make it in a darker color like my Think Station. That said I have no need to upgrade as it is more than overkill for some 2D CAD work.
IMG_1022.jpeg
 
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hieranonymous said:
Apple’s propensity to keep selling horrendously outdated Mac Pro models at hideous markups is wildly unethical. Admittedly, power users should know what they’re getting into, but there’s still a latent endorsement from Apple if it maintains stock of those models. And I don’t buy the excuse that Apple, as a four-trillion-dollar company, lacks the resources to keep developing the Mac Pro as a niche product. Heck, the Vision Pro is an even more niche product, and considerably more complex to develop and manufacture, and Apple keeps updating it.
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AVP is future focused and aiming to grow that segment of the market whereas MP is dated and become less relevant for even the pro-est of pros. Thunderbolt is quickly replacing the need for cards and interfaces that the MP once provided.

Apple does have the money, but the question is the return. They tested the waters with M2 MP’s, and I’m sure the data gathered taught them a lot about the market for MP
 
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ClaraStahlbaum said:
The Mac Pro of the 2019 era was basically empty space in terms of the chassis.

If they do a Mac Pro it might have a different design, like this concept art.
View attachment 2604342
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It was empty space... with PCI Express slots.

The pricing didn't make sense unfortunately and maybe the number of folks who need PCIe expansion is too small for Apple to care about. But people seem to keep forgetting that there are legitimate use cases for a Mac with multiple PCIe expansion slots. Unfortunately they no longer support GPU's at all but there's still storage expansion, high speed networking (in excess of the 10GbE available on the device), specialty cards for various workflows, etc.

The "empty space" argument falls flat because the "empty space" was exactly the 'thing' people bought Mac Pro's for. That's space where you can... add stuff. Thunderbolt is great, but it's still not quite the same.
 
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Pezimak said:
Not going to happen, Apple silicon has killed that off. Do not be surprised if they retire the Mac Pro range. You can't update CPU or GPU or RAM, and barely any PCI cards work with it either.
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Wrong, Nvidia already have workstation series with proprietary upgradable and expandable. They already have SoC like chips to replace CPU+GPU+Memory while maintaining RAM and PCIe upgrades. This is a huge misinformation that Apple Silicon Mac cant upgrade and expand but totally wrong. What if you can just change SoC chips? Add RAM and PCIe slots? Don't forget that Apple Silicon's memory don't support ECC.
 
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Ethosik said:
My basic box with a 5090 and other hotter components stay just as cool.
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At 10x the spatial volume. Giving an example of your "basic" box with a gpu the volume of a mac studio is a bit like stating a mainframe can be just as cool as a pc. Surely it can. Thermal design has always been about power density. You've assembled the box you deem necessary, and that's great. You've taken into account your space and power budgets. What I don't get is why you think apple should not make what they make, given there's clearly a market for that, and people in that market have taken into account their space and power budgets, just as you have.
 
th0masp said:
Do I spot a power button on the front? Sacrilege! Sensible USB ports too - but why would anybody want those when you can purchase beautiful adaptors. 🤪
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Thing was relatively cheap as well, i7-14700 (desktop processor), Nvidia RTX4060 8 gb ram (desktop modified card), 32 GB DDR5-5600, 512 SSD, WiFi 6, W11 Pro. $899.00. Plus there are additional slots for more storage and additional RAM. Seemed like a steal!
 
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EdwardC said:
Thing was relatively cheap as well, i7-14700 (desktop processor), Nvidia RTX4060 8 gb ram (desktop modified card), 32 GB DDR5-5600, 512 SSD, WiFi 6, W11 Pro. $899.00. Plus there are additional slots for more storage and additional RAM. Seemed like a steal!
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Wow - with discrete graphics that's a hell of a deal. Very nice!
 
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Matt2012 said:
But with Video AI stuff (locally), the current best Studio money-no-object you can buy is miles slower than an Nvidia/Cuda based machine. Heavy GPU work is the Studio's downfall and I hope Apple can fix this going forward. Even the now 3 and half year old, last gen 4090 consumer card is so much faster in this kind of work and AI video/video upscaling is gaining big momentum now.
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Speed is not the ONLY consideration.

Apple silicon's unified memory means you can run larger models that nVidia can only dream about, because ALL RAM is considered GPU RAM. For instance, the nVidia "powerhouse" RTX 5090 has 32GB of VRAM. The base Mac Studio Ultra (which costs about as much as the RTX 5090) has 96GB of unified memory. In practical cases, you can run 80GB models, while the 5090 will always be limited to 32GB. If you try to run a 33GB model on the nVidia, it will slow to a crawl, and be much slower than on the Mac Studio because it has to run on system RAM, instead of VRAM.
 
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Matt2012 said:
But with Video AI stuff (locally), the current best Studio money-no-object you can buy is miles slower than an Nvidia/Cuda based machine. Heavy GPU work is the Studio's downfall and I hope Apple can fix this going forward. Even the now 3 and half year old, last gen 4090 consumer card is so much faster in this kind of work and AI video/video upscaling is gaining big momentum now.
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Upscaling is a different type of AI work, not generative/LLM which is what is hot right now
 
Ursadorable said:
Speed is not the ONLY consideration.

Apple silicon's unified memory means you can run larger models that nVidia can only dream about, because ALL RAM is considered GPU RAM. For instance, the nVidia "powerhouse" RTX 5090 has 32GB of VRAM. The base Mac Studio Ultra (which costs about as much as the RTX 5090) has 96GB of unified memory. In practical cases, you can run 80GB models, while the 5090 will always be limited to 32GB. If you try to run a 33GB model on the nVidia, it will slow to a crawl, and be much slower than on the Mac Studio because it has to run on system RAM, instead of VRAM.
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Yeah I know Mac is great in 'normal' AI stuff but I'm solely talking about *video only* work with AI and speed is definitely a high priority for us due to volume. Most models just run way better and far faster because of Cuda/Nvidia. We had had a top end Studio M4 Max/M3 Ultra and tried them both out with Comfy UI/ Wan 2.1/2.2 etc and sadly, the Macs were left in the dust. Same story with Topaz Video AI where we upscale 1000's of older videos etc.
5090 does indeed have 32GB but for extra $$$, there's the option of RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell with 96GB Ram so the 5090 is certainly not the top end card if you have deep pockets.
 
1d1otic said:
Wrong, Nvidia already have workstation series with proprietary upgradable and expandable. They already have SoC like chips to replace CPU+GPU+Memory while maintaining RAM and PCIe upgrades. This is a huge misinformation that Apple Silicon Mac cant upgrade and expand but totally wrong. What if you can just change SoC chips? Add RAM and PCIe slots? Don't forget that Apple Silicon's memory don't support ECC.
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That is Nvidia NOT Apple, we are discussing Apple, also they are not using Apples SOC's either. I do not see the link at all here? At current it is a face you CANNOT upgrade the memory in the Mac Pro with Apple Silicon, that is not wrong at all and neither was my first comment.
 
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i Really really want to update my Mac Studio (M1 Max/64GB/2 TB), but I just can't "justify" spending CAD4K+ on a new Mac that I am not sure will significantly speed up my experience and workflow.

I do the normal office related stuff on my Studio, and as for more demanding workflows I am a photographer, have a ton of editing apps, and import hundreds of 100MB RAW files into Lightroom on a regular basis. Editing is usually in the Adobe Creative Suite and PhotoMatix Pro. I do a bit of video editing, again, using Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut Pro, Compressor, and Motion, but not much. Nothing too demading...

WOuld I even benefit from a new Mac Studio - M5 Max, 64/128GB, 2TB?
 
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