If I already had an m4 studio I wouldn’t be thinking about m5, but since it may be close, and I don’t actually NEED it, I’m probably going to wait it out.
Should probably unsubscribe from the m4 studio refurb store alerts…
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What's Next for the Mac Studio
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If I already had an m4 studio I wouldn’t be thinking about m5, but since it may be close, and I don’t actually NEED it, I’m probably going to wait it out.
Should probably unsubscribe from the m4 studio refurb store alerts…
dmr727
macrumors G4
It definitely gets hot up near the top of the keyboard, but fortunately nowhere that makes it uncomfortable to use, even on my lap. I don't worry about hurting the machine, although I'm sure I'm not doing my battery any favors. 😉 I love my M4 Air (I travel a lot), but the new version of Crossover opens up support to the later titles in my Steam library, and that'll probably start making me think about something with active cooling.
x86dude
macrumors regular
Steam Cube.
“Like a Mac Studio for gaming”.
“Seeing fabulous performance like an Apple Mac”.
Of course Apple should not make a games machine, but a general purpose Mac Cube that can be upgraded would have generated excitement. Allow an Nvidia graphics card or make an Apple one. Apple today is run by comfortable old men.
In a hurry ? Start 3 or 4 minutes in.
“Like a Mac Studio for gaming”.
“Seeing fabulous performance like an Apple Mac”.
Of course Apple should not make a games machine, but a general purpose Mac Cube that can be upgraded would have generated excitement. Allow an Nvidia graphics card or make an Apple one. Apple today is run by comfortable old men.
In a hurry ? Start 3 or 4 minutes in.
I'm very satisfied with my M4 Max Studio I got last summer. Took advantage of the ridiculous CHF to JPY exchange rate and got a refurb when I was in Japan. It ended up being only a bit more expensive than my M4 Pro mini, which my Studio replaced. I'm sure the new Studios will be awesome, but I don't think I will need to upgrade for a long time.
Vincent Hanna
macrumors regular
1. Unethical? I know this will be a shock to you, but Apple isn’t forcing anyone to buy Mac Pros.
2. The idea that Apple has some moral obligation to offer the Mac Pro as a charity is absurd.
3. The Vision Pro represents the future. The Mac Pro represents the past.
Vincent Hanna
macrumors regular
Among whom? A tiny and shrinking demographic that is irrelevant to Apple’s business model?
Never going to happen in a million years.
Best quarter ever.
The Mini and Studio are general purpose Mac cubes. The sticky part is "upgrading" and, yes, at a minimum Apple should support upgrading the storage (which is removable and technically upgradeable) and/or add extra M.2 slots to the Ultra version (which has the spare PCIe lanes to drive it).
RAM is tricky, because there are speed and power advantages to having LPDDR RAM soldered in with the shortest traces possible (...the plug in LPCAMM system for LPDDR RAM seems to have sunk without trace). The real problem there has been Apple's mean base RAM specs & absurd BTO upgrade prices which deter people from just getting plenty of RAM on day one - but with RAM prices now going crazy, Apple's prices are looking less outrageous by the minute. We'll have to see whether Apple does the decent thing and gives up a bit of margin to absorb the price rises.
A Mac with a discrete GPU featuring NVIDIA or AMD's latest desktop chipset is going to be... about as good at running AMD/NVIDIA-optimised software as 101 other PCs with the same chipset, and probably deeply mediocre at running Apple Silicon-optimised code. Apple need to encourage developers to optimise for Apple Silicon iGPUs so the resulting software performs well on the MacBooks which are the core of the Mac market.
Apple Silicon gives MacBooks, iPad Pros and Minis something special that differentiates them from the PC world - and also gives the Mac Studio a Unique Selling Point for applications where having 128GB+ of RAM directly shared by the CPU, GPU and NPU beats more RAM bottle-necked by the CPU. Building a "me too" desktop/workstation to go up against a wall of established competition in a declining market niche would be pointless.
I suspect that the existing Mac Pro is just there as a solution for people with existing, PCIe-based workflows - I suspect that, for a lot of users who just need the PCIe for specialist audio/video cards, even the M2 Ultra (needed to provide the PCIe bandwidth) is overkill on CPU/GPU.
Fun fact: nvidia offer similar GPU/CPU UMA perfomance benefits in their Tegra/DGX Spark lineup. Nobody insists on adding discrete cards to those boards, outside of lab experiments.
What people don't realize is that the GPU<->memory-controller-fabric<->CPU APU model Apple adopted with AS is a paradigm shift, one that allows software techniques not viable on the traditional CPU-with-local-mem<->bus<->GPU-with-local-mem architectures, and one Apple are not going to drop as their main graphics/compute focus anytime soon.
While it's generally true, I've found it depends. I've had some cases where my M4 Max MBP was faster than my 4090 and M3 Ultra with the input/output. It's certainly an area where I could use a lot more horsepower, regardless, especially if there is any hope to use Starlight models in production. No time to wait 3 weeks for a render.
Vincent Hanna
macrumors regular
No, regular consumers and actual professionals get the perfect amount of RAM on day one. The only “people” being deterred from RAM upgrades are the tiny number of hobbyists/enthusiasts/gamers/forum dwellers that are irrelevant to Apple’s business model.
This is exactly correct.
So is this.
The very small number of professionals who actually buy Mac Pros are happy with the product. It’s not meant for hobbyists/enthusiasts/gamers/forum dwellers.
Apple's own GPU is the most powerful in the world per watt and the only way it gets that level of performance is with unified memory and having the GPU in the same package.
Nvidia's closest competitor with unified memory is in the DGX Spark and it is bad compared to Apple Silicon in the same price level.
Basically Nvidia's most powerful GPUs are only that powerful because they require a massive amount of electricity.
The M5's AI/ML performance is very impressive but you will only see the true power of it in Max and Ultra configurations. In the basic configuration nobody is interested in using it for AI tasks. They want the full fat version.
I’m not intersested in AI tasks at all.
Just looking for some extra gaming horsepower. I’m thinking m5 max with maybe whatever the second tier gpu core count is
Price vs Performance, vs efficiency. Also, how well optimized are those applications for both platforms? Not that it matters too much when you need the right tool for the job. However, something like Blender for instance was not well optimized in the early days for M chips. It's clearly gotten better over time. So there is always that to look forward to.
When looking at cost, that Blackwell is in the $9k and up range.
While a maxed out (RAM) M3 is just a touch more expensive running with 512GB of RAM. I would recon that the M5 Max/Ultra (once released) wouldn't match on the benchmark numbers of a 6000. Let's say it's only half the 6000 in some tests. It would run at 1/4 to 1/5 the power required, cost 40-50% less, and have access to 3-4x (Maybe more) the RAM for those workloads. Some things the 6000 wouldn't be able to work on as effectively. And that's for now. Till Nvidia stops making cards for us normal people. Or charges so much most can't buy it anyway.
These in my opinion are brute force products from Nvidia. Apple is way more efficient, and practical. Since you get a whole computer out of the deal vs just a GPU that still needs a well equipped PC.
Vincent Hanna
macrumors regular
switz
Contributor
My M4 Max 16" Mac Book Pro (128GB of ram and 8TB SSD) is on a par with my M1 Ultra MacStudio with 128GB of ram and 8TB SSD for image processing. Where the M4 series processors shine is in the single core speeds vs the M1 series csingle core speeds. Single core is where the computer spends lots of time doing operating system work, like downloading and up loading data, copying files etc.
My M4 MacBook Air (32GB ram and 2TB SSD) and M4 iPad Pro 2TB) reflect the speed increases in single core speeds. Thus no real need for me to go to M5 gear.
A M5 Ultra might be of interest but the cost for a fully optioned unit may more than I care to spend.
My M4 MacBook Air (32GB ram and 2TB SSD) and M4 iPad Pro 2TB) reflect the speed increases in single core speeds. Thus no real need for me to go to M5 gear.
A M5 Ultra might be of interest but the cost for a fully optioned unit may more than I care to spend.
I would say wins by making the right investments. I would love to see Apple sell a GPU card for both Windows and Mac OS's. We could end up with no Nvidia. But AMD, Intel and Apple making GPU's. That would be pretty funny actually. It's not going to happen, but Nvidia would be foolish to leave the gaming space. They wouldn't get it back if they did. IMO.
This doesn't seem like a well optimized application. As there is a lot more enhancements in an M4 than an M1.
Vincent Hanna
macrumors regular
More macrumors.com slop.
“I would love to see” instantly invalidated by “it’s not going to happen.”
You guys need to get your stories straight.
Not at all sure what you mean by that. I'd love to see something, doesn't mean it will or will not happen. Just my opinion on what I would like. I'm pretty sure Apple will not build such a thing, because it's not their way.
anthonylambert
macrumors regular
duh.... I think the m5 ultra will be more powerful than the M3 Utra... maybe twice as...
BillyJoeJimBob
macrumors regular
Here's a dumb question for purchase planning: Are we to compare the number of Intel threads to Apple Silicon cores?
Macs the best gaming machines, no. They have an awful long way to go before that will happen including needing a boost in performance, they just cannot match the latest Nvidia or AMD spec cards.
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Vincent Hanna
macrumors regular
Yeah, but if Nvidia exits the consumer market, their “latest” cards are going to get old quick.