MP 7,1 2019 Mac Pro now end of life

[Boil]

Well, for me, they're not gonna be able to pry this thing out of my cold dead fingers unless discrete GPUs somehow have a home in the AC Mac Pro. I'm WAY too addicted to having a realtime workflow in Cinema 4D now, and now that it's possible on Apple for the first time in years, there's ZERO chance I'd give that up. The only way they can get me to leave this current machine is if the AC Mac Pro somehow handles my heaviest projects faster than my current Mac Pro, and I don't see that happening with an SOC anytime soon. They'd have to put around 8 m1 Ultra Chips in that machine and the price point considering the Mac Studio Maxed out Price point would end up right around $52,000+

M1 Ultra Mac Studio

• 20-core CPU
• 64-core GPU
• 128GB RAM
• 1TB SSD
• Media Engine
• $5,800

(8) Mac Studios

• 160-core CPU
• 512-core GPU
• 1TB RAM
• 8TB SSD
• (8) Media Engines
• $46,400

2019 Intel Mac Pro

• 28-core CPU
• (2) W6800X Duo GPUs (64GB RAM each)
• 1.5TB RAM
• 8TB SSD
• Afterburner Card (one Media Engine?)
• $51,800

Mac Studio Media Engine

• Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW
• (2) video decode engines
• (4) video encode engines
• (4) ProRes encode and decode engines

(8) Mac Studio Media Engines

• Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW
• (16) video decode engines
• (32) video encode engines
• (32) ProRes encode and decode engines

All this to say, it seems like an ASi Mac Pro that had the power of eight M1 Ultra SoCs within might give a 2019 Intel Mac Pro a run for its money...? ;^p

 

[Yebubbleman]

Well, for me, they're not gonna be able to pry this thing out of my cold dead fingers unless discrete GPUs somehow have a home in the AC Mac Pro. I'm WAY too addicted to having a realtime workflow in Cinema 4D now, and now that it's possible on Apple for the first time in years, there's ZERO chance I'd give that up. The only way they can get me to leave this current machine is if the AC Mac Pro somehow handles my heaviest projects faster than my current Mac Pro, and I don't see that happening with an SOC anytime soon. They'd have to put around 8 m1 Ultra Chips in that machine and the price point considering the Mac Studio Maxed out Price point would end up right around $52,000+

Considering the M1 Ultra at its high end gives most of the GPU options in the Mac Pro a run for their money, my guess is that there will be an SoC configuration that lets you continue to have that level of performance if not exceed it.

 

[Matty_TypeR]

The above looks impressive, but lets change a few things.

2019 Intel Mac Pro

• 28-core CPU
• (2) W6800X Duo GPUs (64GB RAM each)
• 1.5TB RAM
• 8TB SSD
• Afterburner Card (one Media Engine?)
• $51,800

2019 Intel Mac Pro

: 28-core CPU
: (2) W7900X Duo GPU's (64gb Ram each) if apple Support AMD RDNA 3
: 1.5TB RAM
: 8TB SSD
: Afterburner Card (one media Engine?
: TB-5 due early 2023 80gbs Pcie card.
: Egpu support Options on TB-5
: Duel Boot Windows with Optional Duel Nvidia 4090 GPU's or in Egpu Via TB-5
: Future Upgrade Paths

The 2019 Mac Pro can still offer a lot if allowed by Apple. its if Apple will Allow it too is key.

 

[macguru9999]

So basically my new $9,000 MacPro is now basically end of life, why would Apple even release this computer knowing that they were moving away from Intel, clearly they have been working on this transition for a few years. Very annoyed.

I doubt that the team developing the 2019 Mac Pro on one side of the apple cupertino doughnut were even told about the M1 chip development on the other side of the building ...... I cannot believe that the design in any way presupposes a knowledge of M1 .......

 

[maikerukun]

Considering the M1 Ultra at its high end gives most of the GPU options in the Mac Pro a run for their money, my guess is that there will be an SoC configuration that lets you continue to have that level of performance if not exceed it.

It doesn't though. It doesn't even come close. It does about a quarter of what 2 w6800x Duos and 28-cores does in realtime GPU rendering, which is literally all that matters to folks like me who do realtime rendering day in and out.

the Mac Studio is AWESOME FOR EDITING IN FCPX...for sure. What it can do with footage is AMAZING...the problem is, my MacBook Pro M1 Max is already as awesome as anyone needs for editing for the next 5 years honestly. That combined with a maxed out 2019 Mac Pro leaves no room in the studio for the Mac Studio "except possibly in the music studio".

 

[maikerukun]

M1 Ultra Mac Studio

• 20-core CPU
• 64-core GPU
• 128GB RAM
• 1TB SSD
• Media Engine
• $5,800

(8) Mac Studios

• 160-core CPU
• 512-core GPU
• 1TB RAM
• 8TB SSD
• (8) Media Engines
• $46,400

2019 Intel Mac Pro

• 28-core CPU
• (2) W6800X Duo GPUs (64GB RAM each)
• 1.5TB RAM
• 8TB SSD
• Afterburner Card (one Media Engine?)
• $51,800

Mac Studio Media Engine

• Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW
• (2) video decode engines
• (4) video encode engines
• (4) ProRes encode and decode engines

(8) Mac Studio Media Engines

• Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW
• (16) video decode engines
• (32) video encode engines
• (32) ProRes encode and decode engines

All this to say, it seems like an ASi Mac Pro that had the power of eight M1 Ultra SoCs within might give a 2019 Intel Mac Pro a run for its money...? ;^p

And my point is the system you are describing will cost $50k+ and nobody that already has a 2019 Mac Pro is going to splurge on that for a system that STILL won't compete in realtime GPU rendering lol. As for the media engines, the MacBook Pro cannibalizes that lol. Between my 2019 Mac Pro and my M1 Max MacBook Pro, there is very little reason for a Mac Studio and it's going to be a hard job ahead to get me to switch to the AS Mac Pro...not saying it's impossible, but unless it's smoking 3 RTX 3090's "aka, the system I already have", by at least 50%, there's no valid reason to update.

 

[prefuse07]

It doesn't though. It doesn't even come close. It does about a quarter of what 2 w6800x Duos and 28-cores does in realtime GPU rendering, which is literally all that matters to folks like me who do realtime rendering day in and out.

the Mac Studio is AWESOME FOR EDITING IN FCPX...for sure. What it can do with footage is AMAZING...the problem is, my MacBook Pro M1 Max is already as awesome as anyone needs for editing for the next 5 years honestly. That combined with a maxed out 2019 Mac Pro leaves no room in the studio for the Mac Studio "except possibly in the music studio".

They seriously should have just called it the "Mac Final Cut Pro", since that's the only thing it's really good at 🤣

 

[Yebubbleman]

It doesn't though. It doesn't even come close. It does about a quarter of what 2 w6800x Duos and 28-cores does in realtime GPU rendering, which is literally all that matters to folks like me who do realtime rendering day in and out.

the Mac Studio is AWESOME FOR EDITING IN FCPX...for sure. What it can do with footage is AMAZING...the problem is, my MacBook Pro M1 Max is already as awesome as anyone needs for editing for the next 5 years honestly. That combined with a maxed out 2019 Mac Pro leaves no room in the studio for the Mac Studio "except possibly in the music studio".

Notice that I said "most of the GPU options you have in a Mac Pro"; 2 W6800X Duos as an option is DEFINITELY on the higher-end. Also, I never said that a Mac Studio was a perfect replacement for a 2019 Mac Pro. It's not. And Apple knows that it's not and they teased accordingly in the same presentation where they announced the Mac Studio to begin with. But it certainly is a viable replacement for lower-to-middle of the road configurations that don't explicitly require any sort of PCIe expansion.

 

[prefuse07]

And Apple knows that it's not and they teased accordingly in the same presentation where they announced the Mac Studio to begin with.

Can you stop drinking the kool-aid, please? it's getting tiring reading your posts, man...

Apple actually DID the complete opposite of what you just typed during their announcement of the Studio. They claimed that it was better, even with their doctored charts.

[SOURCE]

 

[R3k]

One may still be able to cross grade to a Mac Studio Ultra and break even. If the Studio can't do things that the Mac Pro can (PCI-E) then the Mac Pro is still current IMO.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Can you stop drinking the kool-aid, please? it's getting tiring reading your posts, man...

Apple actually DID the complete opposite of what you just typed during their announcement of the Studio. They claimed that it was better, even with their doctored charts.

[SOURCE]

Bro, if you have actually read any of my posts, you'll find that the last thing I've been doing is drinking Apple's kool-aid. I'm the one of the last ones to recommending people buy Rev A versions of the new body styles of MacBook Pro and Air, I'm hyper-critical of macOS's poor quality control record since moving to an annual release cycle and I'm, in general fairly critical of most things that Apple is doing as someone who has a very complex love/hate relationship with them spanning 25 years. Saying that I'm drinking the kool-aid shows that you're not actually reading anything I'm posting.

I'm not singing the praises of this machine and saying that every content creator who would've bought a Mac Pro should get it. I frankly couldn't care less! I'm saying it benchmarks comparable to the more expensive box at low-to-mid-level tiers with low-to-mid-level options selected. And it does!

Also, Apple compared the Mac Studio to the 2019 Mac Pro in terms of general performance metrics. At the end, John Ternus teased that Apple still has yet to transition the Mac Pro to Apple Silicon with the clear implication that they plan to do so (as well as the clear implication that even an M1 Ultra Mac Studio is not the true successor to the 2019 Mac Pro even if it will serve the needs of many 2019 Mac Pro users).

Then again, you don't read my posts and accuse me of drinking kool-aid while not actually paying attention to the keynote that you cite. You're at least right that they showed heavily doctored charts that don't mean anything, but that's about it.

 

[maikerukun]

They seriously should have just called it the "Mac Final Cut Pro", since that's the only thing it's really good at 🤣

LMFAO!!!! I mean...I'm not trying to be mean or anything, I was the loudest champion for the Mas Studio before it actually released lol. I thought it was going to bring something to the table over the Mac Pro, and to be fair, it did...it brought a new and powerful M1 chip that...didn't really improve the main function of that particular machine "M1 MacBook Pro's are blazing fast with editing footage", and didn't even approach competing with the beast outside of that. I really don't know where the damn thing belongs LOL.

 

[maikerukun]

Notice that I said "most of the GPU options you have in a Mac Pro"; 2 W6800X Duos as an option is DEFINITELY on the higher-end. Also, I never said that a Mac Studio was a perfect replacement for a 2019 Mac Pro. It's not. And Apple knows that it's not and they teased accordingly in the same presentation where they announced the Mac Studio to begin with. But it certainly is a viable replacement for lower-to-middle of the road configurations that don't explicitly require any sort of PCIe expansion.

Okay, now THAT...I 100% agree with. But I'm also not sure what a high end 2019 Mac Pro is for outside of heavy lifting. If you only need light lifting, then yes, a Mac Studio makes PERFECT sense...I just feel like I don't know anyone that owns a 2019 Mac Pro for anything light at all. It was never a machine meant to be purchased for light work. It was a baby monster meant to be fed so that it could grow up and eat the whole city lol.

 

[maikerukun]

One may still be able to cross grade to a Mac Studio Ultra and break even. If the Studio can't do things that the Mac Pro can (PCI-E) then the Mac Pro is still current IMO.

100% THIS. Look, it plays well in music studios and photography studios and editing studios...but definitely not even close to a Mac Pro replacement. The FIRST MACHINE that will be an actual contender to the Mac Pro, is the AS Mac Pro...and even then, anything less than 50% more powerful than the current Mac Pro at real time rendering is not going to be enough to pull people away at these price points. Because make no mistake, a machine that can be on par if not better than, is going to cost at least $40k to $52k

 

[avro707]

Even the PC workstations are also very expensive when you are configuring them at the levels we are seeing with some of these 2019 Mac Pros.

 

[4wdwrx]

Not sure why we are claiming each other drinking Apple Kool aid. At the end of the day we are all suckers buying the Apple Kool aid.

Why does a few minutes difference in rendering matter. Not like any of you really work that efficiently, if seriously think about it. We wasted more time posting in this forum.

 

[Boil]

...owns a 2019 Mac Pro for anything light at all. It was never a machine meant to be purchased for light work. It was a baby monster meant to be fed so that it could grow up and eat the whole city lol.

You saying it would be wrong to buy a 2019 Mac Pro to play WoW on...? ;^p

 

[mattspace]

But I'm also not sure what a high end 2019 Mac Pro is for outside of heavy lifting.

The only real use case for the Mac Pro, is "post-purchase flexibility". Is that post-purchase flexibility:

• massive CPU power
• massive GPU power
• reasonable GPU power, but staying at the cutting edge
• growing ram requirements over time
• next year's standard for (insert thing) on a card
• Video Walls / Massive Overview systems with dozens of displays
• and the most under-appreciated premise - the feeling of security, and the wellbeing that brings, knowing your machine isn't painting you into a corner by being overly-specialised, and non-reconfigurable.

The Mac Pro is the collection bucket for edge-cases, and as we saw in 2013, trying to make it specialised at the expense of edge-cases, was a failure. The Mac Studio, I'm sure is great at Apple ProRes, but what happens if your workflow isn't ProRes, or stops being ProRes? What happens if, in 12 months, a new standard comes out, that the Apple Media Engines aren't actually any good at?

 

[avro707]

Mattspace above has nailed it, if you go for a basic specification machine then you can quite easily upgrade it later should you need to get more power. That's why we loved our old 5,1 Mac Pros and kept them going for ages, but the 7,1 does it better. It's expensive but Apple got it right.

All I intend to do with mine in the future is get a W3275M processor and install it myself, a bit more RAM and maybe a second W6800X and that's it.

 

[maikerukun]

Even the PC workstations are also very expensive when you are configuring them at the levels we are seeing with some of these 2019 Mac Pros.

Agreed, and people don't really pay attention to that side of it.

 

[maikerukun]

Not sure why we are claiming each other drinking Apple Kool aid. At the end of the day we are all suckers buying the Apple Kool aid.

Why does a few minutes difference in rendering matter. Not like any of you really work that efficiently, if seriously think about it. We wasted more time posting in this forum.

It's not a few minutes though. The difference from CPU rendering to GPU rendering is HUGE...for example, a CPU rendering of 100% CG Oreo Cookie factory inside of a tiny box for an upcoming ad I'm working on takes about 30 minutes per frame to render "liquid sims for both milk and the making of cream running, fire sims in the cookie dough ovens, smoke everywhere, chrome reflective surfaces and rust on ladders, etc..." and in GPU it takes about 2 minutes to render the same frame. Meaning for a :30 second spot it would take 15 days to render in CPU, vs. 1 day (24 hours).

In other words, those few minutes difference that you're talking about, add up to literally ridiculous time saved, and it allows you to eliminate sending out projects to render farms, and even eliminates internal render farm resources once you're working on bigger projects. Even better, I can still charge the client for 15 days of CPU rendering if they don't want to pay for GPU accelerated rush delivery and still at my personal discretion kick it out in a day and work on other projects for other clients during that paid for time.

I respond on here sporadically during down time "Aka waiting for renders and exports to complete, etc...", as I'm sure most of the other professionals on here are doing as well.

 

[maikerukun]

You saying it would be wrong to buy a 2019 Mac Pro to play WoW on...? ;^p

LMFAOLMFAOLMFAO No I'm saying that's the only other justifiable reason to buy one

 

[maikerukun]

The only real use case for the Mac Pro, is "post-purchase flexibility". Is that post-purchase flexibility:

• massive CPU power
• massive GPU power
• reasonable GPU power, but staying at the cutting edge
• growing ram requirements over time
• next year's standard for (insert thing) on a card
• Video Walls / Massive Overview systems with dozens of displays
• and the most under-appreciated premise - the feeling of security, and the wellbeing that brings, knowing your machine isn't painting you into a corner by being overly-specialised, and non-reconfigurable.

The Mac Pro is the collection bucket for edge-cases, and as we saw in 2013, trying to make it specialised at the expense of edge-cases, was a failure. The Mac Studio, I'm sure is great at Apple ProRes, but what happens if your workflow isn't ProRes, or stops being ProRes? What happens if, in 12 months, a new standard comes out, that the Apple Media Engines aren't actually any good at?

I 100% agree with this entire list. I will say, ProRes is a lock for delivery standard damn near period and will be for probably at least a decade to come. They are without question, the easiest and cleanest codecs to work with, which is why final versions of films are delivered in industry standard for 99% of distributers is Prores 422. It's like the one thing even Apple can't screw up lol Regardless, they could release a far more powerful media encoder card for the Beast and who knows maybe they or a third party will.

 

[maikerukun]

Mattspace above has nailed it, if you go for a basic specification machine then you can quite easily upgrade it later should you need to get more power. That's why we loved our old 5,1 Mac Pros and kept them going for ages, but the 7,1 does it better. It's expensive but Apple got it right.

All I intend to do with mine in the future is get a W3275M processor and install it myself, a bit more RAM and maybe a second W6800X and that's it.

It's wild how people really don't understand that point. And I 100% agree with you, but even I earlier failed to mention it during my powerhouse machine raging lol.

 

[exoticSpice]

I still don't why people are comparing the Mac Studio to the Mac Pro 2019. Apple never intended that to a replacement to the 2019 Mac Pro.

What Apple highlighted in the March keynote that in EDGE cases that the Mac Studio is way better. If Apple thought the Mac Studio way way more powerful than the 7,1 it would have been the Mac Pro replacement.

We have to remember that Apple did crazy things with the 2019 Mac Pro like dual GPUs on a single board and the after buner card in 2019. It was unique I can say none of that to the Mac Studio.

The Mac Pro is Apple's Halo product. The 5,1, 6,1 and 7,1 are stunners and look amazing. The Mac Studio is some boring old box. The 6,1 while not expandable was a beauty to look at. Whatever the next Mac Pro is it will look amazing and perform better than the current AMDs high-end GPUs in the Mac Pro otherwise it will be a failure.