MP 14,8 2023 Mac Pro M2 Ultra - my potential use case

[Geddon_jt]

Hi everyone, I am very close to ordering a 2023 Mac Pro. This is clearly a controversial product - I thought that perhaps by posting my intended use perhaps some alternative perspectives would be helpful before I make my final decision.

My wife and I are digital photographers, myself a hobbyist and she is a professional doing paid shoots. It is not unusual for us to be processing 30-50GB worth of RAW files for a given shoot (we shoot digital medium format and high MP full frame digital). We are starting to venture into videography and have an 8k capable camera. We have been using a M1 Max MacBook Pro 16” for almost 2 years which we have been very happy with (32GB/1TB). However, we just purchased a MacBook Air 15” 16GB/1TB for her remote work, the idea being that it would be a littlte easier to live with for remote shoots with tethering requirements etc., as well as for when we travel.

I have a shelf full of SSDs that are filled with old Lightroom catalogs (probably around 12TB worth). I am fully aware that the performance of the Mac Pro is basically identical to a Mac Studio but is significantly more expensive. The benefits to the Mac Pro I’ve identified are as follows:

1. Form factor. Although I suppose many would say the Mac Studio has a preferable (compact) form factor, the Mac Pro would sit on the floor under the desk and free up significant desk space (we have a 27” Eizo for color editing and a Mac Studio monitor, as well as a stylus pad).

2. I want to have significant more SSD storage than what comes with the computer. With the Studio, we will have to go with an external enclosure which will take up more desk space. Using a PCI-E internal drive (maybe the OSC 16gb Accelsior) not only relieves that, but we would have huge internal lightning fast storage to work off of for both the photo and video workflows). The SD port on the Mac Studio is not particularly relevant because we still would need to use USB-C readers for CFExpress A and B cards, which we both use depending on the shoot.

3. I want a computer that I don‘t feel I need to upgrade or replace for at least 5-7 years. I am not holding my breath on a cornucopia of expansion options on this computer but perhaps there is a chance the PCIE slots will open up possibilities in the future (SD/CFE A/CFE B card someday? Maybe? - or at least additional SSD expansion).

These are first world problems for sure, and I’m not trying to inflame emotions or Rehash what has already been said about what a lame product this is. I just wonder if this use case makes sense to some of you or if there are legitimate other perspectives. I realize the items above are tough to justify the price difference for.

Any input or thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

[TobiasT]

Point 1) form factor is way better in Mac Studio.
Point 2) you are going to use external storage no matter you go for Pro or Studio, so...
Point 3) No RAM/CPU/GPU upgradability in Mac Pro makes Mac Pro upgradability a joke.

Mac Studio is the winner.

 

[jimmy_john]

I replaced a Mac Studio M1 Ultra with the 2023 Pro and don't regret it at all. Big upgrade in performance and expandability.

It’s super nice not having to have multiple thunderbolt devices attached, each with their giant ugly failure-prone power bricks, cables, and flashing lights.

It’s also nice having a tower that doesn’t heat up the entire office when under load, like the 2019 does.

 

[Geddon_jt]

I replaced a Mac Studio M1 Ultra with the 2023 Pro and don't regret it at all. Big upgrade in performance and expandability.

It’s super nice not having to have multiple thunderbolt devices attached, each with their giant ugly failure-prone power bricks, cables, and flashing lights.

It’s also nice having a tower that doesn’t heat up the entire office when under load, like the 2019 does.

Yes, this is a big factor for me, right or wrong. And less things to get knocked off the desk, more desk space etc.
Also from what I've read the speeds of the internal PCIE enclosures absolutely smoke the best of what the thunderbolt enclosures can accomplish. Although there definitely seem to be some compatibility issues with certain cards at the moment...

 

[PowerMike G5]

Yes, if having everything in one box is of big importance to you, the Mac Pro is the way to go. You get the same performance as the Mac Studio, but I see your use case of the tower slots making sense here. I use my 7,1 Mac Pro mostly in the same way. Having all the NVME drives at full speed in the machine is nice and doesn't require having all these external enclosures on your desk/work area that are then capped at thunderbolt speeds.

Plus if the intent is to hold onto the machine for the next 5-7 years, then you'll probably be much happier in the long run with something that houses it all internally if you're thinking about that now. Its a work machine for you that will hopefully generate income many many times its cost over its lifetime, so you should just buy what will work best for you and your needs.

 

[Geddon_jt]

Thank you guys so much for your input. I just pulled the trigger on a Mac Pro, base cpu, 128gb/2tb. Around 10 day turnaround apparently. For anyone who cares to know, will offer up my impressions here after I get it up and running.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Congrats! Please share any benchmarks. Are you getting any fast pci based storage? Hope you have many happy times with your new rig!

 

[MisterAndrew]

I replaced a Mac Studio M1 Ultra with the 2023 Pro and don't regret it at all. Big upgrade in performance and expandability.

It’s super nice not having to have multiple thunderbolt devices attached, each with their giant ugly failure-prone power bricks, cables, and flashing lights.

It’s also nice having a tower that doesn’t heat up the entire office when under load, like the 2019 does.

My 2019 Mac Pro runs very cool and the fans hardly ever turn on enough to be audible even under load.

 

[jimmy_john]

My 2019 Mac Pro runs very cool and the fans hardly ever turn on enough to be audible even under load.

Mine is plenty quiet but it does put out a lot of heat with 2x 6800 Duo's running full blast.

 

[rondocap]

I think your use case is pretty good for the Mac Pro. Having internal storage is actually really great - not only for performance, but for space saving issues. That "aesthetic" and organization is important too, I totally get it myself.

I tried to make the Mac Studio work for myself, but ended up just sticking to the Intel Mac Pro I had already.

I had to get external storage for the Studio, and louder external fans were an issue too, plus a bigger cluttered area.

 

[avro707]

Mine is plenty quiet but it does put out a lot of heat with 2x 6800 Duo's running full blast.

The duos must be the difference, I only have single W6800X and unfortunately the home office was very cold this winter, leaving me running the heater as well ($$$).

 

[dazzer21-2]

I think the Mac Pro is a real world case of lost cost fallacy for Apple. They have clearly sunk too much cash into it that they can’t be seen to just mothball a product and feel obligated to market it. Given the cost differential between it and a Studio for a machine that can’t even accept a graphics card, I don’t see the point of it. I’d rather a Studio and hide my SSDs under the desk.

 

[Geddon_jt]

Just a quick update for those who might be following this thread.
I actually cancelled my original spec and went for a base Mac Pro 2023 (60 GPU core/64GB RAM/1TB). Bought from B and H. Just got it up and running today.
The system itself is of course awesome looking and runs silent as a mouse. I have a OWC Accelsior 8M2 on order to increase the storage at which point I will start adding various apps.

One curiosity, I attempted to add AppleCare, but the apple website said my serial number was invalid. Anyone else run into this issue? Wondering if it will take a few days for it to link the serial to my Apple ID before it will let me get the coverage.

 

[flat4]

Just a quick update for those who might be following this thread.
I actually cancelled my original spec and went for a base Mac Pro 2023 (60 GPU core/64GB RAM/1TB). Bought from B and H. Just got it up and running today.
The system itself is of course awesome looking and runs silent as a mouse. I have a OWC Accelsior 8M2 on order to increase the storage at which point I will start adding various apps.

One curiosity, I attempted to add AppleCare, but the apple website said my serial number was invalid. Anyone else run into this issue? Wondering if it will take a few days for it to link the serial to my Apple ID before it will let me get the coverage.

check it on the apple warranty check website make sure its valid

 

[bcomer]

If it were me and looking to keep the MAcPro for five to seven years I would have ordered more RAM.

I have a 2019 MacPro (12 core) that I upgraded fro 96GB -> 192GB for the work I do.
it would be nice to update the CPU with more cores as I will be using this for quite some time.

 

[AndreeOnline]

I have a 2019 MacPro (12 core) that I upgraded fro 96GB -> 192GB for the work I do.

Out of curiosity, what type of work led you to feel constrained with 96GB?

 

[George Dawes]

Also the studio is hideously ugly and the pro is utterly stunning , I’m sure that would count in a design studio environment, would for me anyway

 

[deconstruct60]

If it were me and looking to keep the MAcPro for five to seven years I would have ordered more RAM.

The original poster did order more RAM. First post.

"... We have been using a M1 Max MacBook Pro 16” for almost 2 years which we have been very happy with (32GB/1TB). ".

ordered configuration.

" ... went for a base Mac Pro 2023 (60 GPU core/64GB RAM/1TB) ..."

64GB is 2x what is working extremely well now.


Also one of the main pressing points here is to get more storage inside the box. Going from 64GB to 124GB ( 4x over what actually works now) is $800. The OWC 8M2 $979. So would have blown $800 which makes no material difference for something that would make a material difference ( avoiding Apple's super high market on SSD capacity.).

I have a 2019 MacPro (12 core) that I upgraded fro 96GB -> 192GB for the work I do.

You did effectively did a 2x and he did a 2x on capacity. Where is the huge problem? Other than the need to inform everyone else about stuff not associated with his workload in the slightest.

 

[deconstruct60]

Point 1) form factor is way better in Mac Studio.

The Mac Studio can be moved off the literal desktop with an additional under-desk bracket or some other raised platform/enclosure. It is more money which closes the gap difference between it and the Mac Pro. ( not all but some).

Point 2) you are going to use external storage no matter you go for Pro or Studio, so...

If this is a reference to the external CF/SD/etc camera storage card readers. They are 'readers'. Doing picture/video ingest into the system is very substantially different than doing modifying work on the photos. It is not a good practice to do mods on the 'cards' you shot with. That data should just be copied as is to the host system. That way have a reference backup right away.

If there is a 3rd or 4th backup done later then can erase the card. Reading reference data or doing duplicative external backups ... yeah those shouldn't be internal only but that is the same for any system ( laptop , mini , studio , mac Pro). There is no 'leg up' on one form factor versus another.

There is tons of upside to putting the bulk of your daily high frequency file modification work on different drive than the main Apple one. That keeps wear-and-tear off the Apple drive. That task the Mac Studio is just limited to doing external. The Mac Pro can do that on the inside and at higher aggregate bandwidth.

If this was a reference to the collection of offline external SSDs holding Lightroom libraries. Well they are offline. That is actually not so great if want to access them quickly. It is more material difference between laptops , mini , Studio , Pro is just archival with very , very low access. The Mac Pro provides an upside if keeping more midrange old archives 'closer' for quick access.


[ NOTE: if hide the Studio under the desk to get back desktop space then the built-in SD reader gets way , way ,way less convenient to use. Having the ingest readers on the desktop where hands normally are is better. If the 'working space' storage is in a rack then having the ingest in a rack would/could be better , but that really isn't the case here. ]

Point 3) No RAM/CPU/GPU upgradability in Mac Pro makes Mac Pro upgradability a joke.

Storage was important enough to be point number #2 in the list and yet now at point 3 it doesn't matter at all. Errrrrr, that is really 'consistent'. *cough*.

The user here is moving off a MBP onto a Mac Pro. The RAM capacity , CPU count , GPU count are all relatively massive upgrades.

The context is not moving folks off of old Mac Pros onto new Mac Pro. It is the rest of the line up ( i.e., most Mac users base) to Mac Pro. Once have a 3-6 year old Mac and a new Mac Pro the gap in most cases is pretty large.

 

[avkills]

Out of curiosity, what type of work led you to feel constrained with 96GB?

My guess would be After Effects. The app is so incredibly RAM hungry. Even more so if you are working with massive pixel space projects.

I am seriously thinking about bumping from 240 to 384.

 

[DrEGPU]

Since your wife is a pro photog, you should almost definitely get a NAS for redundant backup storage, preferably one with a 10GbE port. I have a QNAP NAS (with >50TB of spinning disks) directly attached to my 2019 Mac Pro via a copper Cat8 cable. 10GbE networking is amazing!

 

[Geddon_jt]

Thanks for everyone‘s comments and input. I will continue to update as things progress for me.

Applecare situation resolved. After around 24 hours, the option was there for me to purchase AppleCare from the ”About this Mac” screen. My guess is that it took about a day to tie the serial number to my Apple ID to enable that option.

As for why I slightly downgraded from my initial build, cost was definitely a factor. It’s possible I may regret not going above 64GB of RAM but given that my workflow involves photography for 95% of what I do, it just seemed likely excessive for the $800 it would have cost. The computer is expensive even at base config, then you add tax, AppleCare, and of course the 8M2 (should receive tomorrow) and it adds up quick. I don’t regret the decision thus far and was happy to save a little money.

NAS backup is excellent advice and something I will investigate once everything is up and running.

Will update again this weekend. Thanks all!

 

[AndreeOnline]

My guess would be After Effects. The app is so incredibly RAM hungry.

Does After Effects only eat RAM, or does the performance also improve with additional RAM?

Any demo projects/well-known benchmarks out there that I can try?

 

[avkills]

Does After Effects only eat RAM, or does the performance also improve with additional RAM?

Any demo projects/well-known benchmarks out there that I can try?

AE likes to cache frames into RAM, so if you don't have much then it gets real slow; probably due to using the hard drive as swap. It really depends on what kind of project you are working on. Very large canvases need RAM just to store all the assets and buffer, so if all the RAM gets eaten up with that and then it is trying to cache frames, well you get the point.

Puget systems has a AE benchmark, but it is probably just easier to go to their site and look at different CPUs and GPU configs. They build PCs, so they generally bash Macs.

 

[Geddon_jt]

Update 9/10/23.

OWC Accelsior 8M2 arrived on Friday. Opened up the Mac Pro and seated it without issue. On boot up it recognized the drive right away and the SoftRAID setup was a piece of cake and it runs in the background unobtrusively. Been copying over large data sets from old computers onto it at very fast speeds. Only quirk is that in the finder window, it shows up twice. Doesn't affect performance or functionality, from what I've read this is a known and widespread bug with OS X Ventura. No big deal.

2 monitors are up and running with the Mac Pro under the desk. Right now I have a Mac Studio Display and an Eizo Coloredge CG2700X running side by side. One slightly annoying thing was I had to spring for a 1.8M Thunderbolt 4 cable to get the monitors oriented on the desk the way I wanted. That sucker was not cheap ($129)...

Overall, it's a sweet setup, very pleased and no issues to report!
Do I regret not saving some money and having a Mac Studio sitting on my desk instead? Speaking for myself, no.

That's about it, appreciate everyone's thoughts and assistance!