Yeah. People were kind of in denial, and there was a bunch of speculation about add ins that somehow magically bypass the unified memory requirement.
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MP All Models 2023 Mac Pro! [MERGED]
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Not "were kind of in denial"... are definitely in denial still. Yeah it's just not possible... we're never going to see an add-on GPU for M1 or M2. If Apple ever decides to change their design down the road that would be awesome... but it seems they have no interest in ever going back to add-on GPUs of any kind with Apple Silicon.
Yeah. No one should buy an M2 Mac Pro hoping that GPU cards or some sort of compute modules get added. Which I worry is gonna happen.
Honestly M3 will be so much better than M2 in performance we could probably just leave it at it being a bad idea to buy an M2 Mac Pro. If the graphics aren't upgradable than the processor upgrade cycle becomes a lot more important. And M2 was only a small bump, while M3 is a bigger one.
What I worry about is many buyers Will decide just that. Ignore this machine waiting for the m3extreme and pci5 and sales are so bad that they never release another Mac Pro.
Technical limitations aside, Apple has learned its lesson from the Mac Pro 4,1:
User-upgradable current-gen GPUs over 10 years after the initial purchase resulting in competitive performance? Or eGPUs for aging MacBooks?
Sorry for that dear shareholders, won’t never, ever happen again! Apple.
On a more serious note, I suspect for hobbyists the M1/2 GPU and encoders are more than sufficient even on the long run. So it’s not as bad as it would have been 10 years ago. Especially now that Bootcamp/Windows gaming is out of the question anyway. And (most) professional users probably write the purchase off.
But when comparing Mac Studio and Mac Pro, I cannot imagine the Mac Pro selling too well - like if Apple doesn’t even want to keep it in the lineup.
User-upgradable current-gen GPUs over 10 years after the initial purchase resulting in competitive performance? Or eGPUs for aging MacBooks?
Sorry for that dear shareholders, won’t never, ever happen again! Apple.
On a more serious note, I suspect for hobbyists the M1/2 GPU and encoders are more than sufficient even on the long run. So it’s not as bad as it would have been 10 years ago. Especially now that Bootcamp/Windows gaming is out of the question anyway. And (most) professional users probably write the purchase off.
But when comparing Mac Studio and Mac Pro, I cannot imagine the Mac Pro selling too well - like if Apple doesn’t even want to keep it in the lineup.
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Maybe thats the way it should end.
One of the big points of the Mac Pro isn't I didn't have to make these sorts of bets on the GPU upgrade cycles. If next years GPU was really great - I could still buy this year and then upgrade next year.
Now I'm going to be a lot less willing to buy on one of Apple's minor upgrade cycles. If I only get one shot at the configuration - I'm not buying in an off year.
Holy crap, what a disappointment and an insult!
SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS?!?!
The $6000 starting price of the Mac Pro 2019 was offensive enough. Now that they can do away with super-expensive Intel workstation chips, instead of making the machine a little more reasonably priced, they increase the price 16% $1000?? All while removing RAM slots, and orphaning GPUs and most MPX modules after one whole interation?
On top of that, it's configured identically to the Mac Studio M2 Ultra @ $4000. You're paying $3000 more to get some slots?? Insane.
And so what if most users don't make use of the PCIe slots? They're not lined w/ diamonds. Maybe Apple is worried they'll fail to meet their carbon-neutral initiative if they send PCIe slots out into the world and some of them aren't used... We used to get 4 of them in every $2500 Mac Pro. Now it's up to nearly triple that to get any slots. Some people seem to talk about the inclusion of PCIe slots w/ such reverence. Don't get me wrong, I love the expandability, but it's not as if there aren't loads of PC logic boards at a few hundred $$ that aren't peppered with the things already.
I'm stupefied as to why it has to cost an extra $3000 now to get any expandability in a Mac. A hypothetical M2 Max Mac Pro w/ 3 slots using the same chassis and costing $3000 would be a tremendous option for tons of folks (and it would still be enjoying a whopping $1000 premium just for having added a few slots and some extra aluminum to the Mac Studio)!
– Fred
SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS?!?!
The $6000 starting price of the Mac Pro 2019 was offensive enough. Now that they can do away with super-expensive Intel workstation chips, instead of making the machine a little more reasonably priced, they increase the price 16% $1000?? All while removing RAM slots, and orphaning GPUs and most MPX modules after one whole interation?
On top of that, it's configured identically to the Mac Studio M2 Ultra @ $4000. You're paying $3000 more to get some slots?? Insane.
Don't be fooled— there are no Afterburner cards here. When they tout that "7x Afterburner" performance as far as the twenty-two 8K ProRes streams (likely hoping you'll be overjoyed that the cost is so much lower than the $14K those seven Afterburners would equate to), you need to remember that the $4000 Mac Studio also has that same "7x Afterburner" performance.
No, the Mac Pro 2013 came about because they ignored what their customers wanted and thought they knew better (Apple's primary MO has always been this "we'll tell you what you want" attitude).
And so what if most users don't make use of the PCIe slots? They're not lined w/ diamonds. Maybe Apple is worried they'll fail to meet their carbon-neutral initiative if they send PCIe slots out into the world and some of them aren't used... We used to get 4 of them in every $2500 Mac Pro. Now it's up to nearly triple that to get any slots. Some people seem to talk about the inclusion of PCIe slots w/ such reverence. Don't get me wrong, I love the expandability, but it's not as if there aren't loads of PC logic boards at a few hundred $$ that aren't peppered with the things already.
I'm stupefied as to why it has to cost an extra $3000 now to get any expandability in a Mac. A hypothetical M2 Max Mac Pro w/ 3 slots using the same chassis and costing $3000 would be a tremendous option for tons of folks (and it would still be enjoying a whopping $1000 premium just for having added a few slots and some extra aluminum to the Mac Studio)!
You forgot about removing capability and increasing the price, then patting yourself on the back while doing it. Can't innovate, my ass!
Yep. And it only took 2.5 years to get it. Kinda bewildering that they couldn't hack together an M1 Ultra version last year if this was all they were gonna do... They blew way past their timeframe, and this dramatically overpriced thing is all we got??
They seem to not have any ability (or desire) to develop something and then stick with it and improve it over time. They either come out w/ one-hit wonders like MPX, or they let products sit untouched in the lineup for half a decade w/o any spec or capacity increase, nor any price drop. ...but thank God iOS 16.5 "introduces 21 new emoji"! That's way more pressing than continuing to service your customers' needs who are buying into technology you're championing to them.
You're joking, right? Instead of a 4-year-old model whose price never dropped while receiving zero spec bumps, you need to make a more applicable comparison: the Mac Studio released alongside it. For $3000 less. Now that's disappointing.
– Fred
Yeah... Now it looks like the Mac Pro will be Good (2009), Bad (2013), Good (2019), Bad (2023)...
What took them so long to add an M series Ultra chip in a Mac anyway!? They could have gotten the 2 year transition.
Unless if I am not dumb, can you add an RTX 4090 in this thing using the PCIe x8 Gen 4?
What took them so long to add an M series Ultra chip in a Mac anyway!? They could have gotten the 2 year transition.
Unless if I am not dumb, can you add an RTX 4090 in this thing using the PCIe x8 Gen 4?
Add yes. Use no.
No GPU support for Apple Silicon except for what they have on their SoC.
An Apple Silicon PCI limitation prevents using GPUs. Even in VMs or other virtualization environments. [1]
Bootcamp is not available for Apple Silicon anyway.
In the 2019 Intel Mac Pro it is working under Windows but no matching macOS Nvidia drivers exist.
And TDP (450W) exceeds what the AS Mac Pro can deliver (300W aux + 75W slot).
[1] edit: not 100% certain anymore; we’ll see
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Is there anyone on the planet who did not think that the base AS Mac Pro would cost more than the top Mac Studio?
All that time waiting... and we got this. It feels lazy if I'm honest.
Glad I invested in a couple of 4090 PC workstations now as this launch is very underwhelming.
Glad I invested in a couple of 4090 PC workstations now as this launch is very underwhelming.
Did Apple even have any benchmark graphs of any sort against the 4090? I haven't seen any - which is worrisome.
Not even worth the effort; have you seen the paper specs between both, FP32 from the 4090 crushes the M2 Ultra hands down.
I know - but if Apple isn't even willing to do the normal cherrypicking...
An overpriced Mac Pro , and you can’t even upgrade the gpu or ram
Thank you apple for killing the Mac Pro
Thank you apple for killing the Mac Pro
At least during the unveiling of the M2 Ultra they didn't do the usual clown show and kept their comparisons against iMacs. Guess they learned their lesson from the fake cherry picking that they tried last time.
Would have been another story if they even tried to measure against Nvidia during that showcase! 🤣
LOL Altivec benchmarks. Still stunned that the flagship workstation, the halo product - cannot even muster 30 TFLOPs. Yeah I'll definitely Hackintosh or Proxmox another generation of HP Z8. At least they still know how to make a workstation.
More importantly, is there anyone on the planet who though the Mac Pro would be identical performance of the Mac Studio….
I am fairly certain Apple did a study before 2013 Mac Pro that came out that 80% or more of their Mac Pro customers do not want/need a PCIe slots.
So they created a product for them.
It is also possible that they discovered most of their customers liked it and saw how much Apple was able to cut cost from it, lower MSRP while preserving margins so they made the 2021 Mac Studio then updated it today.
Who wants to pay for something they will never use or asked for?
To make the Mac Pro tower economical it appears that most past Mac Pro users who did not want/need PCIe slots subsidized those who did.
Now that Apple split Mac Pro and Mac Studio into distinct product lines then each customer base will fully fund development independently.
Like any other business, large or small, Apple just want good will and good PR.
But when you get down to it they just wanted to look for ways to cut cost while looking good to almost everyone.
The $3k extra for PCIe slots is the true representation of Mac Pro non-PCIe users were subsidizing those who do. Now that they are unrequired to do so further the true cost for actual PCIe users will now appear.
When Apple was still doing business with Intel this R&D and material cost was shared with all of Intel's workstation customers. With Apple being Apple Silicon-only then it becomes the sole burden of
Dude, COVID hampered a lot of businesses. Apple had to prioritize projects based on how much revenue they can make from per $ of R&D spent.
That's why Apple Silicon came out first on consumer Macs then the Pro Macs and lastly Mac Pros with PCIe slots. Mac Pros are the least saleable.
It is "overpriced" when your remove the economies of scale contributed by Mac Studio users.
An indicator of how tepid demand for a Mac Pro is would be how long it took Apple to refresh Mac Pro (3.5yrs) vs Mac Studio (<1.3yrs).
Those 21 new emoji, that you mocked, would be more impactful revenue-wise than making the 2023 Mac Pro.
That is no exaggeration as the pie chart shows below.
If I were to hazard a guess the 2019 & 2023 Mac Pro would make up approx 1% of the 6.6% Mac revenue.
It was a commonly expressed sentiment here that the Mac Pro would start below the price of the Studio’s higher end configs, on the basis of not having the “Xeon Tax”.
As I maintained Apple would build up to the existing price points, not down to a (incorrectly assumed) cheaper component price.
When Apple created the Mac Studio it was a sign that Mac Pro PCIe users were an "atom", not a drop, in the Mac revenue bucket.An overpriced Mac Pro , and you can’t even upgrade the gpu or ram
Thank you apple for killing the Mac Pro
If I were to hazard a guess the number of disappointment Mac Pro users on MR times 1,000 is the worldwide Mac Pro market size.
Look at the bright side it is now more likely Apple will update Mac Pros at the same cadence as the Mac Studio.
Early 2025 Mac Pro M3 Ultra will likely have more than 192GB memory and a better iGPU than the M2 Ultra.
MacSales expects TB5 to be out next year with the M3 in Q1 2024.
M3 Ultra is likely to be out Q1 2025.
Refresh cycle of M1 to M2 was 19.5 months.
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