MP All Models 40 core ASI with PCI-E slot is around the corner!!

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think this is all missing the real-world issue. The real questions are (a) whether there are enough potential customers to make it economical for Apple to produce the custom silicon needed for an Apple Silicon "real workstation" and (b) whether that would offer a big enough advantage over generic PC Xeon/Threadripper hardware (which offers a much wider choice and greater specialisation of hardware and software than a one-size-fits-all Mac).

Apple have a great scheme with the M series where, by almost literally chopping bits off or doubling-up Mx Max dies - a single SoC die design covers everything from the 14" MacBook Pro to the Studio Ultra. They're also milking the performance advantage of having integrated GPUs (that are much faster & more MacOS optimised than competing integrated GPUs) and unified RAM, and the low power draw makes for long battery life and/or small, quiet machines.

The wheels seem to come off that for anything beyond the Mx Ultra which might just stretch to 256GB of Unified RAM and maybe 16 lanes of PCIe (going out on a limb and guessing that half of the TB4 ports could be re-configured as 4 lanes each of PCIe) - which might actually be useful for some users, but isn't going to satisfy "real workstation" users who actually need 1TB+ RAM and/or quad high-end discrete GPUs.

Would it break any of the laws of physics for Apple to make their own ARM-based Xeon/Threadripper rival? No - but economically, making a whole new class of processor just for the Mac Pro would be hugely expensive and could easily turn into a vanity project. That would also involve throwing away the advantages of unified RAM/integrated GPUs as well as the economies that come from re-purposing the Mx Max die. To what advantage? A more power-efficient processor - in a machine with a ton of non-low-power DDR5 and 2-4 hot, sweaty AMD Space Heater GPUs? Maybe a few more CPU cores (but AMD are already setting a high bar there)?

The workstation market is probably were Apple Silicon's major party trick - performance vs. power consumption - is least impressive. It's great for laptops and small-form-factor, and becomes important again in the high-density data centre (hence Ampere and Google making server-class ARM chips) - but on a personal tower system who's #1 priority was performance? Not so much.

Only Apple knows how well the 2019 Mac Pro has been selling, and hence what the potential market is. Even that assumes that the existing users are ready to move on to Apple Silicon (which will inevitably kill off a few software products) or even the latest MacOS (sometimes a bigger deal than re-building for ARM). Meanwhile, the desktop computer market is probably dwindling anyway - squeezed between ever more capable laptops and pay-for-what-you-need-when-you-need-it cloud computing.

Disagree. Was there enough 'real world' use for Bugatti to make a custom 16 cylinder engine? Nope. They lost money per machine. And didn't make it up in volume. But it probably made more money for them in halo/marketing than many car models that scrape by on 2% margins. Sometimes you just have to show you have a big swinging...ego. The halo effect, and the people that attracts have a lot more value than bean counters can assess IMO.

As always, YMMV.

 

[mattspace]

If you are questioning who I am and what I do for living you can see some of my works here in the forum, I've posted something from time to time, you can consider me a very high end architectural visualization professional. And no, I don't game

ArchVis is one of the markets being eaten by gaming engines - A computer that is "bad" at gaming, will eventually be a computer that is bad at ArchVis.

Same for Film and TV production. I think a lot of folks don't realise the extent to which Unreal is outside gaming. Unreal is where films are being made - be it eliminating greenscreens with live projected / LED screen backgrounds and VR trackers on cameras for in-camera compositing, or just making entire mo-cap animated features in-engine.

IF a universal "metaverse" happens (Vs. Nvidia's "Omniverse", or HTC's "Viveverse"), it's going to be built on Unreal, not something from Facebook.

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

Today the developer RC of Ventura 13.3 was released, so it should go golden no later than April 4. I think the new Mac Pro will also be announced no later than then.

Highly unlikely. At this late stage, Apple will surely kick the announcement down the road to WWDC 2023 in June.

 

[PineappleCake]

Highly unlikely. At this late stage, Apple will surely kick the announcement down the road to WWDC 2023 in June.

If its launched at April it will likely mean that the 8,1 is underwhelming. WWDC is the 2nd biggest event after the iPhone event.

So I vote for WWDC as well.

 

[avro707]

sagree. Was there enough 'real world' use for Bugatti to make a custom 16 cylinder engine? Nope. They lost money per machine. And didn't make it up in volume. But it probably made more money for them in halo/marketing than many car models that scrape by on 2% margins. Sometimes you just have to show you have a big swinging...ego. The halo effect, and the people that attracts have a lot more value than bean counters can assess IMO.

Sure about that? The boss of Bugatti (Mate Rimac) disagrees with you:

Bugatti actually has been very successful and profitable in the last few years. The previous CEO [Stephan Winkelmann] did a really good job and left me a good company to continue building upon. So, profitability wasn't really the problem for Volkswagen

They sold out the Chiron and other special coach-built models completely ahead of expected time, some of those were very, very expensive (now collectible too).

For Apple Mac Pro, the thing just has to be a proper Mac Pro workstation, no short-cuts, no compromises.

It would be interesting to see in these topics what the percentage is of people replying who actually do own a 7,1 or numerous Mac Pros versus those with a Mac Studio or maybe something else.

 

[theluggage]

Disagree. Was there enough 'real world' use for Bugatti to make a custom 16 cylinder engine?

Sure, because the personal computer workstation market is exactly the same as the hyper-luxury supercar market. All the people here wanting more than 256GB of RAM or PCIe GPUs are clearly just rock stars, sports personalities and children of oil magnates with bottomless pockets, who want something to turn heads when they roll up at the exclusive country club, pick up important clients from the airport or occasionally get their car freighted out to the Nurburgring (sp?) for a track day. ...and designing a custom processor die and fabricating it in tiny numbers is exactly the same as hand-building a few custom engines. Not.

Rather, I'm pretty confident that the "real workstation users" have real, practical problems to solve as part of their work, and while they can justify expensive hardware in terms of their business turnover, that doesn't mean they have heaps of Daddy's money or sports sponsorship income to blow on status symbols... and maybe people see the Bugatti doing 250mph (or whatever) on Top Gear and go out and buy VW Golfs in response, maybe it's worth it for a trickle-down of new tech, patents and attracting top designers and engineers - or maybe its all some complex tax write-off scheme that only an accountant can explain.

Apple's most successful "halo products" have bean their cheaper lines, like the iPad and iPhone, without which the Mac would probably have vanished long ago, and the technology seems to trickle up from those items (the whole of Apple Silicon is basically about scaling up mobile tech to laptops and desktops). Their closest thing to a "supercar" so far is probably the 2019 Mac Pro - and ask anybody who isn't already a Mac fan about the Mac Pro and all you'll get is snide remarks about $800 wheels, so as a halo it's pretty lousy. The whole "real vs. fake workstation user" argument right here is pretty much evidence that people who don't need a Mac Pro don't get why it costs what it does.

Even the 2019 Mac Pro - folks, it's just a Xeon-W/PCIe system using existing chipsets from Intel (CPU) AMD (GPU) - who all have other, far larger markets for those chips - with an extra row of connectors to route power and Thunderbolt between PCIe slots. The one bit of custom Apple silicon is the T2 chip which had already been developed and manufactured in huge quantities for everything from the MacBook Air up. Creating a substantially new processor (rather than some sort of multi-Mx Max) would be a major departure for Apple, with no particular guarantee that it would outperform a Xeon or Threadripper driving the same AMD GPUs from the same DDR5 RAM.

Note that I wasn't saying that Apple won't/can't make some sort of new high-end Mac, just that it would be very hard & expensive to produce a direct replacement for the 2019 Mac Pro market. If Apple want a "halo" computer they could sponsor a scientific supercomputer based on grids of Mx Ultras, or make 1U Mx Ultra "compute modules" for scalable cloud computing, and maybe set some speed records - but what such systems have in common is that they'd probably be pretty unimpressive when running ProTools or Davinci....

As always, YMMV.

People who buy 16-cylinder Bugattis aren't generally worried about mileage

 

[majus]

WWDC is the 2nd biggest event after the iPhone event.

Yes it is and that is why Apple will be using it to push their AR/VR product. They won't want to have a mere computer steal even a bit of that thunder.

 

[theluggage]

For Apple Mac Pro, the thing just has to be a proper Mac Pro workstation, no short-cuts, no compromises.

Which would probably involve Apple producing a substantially new workstation-class processor - because the biggest currently rumoured processor is the M2 Ultra with a predicted max 192GB of RAM and maybe a couple of slots worth of PCIe bandwidth assuming some of the TB4 ports could be re-configured as PCIe. Even a M2 Extreme (rumored to have been shelved & its not hard to see why), at best, doubles that - assuming you don't lose I/O ports to the interconnect. I think 'secondary' RAM, PCIe slots driven by TB-to-PCIe converters, limitation on using PCIe GPUs etc. would count as "short cuts and compromises".

It would be interesting to see in these topics what the percentage is of people replying who actually do own a 7,1 or numerous Mac Pros versus those with a Mac Studio or maybe something else.

I think it is somewhat irrelevant arguing about how much RAM and PCIe people really need when none of the real or rumoured hardware from Apple can support more than 192GB of RAM or a handful of PCIe lanes vs. 1.5TB and 64 lanes for the 7,1.

I certainly don't need the capabilities of a 7,1 myself. I do, however, understand and accept why some people need them - the only question being whether that market is still large enough for Apple to make a new chip specially for that niche.

It's also worth remembering that it was only the 2019 update that turned the Mac Pro into the current "serious callers only" machine for "real workstation users" by effectively doubling the entry price - and that for a spec that a $3000 iMac could beat in a sprint, so it made no sense unless you were going to add thousands of bucks worth of updates. Until then, MP pricing & performance had pretty much taken over where the iMac left off, and it was a pretty reasonable buy
if you just wanted a little bit more clout than an iMac that could take an extra HD and an interface card or two (or lots of TB I/O in the case of the Trashcan). I did buy a Mac Pro 1.1 - and later dithered over a 6.1 - for pretty much that reason.

So there are a bunch of Apple customers who would have bought a ~$2500-$3000 Mac Pro because they wanted a headless system, better I/O or (pre-Trashcan) modest internal expansion, but were thrown under the bus by the 2019 Mac Pro. The Mac Studio has done a lot to fix that (except the internal expansion bit).

The previous Mac Pros could be expanded into pretty powerful (and expensive) workstations, but not to the extreme levels of the 7,1 (Apple went from 128GB max RAM to 1.5TB max RAM, ~24 PCIe lanes to ~64 overnight). The 7,1 level of performance/expandability has only been a 3-year experiment for Apple.

 

[mattspace]

 

[Mago]

Highly unlikely. At this late stage, Apple will surely kick the announcement down the road to WWDC 2023 in June.

Disagree if such delay happens don't expect an m2 neither an m3 Mac Pro announcement

 

[Mago]

On the other hand, i was tipped apple may be considering to provide future Mac pro (no first gen ASi Mac Pro) with armv9 compatible HCC processor from a subcontractor based on an existing product (Ampere Altra?).

If true it means the Mac Pro become un-approachable by stacking ASi on chiplets.

ASi actually runs an custom arm v8 instructions setz some of them privative and undocumented outside apple (even not available for llvm) an neoverse-v2 (arm v9) HCC easy can beat an m2 extreme, but has no GPU, don't salivate yet, if said switch happens it maybe at the inverse Apple licensing an arm neoverse-vX HCC IP maybe injecting it's own instructions (and maybe its associated ASIC as matrix coprocessor).

Apple Silicon runs some undocumented arm v8 institutions most are related to its matrix coprocessor (an amazing hardware, shame not ofically supported by llvm, gcc etc so libraries like GMP would skyrocket it's performance), other instructions are related to improve x86 virtualization efficiency, ARM neoverse-v2 has it own equivalent to ASi matrix coprocessor, migration from arm v8-custom to unmodified arm v9 only would kill Rossetta 2, And require some code recompilation, I'd need to put ASi Isa extension side by side with ARM v9 to have an detailed idea on how smooth or complicated it could be, given only officially apple privative binaries require said extension a transition from armv8 custom to ISA arm v9 should be end-user and external developer transparent notwithstanding binaries with custom extension would require a revision.

This in no way is coming to the first generation ASi Mac pro, neither means in the future you could build an hackintosh on an Ampere Altra server/workstation.

 

[Mago]

because the biggest currently rumoured processor is the M2 Ultra with a predicted max 192GB of RAM and maybe a couple of slots worth of PCIe bandwidth assuming some of the TB4 ports could be re-configured as PCIe. Even a M2 Extreme

Correction, m2 max memory tops at 92gb factually is not an architectural constraint, it's just what's Apple is offering, ae Synology's NAS advertise on its Xeon products max 32bñ gb ram (2x16gb), which is not true as users can install 32gb modules from 3d party and enjoy 64gb Nas, Why this? Synology only sells UpTo 16gb modules and don't recognize 3rd, apple not exactly the same case but maybe they actually provided its m2 max with enough address lines for multiple TB of RAM even disable features as ECC and you have no Way to be aware which are the actual m2 max maximum capabilities until apple reveals the Mac Pro, i expect confident it to have ECC LPDDR5 512gb per m2 max, about form factor likely industry server grade DIMM otherwise would be too expensive for Apple to offer discreet RAM, and without discreet RAM the Modular Mac loses its main modular feature everyone wants.

As for PCIe lines it can be provided by UltraFusion bridge PHY same way AMD Epyc does.

I certainly don't need the capabilities of a 7,1 myself. I do, however, understand and accept why some people need them - the only question being whether that market is still large enough for Apple to make a new chip specially for that niche.

I don't know what MKBHD does with 768gb at his Mac Pro 7,1 as I don't think it bring anything big for his video workflows, but if you run Big Data análisis or Blockchain forensics an system with TB of ram Will process data in almost realtime without said huge ram it would takes week's or months, you maybe strange to such applications and while not mainstream are becoming quite common now in corporations, I'm still doing something related to this market.

What is hard for apple to recover is scientific market, the advances in Linux and Nvidia supremacy render pointless any effort to compete there (despite ASi GPU fp64 performance is 50 better than Nvidia), notwithstanding apple had serious efforts here with sponsoring some libraries having support for ASi Metal 3.

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

Disagree if such delay happens don't expect an m2 neither an m3 Mac Pro announcement

Look, the Mac Pro is not going to be announced in April, give it up. I would much prefer that the Mac Pro would be powered by a n3-based M3 Ultra/Extreme to come out by the end if 2023 but I expect that we will see a M2 Ultra…

 

[Mago]

Look, the Mac Pro is not going to be announced in April, give it up. I would much prefer that the Mac Pro would be powered by a n3-based M3 Ultra/Extreme to come out by the end if 2023 but I expect that we will see a M2 Ultra…

Gurman get out here.

🤣🤣☺️🤣🤣🤣

 

[Serqetry]

I'm feeling like this is probably going to be a very boring and disappointing year for Apple products, and that all the rumors really are nonsense. No VR silliness or Mac Pro at WWDC or before. We're gonna get maybe a 15" M2 MBA and a new iPhone this year, that's all. Or if Apple is smart they will quit stalling and quietly update the Mac Studio to M2. Everything else is probably just a fantasy.

Also if they are smart they won't even put out anything with M3 until they have high end M3 configurations (Max, Ultra) worked out. They need to break the cycle of putting machines out with a new M series base config immediately after the maxed out previous series.

 

[Boil]

...without discreet RAM the Modular Mac loses its main modular feature everyone wants.

I would think the main draw for a "modular" ASi Mac Pro would be the PCIe slots...?

Look, the Mac Pro is not going to be announced in April, give it up. I would much prefer that the Mac Pro would be powered by a n3-based M3 Ultra/Extreme to come out by the end if 2023 but I expect that we will see a M2 Ultra…

N3B wafers have been in production since late December 2022, one would think those would be perfect for a M3 Ultra / M3 Extreme Mac Pro, and Apple has a burning need to complete their transition to Apple silicon...

I'm feeling like this is probably going to be a very boring and disappointing year for Apple products, and that all the rumors really are nonsense. No VR silliness or Mac Pro at WWDC or before. We're gonna get maybe a 15" M2 MBA and a new iPhone this year, that's all. Or if Apple is smart they will quit stalling and quietly update the Mac Studio to M2. Everything else is probably just a fantasy.

LOL, the fantasy is thinking Apple will release nothing but a 15" M2 MacBook (Air) & a new iPhone this year...

Also if they are smart they won't even put out anything with M3 until they have high end M3 configurations (Max, Ultra) worked out. They need to break the cycle of putting machines out with a new M series base config immediately after the maxed out previous series.

Since the M1-series of SoCs is the only series that has seen "completion", there is not really a cycle as of yet; debuting the M3-series of SoCs with the M3 Ultra / M3 Extreme in the new ASi Mac Pro seems the smart move...

 

[Serqetry]

LOL, the fantasy is thinking Apple will release nothing but a 15" M2 MacBook (Air) & a new iPhone this year...

Not a fantasy... a fear. I fear we will all be disappointed by rumors gone wild. There's not a lot of evidence to suggest the rumors have any substance. We've been hearing the same nonsense about the VR headset for years, and the Mac Pro rumors just don't make sense.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong... as long as the Mac Pro doesn't turn out to be as dumb as it sounds.

 

[Romain_H]

I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong... as long as the Mac Pro doesn't turn out to be as dumb as it sounds.

Same thoughts here. For my next desktop I look elsewhere, because I am rather positive that whatever the next Mac Pro is going to be like Apple is gonna pricing me out

 

[Boil]

Apple needs to either release some sort of ASi Mac Pro no later than WWDC 2023, or issue a "Mea Culpa 2: Mac Pro Boogaloo" statement in regards to a full three years passing since the initial announcement of the Apple silicon transition...

Me, I am hoping it will be based on the A17 cores and built on a 3nm process...

M3 Ultra / Extreme, sure, why not...?

Asymmetrical M3 Ultra / Extreme (pairing a "standard" M3 Max SoC with a "GPU-specific" SoC; two of each for an Extreme configuration), even better for GPU capabilities...

Massive ASi 3nm CPU+ (Neural Engine / Media Engines / etc.) paired with an equally massive ASi 3nm GPU, similar to the Nvidia Grace / Hopper Superchip; could be a solution...

Multiple ASi CPU+ chiplets and multiple ASi GPU chiplets connected to an ASi bridge/crossover/whatever, AMD-style; could also be a solution...

Oh yeah, and it should include hardware ray-tracing...

 

[Serqetry]

Me, I am hoping it will be based on the A17 cores and built on a 3nm process...

M3 Ultra / Extreme, sure, why not...?

Asymmetrical M3 Ultra / Extreme (pairing a "standard" M3 Max SoC with a "GPU-specific" SoC; two of each for an Extreme configuration), even better for GPU capabilities...

Massive ASi 3nm CPU+ (Neural Engine / Media Engines / etc.) paired with an equally massive ASi 3nm GPU, similar to the Nvidia Grace / Hopper Superchip; could be a solution...

Multiple ASi CPU+ chiplets and multiple ASi GPU chiplets connected to an ASi bridge/crossover/whatever, AMD-style; could also be a solution...

Oh yeah, and it should include hardware ray-tracing...

Well if these were the rumors, that would be exciting. But instead we have super dumb rumors about a pointless machine that makes no sense. And the fact that we haven't heard anything better, or even anything credible... makes me think we won't see anything at WWDC.

 

[Mago]

I would think the main draw for a "modular" ASi Mac Pro would be the PCIe slots...?

No, the memory needs by pro user are widely different, some guys maybe happy with 32gb and full M2 extreme CPU GPU cores, while others may need 2 TB and work very well with M2 ultra, soldered RAM may render those very different Mac on being built, apple losing not just two Mac Pro sales but two active pro apple developers or users.

And there is no really an TRUE technical (or legal) reason preventing Apple providing m2 ultra Extreme with discreet RAM support.

M3 Ultra / Extreme, sure, why not...?

Assuming the "there won't be m2 extreme"-gurman narrative is true (is not), Apple engineers approach should have experimented an huge issues they can't remedy, switching to an NEW node won't help solve this issue unless the whole SOC complex follows an radical redesign from day 0 instead the Lego-m2 max for something like 3D AMD Epyc or Ryzen , if said issue is related to the LEGO-like M2-max approach unlikely apple could input it's remedy until n3b m4 is sent to foundries.

 

[Mago]

Personally I think Gurman's narrative against the existence of the m2 extreme is his paycheck to Apple for kicking his ass when he wrote there won't be m2 MacBook pro earlier than q3, next week Apple launched the m2 max MacBook Pro and the honours went to the moron Jon Proseer (that should hurt).

 

[Mago]

Ah, final m2 Extreme name seems to be apple m2 ultra²

or just m2 squared

 

[prefuse07]

Fine, I'll bite...

Apparently, they've been having difficulties with their 3nm chips...

Here is a better read

However, if the technology giant has reached an unscalable obstacle with this silicon, the M3 SoC meant for future Macs may also experience the same setbacks.

At the most, Apple may sacrifice performance for the A17 Bionic and M3, focusing more on energy efficiency.

*shrug*

 

[Mago]

*shrug*

Indeed pray for m2-quad/squared whatever ASi Mac Pro or wait until m4 Mac Pro finally happens.