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

[Mago]

So what happened to reusing the 7,1 case then?

Why do you keep mentioning the Trashcan? Just because they filed those patents some time ago?

I think just Gurman's speculation based o ASi Mac Pro test rigs based o m2 ultra and the old 7,1 chassis, Apple would never expose an divisive redesign (as when the trashcan was tested, test rigs where just MP5,1 with an moreless generic Xeon prototype).

Even if apple is generous and provides an ASi Mac Pro equivalent to MP7,1 Apple Silicon may render some volume inside 7,1 chassis unused or empty which is against Apple optimization mantras.

I've no solid clues on ASI Mac Pro form factor, but is not 7,1 recycled, as much it may look as a 2/3 sized cheesegrater, but cues suggest at least Apple strongly considered a trashcan re-incarnation or something where lack of expandability its justified.

 

[prefuse07]

I think just Gurman's speculation based o ASi Mac Pro test rigs based o m2 ultra and the old 7,1 chassis, Apple would never expose an divisive redesign (as when the trashcan was tested, test rigs where just MP5,1 with an moreless generic Xeon prototype).

Even if apple is generous and provides an ASi Mac Pro equivalent to MP7,1 Apple Silicon may render some volume inside 7,1 chassis unused or empty which is against Apple optimization mantras.

I've no solid clues on ASI Mac Pro form factor, but is not 7,1 recycled, as much it may look as a 2/3 sized cheesegrater, but cues suggest at least Apple strongly considered a trashcan re-incarnation or something where lack of expandability its justified.

But apple have reused the same chassis in the past -- PowerMac G5 and Mac Pro 1,1 all the way through 5,1 all shared the same case/outer design. The differences lied with the interior designs/layouts of those machines.

There is more proof to support them reusing the 7,1 case than there is for them randomly resurrecting a failed design such as the trash can -- again, just because they filed those patents, doesn't mean anything. As others have pointed out, apple frequently files patents that they don't use (to build their IP portfolio), and again, history has shown us that they HAVE reused the same case in the past -- especially when it comes to the Mac Pro.

Furthermore, all of the leaks we've heard from Gurman, Prosser and the other leakers, including Amethyst all point to reusing the 7,1 case. You have provided zero evidence to the contrary, and even less to suggest they would resurrect the Trash Can besides those patent filings (and even then, the patent filings were provided courtesy of this website, and not a source of your own).

I don't mean to be aggressive, just think your constant mention of the Trash Can is out of place and unsubstantiated. I also believe that, until proof is shown otherwise, the AS Mac Pro will indeed reuse the 7,1 chassis.

 

[Chancha]

If Apple is releasing a machine anywhere near the concept of the trashcan, how would it fall under the Mac Pro category but not as a Studio 2.0? Especially if there are no DIMM slots and then the SoC only goes up to M2 Ultra as rumours suggest. Releasing this actually could make some sense if the intention is to have a stopgap machine until the eventual AS Mac Pro happens, which for all intents and purposes "have" to be a 7,1 copy for it to stand any chance to be taken seriously.

Go back to the un-expandable route, while still calling it a Mac Pro would just be PR disaster. At least to this audience.

 

[Mago]

You have provided zero evidence to the contrary

Have Gurman, Proser even our fellow Amethyst provided something we could label as evidence?

We have to put things where belong: Gurman earn money by writing an column, same Proser, neither amethyst or me we earn a penny on this.

Second, assume we have a photo etc as evidence, just showing it may expose our sources (as amethyst's source likely fired now), until the actual Mac Pro on apple silicon is released Al we can write (include Proser and Gurman) should be labeled as speculation.

About the ASi Mac Pro form factor, I've never stated I'm confident on being a cheese grater or q trashcan (if apple ask me I'll resurrect the NeXT cube, with tons of PCIe and CPU cores to take down the power station).

What I clearly contend Gurman is about M2 extreme I'm 99.99999999999999% confident a quad m2 Mac pro will be available, either as a single m2 extreme or as a dual m2 ultra, I've personally verified M2 Max' buses related to UltraFusion grown by at least 2x factor, this is in line with an quad m2-max setup.

What I've no single evidence is on M3 ASI coming to the Mac pro , everything about you can read about here at Mac Rumors, even there's nothing about M3 GPU to assess it will include Ray Tracing, at best wishes and desires but no single trace on apple Hired some one for RT development (and Metal 3 raytracing is not hardware related -yet-).

I don't come here just to target Gurman (notwithstanding he's a moron), just when he has no cues on something he just posted nonsense at his letter, to remember that about M2 max MBP not coming even in Q2? What happened the Mac book pro with M2 max was available to order few days later in clear defying on Gurman prophecies.

C'mon

 

[Boil]

Have Gurman, Proser even our fellow Amethyst provided something we could label as evidence?

Second, assume we have a photo etc as evidence, just showing it may expose our sources (as amethyst's source likely fired now), until the actual Mac Pro on apple silicon is released Al we can write (include Proser and Gurman) should be labeled as speculation.

What I clearly contend Gurman is about M2 extreme I'm 99.99999999999999% confident a quad m2 Mac pro will be available, either as a single m2 extreme or as a dual m2 ultra, I've personally verified M2 Max' buses related to UltraFusion grown by at least 2x factor, this is in line with an quad m2-max setup.

In regards to UltraFusion in the M2 Max, you have "personally verified", yet you cannot "provide something we could label as evidence"...

 

[Mago]

In regards to UltraFusion in the M2 Max, you have "personally verified", yet you cannot "provide something we could label as evidence"...

I found something not from me but I actually can share, and are m2 max die shots: (from a Macworld pub)

While I've much better insight than this photo, watch at the circled áreas, there You see a line, same feature at the m2 max, what's that line? Is the main data bus (similar feature at right side each soc, there are two data bus for each sub block), it interface memory, CPU cores, i/o and UltraFusion (which don't show the photos), both CPU share 5nm process so you can easily estimate capacity is in proportion to size, now compare both feature sizes, it grows more than double wit M2 max, while you many need to do that to deal with higher frequency (clock) the clock difference not as high as to require more than double bandwidth. What the photo don't show are UltraFusion bifurcations, those are features likely required to split connection among two different external interface, which maybe or maybe not at the same silicon bridge. But that photo is one I'll show another day 🤫

 

[Boil]

I found something not from me but I actually can share...

In the past you stated the proof you had was an x-ray of the M2 Max die; so why that cannot be shared I do not understand, it is an x-ray of a commercially available product, does not seem very proprietary in nature...?

But that photo is one I'll show another day 🤫

Thanks for nothing, John Ternus...

 

[Mago]

Thanks for nothing, John Ternus...

OMG poor John will be fired on Monday just after recording that beautiful introduction for ASi Mac Pro aka Silver Trashcan][ ....

so why that cannot be shared I do not understand, it is an x-ray of a commercially

Artifacts, every x-ray is unique will doxe me immediately.

 

[prefuse07]

Have Gurman, Proser even our fellow Amethyst provided something we could label as evidence?

I don't come here just to target Gurman (notwithstanding he's a moron), just when he has no cues on something he just posted nonsense at his letter, to remember that about M2 max MBP not coming even in Q2? What happened the Mac book pro with M2 max was available to order few days later in clear defying on Gurman prophecies.

C'mon

You do target Gurman, and I find your posts against him hilarious, but that's beside the point of this discussion.

Also, your statement about M2 is wrong, evidence is below (pay attention to the dates).

First, to give both Amethyst and Gurman some credibility, here is what they both said about Mac Mini and MBP:

August 7, 2022

Gurman says Apple had been working on an M1 Pro version of the Mac mini, which was supposed to launch later last year or by the end of this year, which, from what he understands, “is now off the table” – which 9to5Mac sources corroborated with.

Instead, expect a Mac mini refresh to include both M2 and M2 Pro options. I also don’t believe the machine will be getting any major redesign in the near term.

SOURCE


October 19, 2022

I've got some interest info about mac line up.

14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max. (include very high-bandwidth, high-speed RAM)
and Next Mac mini with simple M2 drop-in.

these 2 product has been perfectly pass SIT process.
iMac 24 with m2 is spot but need a time to polish. (early prototype)

But as i known the price of these machine will be 10-30% hike is many country (outside the US)

/threads

SOURCE = This thread

December 18, 2022

Gurman says that an M2 Pro Mac mini and the M2 Ultra Mac Pro are in active testing and should launch in 2023. M2 Pro and M2 Max 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models should also arrive early in the new year.

SOURCE

What happened at the start of 2023?

We got an M2 Pro Mac Mini, and 14" and 16" M2 Pro and Max MacBook Pros -- as they both predicted.

January 17, 2023

Apple Announces New Mac Mini With M2 and M2 Pro Chips at Lower $599 Starting Price

Apple today announced an updated Mac mini powered by the new M2 and the all-new M2 Pro chip, offering faster performance in the same design as the...

www.macrumors.com

Apple Announces New MacBook Pros With M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips, Up to 96GB RAM, and More

Apple today announced the next-generation 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with faster 5nm-based M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, up to 96GB of RAM, an...

www.macrumors.com

Now, onto Mac Pro...

October 24, 2022 -- I shared the below post within THIS thread

Since this was the original thread on this topic (and the best IMO, since Amethyst is spot on). I think we should consolidate all other 8,1 Mac Pro threads in with this one, and just keep this alive, and kill all others.

Here is an update from 9to5mac:

My belief is that the Mac Pro will be offered with options for 24 and 48 CPU cores and 76 and 152 graphics cores—along with up to 256 gigabytes of memory.

In fact, I can share one configuration of the Mac Pro in active testing within Apple: 24 CPU cores (16 performance and 8 efficiency cores), 76 graphics cores and 192 gigabytes of memory. That particular machine is running macOS Ventura 13.3.

SOURCE

Then Amethyst posted this as a direct response to my post above:

October 24, 2022

I want to confirm Gurman info:

Latest Prototype Mac Pro is now based on 24 Core M2 and 192GB <<Unified Memory.>>
Prototype board is allocate in 7,1 Case with More than 1 PCI-E Slot, <<my pay tell me that 6 pci-e++>>
GPU is now show it's name in system preference. but not working properly.
Still no ram slot.

PS. That latest Mac Pro include beefy SoC thermal cooler.

January 8, 2023

Gurman says the Apple Silicon Mac Pro (featuring merely an M2 Ultra chip) will also look identical to the current Intel Mac Pro, so customers should not expect any major design change.

SOURCE

January 8, 2023

3 months later, and this still be currently latest in-development mac pro.

7,1 case, 6 pci-e slot, no ram slot.

March 4, 2023

I have some information regard Mac Pro.

- They have try to push M2 Ultra P-core to run around 4.2 GHz
- it success, but with much more power consumption.
- Mac Pro thermal heatsink can be easily handle that heat outputs.
- Doesn't decided that how the final spec will be.

Sadly, that was the last we heard from Amethyst on this subject...

We have to put things where belong: Gurman earn money by writing an column, same Proser, neither amethyst or me we earn a penny on this.

As i've shown above, at least Amethyst and Gurman have track records of being close if not spot on with their leaks --

You've never predicted anything. You showed up to this thread on January 29th with THIS

My predictions:

Early February/March Apple should Release the M2/M2 Pro iMac 24 along showcase the VR/AR glasses, then at WWDC after M2 Max/Ultra Mac Strudio Introduction should introduce the M2 Ultra/Extremme Mac Pro, sharing the iconic CheeseGrater chassis (even with 400$ wheels), with upto 4TB DDR5 DIM ram (or at least 768gb), 16TB NVME, single/dual AMD GPU optional, starting somwhrere near 6000$ for base M2 Ultra+32gb DDR5 (rx 8GB) DIMMS +1TB and close 12000$ for M2 Extremme Models starting with 64GB DDR5 ECC (8x8gb) DIMMS, none including dGPU, and options based on newest radeon GPUs priced as current ones, old MPX likely modules not compatible with the new Mac Pro as it likely to ditch the x16 PCIe extension it requires, but other MPX modules not requiring the PCIe extension likley compatible from Day 0 as HDD cages, even dont discard an Afterburner successor, based on ASIC instead FPGAs indeed ridiculous powerful but at least 20x the current card, or using half power on an 10x more powerful accelerator.

I've been tiped (this is just speculation, take with tons of sea salt), along the Afterburner or instead, apple may introduce an monster TPU/NPU accelerator card, which will bring the Mac Pro the crown as the most powerful AI training workstation, even this card maybe a good alternative for Radeon GPUs.

All this comes from my own Chrystal Ball special, I'm no one at Apple neither in touch with anyone at Cupertino.

How can you be tipped about something, but then call it speculation? It's either one or the other...

Also, thanks for admitting you have no sources.


When @AndreeOnline called you out, you responded with this gem:

Quite obvious.

I'm not in the leak business, I'm at the HPC industry, I develop hardware and software related to HPC applications, I loved to work from the trashcan the. I had friends with insights at its Texas manufacture.


If you writes (and speculate) about pharmacological products, by law in many countries you may go to jail if you don't have any background supporting your editorial, I i wrote about planes at least I had to understand newton laws, not the case here, Gurman IMHO even lack formal Journalism degree just enjoy a bunch of friends and guys like you feeling empathy with him and apologizing him when he trashed.

Yes I'm speculating what's apple will do with a bunch of PCIe5 slots and a bunch of RCDs, you caught me.

What I look at the rearview are the typical Mac Pro workflows, that typical workflows updated as today industry trends can't be addressed by just two "stacked" Mac Studio , as neither will provide you 4TB of ram or the gpu compute power a single AMD MI100 (you can install two at the 7,1).

Sorry for Gurman, he needs to read a lot about AMBA, CXL and relates base technologies.

So, these two statements make no sense...

But that photo is one I'll show another day 🤫

Artifacts, every x-ray is unique will doxe me immediately.

Since you've admitted you have no sources and are not in the 'leak business' -- why still pretend?

 

[treehuggerpro]

Not 100% sure which feature you're referring to in the Macworld image. If it's the vertical channels marked with arrows here, assuming they've got them scaled proportionally correct, the channels are quite similar (at this scale) in size.

The anomaly that you are possibly referring to as "more than double," is likely a perceptual one produced by the variance in the light and shade of the two die shots.

 

[Mago]

You do target Gurman, and I find your posts against him hilarious, but that's beside the point of this discussion.

Also, your statement about M2 is wrong, evidence is below (pay attention to the dates).

First, to give both Amethyst and Gurman some credibility, here is what they both said about Mac Mini and MBP:

August 7, 2022


SOURCE


October 19, 2022

SOURCE = This thread

December 18, 2022


SOURCE

What happened at the start of 2023?

We got an M2 Pro Mac Mini, and 14" and 16" M2 Pro and Max MacBook Pros -- as they both predicted.

January 17, 2023

Apple Announces New Mac Mini With M2 and M2 Pro Chips at Lower $599 Starting Price

Apple today announced an updated Mac mini powered by the new M2 and the all-new M2 Pro chip, offering faster performance in the same design as the...

www.macrumors.com

Apple Announces New MacBook Pros With M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips, Up to 96GB RAM, and More

Apple today announced the next-generation 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with faster 5nm-based M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, up to 96GB of RAM, an...

www.macrumors.com

Now, onto Mac Pro...

October 24, 2022 -- I shared the below post within THIS thread


Then Amethyst posted this as a direct response to my post above:

October 24, 2022


January 8, 2023


SOURCE

January 8, 2023


March 4, 2023


Sadly, that was the last we heard from Amethyst on this subject...



As i've shown above, at least Amethyst and Gurman have track records of being close if not spot on with their leaks --

You've never predicted anything. You showed up to this thread on January 29th with THIS



How can you be tipped about something, but then call it speculation? It's either one or the other...

Also, thanks for admitting you have no sources.


When @AndreeOnline called you out, you responded with this gem:




So, these two statements make no sense...



Since you've admitted you have no sources and are not in the 'leak business' -- why still pretend?

This rant proof what?
IMHO Gurman lost his apple insider hardware source after M2 pro Mac mini, then he comes back for cues on something coherent to fill his newsletter and Bill.

Gurman still keep sources relative to software as is much more complicated for apple to track, but I'm pretty sure his las hardware source is gagged or fired.

I've no track record besides prediction for Mac Pro 6,1 being something like the Old cube without PCIe and internal storage and cooled vertically, i don't know if that still available, but I don't care on being pointed, I have trust on what I wrote, Gurman is about to get a second slap from apple (m2 MBP was their first and he still feel the pain).

The new Mac Pro is very soon here before WWDC and has 4 m2 max SOC, but storage, discreet GPU and PCIe are not leaked enough information, as for discreet RAM at least I'm sure apple tested it an asked on parts but no idea if they made it to feature discreet ram (still unified memory).

C.U. say hello to mark

 

[Mago]

Not 100% sure which feature you're referring to in the Macworld image. If it's the vertical channels marked with arrows here, assuming they've got them scaled proportionally correct, the channels are quite similar (at this scale) in size.

View attachment 2192254

The anomaly that you are possibly referring to as "more than double," is likely a perceptual one produced by the variance in the light and shade of the two die shots.

Not perceptual, even I'm not the only one aware on this anomaly.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1543132909967663104

UltraFusion at both ends (information also shared by me, later i was aware on the double capacity UF at single end).

 

[PineappleCake]

An ARM Mac Pro can still be 100% modular, its only up to Apple to make it modular.
Below is a video on an modular ARM tower PC, hooked up a Nvidia GPU.

 

[treehuggerpro]

Not perceptual, even I'm not the only one aware on this anomaly.

UltraFusion at both ends (information also shared by me, later i was aware on the double capacity UF at single end).

Still not sure which feature in the die shot you are saying is physically doubled. And I can't say that anything visual in the die shots would be representative of 2x capacity or not anyway (it's not my field). I was just trying to determine what you were referring to?

On the contents of that tweet, it says, "Just listening to discussion as to whether M2 has UltraFusion capabilities on both ends . . ." I don't use twitter, but the post looks to be dated well before the M2 Max's release and it doesn't appear to have a link to the 'discussion' in question. Are you sure you are interpreting the contents of that tweet correctly? It's a detail everyone would be interested to know?

On the M2 Max, I'm not asserting anything either way. Ideally, it does have 2x UltraFusion. What I was curious of, is which artefact in the shots you were using as evidence of this?

 

[Mago]

What I was curious of, is which artefact in the shots you were using as evidence of this?

Wait until it's reveal, I'm not sure what you and others want (ok I guess), I've wrote a bunch of things take it if you like that's all, I'm not advising to buy or not a Mac pro, I'm not adjusting my "predictions" just in case something different happens Keep my pristine fake record.


May 2, or May 9 I expect Mac Pro+ MBA 15, nothing special just an bigger MBA and an bigger Mac desktop offering just twice than Mac studio, also AMD GPU updates for 7,1 and maybe for 14,13-14.

Apple big reveal Will be it's glasses+something AI+watchos (Gurman stronghold is software).

 

[NC12]

You do target Gurman, and I find your posts against him hilarious, but that's beside the point of this discussion.

Also, your statement about M2 is wrong, evidence is below (pay attention to the dates).

First, to give both Amethyst and Gurman some credibility, here is what they both said about Mac Mini and MBP:

August 7, 2022


SOURCE


October 19, 2022

SOURCE = This thread

December 18, 2022


SOURCE

What happened at the start of 2023?

We got an M2 Pro Mac Mini, and 14" and 16" M2 Pro and Max MacBook Pros -- as they both predicted.

January 17, 2023

Apple Announces New Mac Mini With M2 and M2 Pro Chips at Lower $599 Starting Price

Apple today announced an updated Mac mini powered by the new M2 and the all-new M2 Pro chip, offering faster performance in the same design as the...

www.macrumors.com

Apple Announces New MacBook Pros With M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips, Up to 96GB RAM, and More

Apple today announced the next-generation 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with faster 5nm-based M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, up to 96GB of RAM, an...

www.macrumors.com

Now, onto Mac Pro...

October 24, 2022 -- I shared the below post within THIS thread


Then Amethyst posted this as a direct response to my post above:

October 24, 2022


January 8, 2023


SOURCE

January 8, 2023


March 4, 2023


Sadly, that was the last we heard from Amethyst on this subject...



As i've shown above, at least Amethyst and Gurman have track records of being close if not spot on with their leaks --

You've never predicted anything. You showed up to this thread on January 29th with THIS



How can you be tipped about something, but then call it speculation? It's either one or the other...

Also, thanks for admitting you have no sources.


When @AndreeOnline called you out, you responded with this gem:




So, these two statements make no sense...



Since you've admitted you have no sources and are not in the 'leak business' -- why still pretend?

Keep in mind they also didn’t understand what unified memory was. It seems they though it meant that the ram was inside the silicon when it actually means it’s just shared by the CPU and GPU

Apple marketing also feeds lots of lies their favorite: unified memory, actually every Mac uses discreet RAM just soldered no ram is baked into the main silicon

 

[goMac]

Since you've admitted you have no sources and are not in the 'leak business' -- why still pretend?

Mago also claimed to have a bunch of sources before the 7,1 was announced and they were also completely wrong about the 7,1.

I'd trust Gurman over Mago any day. Gurman has an extremely good track record.

 

[sirio76]

Let’s not forget what this name means:

🔎 mago traduzione inglese - Ricerca Google

www.google.it

He should be very good at predicting the future, I trust him!

 

[NC12]

Mago also claimed to have a bunch of sources before the 7,1 was announced and they were also completely wrong about the 7,1.

I'd trust Gurman over Mago any day. Gurman has an extremely good track record.

Let me guess, they claimed it would be another trash can?

Edit : Yup

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

May 2, or May 9 I expect Mac Pro+ …

Earlier you were sure that the Mac Pro would be announced in April, now it is May… Eventually you will be right, keep on trying! 😅

 

[Mago]

Earlier you were sure that the Mac Pro would be announced in April, now it is May… Eventually you will be right, keep on trying! 😅

It's just an guessing.

 

[Mago]

Let me guess, they claimed it would be another trash can?

Edit : Yup

It was before that mea culpa event, that trashcan existed as prototype, it's thermal core never was up, apple tried everything to improve it, finally abandoned.

But there are people out there which believe the next Mac Pro will be an trashcan apology. Just comment bring it 50:50 chances.

I don't know what the ASi Mac will look, just it has 4 m2 max and big chances to get some discreet RAM solution, meanwhile people at the industry tells apple is working on some accelerator add-on not clear what but maybe an ASi dGPU an slave Mac or something from 3rd as AMD GPU or Tensor TPU.

 

[theluggage]

An ARM Mac Pro can still be 100% modular, its only up to Apple to make it modular.
Below is a video on an modular ARM tower PC, hooked up a Nvidia GPU.

There's no question that you can build a server-class ARM-based machine, with lots of DDR5 RAM and PCIe slots for AMD or NVIDIA GPUs. The question is, how could Apple build an Apple Silicon machine with those sorts of features, who would actually buy it and why Apple would want to do that.

The main point of contention in this thread is whether you can achieve those sort of specs by gluing together some permutation of Mx Max dies - anything else would mean Apple sinking a huge amount of investment into a new die just for the Mac Pro.

Using the ARM ISA simplifies the processor design somewhat and makes higher-density, lower-power consumption easier (at the expense of losing x86 binary compatibility) but there's a lot more to Apple Silicon than that: fast integrated GPUs (relative to other integrated GPUs), unified, on-package LPDDR RAM, integrated security features, the neural engine, the media engine (optimised for Apple's own video formats) that give most of the Mac range (including the mass market MacBook Air/Pro models) an advantage over comparable products and make them capable of running modern MacOS. Not least, Apple benefits from the vertical integration of developing their own CPUs and GPUs.

Trouble is, its hard to see how those advantages scale to a Mac Pro 7.1-class machine - and if you go back to regular DDR RAM, external AMD/NVIDIA GPUs, external T2 chip, external/optional Afterburner cards etc. what is going to give an ARM Mac Pro any edge over the competition? Even the Ampere/Google server class ARM chips are targeted at high-density computing and cloud services where the CPU power savings really start to add up - not high-end personal workstations - and AMD are offering similar core counts and (claimed) power savings without losing x86 compatibility.

The machine in the video looks cool (and I have an irrational, nostalgic love of ARM) but in practical terms its performance is going to be determined by the number of CPU cores (also available in AMD x86) and the capabilities of NVIDIA's latest and greatest GPUs (also available to plug into cheap commodity PC hardware), and any CPU power saving (assuming you even care about that in a standalone tower workstation) is going to be eroded by those big NVIDIA space-heating graphics cards and regular DDR5 RAM.

The only advantage a Mac like that would offer would be the ability to run MacOS - so the potential customer base would be a small and shrinking pool of customers still locked into Mac-only software, while the future for new tech is probably Linux and an increasing reliance on on-demand cloud computing for big rendering and ML training jobs.

Now, with the MP 7.1, Apple was able to put together a Xeon/AMD-based system without any rocket surgery (the T2 was existing tech, MPX slots were nice, but just macro-scale plumbing, otherwise its standard Intel/AMD fare) and make it look a bit special thanks to a combination of being an early adopter of the new Xeon-W (from whence came the huge RAM and PCIe capacity) and grotesque over-engineering (who can resist a bit of steampunk?) - a 7.1-comparable Apple Silicon machine is going to take some significant investment in new silicon, for what is likely to be a dying product sector.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

...a 7.1-comparable Apple Silicon machine is going to take some significant investment in new silicon, for what is likely to be a dying product sector.

You've really hit the nail on the head, it comes down to what different customers need, rather than what they want.

People seem to forget what the main selling point of the Mac Pro used to be - performance. If you wanted good performance in a variety of applications, you simply had to use the Mac Pro since consumer chips of the time couldn't keep up with software innovation and digital standards.

Years ago I was an audio engineer working both freelance and for smaller music/film studios. Mac Pros were the standard everywhere because they offered good value for the performance and software. The idea of using one of the iBooks/plastic Mac notebooks of the period would have been laughable.

But this is no longer the case. Today an M2 MacBook Air can handle multi-track Logic Pro and 4K timelines in FCP whilst barely breaking a sweat. These are only two examples of workflows, but it's clear that what defines a 'professional' today is very different to when having a tower Mac was crucial. Performance has been democratised, applications are more varied, and people make money in different ways.

Internal configuration was clearly another benefit - yet increasingly this is becoming less important again for specific market segments, as other solutions have become more suitable for modern workflows. More storage is accessed remotely, many PCIe features are being obsoleted by better technologies, and even the idea of having to replace graphics cards on a regular basis is becoming old hat. There are those in our community who like the idea of being able to open a Mac and replace a graphic cards, but it appears to me that many are hobbyists rather than professionals who would, for whatever reason, benefit from next years card.

Apple wants to be 'in control of the whole widget' as Steve Jobs put it, and who can blame them? I look on Mac Studio as more of a proof-of-concept than anything. Yes, it will continue to fulfil a lot of needs because the price-performance ratio is spot on, and it's proven that there is a segment needing performance but not internal expansion. But Apple has notoriously done as much as they can on their own terms and that is the price of being in their eco-system.

The harsh truth is that Mac Pro has existed not because Apple wants users to 'tinker' and replace components, but because for the longest time there was no other option if they wanted to provide good performance. 6,1 may have been an 'apology', but I would be fascinated to know how many owners have actually purchased another MPX module after the initial configuration.

 

[mode11]

6,1 may have been an 'apology', but I would be fascinated to know how many owners have actually purchased another MPX module after the initial configuration.

Presumably you mean 7,1?

Bear in mind that many people haven't owned 7,1's that long, and those who needed decent GPUs would have specced them with powerful options at purchase. That said, there seems to be quite a lot of hope for 7900XTX drivers and/or MPX cards on this forum.