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

[backtopoints]

They created this meaningless machine so that they could say they have completed the transition.
This machine proves nothing but Apple is u-n-a-b-l-e to create a proper pro level machine for 3D and VFX artists and workflows. That's it. You have a huge, awesome case and mainboard but you can't add GPUs and Ram. That just means they are making fun of their users.

 

[mode11]

They created this meaningless machine so that they could say they have completed the transition.

If that's all they were interested in, they could have discontinued the Mac Pro and had done with it.

This machine proves nothing but Apple is u-n-a-b-l-e to create a proper pro level machine for 3D and VFX artists and workflows. That's it.

Exactly. ASi has plenty of upsides for Apple though.

You have a huge, awesome case and mainboard but you can't add GPUs and Ram. That just means they are making fun of their users.

How many lunatics are using Macs for professional 3D animation, games development, virtual production etc.? 99% of such people will use a PC + Nvidia card. That was never going to change, for all sorts of reasons. This machine is for Apple's core audio / video types, as well as developers. I doubt it will cost them many sales.

 

[Serqetry]

They created this meaningless machine so that they could say they have completed the transition.
This machine proves nothing but Apple is u-n-a-b-l-e to create a proper pro level machine for 3D and VFX artists and workflows. That's it. You have a huge, awesome case and mainboard but you can't add GPUs and Ram. That just means they are making fun of their users.

I couldn't agree more. Apple just gave up, and wanted to shut everyone up about the incomplete transition.

I think this will be the last Mac Pro. If the Mac Studio isn't good enough for you, then Apple isn't what you want going forward.

I thought they'd either discontinue the MP or they'd surprise everyone with a new class of ARM CPUs that aren't a limited SOC design. I was wrong, and they did something worse than either of those choices.

 

[misterwise]

This machine is for Apple's core audio / video types, as well as developers. I doubt it will cost them meany sales.

I was ready to drop £15K on a new Mac Pro to update my kit. As someone that does a lot of CG, eGpus previously gave me options. The 2019 Mac Pro was solid too and supported multiple AMD cards but wasn't worth investing in once AS was announced. The transition to AS has shown that apple can't compete at a GPU level. I know lots of artists that still prefer Macs for individual machines, their ecosystem and for ease when working with client studios. No idea how many people there are like me but it's a bad day for CG artist that use Mac.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I couldn't agree more. Apple just gave up, and wanted to shut everyone up about the incomplete transition.

I think this will be the last Mac Pro. If the Mac Studio isn't good enough for you, then Apple isn't what you want going forward.

I thought they'd either discontinue the MP or they'd surprise everyone with a new class of ARM CPUs that aren't a limited SOC design. I was wrong, and they did something worse than either of those choices.

and next year the M3 extreme will come out.

 

[Serqetry]

and next year the M3 extreme will come out.

What makes you think there will be an "extreme" version of the M3 if they couldn't do it with the M2?

Next year, the Mac Pro will probably be discontinued... since they successfully completed the transition. Lol.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

What makes you think there will be an "extreme" version of the M3 if they couldn't do it with the M2?

Next year, the Mac Pro will probably be discontinued... since they successfully completed the transition. Lol.

so why not add e-sata port to the studio and maybe and EXT PCI-e as well.

 

[backtopoints]

I couldn't agree more. Apple just gave up, and wanted to shut everyone up about the incomplete transition.

I think this will be the last Mac Pro. If the Mac Studio isn't good enough for you, then Apple isn't what you want going forward.

I thought they'd either discontinue the MP or they'd surprise everyone with a new class of ARM CPUs that aren't a limited SOC design. I was wrong, and they did something worse than either of those choices.

You're right about this is probably the last Mac Pro. Funny thing is that how they compare this machine to an old xeon cpu. And furthermore frankly I am suspicious that this is not the case with every very huge scenes even though they presented it with the moana island scene.

 

[backtopoints]

If that's all they were interested in, they could have discontinued the Mac Pro and had done with it.



Exactly. ASi has plenty of upsides for Apple though.



How many lunatics are using Macs for professional 3D animation, games development, virtual production etc.? 99% of such people will use a PC + Nvidia card. That was never going to change, for all sorts of reasons. This machine is for Apple's core audio / video types, as well as developers. I doubt it will cost them many sales.

Before the trashcan Mac Pro, there were so many studios, particularly indie studios which started using it. If they had come up with a proper machine instead of the Trashcan, and hadn't stopped their partnership with Nvidia, they would have had a solid ground at even many big studios. I am not even talking about how many pro level apps that they killed such as Shake.

 

[Serqetry]

You're right about this is probably the last Mac Pro. Funny thing is that how they compare this machine to an old xeon cpu. And furthermore frankly I am suspicious that this is not the case with every very huge scenes even though they presented it with the moana island scene.

Yeah... We already know the i7-13700K beats the M1 Ultra by quite a bit thanks to Snazzy Labs' benchmarking his hackintosh. I wonder how the M2 Ultra will compare. It really is a shame that this is definitively the beginning of the end for MacOS on Intel CPUs.

 

[Serqetry]

Before the trashcan Mac Pro, there were so many studios, particularly indie studios which started using it. If they had come up with a proper machine instead of the Trashcan, and hadn't stopped their partnership with Nvidia, they would have had a solid ground at even many big studios. I am not even talking about how many pro level apps that they killed such as Shake.

I think ditching Nvidia was fine, Nvidia is a horrible company. But ditching AMD as well was just crazy.

 

[backtopoints]

Yeah... We already know the i7-13700K beats the M1 Ultra by quite a bit thanks to Snazzy Labs' benchmarking his hackintosh. I wonder how the M2 Ultra will compare. It really is a shame that this is definitively the beginning of the end for MacOS on Intel CPUs.

As sure as the night follows the day, I am sure the m2 Ultra won't be the exception. We all remember how they compared the GPU performance to 3090, and we have all seen even 3080 is faster 2 times on GPU rendering.

 

[mode11]

Before the trashcan Mac Pro, there were so many studios, particularly indie studios which started using it. If they had come up with a proper machine instead of the Trashcan, and hadn't stopped their partnership with Nvidia, they would have had a solid ground at even many big studios. I am not even talking about how many pro level apps that they killed such as Shake.

Sure, but we are talking over a decade ago at this point.

Yeah... We already know the i7-13700K beats the M1 Ultra by quite a bit thanks to Snazzy Labs' benchmarking his hackintosh. I wonder how the M2 Ultra will compare. It really is a shame that this is definitively the beginning of the end for MacOS on Intel CPUs.

The range of supported Intel machines on macOS Sonoma is getting pretty thin.

 

[mode11]

I think ditching Nvidia was fine, Nvidia is a horrible company.

Who cares? I'd buy an Nvidia card in a heartbeat if I was speccing a PC.

 

[ekwipt]

Question for the room - if an Intel Mac Pro and hackintosh can use PCIe AMD graphics cards why can’t the new Mac Pro? The drivers are in the latest operating System.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Question for the room - if an Intel Mac Pro and hackintosh can use PCIe AMD graphics cards why can’t the new Mac Pro? The drivers are in the latest operating System.

no arm drivers and the arm system is build on the shared video ram.

 

[Serqetry]

Who cares? I'd buy an Nvidia card in a heartbeat if I was speccing a PC.

Good for you. I buy Radeon cards instead because I don't like Nvidia and AMD makes GPUs that are competitive enough.

 

[Serqetry]

The range of supported Intel machines on macOS Sonoma is getting pretty thin.

Hopefully OpenCore can keep things going for as long as there is any Intel support in MacOS at all... but obviously it's going to eventually become like trying to keep a PPC Mac going.

 

[theluggage]

Question for the room - if an Intel Mac Pro and hackintosh can use PCIe AMD graphics cards why can’t the new Mac Pro? The drivers are in the latest operating System.

Ultimately - because Apple and/or AMD choose not to support it.

Yes, it need ARM drivers which won't write themselves but that's hardly the Manhattan project.

Also, one of today's new mysteries is where the new Mac Pro found all those PCIe lanes and what the actual bandwidth is (i.e. how many 16x GPU cards it can actually support).

 

[Serqetry]

Ultimately - because Apple and/or AMD choose not to support it.

Yes, it need ARM drivers which won't write themselves but that's hardly the Manhattan project.

Also, one of today's new mysteries is where the new Mac Pro found all those PCIe lanes and what the actual bandwidth is (i.e. how many 16x GPU cards it can actually support).

No, there's more to it than that. The way memory works with PCIe GPUs is not supported with Apple Silicon. There's literally no way to write a driver for it.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

I mainly work on live music shows doing performance visuals. Set designs now are getting so complex with so many pixels I can never have enough render power. The last show I did had a master pixel map (adjusted for the different LED products) of 110 Million pixels! My AS Macbook Pro actually faired ok for compositing but couldn't render any major CG on it at that size.

Cool. I have run lights at a nightclub before, but there certainly wasn't any pixel mapping or rendering going on! 😂 Got a video clip of what this looks like in practice? I had no idea you needed GPU grunt for this.

Ultimately - because Apple and/or AMD choose not to support it.

Yes, it need ARM drivers which won't write themselves but that's hardly the Manhattan project.

Also, one of today's new mysteries is where the new Mac Pro found all those PCIe lanes and what the actual bandwidth is (i.e. how many 16x GPU cards it can actually support).

This right here. You KNOW it's oversubscribed / under-provisioned. Any word on cost, availability for the Apple GPU modules? I bet they're gonna be silly. Looks like the Z840s will soldier on for another generation.

 

[Serqetry]

This right here. You KNOW it's oversubscribed / under-provisioned. Any word on cost, availability for the Apple GPU modules? I bet they're gonna be silly. Looks like the Z840s will soldier on for another generation.

There are no Apple GPU modules. If there were ever going to be, they would have mentioned it. The PCIe slots won't work for GPUs and never will.

 

[smckenzie]

Could this not be the case that at a later date they provide more info/updated support docs that state 3rd party gpu support is available? Otherwise what's the point for the aux power connecters on the board like my 7,1 has?

Last time I checked the majority of pro audio interfaces are all now external boxes via thunderbolt - if you look on Sweetwater there's only 12 PCIe audio cards. The ProTools HDX PCIe card is full length but not x16. Again 95% of ProTools interfaces are external and they don't need that much bandwidth.

Just like my 7,1, the new MP has the same brackets (labelled 1 +3) which hide the MPX guide slots on the 7,1. We don't know if those guides are not there on the new MP, but if they weren't, there wouldn't be any need for those brackets. The whole point of them is to hold the wings of the MPX modules in place. So maybe there will be some kind of update for those?

 

[goMac]

Could this not be the case that at a later date they provide more info/updated support docs that state 3rd party gpu support is available? Otherwise what's the point for the aux power connecters on the board like my 7,1 has?

I really don't want to encourage people or give out false hope... (And the 9,1 thread has already started.) But: Always possible Apple is preserving the ability to add GPUs back in a later revision.

I've also heard that M2 is lacking the right PCIe features to ever make it possible on this Mac Pro though.

 

[dmccloud]

With all the talk about storage expansion, I'm surprised there hasn't been more mention of the internal ports located above the PCI-E slots.

Speaking of the PCI-E slots, I noticed that on the Apple website they list 2 PCI-E x4 3.0, 4 PCI-E x8 4.0, and two PCI-E x16 4.0 slots in the Pro. On paper that's far more total bandwidth than would be needed for dGPUs. Perhaps this is a situation where the GPU provider needed additional time to build out a suitable driver stack for AS systems.