It's fully DOA if there are no/only1 pce-slot/s. No DIMM slots or thirdparty GPU support makes it dead for the people who need that.
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MP All Models 40 core ASI with PCI-E slot is around the corner!!
- Thread starter Amethyst
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I think Apple needs to offer just as many PCIe slots on the AS MacPro as the Intel MacPro, so that Pro's can continue to do this (see pic).
I'm of course not privy to this, but I imagine Apple's internal Pro Workflow Team—which was instrumental in the design of the Intel Mac Pro—is telling them just that.
See discussion here:
I'm of course not privy to this, but I imagine Apple's internal Pro Workflow Team—which was instrumental in the design of the Intel Mac Pro—is telling them just that.
See discussion here:
@mattspace I love your takes. They are mature and have sense. I do have something to say about this statement because sometimes boring does not drive innovation. A boring mindset Apple would have never made the iPhone. The iPhone was wild, exciting, no major phone OEM shipped an on screen touch keyboard. It was new and not boring. If Apple released a phone like the Blackberry with a physical keyboard then Apple would not have made headlines. The iPhone would not be nearly 50% of Apple's revenue as it is today.
Now back to the Mac Pro. Let's start with the 6,1. The main issue with the 6,1 was Apple failed to update it with newer GPUs and the lack of PCI-E slots. The 6,1 had upgradeable RAM and CPU but it still failed because the other two I mentioned mattered more. Also audio folks hated the TB approach. PCI-e is much better.
Next the 7,1 is a masterpiece in upgradeability. PCIe slots galore and DIMM slots are awesome. Plus upgradeable GPUs are good to see.
The 8,1 I believe might be in-between the 6,1 and 7,1. A glued SoC but with PCI-e slots. It's only saving grace is if it retains the pci then audio folks and industries will buy them. The Mac Pro was never Apple's intention to be a 3D compute king if it was Nvidia GPUs would be supported in macOS and on 7,1. As a workstation the 8,1 would be a better 6,1.
I will too until Apple matches a typical workstation in speed/pref(I gave on value a long time ago) and upgrade path. As for the custom chipsets, the industry might be going in that direction unlike the 1990s, this era is different and Apple is a LOT different. Nvidia recently announced it's server CPU and it is different to a typical AMD or Intel CPU.
Apple has the capital and R&D to make development happen unlike those companies.
The CPU and RAM is soldered but this gives it unmatched bandwidth in the server space.
I predict Apple's Mac Pro might be the same but with fewer CPU cores.
On screen software keyboards had been a thing since NewtonOS and Symbian, and LG's Prada predates the iPhone as an all-screen capacitive phone.
It's important to avoid the Great Man hypothesis when looking at Apple's history. Apple was a little ahead of the curve, but they were building on, and combining other people's inventions. Had the iPhone not existed, we would still have ended up with all-screen multitouch cellphones. As I've said before, today's iPhone, and iPad bear more resemblance to the Android and Surface devices they were competing against, than they do to their own past.
Realistically, if the 6,1 had updated every year with newer GPUs, it still would have failed. Products in the price range of the 6,1 are not disposable, despite what folks say about "businesses never upgrading their computers", that just isn't true - especially for Apple which has a high percentage of the freelance market who own and operate their own gear. The upgradability was a key part of the resale values of previous Mac Pros, that allowed a percentage of buyers to buy and flip without upgrades.
I'm happy to pay $6-15k for a welder, but that welder will work for 20 years plus, and keep working as well as it did the day I bought it. Same for a van - I can buy it as an empty shell, and fit and refit it as I desire, and with basic maintenance, it'll run for decades. This is all capital plant and equipment. That's what the Mac Pro is. It's not a place for Apple to do innovation, it's a place for Mac Pro users to do innovation, and they can't innovate if Apple is prescribing the utility of the device.
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sorry should have been clear. The iPhone was the first capacitive phone that had a QWERTY keyboard. On the Prada you typed SMS using the standard alphanumeric key configuration like your avg Nokia. Software was a big reason why the iPhone was a success and the LG Prada was not great compared to iPhone.
oh they would exist all right. The LG Prada was more expensive than iPhone and was awful to use. The Prada was not all popular and it did not ignite the smartphone industry like the iPhone had. Android didn't come to market in 2007 but came later in 2008. Microsoft thought the iPhone would be failure and phones like the iPhone were not going to be accpected by the markeyt until it was too late for microsoft and MS had to make a move which failed later on.
Completely agree. The way Apple designed the 6,1 was also a huge problem. 6,1 was not suited to expandbility nor upgradeability. It was doomed as a workstation. The user could not also add ANY proper internal PCI-e cards. By not supporting audio cards or dGPUs. It failed.
yep well said. That is why the 6,1 failed. As Phil said himself infamously said "Can't innvoate my ass". The goal of the trash can was to show that Apple can exist without steve jobs. Apple designed the 6,1 as a show piece. A museum wonder instead of a tool. I can only hope Apple sticks to standard tower like the 7,1 and does not go crazy with the design. I can only hope the 8,1 while being a tower like design it will have Apple Sillicon influences such as the soldered SoC and RAM while not being too closed off like the Mac Studio or 6,1 by supporting PCI-e slots.
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The best thing Apple can do right now, is another generation of Intel machine, a processor and PCI update of the current machine, with an Apple Silicon based Afterburner, to run AS-optimised code for its media engines, isolated AS VMs etc.
Apple need to make sure the new Mac pro 8.1 is expandable and repairable, its ok claiming to be green on power but throw away hardware because 1 part failed is far from green. Non socket CPU and GPU with solder based hardware and memory is non upgradable.
Lets be fair if the 8.1 extrema version is going to cost about the same as high end 7.1 the price of a new car then it needs to be upgradable and you must be able to repair it. $35.000 + for high end with 1 years warranty on fixed hardware even with AC 3 years is not good enough. as said above a new car if looked after can run for many years. If the starter motor fails after 3 years you can replace it, the rest of the car dosn't go to the scrap yard.
If one part of that board fails its not a new part its a whole new board with the same spec you purchased and it will not be cheap. The throw away mindset has to change as to much today is binned because repair or upgrade is not possible.
At least with the 7.1 you can use the upgrade path or fix it with a New CPU or GFX card or SSD or Lan card, thunderbolt card the list goes on. Your 3 year old 7.1 dosn't need to go in the Bin. work around PCIe option's available.
Having just purchased a 7.1 base model 8 core 96g ram and 4TB drive X580 2nd hand with 1 years AC left I have already upgraded to 16c CPU and non Apple 6900XT with startech dual M2 PCIe card and 2TB 980pro M2 cards installed it's been fantastic. Plus i can run windows on my 7.1 as some things i use need windows. not possible at the moment with studio or 8.1 MP
I could not afford to buy new, a silver spoon or company purchase was not an option, I earn a living and have family and bills to pay like most people. with the 7.1 i feel i could get around any failure apart from logic board.
The new 8.1 offers nothing that we know upgradable or Fixable if failure happens to any major part, its new board and big bill with it.
The New 8.1 should be AMD thread ripper with AMD GFX card. now that would be mighty!
Lets be fair if the 8.1 extrema version is going to cost about the same as high end 7.1 the price of a new car then it needs to be upgradable and you must be able to repair it. $35.000 + for high end with 1 years warranty on fixed hardware even with AC 3 years is not good enough. as said above a new car if looked after can run for many years. If the starter motor fails after 3 years you can replace it, the rest of the car dosn't go to the scrap yard.
If one part of that board fails its not a new part its a whole new board with the same spec you purchased and it will not be cheap. The throw away mindset has to change as to much today is binned because repair or upgrade is not possible.
At least with the 7.1 you can use the upgrade path or fix it with a New CPU or GFX card or SSD or Lan card, thunderbolt card the list goes on. Your 3 year old 7.1 dosn't need to go in the Bin. work around PCIe option's available.
Having just purchased a 7.1 base model 8 core 96g ram and 4TB drive X580 2nd hand with 1 years AC left I have already upgraded to 16c CPU and non Apple 6900XT with startech dual M2 PCIe card and 2TB 980pro M2 cards installed it's been fantastic. Plus i can run windows on my 7.1 as some things i use need windows. not possible at the moment with studio or 8.1 MP
I could not afford to buy new, a silver spoon or company purchase was not an option, I earn a living and have family and bills to pay like most people. with the 7.1 i feel i could get around any failure apart from logic board.
The new 8.1 offers nothing that we know upgradable or Fixable if failure happens to any major part, its new board and big bill with it.
The New 8.1 should be AMD thread ripper with AMD GFX card. now that would be mighty!
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People missed his point. He was talking about AS - Apple Silicon.
Man, if the 48 core AS rumoured GB5 score is to be believed, it’s 2x as fast as a 64 core Threadripper. I have no worries viz the CPU.
It’s the GPU and lack of GPU expansion slots.
Maybe but it only run's OSX and i want duel boot with windows. and GFX expansion is critical because by the time its released NV and AMD will be on 5090 and RDNA 4 which will blow AS away. the 4090 and RDNA 3 will also.
I find it highly unlikely that you Will be able to upgrade/expand Ram, and I will also go as far as predicting that any PCI-based GPU will not be able to drive a display.
Basically I think we should expect a Mac Studio Ultra SoC with added PCI slots and maybe support for GPU as pure compute units (no display). The M2 Ultra or M2 extreme will be the same locked down SoC as we know from other Apple Silicon Macs where Ram etc is soldered in for good. But you can add PCI cards for Audio, more SSD drives and maybe GPU compute power. They might reuse the Mac Pro chassis, sure why not.
Basically I think we should expect a Mac Studio Ultra SoC with added PCI slots and maybe support for GPU as pure compute units (no display). The M2 Ultra or M2 extreme will be the same locked down SoC as we know from other Apple Silicon Macs where Ram etc is soldered in for good. But you can add PCI cards for Audio, more SSD drives and maybe GPU compute power. They might reuse the Mac Pro chassis, sure why not.
If this turns out correct, I‘ll go the Zen 4 / Nvidia 4090 Linux pathway… luckily as a developer, this is easily doable
This whole approach (from Apple) would be ridiculous......
Assuming a starting price of circa £5k, it is completely not practical to decide on day 1, if you want 32gb or 384gb (£6k extra for 2019mp) ram, likewise with internal storage.
You need to be a fortune teller to know 'how much power' do I need in 5 years....
I want a machine I can replace the boot disk, if it gets too small/worn.
If/when the boot disk goes bad......what then.....machine is a doorstop.....🤨
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the ssd will not be glued. It will be like the 7,1 SSD wise
Yesterday, I just sorta drunkenly staggered over here, metaphorically speaking, from my usual haunts in the Mac mini and gaming forums. While I could afford a Mac Pro, I would have no idea what to do with one, so I never really spent any time here. That's why I find this discussion so fascinating, because I didn't realize that there was as much resistance to Apple Silicon as I have seen here. Sure, the Boot Camp crowd has been quite vocal, I'm not dismissing their concerns, either, I use it for an occasional Windows game on my 2018 Intel Mac mini.
From what I gather there are two camps here: those who are open to the Apple Silicon future, and those who want the Mac Pro to stay the same. For the former, there's not much to consider, since that just follows the pattern that every other product in the Mac line has followed, from the lowly Mac mini and MacBook Air, to the new Mac Studio featuring an Ultra.
For the latter, I sense some hard choices are coming, which are not going to be popular among a subset of this forum. Again, I have never downplayed those concerns, but I think this is the crux of it:
From Apple's perspective, does it make good business sense to spend engineering resources on external DIMM slots, third-party GPU support, swappable CPUs and storage, or specialized MPX cards? I don't have access to Apple's sales charts, I just have suspicions based upon the rumors from reasonably reliable sources and the entire lineup of Macs currently available, save the zombie x86 Mac Pro.
We live in a slightly different timeline from an alternative, one in which the iMac Pro was meant to replace the Mac Pro, and Apple decided to give up its lowest volume computer. While that may be apocryphal, and Apple never intended for that to be the case, I don't see it as outside the realm of possibility, and that many aspects of the Intel era are going away.
I've owned four Mac minis, the first PPC model, and three Intel versions. Each of them I upgraded the internals, such as I could. Now the Mac mini is locked down; keep in mind the "listening to pros" notion that Apple spoke about included the Mac mini, not just the Mac Pro. The Mac mini is now a sealed box and I'll just have to deal with that going forward.
Mac Pro users may have the same future ahead of them, just as every other Apple Silicon Mac is a sealed box. Apple isn't doing it to be mean, there are substantial benefits to their approach, which is outside the scope of this discussion. I'm just pointing out the trend that we can all see.
My unfortunate point being is that, while many good folks here desire the spirit of the Mac Pro to continue, Apple may be fine with losing those who want all the trappings that a PC has to offer, inside an Apple box. If that is the case, then there are plenty of Xeon workstations that run Linux or Windows. That stinks for folks who don't want that in their computing future, but Apple may not consider that a priority. Keep in mind that the Mac makes up 9% of Apple's total revenue, 85% of that are laptops, and the Mac Pro is barely a rounding error on a spreadsheet.
...and perhaps I am wrong, and Apple will create the dream tower to slay the Xeon dragon. Again, this is just two-cents from a relative outsider who is trying to weigh Apple's options, and guessing where they will go, based upon recent trends.
From what I gather there are two camps here: those who are open to the Apple Silicon future, and those who want the Mac Pro to stay the same. For the former, there's not much to consider, since that just follows the pattern that every other product in the Mac line has followed, from the lowly Mac mini and MacBook Air, to the new Mac Studio featuring an Ultra.
For the latter, I sense some hard choices are coming, which are not going to be popular among a subset of this forum. Again, I have never downplayed those concerns, but I think this is the crux of it:
Many of the folks here want another Xeon Mac Pro, the Apple Silicon approach is unacceptable, and Apple needs to turn back the clock. Here's where the difficult choice may arrive. Even though Apple put a lot of engineering into the 2019 Mac Pro, most of the features that are considered desirable are a result of Intel's work on the Xeon platform. Apple designed the case and created the oddball MPX modules, but most of the underlying tech is Intel proper. Xeon is high-end, but still a mass market product. The Mac Pro is not, it's a niche product, among a lineup of computers that are already boutique.
From Apple's perspective, does it make good business sense to spend engineering resources on external DIMM slots, third-party GPU support, swappable CPUs and storage, or specialized MPX cards? I don't have access to Apple's sales charts, I just have suspicions based upon the rumors from reasonably reliable sources and the entire lineup of Macs currently available, save the zombie x86 Mac Pro.
We live in a slightly different timeline from an alternative, one in which the iMac Pro was meant to replace the Mac Pro, and Apple decided to give up its lowest volume computer. While that may be apocryphal, and Apple never intended for that to be the case, I don't see it as outside the realm of possibility, and that many aspects of the Intel era are going away.
I've owned four Mac minis, the first PPC model, and three Intel versions. Each of them I upgraded the internals, such as I could. Now the Mac mini is locked down; keep in mind the "listening to pros" notion that Apple spoke about included the Mac mini, not just the Mac Pro. The Mac mini is now a sealed box and I'll just have to deal with that going forward.
Mac Pro users may have the same future ahead of them, just as every other Apple Silicon Mac is a sealed box. Apple isn't doing it to be mean, there are substantial benefits to their approach, which is outside the scope of this discussion. I'm just pointing out the trend that we can all see.
My unfortunate point being is that, while many good folks here desire the spirit of the Mac Pro to continue, Apple may be fine with losing those who want all the trappings that a PC has to offer, inside an Apple box. If that is the case, then there are plenty of Xeon workstations that run Linux or Windows. That stinks for folks who don't want that in their computing future, but Apple may not consider that a priority. Keep in mind that the Mac makes up 9% of Apple's total revenue, 85% of that are laptops, and the Mac Pro is barely a rounding error on a spreadsheet.
...and perhaps I am wrong, and Apple will create the dream tower to slay the Xeon dragon. Again, this is just two-cents from a relative outsider who is trying to weigh Apple's options, and guessing where they will go, based upon recent trends.
Beware newer CPUs from AMD have Microsoft Pluton. A cloud based security DRM chip. Go Intel if you go that route but they have issues too but for now Pluton is not there.
It is not about intel vs AS.....
It is about the possible lack of expansion in the ASmp.
People don't want to lay out £10k on day 1, because you can't upgrade, when in previous models you can upgrade over years.
Not everyone who owns a MP is a professional, a lot just find the expansion EXTREMELY valuable, for longevity.
To be fair the Mac Mini is the 'base' mac, so the outlay is not as severe, if needing to re-new every 2-3 years, and the typical user will not be performing anything extreme.
I am aware, thx. I understand it should be possible to switch that off. Windows is no option anyway (save for the occasional game)
Name one.
Not to be rude, but perhaps you could consider that what you're actually doing, by coming over to the Mac Pro forum, from the Mac Mini forum to offer your gentle opinions that maybe we'd be happier accepting the inevitability that we're all going to be joining you in appliance-land, is kinda like one of those people who travels to natural disaster zones, not to cook for the displaced, or build shelters, or tend to wounds, but to offer reassurance that having their homes and lives ripped apart by weather events is "all part of God's plan" and "the universe always works out" and "things will be alright".
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I know. My point wasn't that Apple Silicon, or more specifically, Arm, is fundamentally different in regard to the Mac Pro. My point was that Apple Silicon is resulting in Macs that aren't as upgradeable and many of the features that are being asked for are a result of Intel's engineering philosophy, not Apple.
TBDR.
Slow down friend, I never said that you should settle for anything, just what is the likeliest eventuality. I also never said you should be happy with it, I never said that I am happy with it. I do think it is better for the Mac as a platform, which is what I have been referring to, but not every user.
Let me give you a personal example. I mentioned before that I like to play an occasional Windows-only game on my 2018 Mac mini. I have an RX 580 eGPU along with various other peripherals that enable that. Boot Camp is going away, and it ain't coming back. That means that I can either settle for the meager titles available for the Mac, or build a PC for around $1,500 or whatever the going price is with inflation. I don't want to build a PC, with its harpy Windows operating system, but that's the only way I'm going to get access to x86 games.
Like I said, hard choices, and I'm not immune to it. I'm completely sympathetic to your argument. It's fine if you disagree with what I say; that's what a discussion forum is for. However, if you are under the impression that I am trying to force you to settle for anything you aren't happy with, then that is simply incorrect.
It is important to distinguish between what I call mainstream professionals (high end video editing etc) and specialized professionals (data science and 3D rendering(which also is somewhat mainstream today)). The former wants more performance than a laptop and there Mac studio, iMac Pro and 6,1 are/were excellent desktops. Specialized professionals need to be on the bleeding edge and there upgradability (no only configuability at time of purchase) is valuable. Specialized professionals uses software that very few uses meaning that it is not cost efficient to rewrite it for other Platforms. If Apple aims to cater for the specialized professionals, they should either accept NVIDIA/AMD cards or price dump compute ASi so it gets so attractive to rewrite the software. Price dump compute was exactly was NVIDIA did decades ago when Xeon dominated the market. I am very pessimistic about either scenario.
Enthusiasts have been completely neglected by Apple since the 5,1 and even then there were better PCs to be had.
4090 isn’t out yet neither is 7900xt nor Threadripper 5990x. not sure the new TR will best the rumoured 71k GB 5 score of the m2 extreme.
The former two will be beasts for sure but at insane power levels.
If apple releases a beast of a raytracing accelerator though..not sure how that works but it might instantly negate the Nvidia/AMD GPUs for my work purposes… but it’s out of the realm of possibilities at present… the only thing gives me hope is the massive ‘vram’ capacity available to the AS GPU… which will work for a ray tracing accelerator too..just throwing this out there
I think that is the only glimmer of hope because it would create the fundament for a strategic important VR/AR workflow from the creation (on MP) to the end user using an Apple product. Apple Car and self driving is another strategic important product (possibly) that could need significant compute.