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MP 14,8 7 months later have you changed your opinion on the 2023 Mac Pro?
- Thread starter aj_niner
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It’s not a Mac Pro. It’s a Mac Studio with VERY limited upgradability.
It is a lazy product, catering to the niche of a niche. I get why Apple released it as it is, but I think they were dishonest about how they hyped it, and didn't communicate what it would be.
when the mac pro 2023 was announced, they already had the m3 max in pre-production for the macbook pro, so I don't understand why they didn't release the Mac Pro in m3 ultra directly, before the release of the macbook pro in m3 max. There, that would have made everyone ok.
I really do wonder how low the sales have been of the 2023 not Mac Pro. I suspect it may be like 1/10th of the 2019 and bet the 2019 was probably like 1/10th the 2010 MP as well.
Apple has gutted the market on purpose IMO. While the 2019 was a very nice machine for what it was at the time, it was needlessly expensive relative to the 2010. The 2023 is needlessly expensive, and pathetically underpowered and not expandable in too many ways.
In each case, apple seemed to almost delight in making decisions that would make the product unpalatable to the core demographic of the 2010.
It felt very much like an angry bully being passive aggressive trying to force the conclusion of "see, we were right all along, you'll use our non expandable trashcan-like machines and like it". They will even pat themselves on the back for this, and not notice, many of the enthusiasts/pros have moved on to windows/linux and likely will never come back.
But hey, it's all in the name of a self-fulfilling prophecy by the marketing department.
Apple has gutted the market on purpose IMO. While the 2019 was a very nice machine for what it was at the time, it was needlessly expensive relative to the 2010. The 2023 is needlessly expensive, and pathetically underpowered and not expandable in too many ways.
In each case, apple seemed to almost delight in making decisions that would make the product unpalatable to the core demographic of the 2010.
It felt very much like an angry bully being passive aggressive trying to force the conclusion of "see, we were right all along, you'll use our non expandable trashcan-like machines and like it". They will even pat themselves on the back for this, and not notice, many of the enthusiasts/pros have moved on to windows/linux and likely will never come back.
But hey, it's all in the name of a self-fulfilling prophecy by the marketing department.
Yes, they said they'd complete the transition, the fact they didn't even have a new chip other than the one they'd already put in the Studio or additional graphics card support or really any worthwhile upgrade from the Studio didn't stop them.
I don't even know how they'll get themselves out of this hole as the Ultra chips already don't scale so well. Adding more and more CPU cores won't help when the entire SoC tops out at below 100W and single core performance remains lackluster. The efficiency is an appreciated benefit for the Studio form factor but impressive Macbook battery life is not something that needs to be prioritized over performance when it comes to the Mac Pro form factor.
Graphics performance can't keep up with dedicated graphics cards and isn't even close to matching the Nvidia rtx/tensor products. Upping the memory to 256GiB with M3 Ultra remains laughable, at this rate they'll reach parity with the Intel Mac Pros and their 1.5TB RAM capability in the 2030s.
If they want to satisfy customers with a quick'n'dirty solution Apple could bury the hatchet with Nvidia and give the Mac Pro RTX (4090) support. Maybe they'll develop something in-house and surprise us all. Would be interesting if Apple developed their own graphics cards. They might be testing these for years already internally. Who knows. Maybe they got some entirely different idea I haven't thought of. Maybe Mac14,9 will be the last Mac Pro and they'll discontinue it altogether.
Nvidia support would be nice, alternatively even the AMD 7800/7900 series too.
I would be surprised if 100,000 have been sold. Probably half that.
$6,999 for i9 13900K, RTX 3080 performance and gimped PCIe slots is hilariously bad even by Apple's absurd trash can standards. That's a $2K PC spec. After the brilliant 7.1 Apple really took the ***** on workstation users so they could say that the transition was complete. They have no shame and could care less.
$6,999 for i9 13900K, RTX 3080 performance and gimped PCIe slots is hilariously bad even by Apple's absurd trash can standards. That's a $2K PC spec. After the brilliant 7.1 Apple really took the ***** on workstation users so they could say that the transition was complete. They have no shame and could care less.
I was hoping some 14,8 owners would chip in with their thoughts.
Apparently there are none.
Apparently there are none.
Maybe we're just busy .... or lurking ;- )
Commercial photographer since the 90's and starting to dabble in motion.
Never did get a 6,1 and almost got a 7,1 a year ago as the maxed out 5,1 is finally showing it's limits in things like Topaz sharpening combined with 100Mp image sizes now vs 50Mp for many yrs. The 5,1 did well for a long long time as a 12 core 3.46 with 128ram.
OS and apps are on an ssd on pcie card plus a scratch/working 2x nvme on another slot and rx580 8Gb graphics. This will be similar on the 2023 but a lot faster and twice the slots that I've had.
My workflow started slowing with the large multi layered image files but I probably got more life out of it by turning to use my laptop for another task while large files saved or had a filter going.
My M1max MBP tet of topaz sharpen though is what had me go ahead with the M2 Ultra tower and my preferred set up of pcie spaces plus the ability to have a couple internal 22T primary archive HDD and the 3rd internal sata connection for older version OS as I've found that to be useful many times before (like Monteray if Sonoma is glitchy or for certain apps to catch up)
Maxing out a Studio or whatever just didn't appeal to me when I got such long life out of the 5,1. I don't like a bunch of external things either. I did it many yrs ago and just prefer the contained unit with it's pci slots.
So, I ordered a top spec 2023 which arrived today. Will be using one of the pcie slots as a fast scratch disk, another slot as a fast access to my archive that has been for years tied up solely on sata3 HDD in my 5,1. Of course it will all still be backed up on hdd and off site as I have since 2001.
Over the yrs I migrated to newer and larger HDD, pretty much always enterprise grade but always had 2-3 copies of everything. It will be so nice now to have instant access to the entire archive on a pcie 4 slot as well as full internal double HDD backup.
To me the $3000 up front difference didn't seem like a big deal for the flexibility in my preferred set up.
Not knowing what "opinion" is being chosen renders the poll somewhat meaningless. For example, my opinion has not changed, I think I'm going to love using it just as I did the 5,1 and even the G5 before it.
2 dozen people know what is being spoken of.
Thanks for your feedback.
Sounds like a great setup for you.
Also for videographers and audio folks who need fast i/o cards for their workflows.
For us 3D, motion graphics and game engine folks who need fast, discreet GPUs...we'll just have to wait to see what the next gen might bring. Either the fabled Extreme M series or less like the ability to drop in the fastest GPUs into the slots.
I’ve mentioned this before in other threads - but certain macOS choices made in Metal on Apple Silicon make discrete graphics impossible. Not without people doing some significant changes in their software.
There is no burying the hatchet with Nvidia and just dropping a 4090 in a Mac Pro. Even drivers don’t fix it because the third party software is already baked.
The graphics model that was in place on Intel Macs is gone. Third party devs are already writing shaders that are very specific to Apple Silicon and cannot work on an Nvidia card at a hardware level.
If the above is true, unless Apple makes some extreme new processor that outperforms 3rd parties, then all is lost and the last of the think different crowd goes away. Woe is Apple if they ever need to cross that bridge again.
That said, I don’t believe slapping in gpu or external memory based on one of these system-on-a-chip platforms is that tough a problem in hardware or software. We’ve seen other companies make both. It’s a question of will, not impossility.
That said, I don’t believe slapping in gpu or external memory based on one of these system-on-a-chip platforms is that tough a problem in hardware or software. We’ve seen other companies make both. It’s a question of will, not impossility.
Love my 2023. Quite a bit faster than my 2019. I had a Studio Ultra in the m1 generation but having multiple Thunderbolt enclosures and their power bricks is a nightmare. Much neater, cheaper, and faster to do internal. Looking forward to the M3+ gen for even more performance.
LOL, maybe I should have been more specific. I don't think you understand what I meant but the 24 votes mean nothing pro or con because you don't know the stance of the vote. For example: Being excited about the mac pro, or hating it, but still feeling the same way about that now simply results in every answer being "no".
I honestly have no idea what your stance is. The poll as written is just illogical and says nothing useful about the results.
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Does this mean, for your work interests, that a 2019 is still far more useful? What is the major negative about the 2019 for your work?
How about Lenovo PX with dual CPUs and multiple GPUs?
Not a Mac (and not quite as nicely built as the 2019 Mac Pro) but it's the logical follow on from a 2019 Mac Pro as far as I can see.
Another alternative would be the HP alternative to the Lenovo - also solid but not quite as nice.
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Apple shot themselves in the foot with the 2013 and chased away their own customers until 2019 by insisting they did not.
The 2019 was a great system, but I doubt it sold that well. After 6 years of ignoring there bleeding foot, most people just moved on.
The 2023 is just them shooting themselves in the last good foot they have left.
Who is going from 1.5TB of Ram back to 256GB?
They don't care, they are an iPhone company that makes overpriced computers as a hobby.
The 2019 was a great system, but I doubt it sold that well. After 6 years of ignoring there bleeding foot, most people just moved on.
The 2023 is just them shooting themselves in the last good foot they have left.
Who is going from 1.5TB of Ram back to 256GB?
They don't care, they are an iPhone company that makes overpriced computers as a hobby.
Where do you get the "256Gb ram" idea from?
The i-things, along with the peripherals and subscription stuff, have made apple SO much $ that the computers don't even have to be profitable to still be worth doing "just because".
