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Apple dedicated GPU

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Zest28

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Jul 11, 2022
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What are the odds that Apple will move away from integrated graphics for their Mac Pro and iMac Pro?

1 big GPU card is better than 4 M2 Max fused together in the end.

Combining multiple AMD or NVIDIA GPU’s also wasn’t very good using SLI or Crossfire. It is better to just have 1 big powerful one.
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
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Close to zero. Dedicated model in a traditional sense breaks Apples GPU programming model and performance guarantees. Your comment on „SLI is not very good“ reflects this. Whatever GPU solution Apple comes with will most likely sit under the system cache.
 
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leman

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Oct 14, 2008
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jav6454 said:
Yes. There are still benefits of that model due to new GPU techs Apple is likely not going to implement near or medium term. Denying it is foolish.
Click to expand...

The only benefit is lower cost. Which is less relevant to Apple now that they make their own chips. Why sacrifice programmability, compatibility and performance just to save a few bucks?
 
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senttoschool

macrumors 68030
Nov 2, 2017
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People need to get over the idea that Apple will spend hundreds of millions in R&D to create additional custom SoCs and discrete GPUs for the Mac Pro. It's not going to happen.

If it does happen, it's because Apple will launch an Apple Silicon Cloud where anyone can rent a server powered by Apple Silicon.
 
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senttoschool

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jav6454 said:
Why is it so? AMD is not a bad partner. Also, nVidia is the one to watch out for. Specially after the whole EVGA shenanigans.
Click to expand...
People still believe in Evga's founder's story?

Nvidia made him rich. He decided to ditch the GPU industry because the Founders Edition cards were better and will continue to be better and the GPU industry is about to enter a deep crypto winter. EVGA and other AIBs are not going to make money in a market where millions of crypto miners are trying to unload their mining cards. EVGA just decided to bail at the right time and they're going out by blaming Nvidia.

In addition, if Evga wanted to, they can make AMD cards. But they aren't. So that tells you what he really thinks about the GPU industry going forward.
 
S

senttoschool

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Nov 2, 2017
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jav6454 said:
Why is it so? AMD is not a bad partner. Also, nVidia is the one to watch out for. Specially after the whole EVGA shenanigans.
Click to expand...
Because going forward, Apple wants applications to take advantage of the unified memory model. An application can either put their GPU apps on the unified memory or the discrete GPU memory. It can't do both. The sooner Apple can drop support for AMD cards, the sooner Apple can stop supporting two models.
 
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jav6454

jav6454

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Nov 14, 2007
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senttoschool said:
People still believe in Evga's founder's story?

Nvidia made him rich. He decided to ditch the GPU industry because the Founders Edition cards were better and will continue to be better and the GPU industry is about to enter a deep crypto winter. EVGA and other AIBs are not going to make money in a market where millions of crypto miners are trying to unload their mining cards. EVGA just decided to bail at the right time and they're going out by blaming Nvidia.

In addition, if Evga wanted to, they can make AMD cards. But they aren't. So that tells you what he really thinks about the GPU industry going forward.
Click to expand...
True, nVidia made him rich, yet that doesn't explain the other details that do match up. jayztwocents did a nice video explaining the entire debacle; it's worth a watch.

As per making GPUs, EVGA has lines in Motherboards and other peripherals. My bet is that they'll be fine or branch out.
 
jav6454

jav6454

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Nov 14, 2007
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senttoschool said:
Because going forward, Apple wants applications to take advantage of the unified memory model. An application can either put their GPU apps on the unified memory or the discrete GPU memory. It can't do both. The sooner Apple can drop support for AMD cards, the sooner Apple can stop supporting two models.
Click to expand...
That sooner won't happen. Yes it will eventually, thinking an Apple branded dGPU isn't coming is foolish. I never doubt it. However, assuming that will be soon is also foolish.
 
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senttoschool

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Nov 2, 2017
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jav6454 said:
True, nVidia made him rich, yet that doesn't explain the other details that do match up. jayztwocents did a nice video explaining the entire debacle; it's worth a watch.
Click to expand...
I don't trust any Youtuber to cover the story objectively.

The truth is that gamers are pissed off at Nvidia because of the crypto boom (I don't blame Nvidia) and because Nvidia has had by far, the best GPUs on the market for nearly a decade without competition - people naturally hate the top companies. It's easy to take Evga's side.

Personally, this is clearly a case of Evga deciding that they didn't want to deal with the GPU supply glut that is about to come due to crypto winter and ETH going PoS. Plus, AIBs don't add as much value as before. Nvidia makes better cards than Evga. Instead of going out gracefully, Evga's founder decided to take a shot at Nvidia that would make him look like he's going out as a hero.
 
Boil

Boil

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N3/N3E should help, smaller transistors means more GPU cores can be packed onto a die...?

I can see Apple making GPGPU add-in cards; the iGPU handling the assorted monitors & the GPGPU(s) handling assorted render jobs...?
 
jav6454

jav6454

macrumors Core
Nov 14, 2007
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senttoschool said:
I don't trust any Youtuber to cover the story objectively.

The truth is that gamers are pissed off at Nvidia because of the crypto boom (I don't blame Nvidia) and because Nvidia has had by far, the best GPUs on the market for nearly a decade without competition - people naturally hate the top companies. It's easy to take Evga's side.

Personally, this is clearly a case of Evga deciding that they didn't want to deal with the GPU supply glut that is about to come due to crypto winter and ETH going PoS. Plus, AIBs don't add as much value as before. Nvidia makes better cards than Evga. Instead of going out gracefully, Evga's founder decided to take a shot at Nvidia that would make him look like he's going out as a hero.
Click to expand...
I would agree on the YouTuber comments if it were someone else, but jay's reviews are hardly biased or under an agenda. He has gotten in trouble with manufacturers for his video reviews calling out their crap.

That said, I don't dislike or like nVidia. I am not a fanboy of a company. I do hate that they have focused on selling more to miners instead of their loyal users or gamers.

As per AIBs not adding value, I can't give merit to that statement, nor can I subtract from it as each AIB has their set of rules to follow from the GPU maker.
 
I

iPadified

macrumors 68020
Apr 25, 2017
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Zest28 said:
What are the odds that Apple will move away from integrated graphics for their Mac Pro and iMac Pro?

1 big GPU card is better than 4 M2 Max fused together in the end.

Combining multiple AMD or NVIDIA GPU’s also wasn’t very good using SLI or Crossfire. It is better to just have 1 big powerful one.
Click to expand...
A dedicated GPU is logical and I guess Apple have all the building blocks for using and entire Max footprint for GPU. The 4090 chip is 50% larger than the Max so they can make an Apple GPU even larger. However, then we loose the dedicated functions such as video encoders and ML that are quite efficient doing their respective task. M1/Pro/Max/Ultra SoC are nearly custom made for video/image processing because of these specialised functions with a little help of the GPU and CPU.

Large chips gives low yields and lower wafer area usage. At some point power draw makes the large GPU nearly impractical - Look at 4090 power draw.
 
S

senttoschool

macrumors 68030
Nov 2, 2017
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jav6454 said:
I do hate that they have focused on selling more to miners instead of their loyal users or gamers.
Click to expand...
Nvidia didn't do this. If anything, you should blame greedy AIBs like Evga instead.

In fact, Nvidia doesn't even want to sell to miners if they could choose who buys it. This is because miners inevitably flood the market with used GPUs when crypto goes down like it's now.

Nvidia selling directly to miners is just a myth created by gamers who hate how expensive GPUs have gotten.
 
Boil

Boil

macrumors 68040
Oct 23, 2018
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Stargate Command
iPadified said:
A dedicated GPU is logical and I guess Apple have all the building blocks for using and entire Max footprint for GPU. The 4090 chip is 50% larger than the Max so they can make an Apple GPU even larger. However, then we loose the dedicated functions such as video encoders and ML that are quite efficient doing their respective task. M1/Pro/Max/Ultra SoC are nearly custom made for video/image processing because of these specialised functions with a little help of the GPU and CPU.

Large chips gives low yields and lower wafer area usage. At some point power draw makes the large GPU nearly impractical - Look at 4090 power draw.
Click to expand...
Xiao_Xi said:
Instead of joining two Mx SoCs, Apple could join a CPU and GPU as AMD and Nvidia will do for their data center APUs.
www.nvidia.com

NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip

For giant-scale AI and HPC applications.
www.nvidia.com
Click to expand...

I have been ruminating on this idea in other threads...

Maybe the ASi Mac Pro has "mixed SoCs"; two "regular" M2 Max SoCs and two "GPU-specific" M2 SoCs...
  • M2 Max SoC - 12-core CPU (8P/4E) / 40-core GPU
  • M2 GPU SoC - 60-core GPU
M2 Extreme SoC - 24-core CPU (16P/8E) / 200-core GPU
Click to expand...

Apple could also use these GPU-specific SoCs on add-in GPU/GPGPU cards...
 
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M

MayaUser

macrumors 68040
Nov 22, 2021
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Zest28 said:
What are the odds that Apple will move away from integrated graphics for their Mac Pro and iMac Pro?

1 big GPU card is better than 4 M2 Max fused together in the end.

Combining multiple AMD or NVIDIA GPU’s also wasn’t very good using SLI or Crossfire. It is better to just have 1 big powerful one.
Click to expand...
if you are talking about intel mac pro...then we can still wait for another amd Gpu card/s....but Apple will never go away from INTEGRATED graphics...Intel has iGPU and Apple has in its SoC build in the gpu. So never is the answear
But i think you want to speak about dedicated GPU or standalone GPU....on that probably Apple will move away from next year when they will remove the Intel Mac Pros. Next iMac Pro it will sure have apple silicon so no more amd or nvidia gpu
iMac Pro cannot fit 1 BIG GPU inside....its out of the question, maybe if they go with an 40" imac pro that will be over 40 pounds heavy
 
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