MP All Models Apple sleeping on the mac pro is comically bad timing

[theluggage]

I’m saying “both”

The Mx Ultra only has enough spare PCIe for 1 16-lane GPU card - often lagging a PCIe generation behind. It won't compete with Xeon/AMD CPUs offering 128 lanes (...and probably PCIe6 in the near future).

The laptops and SFF systems making up the vast majority of Mac sales only need PCIe for SSD, USB, ethernet etc.

So, again, the only "design choice" is between the huge expense of designing a whole new die exclusively for the Mac Pro or adding unnecessary complexity (and power consumption) to the laptop-friendly Mx Max die.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

So, again, the only "design choice" is between the huge expense of designing a whole new die exclusively for the Mac Pro or adding unnecessary complexity (and power consumption) to the laptop-friendly Mx Max die.

I agree 100% with you that the discrete GPU-as-GPU is not going to happen (again) for Apple Silicon. As more evidence of that, look no further than what Nvidia is doing with the Spark, including the RTX Spark. Unified memory, and, gluing the GPU into that instead of the separate VRAM.

I disagree, though, with part about I/O bandwidth being fantastically expensive. It wouldn't be. Apple already has all the designs needed. They would just have to sacrifice a little more memory bandwidth for it, just like Nvidia has done. And, I disagree with the implication that there would be no market for it.

That being said, the folks asking for a high-bandwidth PCIe tower are barking up the wrong tree. As I said, Nvidia, which owns a huge piece of that market for high-end gaming, is now working on unified-memory ARM-based configurations. This is validation for what Apple has been doing.

 

[mcnallym]

Sure thing, you might even get 8x GPUs! Just buy four M5 Ultra Studios (when they come out), connect them together, and write some software that figures out how to coordinate work using the new RDMA feature.

Mac model for development based on the AS range where using a SoC so is unified.

In this dream world Apple is going to break there model for a Niche Product that will not only require custom silicon, but also change the development model to support non integrated parts such as additional GPU, additional RAM found in user added memory slots.

On top that they also expect Apple to after a 13 year absence reintroduce support for Nvidia GPU/CUDA. 2013 iMac was last model to have an Nvidia GPU. Mac Pro 5,1 got the Web Driver that added support for newer Nvidia Cards but that was it.

Yet still have people here clinging desperately that someday Apple is going to U-Turn and break its ecosystem choices.

Remember the video where Steve Jobs asked by the chap about Flash, and Steve Jobs basically says that when doing the ecosystem that make choices that some people may not be happy with but fits th Ecosystem.

Making choices for the Ecosystem that people don’t like clearly goes all the way back to Steve’s days. So is not despite some claimants a problem caused by Tim.

Years ago I posted that if you doing CUDA work, needed the multiple GPU then you should be planning the migration off Mac, either to Linux or Windows whichever provided the support for the Apps you require.

Apple apparently started the M1 Extreme development but couldn’t get it to a point where a viable product, whether was down to actual product or just would cost too much. Yet here with the M5 and how far off the M6 are we then not even had an M4 Ultra and will we see an M5 Ultra, yet still expecting some sort of Extreme Chip with massively increased PCI-E lanes that not used in anything other then this Mac Pro Tower.

For people that have these requirements then what is it that requires a Mac Pro Tower as opposed to a Generic Tower with a CPU of some sort with massive Memory Support and massive numbers of PCI-E lanes running Linux/Windows.

 

[theluggage]

I disagree, though, with part about I/O bandwidth being fantastically expensive.

It's not the cost of I/O bandwidth per se or that it would push the envelope of technology. The cost of getting any complex chip design into production is high and the price of the resulting product is hugely dependent on economies of scale. The cost of a new Apple Silicon SoC with significantly increased PCIe lanes - however straightforward - would have to be recouped from sales of the Mac Pro alone. Even the Mx Ultra has the shortcut of being two Mx Max dies fused together and that has a $2k markup over the Mx Max. Obviously AMD and Intel have no difficulty making CPUs with massive PCIe bandwidth - but they have a far larger marketplace.

 

[theluggage]

Remember the video where Steve Jobs asked by the chap about Flash, and Steve Jobs basically says that when doing the ecosystem that make choices that some people may not be happy with but fits th Ecosystem.

O/T but Adobe & Google went on to prove Jobs dead right: Flash for Android appeared with great "iPhone killer!!!" fanfare and then quietly fizzled out. For one thing, it turned out that (big surprise - not) lots of existing Flash content designed for PC/Mac just wasn't usable on a tiny touchscreen... Even simple "just video" Flash apps often had their own custom video controls that were either too fiddly or flat out didn't work with touch.

I believe Henry Ford didn't actually say "If I'd asked people what they wanted they'd have said 'faster horses'" but it still rings true.

 

[Fallforward]

People love to get all up in arms about which Macs they think Apple should be building, but we're talking about a 7.6% segment of their revenue. And the vast majority of that 7.6% is from MacBooks. That leaves, what, maybe 2% of their overall revenue coming from these desktops they’re doomed because they didn’t bring to market? Please.

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Yes. If non-macbooks are an estimated 15% of total Mac $ sales, they equate to 1.2% of Apple sales. Take out the Mac mini, cheaper price but higher volumes, then the high end non-macbooks - iMac, Studio and Pro - combined are probably less than 1% of total sales. Of those three sharing less than 1%, the Studio probably brings in half and the Pro probably brings in the least $ sales, perhaps 10% of that less than 1%.

Of course, Pro sales might be much higher if Apple was not "sleeping" on it, but not enough to have much impact.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

The cost of a new Apple Silicon SoC with significantly increased PCIe lanes - however straightforward - would have to be recouped from sales of the Mac Pro alone

I agree with you 87%, but, I think the "PCIe" moniker is a little distracting. While PCIe is a kind of "I/O intermediate currency", the object isn't a chassis full of PCIe slots, it is higher-bandwidth I/O to support more/faster SSD inside a "Pro" system like the higher-tier Studio, and, for (ahem) clustering, like Nvidia is doing with Spark, via the QSFP form factor. The increased I/O wouldn't be for one product, but, for the entire upper tier of Studio systems.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

...and here's the point that seems to be sailing clear over your head:

The M5 Max outperforms the mobile 5090 RTX at least partly because ...

Here's what continues to sail over your head: Nobody in the Mac Pro forum cares about your comparisons with mobile RTX GPUs. We can use multiple full-powered GPUs.

Sure thing, you might even get 8x GPUs! Just buy four M5 Ultra Studios (when they come out), connect them together, and write some software that figures out how to coordinate work using the new RDMA feature.

There's plenty of people building up serious machines.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

Yes. If non-macbooks are an estimated 15% of total Mac $ sales, they equate to 1.2% of Apple sales. Take out the Mac mini, cheaper price but higher volumes, then

(etc. quote mainly for context).

I love the way people write off a $33B enterprise - MacOS systems - as insignificant.

Perhaps it would make sense for Apple to split off Macs into a separate company, mainly so that people would pipe down about the market size disparity. Although, at least for the moment, Apple Silicon is one of those very rare instances of true synergy. Splitting them apart would have the benefit, I would hope, of slowing down the pressure to make the Mac systems UI more dumbed-down, more phone-like.