MP All Models Everyone's complaining about the Mac Pro's 192 GB RAM limit and no video card support. Do older MPs with 1.5 TB RAM outperform it?

[Matty_TypeR]

😂😂😂😂😂😂 Ha ha does anyone want to sit around all day with that thing on there face lol its a gimmick a one off have you seen this product status. Like the Apple watch its just a gimmick. All i would want a watch for is seeing the time, in-fact i look at my phone screen if i need the time. VR headset's with apple pricing will be a rich man's toy. Bragging rights only to be tossed aside once the novelty wear's off.

 

[HDFan]

so, you are saying that people will be camping outside Apple stores for days to buy those Apple VR headsets?

likely not as purchasing at a store may require a setup appointment.

 

[Romain_H]

its a gimmick a one off have you seen this product status. Like the Apple watch its just a gimmick.

Maybe just me, but I agree in that I cannot see how this could punch a dent into the universe.

Homepod, Watch, Vision - I fail to grasp why those warrant billion investments, while the Mac Pro, who still s' got a huge fanbase, is not.

Lets get serious, the MP in its current guise kinda tells its fans to go eff off. The development of the MP 7.1, MPX modules, the confession of having screwed up the MP 6.1 - that all leads to the MP 8.1? That doesn't seem right on many levels

 

[brodie29a]

Why does this new Mac pro remind me of the 6.1, from what lil I’ve researched of it it seems like upgrading is very limited and for 8k that’s pretty expensive for something that your gonna replace in a few years because you can’t upgrade. Iirc that’s why the 6.1 line didn’t do to hot because when it came time to beef them up they were limited and drove a lot of customers back to there cmp’s or went pc based. Then again I’m not sure what Apple is doing anymore, if no one wanted a Mac mini on crack as there “pro” model how is the v2.0 going to fair any better.

 

[JayKay514]

I hate to repeat myself, but nobody in this thread has actually answered the question posed by the OP.

Yes, we get it, lack of large expandable physical RAM and upgradeable video cards means there are certain tasks this Mac Pro can't do (yet, anyway).

I'd like to see the M2 Ultra compared head-to-head with the Xeon - yeah, with an afterburner and at least 1 of those dual Vega MPX cards - on a set of common tasks to see where they excel or fail, determine why (unoptimized code, hardware limits, etc.) and publish a comprehensive report to help buyers understand what it's good or bad at.

The Mac Pro is probably the product that ships in the lowest numbers compared to MacBook Pros, because it addresses a niche high-end market, and some of those use cases are a niche within a niche.

Not to say they're not useful or valuable tasks, I'm totally on the side of people that are mad about it, but I'm trying to understand Apple's product stance here. They must have understood that their decision would make their high-end niche users angry, and they needed to release something to meet their self-imposed deadline.

I am pretty sure they are working on something with M3 that will enable much larger package-on-package RAM amounts (maybe DDR5, too). I'm wondering if it was just the worldwide chip shortage and foundry issues that prevented them from stockpiling more RAM to create larger on-SOC memory pools, but we'll see.

That said, I think the path they might go down is reviving Xgrid to enable clustering; and quite possibly, macOS blade servers that let you mix SOC CPUs with pure storage modules?

One of the engineers at JetBrains created a similar system based on Raspberry Pi units; each blade uses an M.2 slot and they're powered over their Ethernet connections.

 

[mattspace]

I hate to repeat myself, but nobody in this thread has actually answered the question posed by the OP.

Maybe that’s because the question itself is redundant, as it is predicated on a false assumption - that people make, and justify expensive capital purchases on purely logical grounds.

Which if you take even a moment to look around you, or study human behaviour, you’ll realise is a complete fantasy. It’s a fantasy in the same league as the economist’s fantasy that people are rational actors, interested primarily in individual benefit, or the myth that money was invented to replace barter.

Individuals purchasing expensive things, be they sole traders / Indy media people, or small businesses with a few employees make those purchases on emotional grounds. “What could this do for me in unknown future scenario X?” is the question that REALLY matters. A $12k computer that can’t do anything more than it could do the day you bought it, is $12k you might have to spend again, to get a different one that can do slightly more, or slightly different than it did 6 months go.

People buy off-road-capable 4WD vehicles not because they intend to go off-roading, but because it gives them an immeasurably large psychological comfort to know that if there’s a natural disaster, they can drive their family along the verge, while all the “sensible” people and their families expire in the highway traffic jam. That vehicle’s ability to free its owner from that worry, to let them think they did all they could do is more valuable to them, than any advantage a regular car might have.

What does an old Mac Pro with giant theoretical RAM and GPU limits do? It lets its owner sleep soundly at night, knowing that their risks from unknown future events are constrained by the system’s ability to absorb shocks to capacity requirements.

 

[JouniS]

I am pretty sure they are working on something with M3 that will enable much larger package-on-package RAM amounts (maybe DDR5, too). I'm wondering if it was just the worldwide chip shortage and foundry issues that prevented them from stockpiling more RAM to create larger on-SOC memory pools, but we'll see.

The chip shortage is long gone, and foundries are now suffering from chip glut. RAM is now cheap and abundant.

Whan happened was an entirely predictable consequence of using SoCs. Because Apple uses two-dimensional packaging, the amount of RAM they can physically fit into the M2 Ultra package is limited. If they want more memory, they have to use the third dimension. Memory modules are the cheapest option, but stacking the memory dies (as in HBM) is also possible.

 

[argasek]

Dude... be careful of posting youtube videos on MR... very loud users will start hating you for it even when the video explains your ideas with higher production value.

Just to clarify: I posted this particular video as an example that such peculiar solutions like RAM on PCI (not even PCIe!) card existed. However:

1. It's not a product that increased RAM amount available for OS and applications. Which is the main point of discussion here, i.e. low amount of RAM in new MP for certain professional users.
2. There were, however, cards which offered such functionality, but they date back to '90-'00 era (think of products like Blizzard 1260) and they came with their own set of issues (for example, this particular card didn't offer a concept of continuous RAM blocks "glued" together with already existing memory; there was a clear separation between "chip" (onboard) and "fast" (extended via card) RAM. Actually, placing such card in your Amiga computer meant using the whole new CPU as well, which spawned another set of compatibility issues.
3. As a result the whole concept of daughterboard CPU+RAM cards didn't stand the test of time and wasn't adopted by the PC market; even though it was an interesting one, I bet that if Apple wanted to follow this path, they would have released a set of MPX(-like) cards along with the premiere of MP 2023, or at least announced them; no such thing happened and I doubt it will.
4. Using swap memory (basically your SSD) as a large amount of RAM replacement is a flawed idea; the amount of R/W operations from/to RAM is incredibly high and each and every write to an SSD degrades it. I believe this was already mentioned in this thread. It's not about how fast RAM or SSD is in MP 2019 vs 2023; such approach is fundamentally wrong when we discuss a pure amount.
5. For the time being I will happily stick to MP 2019, which I bought shortly before 2023 premiered (!) leaving me a time window to return it and get 2023 model instead. I didn't. And I don't intend to.

 

[JayKay514]

The chip shortage is long gone, and foundries are now suffering from chip glut. RAM is now cheap and abundant.

Whan happened was an entirely predictable consequence of using SoCs. Because Apple uses two-dimensional packaging, the amount of RAM they can physically fit into the M2 Ultra package is limited. If they want more memory, they have to use the third dimension. Memory modules are the cheapest option, but stacking the memory dies (as in HBM) is also possible.

Agreed, that's likely the next evolution (maybe at a price premium though.)

That said, chip supplies are said to be still constrained for many markets. We're shopping for a new car right now and it's brutal - almost no hybrids available, some brands aren't even letting dealers order anything, they're just shipping whatever they have.

Even though RAM supplies may be back now, the way purchasing works, Apple would have secured that order up to a year or so in advance, expecting to have it on hand for manufacturing by a certain date. I'm not sure that the M series has any technical restriction on the amount of on-package memory it can address (I could be wrong of course) so the choice to limit it to 192GB might have been more financial and logistical. I guess we'll never know until someone at Apple or in their supply chain tells us.

 

[JayKay514]

What does an old Mac Pro with giant theoretical RAM and GPU limits do? It lets its owner sleep soundly at night, knowing that their risks from unknown future events are constrained by the system’s ability to absorb shocks to capacity requirements.

Yeah... there's definitely an aspect of that. Upgradeability in general can be seen as am emotional hedge, a sunk cost fallacy if it's taken to extremes.

Instead of seeing a computer as a "tool that does the actual current job" which may work perfectly fine more or less forever within a given set of parameters, they want it to be a hammer that can one day become a wrecking ball if it takes its vitamins...

I would expect professionals in compute-intensive spaces to know what their needs are, and buy accordingly - there definitely are some tasks for which it isn't suitable, and it sucks that they might need to stay on their current machine or migrate to a different type of box, but there's dozens of tasks for which it's almost overpowered.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Right. I contend that, if a 4090 was always going to be better than any AMD card, then even an Apple-branded x86 Mac Pro would not be the right solution for someone like you, given that you're limited to AMD cards as far as Apple will support. I know it's possible to shove in an NVIDIA card into a 2019 Mac Pro and have it work in Windows; but then, at that point, you're overpaying for a Windows-based Xeon workstation that happens to have the Apple logo and one of Jony Ive's best designs.

Contention is old and is a rehash of the trashcan chorus of apologies. The 6800duo still gives better than 4090 results, and certainly did at the time of the release. Apple did give people a decent path (no disputing the NVIDIA spat is stupid and petty, I concede that). So the apologies will have to be reset from 2013 to 2023, and whistle by 2019 as somehow meaningless and irrelevant, which it is not (eg see the apple for their global apology tour).

 

[Duncan-UK]

If you earn the bulk of your income from the use of your Mac then that makes you a Pro.

The numerous tedious debates seem to show that the resentment from people who feel obsessively proprietorial towards Apple is still simmering. The sort of people who feel they alone ensured the survival of Apple during the late 90s and early 2000s before the great unwashed discovered the iPod And the company pivoted to where the money was.

 

[impulse462]

If you earn the bulk of your income from the use of your Mac then that makes you a Pro.

The numerous tedious debates seem to show that the resentment from people who feel obsessively proprietorial towards Apple is still simmering. The sort of people who feel they alone ensured the survival of Apple during the late 90s and early 2000s before the great unwashed discovered the iPod And the company pivoted to where the money was.

I can see this although I don't know exactly what it has to do with anything in this discussion. It has nothing to do with what the definition of a "pro" is; that is all apple marketing bs.

The 2023 mac pro has less functionality than the 2019 mac pro and is no faster than a computer thats half its cost. What is the point of its existence? Every other computer manufacturer who makes desktop workstations doesn't pull dumb **** like this. Only apple does it because they have a misplaced massive ego. They are quite literally incapable (due to incompetence or maliciousness) of offering a desktop computer because they have a giant team of marketers who scheme to try and find the best way to extract money from people.

The debates become testy because theres a bunch of apple apologists who think everything apple does is great and willfully engage in the apple marketing doublespeak. Theyre the only company that has such a giant ego that they will take away basic functionality from a product, then introduce an updated version of a product that readds the basic functionality they removed. They also have the audacity to act as if they have solved world hunger and that no one is qualified to breathe the rareified air that they do.

Example 1: removing ability to add a GPU on the trashcan in 2013 then spending 30 minutes introducing the 2019 mac pro talking about how their computer is amazing because it has PCIe slots, a feature that is almost 40 years old. Example 2: removing the esc key in the 2016-2019 macbook pros due to "courage" and then releasing an updated 2019 macbook pro where they advertised it has an esc key.

Then the parrots talked about how in 2013, PCIe slots were useless, in 2019 how theyre great again, now in 2023 someone on this forum literally said "PCIe slots are slow and TB is faster" LMFAO, i'm chuckling just thinking about this. The esc key was a little more derided but there were people who supported and then unsupported the decision on this forum as well.

 

[Duncan-UK]

But you're acting as if the 2019 MP has sticks of dynamite attached to it that will explode at any second. If you have a MP and need a changeable graphics card or more than 192 GB of ram then keep it - use it - and make a living from it.

The much vaunted wannabe Pro's need to realise that their "demands" represent barely a rounding error on Apple's financials, and Apple could quite easily say - it's the Studio or bust. But they haven't. Frankly Apple don't need the Mac - they could shut it down tomorrow and it would barely make any difference - employ the resources both technical and financial to make a better return.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

But you're acting as if the 2019 MP has sticks of dynamite attached to it that will explode at any second. If you have a MP and need a changeable graphics card or more than 192 GB of ram then keep it - use it - and make a living from it.

The much vaunted wannabe Pro's need to realise that their "demands" represent barely a rounding error on Apple's financials, and Apple could quite easily say - it's the Studio or bust. But they haven't. Frankly Apple don't need the Mac - they could shut it down tomorrow and it would barely make any difference - employ the resources both technical and financial to make a better return.

We disagree.

This is exactly what John Scully thought after he kicked out jobs. And for a while he drafted off the wake of innovation that preceded him. But computers aren't sugar water no matter how much he wished they were. The halo think different people needed the top of the line, and they left. Yet Scully sold MORE machines and made more profit than ever...for a while. Then a funny thing happened. The drafting and lack of innovation brought things to an end. People left apple in droves because they followed and went to where the Halo Think Different people were (ie not at apple). And that led apple to bankruptcy (within 30 days of it save for Jobs' amazing maneuvers getting Microsoft to give a 150m cash infusion among other things).

And it took Steve Jobs paying hundreds of millions in advertising dollars to serenade the Halo Think Different users to come back. Promising he gets it. Promising to bring the top of the line pentium crushing tech. He knew this was key because people follow those Halo Think Different people.

Sure, apple wont die immediately by ignoring the Halo Think Different users. It has more runway and ability to draft for far longer with its bankroll than ever before. But it WILL die. Those Halo Think Different users are critical, and apple is just too dumb and arrogant to remember its own history and what brought it to the precipice. One of the halo users here recently commented on just how easy it was for him to dump Apple, and that has a way of snowballing, for the rest of the eco system, and once he's out of that eco system he may not fix a lot of his friends/families tech problems in that old eco system because he doesnt care/not up to speed on it, and they may change their eco system to his with time... It takes time. But this does happen.

Worse yet for Apple, there is no Steve Jobs around to serenade anyone back this time.

 

[impulse462]

But you're acting as if the 2019 MP has sticks of dynamite attached to it that will explode at any second. If you have a MP and need a changeable graphics card or more than 192 GB of ram then keep it - use it - and make a living from it.

The much vaunted wannabe Pro's need to realise that their "demands" represent barely a rounding error on Apple's financials, and Apple could quite easily say - it's the Studio or bust. But they haven't. Frankly Apple don't need the Mac - they could shut it down tomorrow and it would barely make any difference - employ the resources both technical and financial to make a better return.

I noticed this about the 2023 mac pro people -- there is always a condescending snark about "wannabe pros".

I'll say this again for the thousandth time: video editors are not the pinnacle of what a "professional" is when it comes to desktop workstations. just because apple caters to them, does not mean anyone else who buys a workstation is a "wannabe pro". And if we're being frank here, of all the "professional" users who use "professional" desktop workstations, the video editors are the most uneducated and ill-informed about how computers work and they are the most dismissive when it comes to computers addressing other needs. No surprise they are the most condescending. Not to mention *most* video editors have moved to windows anyhow after the trashcan fiasco.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I noticed this about the 2023 mac pro people -- there is always a condescending snark about "wannabe pros".

I'll say this again for the thousandth time: video editors are not the pinnacle of what a "professional" is when it comes to desktop workstations. just because apple caters to them, does not mean anyone else who buys a workstation is a "wannabe pro". And if we're being frank here, of all the "professional" users who use "professional" desktop workstations, the video editors are the most uneducated and ill-informed about how computers work and they are the most dismissive when it comes to computers addressing other needs. No surprise they are the most condescending. Not to mention *most* video editors have moved to windows anyhow after the trashcan fiasco.

Yea people running DNA/sequencing/simulations, scientific simulations, 3D world building artists, engineers/architects building...you know buildings, AI scientists etc.... all bow down to the big 'pro'ness of a dudes shooting off their crappy 8k drone camera to downsample to 720P for their hitw**** YouTube channel. Real american heroes! DaRealzProz! 🙄

 

[Romain_H]

And that led apple to bankruptcy (within 30 days of it save for Jobs' amazing maneuvers getting Microsoft to give a 150m cash infusion among other things).

Well... Quote:
"The day before the announcement Apple had a market cap of $2.46 billion, and had ended its previous quarter with quarterly revenues of US$1.7 billion and cash reserves of US$1.2 billion, making the US$150 million amount of the investment largely symbolic. Apple CFO Fred Anderson stated that Apple would use the additional funds to invest in its core markets of education and creative content."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc.

Just sayin'. Basically I agree with your assessment

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Well... Quote:
"The day before the announcement Apple had a market cap of $2.46 billion, and had ended its previous quarter with quarterly revenues of US$1.7 billion and cash reserves of US$1.2 billion, making the US$150 million amount of the investment largely symbolic. Apple CFO Fred Anderson stated that Apple would use the additional funds to invest in its core markets of education and creative content."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc.

Just sayin'. Basically I agree with your assessment

Agreed and why I added "among other things". If you read several of the books/biographies, I think a bunch of them note that they were within 30 days of bankruptcy IIRC. That said, it was on many fronts, including massive layoffs, that got them back to solvency. The 150mm was, agreed, more symbolic of the turn around, and I used it similarly. I agree the reality was more complicated and nuanced (and involved a lot more money).

 

[Romain_H]

Agreed and why I added "among other things". If you read several of the books/biographies, I think a bunch of them note that they were within 30 days of bankruptcy IIRC. That said, it was on many fronts, including massive layoffs, that got them back to solvency. The 150mm was, agreed, more symbolic of the turn around, and I used it similarly. I agree the reality was more complicated and nuanced (and involved a lot more money).

Plus its not that difficult to claim Apple would have survived without it - having the benefit of hindsight.

Jobs in 1997 did not have that advantage.

My point? Neither did Microsoft "save" Apple, nor did they invest said millions out of philantrophy. It surely helped in fending off the anti-trust case against them.

However, all in all its entirely possible, as Jobs said, that both Jobs and Gates realized that there is room enough for both of them. They (mostly) buried the hatchett with this deal

Sorry for O/T.

I really hope you are incorrect in your assessment of failure as a matter of time only. Alas, I tend to agree.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

We disagree.

This is exactly what John Scully thought after he kicked out jobs. And for a while he drafted off the wake of innovation that preceded him. But computers aren't sugar water no matter how much he wished they were. The halo think different people needed the top of the line, and they left. Yet Scully sold MORE machines and made more profit than ever...for a while. Then a funny thing happened. The drafting and lack of innovation brought things to an end. People left apple in droves because they followed and went to where the Halo Think Different people were (ie not at apple). And that led apple to bankruptcy (within 30 days of it save for Jobs' amazing maneuvers getting Microsoft to give a 150m cash infusion among other things).

And it took Steve Jobs paying hundreds of millions in advertising dollars to serenade the Halo Think Different users to come back. Promising he gets it. Promising to bring the top of the line pentium crushing tech. He knew this was key because people follow those Halo Think Different people.

Sure, apple wont die immediately by ignoring the Halo Think Different users. It has more runway and ability to draft for far longer with its bankroll than ever before. But it WILL die. Those Halo Think Different users are critical, and apple is just too dumb and arrogant to remember its own history and what brought it to the precipice. One of the halo users here recently commented on just how easy it was for him to dump Apple, and that has a way of snowballing, for the rest of the eco system, and once he's out of that eco system he may not fix a lot of his friends/families tech problems in that old eco system because he doesnt care/not up to speed on it, and they may change their eco system to his with time... It takes time. But this does happen.

Worse yet for Apple, there is no Steve Jobs around to serenade anyone back this time.

You think it can’t, it won’t happen, but drastic change maybe nearer than you think.

Linux Hits 3% Desktop Market Share - Slashdot

According to Statcounter, the Linux share on the desktop has passed 3% for the first time. GamingOnLinux reports: While it has been close a couple of times, the trend according to their stats is pretty clear that Linux use has been slowly rising over the last few years. This does not include...

linux.slashdot.org

 

[Romain_H]

Apple is a multi-trillion dollar company because of the iPhone and the eco-system it has created. None of this is dependant upon the Mac.

Correct. But that also means that Apple is dependent on the iPhone. Will the success of the iPhone continue forever?

Apple does not depend on the Mac at this point, that might be true. However, the Mac is the only computer and/or operating system actally loved by its customers I am aware of. Why abandon it without a good reason?

 

[orionquest]

Correct. But that also means that Apple is dependent on the iPhone. Will the success of the iPhone continue forever?

Apple does not depend on the Mac at this point, that might be true. However, the Mac is the only computer and/or operating system actally loved by its customers I am aware of. Why abandon it without a good reason?

Not sure if it's matters if it's loved or not, why would they throw away the product that historically built the company from. Unless the entire industry is suddenly going towards 100% mobile computing, which I doubt. Killing off laptops/desktops would send a strong negative signal to the user base.
Actually the idea of this is quite ridiculous.

 

[impulse462]

Not sure if it's matters if it's loved or not, why would they throw away the product that historically built the company from. Unless the entire industry is suddenly going towards 100% mobile computing, which I doubt. Killing off laptops/desktops would send a strong negative signal to the user base.
Actually the idea of this is quite ridiculous.

I've met people who never even had a desktop computer (let alone workstation) growing up. Nothing against them of course but truly frightening imo, especially since ive never liked laptops as I feel they are just all compromises. I was born in the early 90s and the people i've talked to were born in the late 90s, so not that much difference in age all things considered.

 

[GregStudio]

Individuals purchasing expensive things, be they sole traders / Indy media people, or small businesses with a few employees make those purchases on emotional grounds.

Which individuals? I’m sure many individuals make purchases on emotional grounds but then the average individual isn’t really the target demographic. I’m sure some indy media people and sole traders do too but certainly not all, none of the Indy people or small businesses I know do and I certainly don’t.

“What could this do for me in unknown future scenario X?” is the question that REALLY matters.

No, it’s not. It’s a question that matters but “the question that REALLY matters” is, will it do the job required and will it continue to do that job reliably for the number of years which makes the investment worthwhile? The question of potentially dealing with “unknown future scenario X”, is not so important because I have a rough idea of the future scenarios (in my line of work) and the 2023 MP will likely cover them. There would have to be some new, unforeseen development/functionality I can’t compete without, that the MP can’t handle, which is exceedingly unlikely in the near term.

Your assertion maybe true for some MP users but in many cases, if that’s “the question that REALLY matters”, then they probably wouldn’t have been a MP user (of any generation) in the first place.

The 2023 mac pro has less functionality than the 2019 mac pro and is no faster than a computer thats half its cost. What is the point of its existence?

It’s pretty much always been the case with all Mac Pros that it’s possible to build one as fast or faster on another platform (or even the same OS in the case of a Hackintosh) for much less. But for many of us, while cost is a very serious consideration, it’s not the primary consideration. A far more pressing consideration is stability/reliability! Saving a few thousand on the purchase price is nothing compared to missing the almost ubiquitous tight deadlines, failing to comply with contractual obligations and loosing clients because you had to spend half a day or more trying to figure out why your Hackintosh is crashing or taking forever to complete a task that should only take a few minutes.

G