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?

[randy85]

Hmmm it all depends on your workflow. If you're doing video production and you can work on a 4k timeline in Resolve with noise reduction, grade and other effects applied, then your needs are likely met now for a long time. The fact you can't load a 1TB sample library into ram is a moot point.

The M2 meets a big chunk of pro-user needs and M3 will meet an even bigger chunk.

It's a thing of tinkerers vs pro users at this point... and its mostly the tinkerers who are pissed.

 

[anselpela]

I'm sure Apple didn't compare its AS Mac Pro to a top specced out Intel Mac Pro. But I'm curious since everyone is complaining that we only get 192 GB RAM max here...does anyone have a Mac Pro with anywhere close to 1.5 TB RAM and if so how does that compare in benchmarks to the new Mac Pro? What about with a top end GPU installed?

Plenty of people are fully aware of the potential of access to 192 GB of video memory. The people complaining about losing 1.5 TB of RAM (LMAO) don't understand swap, and need to work on their workflows.

 

[Longplays]

Plenty of people are fully aware of the potential of access to 192 GB of video memory. The people complaining about losing 1.5 TB of RAM (LMAO) don't understand swap, and need to work on their workflows.

For very specific use cases swap or paging in are unacceptable due to audio errors.

That's why this fella is keeping his 2019 at 768GB memory until a future Ultra or Extreme chip will allow for that much RAM.

For your convenience I fast forwarded to his concern with the 192GB RAM limit

 

[257Loner]

You think studios could do Mac Studio server setups in the future? Since they're smaller they're easily rack mountable with some BlackMagic boxes.

As of June 5, 2023, the chip density of a Mac Studio is much greater than the Mac Pro. Racking multiple Mac Studios gives more computing power than a single rack-mounted Mac Pro that takes up the same volume. The only way for the rack-mounted Mac Pro to make sense is if Apple sold Apple Silicon chips on PCI cards that could fit inside the Mac Pro, turning it into something like a blade server. Since Apple hasn't done that, it makes more sense to rack 4 Mac Studios, each with an M2 Ultra chip, than to install a single rack-mounted Mac Pro with only one M2 Ultra chip.

 

[goMac]

As of June 5, 2023, the chip density of a Mac Studio is much greater than the Mac Pro. Racking multiple Mac Studios gives more computing power than a single rack-mounted Mac Pro that takes up the same volume. The only way for the rack-mounted Mac Pro to make sense is if Apple sold Apple Silicon chips on PCI cards that could fit inside the Mac Pro, turning it into something like a blade server. Since Apple hasn't done that, it makes more sense to rack 4 Mac Studios, each with an M2 Ultra chip, than to install a single rack-mounted Mac Pro with only one M2 Ultra chip.

A lot of audio shops use rack mount gear and PCIe cards. If you're going for sheer compute density for a compute farm, sure. But the rack mount Mac Pro makes a lot of sense in other contexts.

 

[kingjames1970]

It’s so obvious there was a screw up and whatever chip they were planning for the Mac Pro and architecture didn’t happen. It barely got a mention in the keynote, looked a bit like embarrassment to me. They just had to complete the Apple silicon transition.

Somewhere in a deep bunker in Apple Park there’s prototypes of M2 ‘Pro Double Max Ultra Extremes’ that have expandable RAM and graphics. They just couldn’t scale it up. They know some pros just need more and hopefully are still working on a solution.

I like to think they still need that shining flagship crown jewel. There’s a massive trickle down of PR, bragging rights and technologies that they will miss out on.

Unfortunately part of me can also imagine Tim giving up this segment. Who knows?

 

[MallardDuck]

It’s so obvious there was a screw up and whatever chip they were planning for the Mac Pro and architecture didn’t happen. It barely got a mention in the keynote, looked a bit like embarrassment to me. They just had to complete the Apple silicon transition.

Somewhere in a deep bunker in Apple Park there’s prototypes of M2 ‘Pro Double Max Ultra Extremes’ that have expandable RAM and graphics. They just couldn’t scale it up. They know some pros just need more and hopefully are still working on a solution.

I like to think they still need that shining flagship crown jewel. There’s a massive trickle down of PR, bragging rights and technologies that they will miss out on.

Unfortunately part of me can also imagine Tim giving up this segment. Who knows?

It honestly feels like a 'oh crap, we promised a Mac Pro, but our fundamental architecture kinda makes it impossible. So let’s just throw a pcie bus on a Mac Studio, call it a pro, and in two years when it hasn’t sold at any scale, we’ll just kill it off.'

Unified memory is great for general purpose, or varied workloads, which is what a double secret probation ultra would be. And honestly, I think they could just put that chip in the studio with a mono heal sink too.
For specific, specialized workloads customizablity is key to optimal performance.

 

[Quu]

I do a lot of stuff with Machine Learning and so I would love to have the 192GB of RAM which is shared with the GPU, no question.

But.. the GPU that Apple is providing isn't that great for machine learning and in my current models I actually load stuff into GPU memory from system memory. I have a system running Linux with 256GB of RAM and an EPYC CPU from AMD. It has just over 200GB/s memory bandwidth so quite a lot less than the M2 Ultra.

But if I was speccing my system today I would actually go with 512GB of RAM and not 256GB like I did because not only has the price more than halved since I purchased that RAM (8 x 32GB 3200MHz DDR4 RDIMM -> 8 x 64GB is half the price with the same spec now) but my needs to train larger models with more data necessitates it.

Right now I'm hobbling along with 4 x 980 Pro 2TB's in RAID0 on a PCIe card for 8TB of working data for my models and I really throw those things through the ringer, they can't keep up with the 200GB/s system memory or the RTX 3090's I use that have almost 1TB/s memory bandwidth each etc

I would have really liked to buy a Mac Pro for my work but I wasn't under any illusions, I did not expect Apple to give us expandable memory or dedicated GPU support. According to NVIDIA it has been Apple that refuses to sign their system driver for graphics which is why (again according to NVIDIA) we never saw RTX 3000 support for their cards under macOS.

Of course, you could buy a previous generation Intel Mac Pro and boot Windows or Linux and then use these cards just fine and I know some people who did just that for the 25-30% of the time that they needed to do something with machine learning or if they wanted to play a game now and then.

Apple is a company that seldom does what I want when it comes to my professional working life but they do suit me just fine for life stuff. I should note I'm not editing video which seems to be the number one key task these machines are designed for.

If Apple were to make the perfect Mac Pro it wouldn't need too many changes. Expandable RAM, single or maybe dual-socket processors and the ability to use NVIDIA GPU's for machine learning tasks. How likely is that to occur, I think 0% likely and I'm okay with that, I can just buy or build a rackmountable system and fill it with all the graphics cards I like and to be honest, do I need macOS on that system? what would it provide me that my current system doesn't which is headless and I mainly access it over a WebUI from my web browser where I'm just monitoring job results etc

 

[jasoncarle]

I suggest a lot of you start learning linux... I switched to a Threadripper / Nvidia based workstation and haven't looked back. Apple no longer makes computers for me.

Written on a Mac Studio Ultra M1...

 

[jasoncarle]

I do a lot of stuff with Machine Learning and so I would love to have the 192GB of RAM which is shared with the GPU, no question.

But.. the GPU that Apple is providing isn't that great for machine learning and in my current models I actually load stuff into GPU memory from system memory. I have a system running Linux with 256GB of RAM and an EPYC CPU from AMD. It has just over 200GB/s memory bandwidth so quite a lot less than the M2 Ultra.

But if I was speccing my system today I would actually go with 512GB of RAM and not 256GB like I did because not only has the price more than halved since I purchased that RAM (8 x 32GB 3200MHz DDR4 RDIMM -> 8 x 64GB is half the price with the same spec now) but my needs to train larger models with more data necessitates it.

Right now I'm hobbling along with 4 x 980 Pro 2TB's in RAID0 on a PCIe card for 8TB of working data for my models and I really throw those things through the ringer, they can't keep up with the 200GB/s system memory or the RTX 3090's I use that have almost 1TB/s memory bandwidth each etc

I would have really liked to buy a Mac Pro for my work but I wasn't under any illusions, I did not expect Apple to give us expandable memory or dedicated GPU support. According to NVIDIA it has been Apple that refuses to sign their system driver for graphics which is why (again according to NVIDIA) we never saw RTX 3000 support for their cards under macOS.

Of course, you could buy a previous generation Intel Mac Pro and boot Windows or Linux and then use these cards just fine and I know some people who did just that for the 25-30% of the time that they needed to do something with machine learning or if they wanted to play a game now and then.

Apple is a company that seldom does what I want when it comes to my professional working life but they do suit me just fine for life stuff. I should note I'm not editing video which seems to be the number one key task these machines are designed for.

If Apple were to make the perfect Mac Pro it wouldn't need too many changes. Expandable RAM, single or maybe dual-socket processors and the ability to use NVIDIA GPU's for machine learning tasks. How likely is that to occur, I think 0% likely and I'm okay with that, I can just buy or build a rackmountable system and fill it with all the graphics cards I like and to be honest, do I need macOS on that system? what would it provide me that my current system doesn't which is headless and I mainly access it over a WebUI from my web browser where I'm just monitoring job results etc

The perfect Mac Pro would be running Threadripper... Lets be real honest here.

Apple should be embarrassed by this video. TL : DR This Linux machine, running MAC OS as a VM, destroyed a top spec Mac Pro.

 

[Quu]

The perfect Mac Pro would be running Threadripper... Lets be real honest here.

Apple should be embarrassed by this video. TL : DR This Linux machine, running MAC OS as a VM, destroyed a top spec Mac Pro.

Threadripper Pro makes for a great workstation, 100%. And AMD is about to release new models according to leaks which push things further with 96 Cores and Zen4 like EPYC already has available.

I'll probably still stick with EPYC and a rackmount chassis for a remote system (well several meters from where I do my work) while using a Mac for my "terminal" if you will.

I mean sure if Apple actually pulled their finger out and made something incredible for my use case I'd buy it but that just seems very unlikely and I am questioning their commitment when they're not releasing major updates every 2 years like everybody else in the industry. How many times have we had the Mac Pro on death watch now? I think this is the 3rd time in the past 15 years.

 

[jasoncarle]

Threadripper Pro makes for a great workstation, 100%. And AMD is about to release new models according to leaks which push things further with 96 Cores and Zen4 like EPYC already has available.

I'll probably still stick with EPYC and a rackmount chassis for a remote system (well several meters from where I do my work) while using a Mac for my "terminal" if you will.

I mean sure if Apple actually pulled their finger out and made something incredible for my use case I'd buy it but that just seems very unlikely and I am questioning their commitment when they're not releasing major updates every 2 years like everybody else in the industry. How many times have we had the Mac Pro on death watch now? I think this is the 3rd time in the past 15 years.

I switched to a server with threadripper pro and nvidia a while ago. I ditched the Mac Pro (intel version) when it was still worth something when AS came along. I saw the writing on the wall. I held out hope that Apple would surprise me, but I was ultimately disappointed.

I have no illusions that I will be switching to anything but the new Threadripper Pro coming this fall (expected). I dont give a single care how much noise it makes as it is nowhere near me.

 

[jscipione]

For any real workstation task most people switched to AMD + Nvidia years ago while the Mac Pro still offered a respectable product in the Intel and AMD world until recently. Now that’s all out the window. If you need macOS what choice do you have? You’re only real option is to buy a Studio every couple of years, which is exactly what Apple intends.

 

[Shirasaki]

Buy/keep the 2019 until RAM aligns or move to AMD/Intel.

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. ― John Lydgate

That’s total *********.
Whats this even talking about? So we can’t have different products to fit the needs of different people, and we must pick sides and discard the rest? What kind of binary thinking mentality people are embracing nowadays? Can’t handle complex situations and understand complex requirements? Or, you know, just leave us alone?

But unfortunately it's time to swallow a hard pill: Apple doesn't care about the high end pro market anymore. It's not profitable like it used to be. Graphics professionals have moved on to Nvidia workstations. Hell the only reason this Mac Pro exists is so there's something to put BlackMagic cards in for their Apple Fellows in Disney. The Mac Pro is a niche compared to the much more cheaper and profitable Mac Studio.

Then this begs the question, why even bother releasing a new product in the first place? Just announce product line cancellation so everyone can see “oh. Ok.“ and either deal with severely RAM limited hardware or move on. Instead, waste money and time to develop a product they know inadequate for the target user and sell for more Than does less? They are a business, not government that by definition must take care of their people.

 

[Longplays]

That’s total *********.
Whats this even talking about? So we can’t have different products to fit the needs of different people, and we must pick sides and discard the rest? What kind of binary thinking mentality people are embracing nowadays? Can’t handle complex situations and understand complex requirements? Or, you know, just leave us alone?

Approx 75,000 Mac Pros are shipped annually among 28.6 million Macs in 2022.

Approx 20% of those Mac Pros exceed the use cases of the 2023 model.

Apple attempted and failed to deliver a M2 Extreme with 384GB unified memory to address 192GB limit of the M2 Ultra.

They'll try again in Q1 2025 with the M3 Extreme with more than 384GB. Cross your fingers.

This will give the pro app devs more time to provide bug fixes found by 2023 users.

Other than more RAM that M3 Extreme will likely have Thunderbolt 5 80Gb/s and maybe even PCIe 5.0 slots.

Sadly the two USB-A ports may disappear by then. It was wrong of Apple to abruptly dump them in 2016 but approaching a decade later are they still relevant at 5Gb/s or even 10Gb/s?

So what are use cases like yours to do?

"Buy/keep the 2019 until RAM aligns or move to AMD/Intel."

2019 should receive its final Security Update as late as 2027.

By then 2026 M4 Ultra/Extreme 1.4nm (A14) will be out hopefully with ~1.5TB.

 

[Duncan-UK]

Not every computer is for every use case. If you already know the new Mac Pro is not for you, why complain? You knew the first Apple Silicon Mac Pro would be a non-modular SoC with an upper bound on unified memory.

Absolutely - From some of the comments you'd think that the Intel Mac Pros have sticks of orange dynamite attached to them poised to explode on the release day of the new model.

 

[Zanton68]

I use Pages, Word and Safari. Will 192gb be enough? 🤔😋

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Then this begs the question, why even bother releasing a new product in the first place? Just announce product line cancellation so everyone can see “oh. Ok.“ and either deal with severely RAM limited hardware or move on. Instead, waste money and time to develop a product they know inadequate for the target user and sell for more Than does less? They are a business, not government that by definition must take care of their people.

Rumors and speculation suggest there was a new chip in development for the Mac Pro called the M2 Extreme that was essentially 4 M2 Maxes stitched together so the RAM count and performance would be what major professionals wanted, but Apple may have delayed that chip or cancelled it due to development problems, or someone asked "why are we spending so much on R&D on a chip that we're hardly gonna sell when we could just push people onto the cheaper and more profitable Mac Studio?"

It's clear the ARM Mac Pro was rushed just to say "there we go the Mac Pro is now on Apple Silicon. The transition is finally finished! Now buy our Macs." There's no reason for an M2 Ultra to be in a case this big especially when the benchmarks reveal there's no additional performance gain for doing so. It's just a waste of space and money just for PCIE slots you can barely do anything with.

This is why I keep saying they should just rebrand the Mac Studio as the new Mac Pro, as it's pretty much a Mac Pro for everyone except audio labels and movie studios.

 

[Longplays]

There's no reason for an M2 Ultra to be in a case this big especially when the benchmarks reveal there's no additional performance gain for doing so. It's just a waste of space and money just for PCIE slots you can barely do anything with.

This is why I keep saying they should just rebrand the Mac Studio as the new Mac Pro, as it's pretty much a Mac Pro for everyone except audio labels and movie studios.

Splitting Mac Studio & Mac Pro is better for everyone. Those who can live with the limitations of the 2023 will be happy with it.

I agree the 2019 case is larger than what is required for the M2 Ultra much less M2 Extreme but the dimension's a computer industry standard tower & rack mount size.

Same with the Mac mini. The M1/M2 could be shrunk to 78% less its current volume but it would break a lot of data centers that have standard racks to house them.

 

[Shirasaki]

This is why I keep saying they should just rebrand the Mac Studio as the new Mac Pro, as it's pretty much a Mac Pro for everyone except audio labels and movie studios.

Yeah, Apple should’ve just give up Mac Pro lineup entirely as of WWDC2023 and persuade people to transition to Mac Studio. ARM excels at getting things done while consuming less power, something workstation doesn’t quite care When absolute performance and tons of hardware resources are the key. Something Tim Cook has been doing since 2011 is he barely kills off a product line but try to add more of them, or more variations of a product line. Combining with Apple’s usual hard line approach on software, its just more confusing for buyers and users.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Yeah, Apple should’ve just give up Mac Pro lineup entirely as of WWDC2023 and persuade people to transition to Mac Studio. ARM excels at getting things done while consuming less power, something workstation doesn’t quite care When absolute performance and tons of hardware resources are the key. Something Tim Cook has been doing since 2011 is he barely kills off a product line but try to add more of them, or more variations of a product line. Combining with Apple’s usual hard line approach on software, its just more confusing for buyers and users.

The problem is the RAM count for the M2 Ultra is too low. It only goes up to 192 gb and audio professionals in major recording studios need at minimum 300 gb due to the amount of assets loaded. So if M3 Ultra doesn't offer that...then we're gonna have a problem.

 

[Longplays]

The problem is the RAM count for the M2 Ultra is too low. It only goes up to 192 gb and audio professionals in major recording studios need at minimum 300 gb due to the amount of assets loaded. So if M3 Ultra doesn't offer that...then we're gonna have a problem.

Not to mention they have a work reason why they need PCIe slots.

M2 Extreme with 384GB unified memory would have partially addressed that concern.

 

[Shirasaki]

The problem is the RAM count for the M2 Ultra is too low. It only goes up to 192 gb and audio professionals in major recording studios need at minimum 300 gb due to the amount of assets loaded. So if M3 Ultra doesn't offer that...then we're gonna have a problem.

Apple has shown to us that they have difficulty scaling up RAM amount with Apple Silicon as there's no support for DRAM modules and external storage to use those PCI-E slots. If previous comments are anything to go by, those PCI-E slots currently are pretty useless for general use.
I still scratch my head struggling to understand why this Mac Pro ever need to exist. For people who don't need a lot of RAM, Mac Studio is going to be more than enough IMO.

 

[Longplays]

Apple has shown to us that they have difficulty scaling up RAM amount with Apple Silicon as there's no support for DRAM modules and external storage to use those PCI-E slots. If previous comments are anything to go by, those PCI-E slots currently are pretty useless for general use.
I still scratch my head struggling to understand why this Mac Pro ever need to exist. For people who don't need a lot of RAM, Mac Studio is going to be more than enough IMO.

These use cases require PCIe slots

• Music production
• Video transcoding
• 3D rendering
• Animation

 

[anselpela]

I'm sure Apple didn't compare its AS Mac Pro to a top specced out Intel Mac Pro.

Of course they did. They've said as much. The AS Mac Pro outperforms the top spec Intel Mac Pro in several ways. Several very important, critical workflows, that Apple is specifically targeting with the AS Mac Pro.