Like it or not, Apple needs Mac Pro.

[OptimusGrime]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-reportedly-on-back-burner-and-largely-written-off-at-apple.2471279/

Despite that Mac Pro is being on the back burner, Apple will need to develop high-end and/or workstation grade Apple Silicon chips for their own future. I would skip the performance and specs of Macs cause it's gonna be a long conversation despite the fact that Mac's max performance is poor but the most important fact is, they need workstation grade chips to make their own servers for AI.

Take a look at Gemini 3.0. Google trained their own AI with their own chips, TPU. Which means, Apple can also do it as long as they can make their own powerful chips. M3 Ultra? It's extremely slow compared to others especially Nvidia. Furthermore, since Apple Silicon is SoC based, it's too expensive to mass produce especially with ultra-fusion due to the die size. Dont forget that Apple does NOT make chips to sell so they'll need to use chips from Mac, not custom chips just for servers.

Tho Apple is planning to make new chips with a whole new design thanks to TSMC's SoIC, they will need Mac Pro grade Apple Silicon chips one way or another cause in order to compete and improve their Apple Intelligence.

So what Apple is doing with Mac Pro is totally unacceptable.

I like your username.

 

[macfacts]

debatable as to if they'd ever go for a separate card,

how can they when their unified fast memory depends on a single location for the memory.

 

[maflynn]

I think a better question is what does a Xeon/Threadripper do that an Ultra does not. And the answer is PCIe lanes and other forms of external connectivity.

The OP is postulating that the apple needs a mac pro computer in the line up, and my question pertains to that. Apple is not returning to x86, so a comparison to xeon/threadripper only makes sense imo, is that apple comes out an Extreme version of the apple silicon which they were rumored to have been working on a few years ago, and that silicon has an architecture more suited for workstation usage.

 

[keksikuningas]

Ampere Altra Max vs Apple M3 Ultra 32 vs AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9970X [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

would love to see some real life benchmarks for this, but it seems that M3 Ultra studio is the most powerful ARM workstation? Does anyone know if M chips are useful in embedded (automotive etc) ? I assume all of that runs on Linux?

Highlighting automotive cause I know the Ampere ARM workstations were marketed towards automotive sector