MP 7,1 Mac Pro 2023 - End of the line?

[cybermook]

Amidst the discussion of the deficiencies and limitations of the latest Mac Pro most people are assuming there will be another, more powerful one coming along. I'm not so sure of that. I think this Mac Pro could be the end of a line they don't really care about anymore. I personally love the concept, but I've now got a loaded Dell workstation that covers most of the bases and I think future Mac Studios may be all you're going to get. Again the memory limitations are a big mistake and not good for music production and I would imagine other things as well that need a lot of RAM. I was still planning to buy one given that assumption but I already have a Studio and a maxed out M1 16 laptop and the available memory is simply inadequate.

With the MacBook Pro you can run a slew of programs simultaneously without choking, but if something is memory intensive there are problems, just like on the studio. At this point Apple is basically forcing power users to switch to a PC to be able to do what the Mac Pro used to do, so my guess is it is going to disappear altogether. They just don't care any more. They are a phone company now with almost complete dedication to IOS now. I also have a iPad Pro with the keyboard, etc. but the OS still sucks alongside the Mac, and I don't see them doing all that much more on the Mac other than newer processors with hyper-expensive, and limited RAM and storage.

 

[Jethro!]

If the next MP (if there is one) is not upgradable and/or much, MUCH cheaper (disposable machines should be cheap), then this should be last one. MP 2023 is a joke and an insult.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think there will be an M3. I'm betting on that. If I thought the the M2 were the last, as much as I dislike it, I would have gotten it.

It seems very likely this is an interim Mac and they are geared to put out an M3. In some ways I view it as the iPhone mini 12. It wasn't great, but the 'machine' was primed to put out another one, so they still made a (far better) iPhone mini 13.

Sadly while I think we have a good chance of getting the M3 extreme, and that will also bring more PCI lanes so it wont be stupid like it is in the M2 version, I'm not terribly hopeful they will do more than that. Maybe PCI5 (which would be nice for SSD options).

I dont think they will do the other things they really need to do which is:

1) add ECC
2) add support for 3rd party GPUs
3) add ability to upgrade RAM
4) add ability to upgrade CPU

Frankly if they just did 1 and 2 I would be happier, but I fear even that wont happen. And here is the sad thing. Although adding the M3 Extreme, more PCI lanes, and maybe PCI5 will make the machine less of a gimp'd joke it is today, it still won't be a real Mac Pro. It will be a Mac Studio +.

And sadly, that does mean the last of the real think different pros will leave and the self important amazing YouTube videographer "pros" will be all that is left...

TLDR I think we will get one more based on the M3 (fingers crossed).

 

[haralds]

I think you are forgetting the target audience. It is not the hobbyist with a fat wallet, but pro installations for music and video, where minutes of processing are expensive. Studios have no trouble depreciating a box over two years and replacing it. This is why Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are highly optimized for Apple Silicon.
It is to keep Apple's creative pro audience happy. This is not for profit, but marketing.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think you are forgetting the target audience. It is not the hobbyist with a fat wallet, but pro installations for music and video, where minutes of processing are expensive. Studios have no trouble depreciating a box over two years and replacing it. This is why Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are highly optimized for Apple Silicon.
It is to keep Apple's creative pro audience happy. This is not for profit, but marketing.

Lol, I think youre forgetting that the pro market is not limited to YouTube/video people but includes, architects, engineers, genetic scientists, simulation scientists, other scientists, machine learning professionals, encryption professionals, 3D artists, etc etc. This focus on video/youtubers is laughable in thinking they constitute "pros" when they are perhaps the most banal use case easily handled by an iPad Pro or an MacBook Air these days.

And I'll go a step further and say it, and call it, video workers are a banal use case now and I do not even consider them to be part of the pro class anymore in their use case; any basic Mac can easily handle their needs now.

 

[jimmy_john]

Lol, I think youre forgetting that the pro market is not limited to YouTube/video people but includes, architects, engineers, genetic scientists, simulation scientists, other scientists, machine learning professionals, encryption professionals, 3D artists, etc etc. This focus on video/youtubers is laughable in thinking they constitute "pros" when they are perhaps the most banal use case easily handled by an iPad Pro or an MacBook Air these days.

And I'll go a step further and say it, and call it, video workers are a banal use case now and I do not even consider them to be part of the pro class anymore in their use case; any basic Mac can easily handle their needs now.

As someone who is, in fact, NOT a NASA scientist I am uniquely qualified to declare that any workload being used in their work can easily be handled by a slide rule.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

As someone who is, in fact, NOT a NASA scientist I am uniquely qualified to declare that any workload being used in their work can easily be handled by a slide rule.

As someone that works a lot with 8k video, I’m uniquely qualified to assess your assessment and have given it it’s due weight.

 

[jimmy_john]

As someone that works a lot with 8k video, I’m uniquely qualified to assess your assessment and have given it it’s due weight.

Maybe you do. No way to know for sure. Anyone can be anyone they want on the internet.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Maybe you do. No way to know for sure. Anyone can be anyone they want on the internet.

I was probably the first person on the planet to get 8k hdmi screens working on the Mac, so there’s that.

SOLVED: 8k Displays Running on Mac Pro? Any? What Video cards would work that support 8k HDMI 2.1/Displayport 1.4/2.0 displays on Mac Pro? YES you can

UPDATE 2021-12-19: (Some failed tests I tried to get it to work) https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/8k-displays-running-on-mac-pro-any-what-video-cards-would-work-that-support-8k-hdmi-2-1-displayport-1-4-2-0-displays-on-mac-pro.2309750/post-30712355 UPDATE 2021-12-26: A first solution can be...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[jimmy_john]

I was probably the first person on the planet to get 8k hdmi screens working on the Mac, so there’s that.

SOLVED: 8k Displays Running on Mac Pro? Any? What Video cards would work that support 8k HDMI 2.1/Displayport 1.4/2.0 displays on Mac Pro? YES you can

UPDATE 2021-12-19: (Some failed tests I tried to get it to work) https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/8k-displays-running-on-mac-pro-any-what-video-cards-would-work-that-support-8k-hdmi-2-1-displayport-1-4-2-0-displays-on-mac-pro.2309750/post-30712355 UPDATE 2021-12-26: A first solution can be...

forums.macrumors.com

I was pointing out the folly of telling other people what they need to do their work.

Perhaps I was too subtle?

Anyway, real pros only work with 64k video or higher.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I was pointing out the folly of telling other people what they need to do their work.

Perhaps I was too subtle?

Anyway, real pros only work with 64k video or higher.

Yet you missed the folly regarding who should be regarded as pros are and what they might need.

I have a different adjective for it.

 

[jimmy_john]

Yet you missed the folly regarding who should be regarded as pros are and what they might need.

I have a different adjective for it.

No, I didn’t. I just don’t care for the idiotic debate of what or who is pro enough for those obsessed with defining the term to include themselves but not others.

Buy the right tool for the job, I say.

For workloads that need ECC, I use a machine and operating system with ECC.

Perhaps too practical of me?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

No, I didn’t. I just don’t care for the idiotic debate of what or who is pro enough for those obsessed with defining the term to include themselves but not others.

Buy the right tool for the job, I say.

For workloads that need ECC, I use a machine and operating system with ECC.

Perhaps too practical of me?

Yea, debating your pet peeve opinion, that's where it (the irony) is at.

 

[vsc]

I think you are forgetting the target audience. It is not the hobbyist with a fat wallet, but pro installations for music and video, where minutes of processing are expensive. Studios have no trouble depreciating a box over two years and replacing it. This is why Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are highly optimized for Apple Silicon.
It is to keep Apple's creative pro audience happy. This is not for profit, but marketing.

Yet there are organizations that abandoned Apple for PC workstations and Linux based rendering farms for largely the same principle reasons you cite. Though I agree if one is locked into software which is based upon Apple's platform, then I'm rather sure the latest offering is appealing at a level.

 

[loby]

Amidst the discussion of the deficiencies and limitations of the latest Mac Pro most people are assuming there will be another, more powerful one coming along. I'm not so sure of that. I think this Mac Pro could be the end of a line they don't really care about anymore. I personally love the concept, but I've now got a loaded Dell workstation that covers most of the bases and I think future Mac Studios may be all you're going to get. Again the memory limitations are a big mistake and not good for music production and I would imagine other things as well that need a lot of RAM. I was still planning to buy one given that assumption but I already have a Studio and a maxed out M1 16 laptop and the available memory is simply inadequate.

With the MacBook Pro you can run a slew of programs simultaneously without choking, but if something is memory intensive there are problems, just like on the studio. At this point Apple is basically forcing power users to switch to a PC to be able to do what the Mac Pro used to do, so my guess is it is going to disappear altogether. They just don't care any more. They are a phone company now with almost complete dedication to IOS now. I also have a iPad Pro with the keyboard, etc. but the OS still sucks alongside the Mac, and I don't see them doing all that much more on the Mac other than newer processors with hyper-expensive, and limited RAM and storage.

As per the latest Mac Pro, like others have said, those who need one know who they are and will purchase. They are at the higher levels of usage and workloads in most cases, and will probably not be on these forums to give their opinions or support for the product because they are too busy with their work.

I too was surprised at the Mac Pro (including the upgraded Mac Studio with the same CPU) and would have lost a lot of money on my predictions or beating if I was a beating man.

Apple is catering to their high level Pros (if you can call them that) or those who need PCIe slots etc. for their work. That is a good thing, as they did not care about "Pros" for about a decade or so.

Surprisingly, there are more users with those needs than one on these forums would expect.

I don't think that the Mac Pro is on its way out yet. Yes, it will not be a big seller, but it is necessary in the Apple ecosystem. Why? Because those users will also buy laptops etc. to go along with Mac Pro when on the road or mobile.

I do expect a M3 Mac Pro and that will probably be something that will silence the opposition and be a "Wow" moment....

 

[cybermook]

Time will tell, but just keep in mind how minuscule Mac Pro sales are alongside of Apple’s total revenue. Furthermore while this is hanging in the air PC workstations are jumping ahead in leaps and bounds. It is clear from experience that software developers are far more likely to bring out advanced new products on the PC rather than the Mac. Just look at the amount and variety available for the PC versus the Mac. Also telling is the memory limitation which is incomprehensible as a pro strategy. Finally it is obvious that IOS is leading the direction of things now. This is now a huge, revenue drive corporation, not a place where people who really care about the product and what it does hold sway, regardless of profitability.

 

[eicca]

I think it just goes to show that Apple Silicon is the best thing to ever happen to the PC market, as the PC chip makers are now going to compete and compete well.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think it just goes to show that Apple Silicon is the best thing to ever happen to the PC market, as the PC chip makers are now going to compete and compete well.

I guess. They are competing so well that an intel i9 processor (the kind we used to get in our laptops) now outpaces the fastest Macs made. As does the AMD 6900XT outpace the fastest graphics offered by apple...

Hopefully apple will kick it up a gear with the M3...

 

[throAU]

Studios have no trouble depreciating a box over two years and replacing it. This is why Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are highly optimized for Apple Silicon

This.

If you're working on a film with a budget of say, $100m then spending $100k on a few new machines for each individual film in order to work faster (and this get more iterations of a concept out to refine it further) is chump change.

 

[jimmy_john]

I guess. They are competing so well that an intel i9 processor (the kind we used to get in our laptops) now outpaces the fastest Macs made. As does the AMD 6900XT outpace the fastest graphics offered by apple...

Hopefully apple will kick it up a gear with the M3...

What is so strange then is when I tested the M1 Ultra against my 13900k machine and the 5995wx Threadripper Pro workstation sitting here, it was substantially faster in the intended workload, so, it is now getting used for that workload until I get this M2 Ultra in service.

Geekbench drag racing doesn't always match reality.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

What is so strange then is when I tested the M1 Ultra against my 13900k machine and the 5995wx Threadripper Pro workstation sitting here, it was substantially faster in the intended workload, so, it is now getting used for that workload until I get this M2 Ultra in service.

Geekbench drag racing doesn't always match reality.

True. Glad it works for you. There are other use cases for which that doesn’t hold.

Anecdotal evidence doesn’t always hold for others.

 

[jimmy_john]

True. Glad it works for you. There are other use cases for which that doesn’t hold.

Anecdotal evidence doesn’t always hold for others.

So your statement above is not true, then?

Or are you saying that in your specific desired workload, the i9 and 6900xt "outpace" the fastest graphics offered?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

So your statement above is not true, then?

Or are you saying that in your specific desired workload, the i9 and 6900xt "outpace" the fastest graphics offered?

It's faster in apple's desired workload of Metal. Their standard for everything the Mac does. They provided on chip codecs so apple and youtuber's could cherry pick and feel better about puppet'ing their use cases.

 

[mikas]

The new Mac Pro seems to on balance with CPU against the latest AMD laptop chip. Or comsumer chips.
These are the low cost parts from them. AMD workstation CPUs are higher priced, and thus more performant. It's just that there are no  counterparts to those. M2 Ultra, presented in the table as red, is the best performing Apple chip there is today. It's inside a Mac PRo and in a Mac Studio.

Other manufacturers, Intel and AMD, do offer you well over 100k benchmarks of this kind. At a cost, and at an energy consumption level too, acknowledged. But you do have a choice to opt one if needed.

If Apple would have made the trick we all (or most of us) anticipated, like of 4x Max chips tied together (=3x ultra connection? or an intermediate chip, which is unlikely)), they would theoretically be on the level somewhere on par with the competition as workstation class computers. But they did not. It's kind of embarrassing to compare Mac Pro with these laptop and low end comsumer chips of AMDs.

And not so funny fact is that intel is there too. Not with energy efficiency, no, but with performance it is. And in the workstation class it is too there. Not on par with AMD, but securely on top of the Mac. I can see no Macs in that class or category today.


I won't even want to go to upgradability or expandability this time. Because there is close to none today with an Apple computer of any kind or category.

Yes I know you can't trust the benchmarks too much versus the real workflows. They might be off some. I still think not that much that you couldn't use them at all.

ps. I am an architect, and need both CPU and GPU crunch, differing needs from time to time. And I need software compatibility of all kinds too, preferably. Now I'm on PC/WIN, and I hate it still a little bit.

 

[Jethro!]

If Apple would have made the trick we all (or most of us) anticipated, like of 4x Max chips tied together (=3x ultra connection? or an intermediate chip, which is unlikely)), they would theoretically be on the level somewhere on par with the competition as workstation class computers. But they did not. It's kind of embarrassing to compare Mac Pro with these laptop and low end comsumer chips of AMDs.

And not so funny fact is that intel is there too. Not with energy efficiency, no, but with performance it is. And in the workstation class it is too there. Not on par with AMD, but securely on top of the Mac. I can see no Macs in that class or category today.

It's Apple Hubris for them to think they could surpass the performance of chipmakers who have been in the game decades longer. Instead we got below-par performance with the added "feature" of non-upgradability.

Way to go, Tim. Bravo, team Cupertino.