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

[mode11]

Of course. Though, Apple is more concerned with besting the prior models than they are with besting the competition. Hence, the asininely vague graphs and comparisons to "the latest/most popular PC chip". If there was a superstar x86-64 CPU that Apple could directly say "look, this outperforms this CPU in every possible way" they'd probably have done so. Instead, it's shrouded in kludgy marketing.

But are they only concerned about beating prior Mac models because that's the only thing relevant to their customers (for which a case could be made; shifting off macOS is hard), or because direct comparisons to the best contemporary PC hardware would be unfavourable? At the end of the day, no one is forcing Apple to include PCs in their graphs - they could just benchmark against the last generation M-series - but they can't really avoid it since Windows dominates the desktop market and the comparison will be made regardless.

There are benchmarks that will show impressive gains. Just as I'm sure that there will be some that don't. Again, Apple is optimizing the performance of these SoCs to specific workloads. It stands to reason that some will be markedly more powerful while others will not.

I guess one has to pay close attention to the benchmarks, and determine whether the specific areas of acceleration align with your needs. If so, then great. I agree that for a video editor, it makes more sense to accelerate video codecs than use a beastly GPU to process video via CUDA.

I think that depends on your workflow. I know that, when Apple was re-evaluating their mistakes with the 2013 Mac Pro, one of the things they realized is that most of their customers actually didn't need multiple GPUs.

A minor point, but in my opinion, the dual-GPU thing in the 2013 MP was dictated by trying to distribute the heat sources, so their sexy cylinder concept would work. I don't believe they started from a position of being convinced of a multi GPU future (why?) and then designed the computer around that. Dual GPUs have never offered any advantage over an equivalently powerful single GPU. They only make sense if you're already running the fastest single GPU (or close to it), and need more of them.

UltraFusion would seem to be vastly preferable from the standpoint of latency between SoC components.

Of course. But unless the SoCs communicate through several hops to other SoCs, also increasing latency, each of the 4 chips would need enough UF connectors to connect directly to the other 3. This essentially means 3 sides of a Max would need UF interfaces - is there room, given RAM channels, I/O etc.? This feature (with all the associated circuitry) would also be wasted in the vast majority of Max installations (MBPs and Max / Ultra Studios), increasing cost for no benefit. Connecting 2 Ultras over a more traditional bus could potentially give significant performance gains over a single Ultra, without wasting excessive die area or requiring a separate Max design for this one application.

Nah. They saw the 24-core CPU, the 60-76 core GPU with 7 Afterburner cards' worth of accelerator performance, and the 64-192GB of RAM and decided that it was enough to suffice for the vast majority of the customers that would need this class of machine. It's not that the Mac Pro isn't important to them. It's that, TO THEM, the Mac Pro does not need to be anything more than an Ultra variant of a Mac Studio with I/O that would only be possible in the configuration of a tower. If Apple did the research and found that most of the people needing to buy a Mac Pro really only needed what this 2023 Mac Pro has to offer, then it was merely a calculated risk as to just how many customers they'd alienate by nixing the added upgradability from the 2019 model.

It's a slightly circular argument though, as what defines a Mac Pro customer? If you release a tower with limited built in GPU and no GPU expansion, you're clearly not going to attract e.g. 3D animators. If you whittle the scope of the product down until it just appeals to video editors, colour graders and so on (as big a market as they may be), is it really a success? Versus a wider market it could have appealed to? Fundamentally, the Mac Pro is built from what Apple have available, which in turn is dictated by the iPhone and laptops, alongside desktops like the iMac, mini and Studio that reuse laptop SoCs.

Even if Apple were interested in the PC workstation market, they are not well placed to compete in it, as doubling up on laptop SoCs only gets you so far. The Max is a balanced chip, with a sensible allocation of CPU to GPU, but to get more GPU requires adding a lot of CPU as well. This would become ridiculous with a 4 way chip, which would have way too many CPU cores, just to get a reasonable GPU.

 

[Jethro!]

Upgradeability adds value. I won't deny this. However, upgradability is far from the only value to a Mac Pro and it completely pales in comparison to the value added by I/O

No, it isn't. Any machine that STARTS at $7,000 better have a potential life beyond what's in it now. This one doesn't. I/O is irrelevant.

Yes, you have to pay Apple's RAM tax to buy more RAM up front. That part sucks. But that really won't stop this machine from being sold to anyone for whom that isn't an absolute deal-breaker.

Yes, it is a deal-breaker. EXHIBIT A: Me.

Considering that (a) the 2010 and 2013 Mac Pros are tied at 8 years for longest-supported Mac Pro models, (b) it is extremely unlikely that the 2019 Mac Pro will have that much time being supported, and (c) that we have absolutely no metric for how long Apple Silicon Macs will last before not being able to run a macOS version, I'd say your claim has issues.

Yeah, right. I write this on my 2009 MP. It's still very much a useful machine. Why? Because I upgraded the snot out of it. Why? BECAUSE YOU CAN. This new one -- oops, you can't. By design, which is insulting.

Furthermore, the only way in which this machine lacks longevity is with GPU and RAM upgrades (which never really did all that much to extend the overall life of even 2010 and 2012 Mac Pros relative to the rest of the system to begin with). Yes, you could squeeze a bit more performance out of a 2010 or 2012 Mac Pro with those upgrades, but again, you're still chipset limited. The best that 580X card in a 2012 Mac Pro would do is give you the illusion that it's still worth holding on to that 2012 Mac Pro (when it's actually a much better idea to move on).

So? *I* will decide if I want to squeeze more life out of my 'old' Mac via upgrades. Not you. Not Apple.

Apple has made killings off of indie pros paying premium prices for disposable computers for decades. Indie pros didn't balk when Apple started soldering the SSDs into 15-inch MacBook Pros. Indie pros have never balked at the fact that the drives are not user-replaceable in a 27-inch iMac.

Wrong. Balker EXHIBIT A: Me.

Still amazes me how Apple removed functionality, sold it as "Yeah! Less is Gooood!", and people actually lapped it up.
This is why learning history is important.

 

[jimmy_john]

Random commentor: "People of the world often have different favorite colors!"

Jethro!: "WRONG! I LIKE BLUE"

 

[Jethro!]

Random commentor: "People of the world often have different favorite colors!"

Jethro!: "WRONG! I LIKE BLUE"

jimmy_john: "I didn't pay for my new Mac Pro myself, and don't even use it as my main computer. Hear me roar."​

 

[jimmy_john]

jimmy_john: "I didn't pay for my new Mac Pro myself, and don't even use it as my main computer. Hear me roar."​

I have no idea why you are so obsessed with repeating this lie over and over again but it’s flattering that you care so much.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Random commentor: "People of the world often have different favorite colors!"

Jethro!: "WRONG! I LIKE BLUE"

irony machine

 

[Jethro!]

irony machine

j_j is just trolling. Ignore.

 

[jimmy_john]

j_j is just trolling. Ignore.

Just adding perspective from someone who has actually used the M2 Ultra Mac Pro and does so daily for professional work.

If not interested in such experience-based input, then absolutely, should ignore.

 

[goMac]

Just adding perspective from someone who has actually used the M2 Ultra Mac Pro and does so daily for professional work.

If not interested in such experience-based input, then absolutely, should ignore.

I don't think you're the only one here who has experience working with Apple Silicon.

 

[goMac]

Again, up to Windows 10 which only has two more years of supported life left in it and with no supported way of running Windows 11.

Which has nothing to do with what I said.

The guy you are replying to is right, though. The Mac Pro was never the best Xeon workstation, let alone for its price. Lack of NVIDIA cards is a big reason, but far from the only one.

If you didn't depend on NVIDIA - it was fine.

And thats a software problem, not a hardware one. You can run an NVIDIA card here in Windows, some people in the forum do.

But the real head scratcher - the reason I can't figure out why you're bringing this up - if you're worried about the Mac Pro not being competitive with NVIDIA - you should be really critical of the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

Like I'm not even sure where you're going here. "The Intel Mac Pro was behind NVIDIA in performance, so it's ok that the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is even worse!"

I don't even know what point you're trying to make here. At least the people who criticized the Intel Mac Pro for not being competitive and also are criticizing the Apple Silicon Mac Pro are consistent.

And price competitive? The Apple Silicon Mac Pro is even more expensive. Like none of these points are better on the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. They're all worse.

They paled in comparison to the 2008-2012 Mac Pro era. They were only good compared to the 2019 Mac Pro era in that, by that point, you were pretty much limited to AMD cards, the best of which used a proprietary slot that was only good on the 2019 Mac Pro (and useless literally everywhere else).

Again not sure what you're going for here. macOS was only compatible with AMD cards so it makes sense the Apple Silicon Mac Pro only has slower onboard graphics? What?

Again - whatever issue you have here - it's worse on the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

Only the final (Late 2005/Dual-Core CPU) generation of Power Mac G5 had ECC support (didn't know this until I looked it up in MacTracker just now). All other Power Macs (G5 or otherwise) before didn't have it, which still speaks to the point of the person you replied to made.

It had ECC because customers asked for it. My point still stands.

Go look up Dell Precision and HP Z workstations circa 2019. Apple offered ONE machine (technically two if you count the 8-16 core vs. 24 & 28 core split). That machine wasn't the apex predator of the Xeon workstations that were out there nor equivalent to the ones that were.

Yes. I'm familiar with those machines. Is your point that the 2022 Mac Pro is even less competitive with those machines while being more expensive compared to the 2019?

 

[Yebubbleman]

Which has nothing to do with what I said.

It has EVERYTHING to do with what you said. The 2019 Mac Pro's utility as a Windows machine (at least in any kind of professional or production capacity) is greatly hindered by lack of official support for Windows 11, considering Windows 10 is only viable for another two more years.

No, it isn't. Any machine that STARTS at $7,000 better have a potential life beyond what's in it now. This one doesn't. I/O is irrelevant.

So, don't buy it! Problem solved.

Yes, it is a deal-breaker. EXHIBIT A: Me.

Last I checked, you were far from Apple's only Mac Pro customer. If you were, this would be an entirely different thread.

Yeah, right. I write this on my 2009 MP. It's still very much a useful machine.

The usefulness of a Mac that, at best, has to be hacked to high hell just to run the version of macOS prior to current (and whose official support to run macOS ended four years ago) is debatable at best. Unless you're telling me that ancient PCIe standards, SATA II, and FireWire 800 still have merit in 2023...

Why? Because I upgraded the snot out of it. Why? BECAUSE YOU CAN. This new one -- oops, you can't. By design, which is insulting.

Did you upgrade the I/O? How about the CPU to something not old enough to be a sophomore in high school? How about the chipset? I mean, good for you for tossing a 4 year old GPU into a 13 year old computer and maybe adding in enough RAM to make it appear competitive to a 2020 27-inch iMac or even an M1 Ultra Mac Studio. You're still inhibited by the rest of the system being so old that adding in RAM and beefier graphics is only going to accomplish so much.

So? *I* will decide if I want to squeeze more life out of my 'old' Mac via upgrades. Not you. Not Apple.

So, you're splitting hairs on two forms of upgrades that, by the 8 year mark don't really make enough of a difference and deciding that the lack of ability to upgrade those two components means that the computer is effectively worthless.

I'm not about to tell you what your priorities are or should be. But that's at least a little bit silly.

Wrong. Balker EXHIBIT A: Me.

Yeah. Whole lot of good your balking did, then.

Still amazes me how Apple removed functionality, sold it as "Yeah! Less is Gooood!", and people actually lapped it up.
This is why learning history is important.

Not sure how it matters. Apple doesn't listen to the likes of you or me when making these kinds of horrible decisions. They do what they want to do and the only choice we have is whether or not we keep buying their stuff.

Incidentally, while I enjoy my current 13-inch MacBook Pro, I know better than to buy an Apple branded tower for workstation work. Windows workstations are clearly superior here.

If you didn't depend on NVIDIA - it was fine.

Fine? Sure. Workable? Totally. Optimal? Debatable. The 2019 Mac Pro was the bare minimum for Apple to still have a dog in the Xeon workstation market. But, the capabilities were comparable to mid-range Xeon workstations, at best. Much of that machine was totally proprietary (MPX slots, the T2, etc.)

And thats a software problem, not a hardware one. You can run an NVIDIA card here in Windows, some people in the forum do.

Why am I buying an Apple tower just to throw in an NVIDIA card and run Windows and still not be able to run a version of Windows supported for longer than 2 years? That's a poor value proposition!

But the real head scratcher - the reason I can't figure out why you're bringing this up - if you're worried about the Mac Pro not being competitive with NVIDIA - you should be really critical of the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

I'm responding to your claims that the 2019 Mac Pro held its own compared to other Xeon workstations. It didn't. If what you wanted was a workstation with the best graphics, you weren't considering a Mac Pro whether with Intel or Apple Silicon. Clearly, anyone buying a Mac Pro, whether the 2019 or 2023 model, isn't doing so with this being the chief priority.

Like I'm not even sure where you're going here. "The Intel Mac Pro was behind NVIDIA in performance, so it's ok that the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is even worse!"

Again, it depends on what the priority is. If the goal is to run macOS, then NVIDIA is a moot point. If the goal is to pursue the best possible bang for buck, then Intel vs. Apple Silicon doesn't really matter since BOTH machines aren't great in this regard.

I don't even know what point you're trying to make here. At least the people who criticized the Intel Mac Pro for not being competitive and also are criticizing the Apple Silicon Mac Pro are consistent.

You were replying to someone who said that the Mac Pro was never truly competitive in the workstation space. You asserted that it was. I was backing their argument up. It was never truly competitive. That's a lie that Apple told the higher-end of Mac faithful to get them to stop from switching to those PC-based alternatives.

But, then again, it entirely depends on what one's priorities are when buying such a workstation. Are you trying to buy a stupid fast machine regardless of what OS it runs? Or is it all about buying one that natively runs some form of macOS. It's different in those two contexts.

And price competitive? The Apple Silicon Mac Pro is even more expensive. Like none of these points are better on the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. They're all worse.

Your starting price is $1000 more on the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. However, considering that you're getting double the starting RAM, quadruple the starting SSD, a 24-core CPU instead of an 8-core CPU (upgrades that Apple would've charged you WELL OVER $1000 for on the 2019 model), and a GPU that really ought to run laps around the base GPU offered on the 2019 Mac Pro at the time of its discontinuation, it's actually not more expensive at all.

Again not sure what you're going for here. macOS was only compatible with AMD cards so it makes sense the Apple Silicon Mac Pro only has slower onboard graphics? What?

My point is that it's silly to split hairs on graphics when the 2019 Mac Pro never had anywhere near the best graphics processors on the market to begin with. If good graphics is your top priority, then the Mac Pro was never the hardware platform for you to begin with.

Complaining that the M2 Ultra's GPU is worse than whichever given 2019 Mac Pro AMD GPU configuration sidesteps the entire point that these were never the best workstations for GPU-intensive workloads to begin with.

Again - whatever issue you have here - it's worse on the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

Every issue that anyone has with the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is still an issue that, to a way lesser degree, made the Intel Mac Pro a poor choice relative to what else is on the market.

Griping about the M2 Ultra's GPU relative to the AMD GPUs ignores the fact that these were never the best machines to get for GPU-intensive workloads. Griping about the 2023 Mac Pro's lack of upgradeability ignores the fact that that even Intel Mac Pros were WAY more limited in terms of what could be upgraded and for just how long than on literally any other PC workstation. The only way in which it makes any sense to care about these things as though it hasn't always been a big problem is in the context of macOS being a priority.

Your entire point in this thread is that the 2019 Mac Pro is feature for feature, component for component equivalent. It's not.

It had ECC because customers asked for it. My point still stands.

The guy you replied to asserted that ECC wasn't in Power Macs for decades. Great, it was in one shipping generation (albeit the final one). His point still stands. Your point is not relevant.

Yes. I'm familiar with those machines. Is your point that the 2022 Mac Pro is even less competitive with those machines while being more expensive compared to the 2019?

My point is that neither Mac Pro has ever been truly competitive with those machines. The 2019 Mac Pro at least has enough of the same DNA that you can do more direct comparisons. But even it doesn't compare well with the breadth of options that HP and Dell offer (and offered at the time) in this space.

 

[Yebubbleman]

But are they only concerned about beating prior Mac models because that's the only thing relevant to their customers (for which a case could be made; shifting off macOS is hard), or because direct comparisons to the best contemporary PC hardware would be unfavourable? At the end of the day, no one is forcing Apple to include PCs in their graphs - they could just benchmark against the last generation M-series - but they can't really avoid it since Windows dominates the desktop market and the comparison will be made regardless.

I don't disagree. I'm more speaking to your point that the serious performance gains relative to the industry are for notebooks and that most of the innovation in Apple Silicon in desktops is in, at best, matching what you can get on a contemporary desktop PC, but in form factors that x86-64 cannot reasonably accomodate (i.e. Mac Studio; Mac mini, 2021 iMac, etc.).

I guess one has to pay close attention to the benchmarks, and determine whether the specific areas of acceleration align with your needs. If so, then great. I agree that for a video editor, it makes more sense to accelerate video codecs than use a beastly GPU to process video via CUDA.

Totally. Performance (at least, relative to the competition or to previous Apple SoCs) seems relative based on workloads.

A minor point, but in my opinion, the dual-GPU thing in the 2013 MP was dictated by trying to distribute the heat sources, so their sexy cylinder concept would work. I don't believe they started from a position of being convinced of a multi GPU future (why?) and then designed the computer around that. Dual GPUs have never offered any advantage over an equivalently powerful single GPU. They only make sense if you're already running the fastest single GPU (or close to it), and need more of them.

The 2006-2012 Mac Pros had multiple x16 PCIe slots and configuring them with multiple GPUs was somewhat popular for a time. I think Apple mistook that as being more popular of an option than it was. Otherwise, it would've made WAY more sense to configure two CPUs and one GPU rather than one CPU and two GPUs.

Of course. But unless the SoCs communicate through several hops to other SoCs, also increasing latency, each of the 4 chips would need enough UF connectors to connect directly to the other 3. This essentially means 3 sides of a Max would need UF interfaces - is there room, given RAM channels, I/O etc.? This feature (with all the associated circuitry) would also be wasted in the vast majority of Max installations (MBPs and Max / Ultra Studios), increasing cost for no benefit. Connecting 2 Ultras over a more traditional bus could potentially give significant performance gains over a single Ultra, without wasting excessive die area or requiring a separate Max design for this one application.

I think that ultimately depends on how independent SoCs are able to work together. I see why Apple went with UltraFusion for the Ultra SoCs. But, to your point, I'm not fully convinced that, even with an increased latency, two independent SoCs couldn't still do some serious damage. Again, also to your point, I don't see how a compute card with a full M2 Pro (12-CPU Cores; 19 GPU Cores; 32GB RAM) couldn't still offload tasks from an M2 Ultra on a Mac Pro, even if it wasn't the primary computer. Yes, it wouldn't be as fast as on-die. But, it would still be fast enough to task a TON of things to.

It's a slightly circular argument though, as what defines a Mac Pro customer? If you release a tower with limited built in GPU and no GPU expansion, you're clearly not going to attract e.g. 3D animators.

I think that entirely depends on the real-world performance of the built-in GPU. If the apps that 3D animators use are not optimized for something like M2 Ultra, then yeah, it's going to be a no-sale for that particular group.

The thing that was great for consumers (and probably not so great for Apple) about the Intel era compared to both the PowerPC and Apple Silicon eras is that comparisons to be made were Apples to Apples. Apple's sole strength over PCs running Windows and Linux had to be the operating system and not the hardware. Now that we're talking about highly customized ARM64 SoCs with custom GPUs using custom graphics APIs, Apple can now claim Apples vs. Oranges when comparing the performance of a Mac to that of a PC.

It'll all boil down to which tool gets the job done best rather than how it all benchmarks. I'm not saying Apple Silicon is the second coming of the personal computer. But those comparing the specs sheet of a 2023 Mac Pro to a 2019 Mac Pro are clearly not doing so from having used the two side-by-side. They're doing so looking at a specs sheet and evaluating the new product in terms of its predecessor. (And mind you, even after doing that, it may still be the case that the 2023 Mac Pro is a downgrade for those particular workloads; but it doesn't seem like it is a UNIVERSAL downgrade FOR EVERYONE.)

If you whittle the scope of the product down until it just appeals to video editors, colour graders and so on (as big a market as they may be), is it really a success?

Personally? No, I wouldn't see it as a success. But, again, I think Apple calculated how many people they'd probably lose with a Mac Pro given the decisions they made to Apple Silicon as a system architecture as a whole and deemed that it wouldn't hurt them anywhere near as much as the 2013 Mac Pro did. Yes, expansion would be limited. Incidentally, there is now no desktop that Apple sells with replaceable RAM. While this has been true of the laptops since late 2013; it wasn't true of ANY of the desktops that Apple sold at the time of the announcement of the Apple Silicon transition and, sadly, that's part and parcel of Apple Silicon.

Versus a wider market it could have appealed to? Fundamentally, the Mac Pro is built from what Apple have available, which in turn is dictated by the iPhone and laptops, alongside desktops like the iMac, mini and Studio that reuse laptop SoCs.

True, but you have to figure that the absolute best case scenario on an Apple Silicon Mac Pro is that we'd have gotten:

(a) Better PCIe slots

(b) Even higher-end SoC options (wherein things like 40+ core CPUs, 182 core GPUs, and 768GB or even 1.5TB of RAM would be possible)

(c) Socketed SoC options to later upgrade RAM and graphics with later on

Otherwise, graphics cards and upgradeable RAM separate from an SoC were never in the cards and this was outright stated by Apple as far back as the very week the Apple Silicon transition was announced.

Even if Apple were interested in the PC workstation market, they are not well placed to compete in it, as doubling up on laptop SoCs only gets you so far.

They never were. To be fair, the 2019 Mac Pro is probably their best attempt yet. But, even then, it wasn't a good competitor to the other Xeon workstations that were out at the time. The high-end workstation market isn't something they've ever been all that competitive in. The Power Macs didn't even use to be as high end as the Mac Pros quickly became.

The Max is a balanced chip, with a sensible allocation of CPU to GPU, but to get more GPU requires adding a lot of CPU as well. This would become ridiculous with a 4 way chip, which would have way too many CPU cores, just to get a reasonable GPU.

Yeah, if Max represents their limit on single SoC design and if UltraFusion is only capable of being one-dimensionally applied, that logic stands. I don't know enough about UltraFusion to make an educated guess as to how well it can scale or not scale. Apple mentions it briefly in marketing for M1 Ultra and M2 Ultra, but never goes into any kind of detail with it in any kind of whitepaper, sadly.

 

[goMac]

My point is that it's silly to split hairs on graphics when the 2019 Mac Pro never had anywhere near the best graphics processors on the market to begin with. If good graphics is your top priority, then the Mac Pro was never the hardware platform for you to begin with.

Complaining that the M2 Ultra's GPU is worse than whichever given 2019 Mac Pro AMD GPU configuration sidesteps the entire point that these were never the best workstations for GPU-intensive workloads to begin with.

I'm not sure what your point is here. All we're saying is the 2023 Mac Pro is even worse. It's going in the wrong direction. Again - any complaint you have about the 2019's GPU performance you should have double for the 2023.

There are people here who have macOS based workflows who need good GPU performance. That's the whole conversation. If your point is "lol switch to Windows!" then great, thank you, most of us have already realized that. We can still complain about the Mac Pro in the meantime.

Griping about the 2023 Mac Pro's lack of upgradeability ignores the fact that that even Intel Mac Pros were WAY more limited in terms of what could be upgraded and for just how long than on literally any other PC workstation.

No one is ignoring that. People are upset Apple is going even further in the wrong direction. Instead of improving things Apple made it worse.

People can be upset about that. It doesn't disqualify any criticisms about the 2023.

The guy you replied to asserted that ECC wasn't in Power Macs for decades. Great, it was in one shipping generation (albeit the final one). His point still stands. Your point is not relevant.

No. His point was that no one cares about ECC. My point was that people cared so much Apple was forced to add it to the PowerPC. You're talking about timelines when that's not the point of the conversation. ECC was such an important feature Apple had to add it to the G5.

It's actually a great story what happened there. Virginia Tech literally replaced all their Xserve G4s with Xserve G5s at launch because ECC was so mission critical. They literally pulled working G4s just because ECC was so important.

My point is that neither Mac Pro has ever been truly competitive with those machines. The 2019 Mac Pro at least has enough of the same DNA that you can do more direct comparisons. But even it doesn't compare well with the breadth of options that HP and Dell offer (and offered at the time) in this space.

I don't really know what your point is. We're saying the 2023 Mac Pro isn't competitive. You're saying the 2023 Mac Pro isn't competitive. And now we're just going in circles.

 

[jimmy_john]

His point was that no one cares about ECC.

It was?

 

[goMac]

It was?

If it wasn't I don't know what the point is supposed to be.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I'm not sure what your point is here. All we're saying is the 2023 Mac Pro is even worse. It's going in the wrong direction.

It was already in the wrong direction. You're telling me that it's hotter today than it was at this exact time a year ago. I'm telling you that we've been saying that same thing for the last several years.

Again - any complaint you have about the 2019's GPU performance you should have double for the 2023.

And again, if you really care about GPU performance, the Mac Pro was never the product for you.

There are people here who have macOS based workflows who need good GPU performance.

Yes, and my point is that those two priorities are naturally at odds with each other and pretty much always have been.

That's the whole conversation. If your point is "lol switch to Windows!" then great, thank you, most of us have already realized that. We can still complain about the Mac Pro in the meantime.

Complain all you like. Though, I don't know what it accomplishes, after a while. Again, The Mac Pro has ALWAYS been sub-par compared to what you get on Windows workstations. Apple has been going down this path for the last decade. None of this is new to this year's Mac Pro.

No one is ignoring that. People are upset Apple is going even further in the wrong direction. Instead of improving things Apple made it worse.

I get all that. But, again, it's nothing new. And, after a while, complaining about something that (a) was inevitable, (b) was forecasted years ago, and (c) 10000% out of any of our control is not at all productive.

People can be upset about that. It doesn't disqualify any criticisms about the 2023.

People can be upset about whatever they want to be upset about. But, getting upset about the 2023 Mac Pro for having bad graphics compared to its predecessor is at least a little silly, considering macOS has never been the best platform for those for whom the difference really matters. Like, sure, it's a model-over-model downgrade in many cases. But it was never an optimal choice to begin with.

No. His point was that no one cares about ECC. My point was that people cared so much Apple was forced to add it to the PowerPC. You're talking about timelines when that's not the point of the conversation. ECC was such an important feature Apple had to add it to the G5.

He doesn't seem to agree with you on what it is his point was. Might be best to drop that particular topic in that case.

I don't really know what your point is. We're saying the 2023 Mac Pro isn't competitive. You're saying the 2023 Mac Pro isn't competitive. And now we're just going in circles.

You are hyper-fixated on the "The 2023 Mac Pro is worse than the 2019 Mac Pro" point and to the point that you completely miss my point. My point is that NEITHER MACHINE IS COMPETITIVE! Yes, the 2023 Mac Pro IS worse in this regard. But it's not like the 2019 Mac Pro was all that great either!

 

[goMac]

It was already in the wrong direction. You're telling me that it's hotter today than it was at this exact time a year ago. I'm telling you that we've been saying that same thing for the last several years.

I think this is why people in this thread are getting frustrated. Everyone here followed the 2019 Mac Pro pretty closely. We all understand that machine well. You're telling us we shouldn't be complaining about the 2023 Mac Pro because... the 2019 Mac Pro wasn't perfect?

I really don't know what you're trying to go for here. Of course we can make a thread complaining that the 2023 Mac Pro is even worse for graphics. The 2023 - in some respects - is worse than the 2019.

And again, if you really care about GPU performance, the Mac Pro was never the product for you.

You keep saying that - and that's a very broad statement. There are plenty of people who care about GPU performance, and for who the 6900 was a great option.

Yes, and my point is that those two priorities are naturally at odds with each other and pretty much always have been.

Again, this isn't adding anything to the conversation. It's saying the 2019 wasn't perfect so of course the 2023 is going to be even worse. It's not a... anything point.

Complain all you like. Though, I don't know what it accomplishes, after a while. Again, The Mac Pro has ALWAYS been sub-par compared to what you get on Windows workstations. Apple has been going down this path for the last decade. None of this is new to this year's Mac Pro.

Again - there were plenty of people here who were ok with a machine with a 6900 or dual 6800. You keep generalizing to a bizarre degree. Plenty of pros on PC workstations run with AMD cards too. The AMD cards Apple was shipping were not out of line for the industry.

(a) was inevitable

It was not inevitable.

(b) was forecasted years ago

Was not forecasted years ago.

(c) 10000% out of any of our control is not at all productive.

You're not the "productive" police.

People can be upset about whatever they want to be upset about.

Great. Now that we're in agreement hopefully you're not about to explain why we actually shouldn't be upset.

But, getting upset about the 2023 Mac Pro for having bad graphics compared to its predecessor is at least a little silly

Oh boy.

considering macOS has never been the best platform for those for whom the difference really matters. Like, sure, it's a model-over-model downgrade in many cases. But it was never an optimal choice to begin with.

Again - this is a bizarre argument. Even though the 2019 Mac Pro wasn't perfect that doesn't mean it has to get worse every revision. The 2019 Mac Pro was actually a great upgrade over the 2013.

You are hyper-fixated on the "The 2023 Mac Pro is worse than the 2019 Mac Pro"

Hey great you figured out what this thread is about. Yes, this is the "The 2023 Mac Pro is worse than the 2019 Mac Pro" discussion. That's what we're all here talking about. That's the thread topic. Welcome.

My point is that NEITHER MACHINE IS COMPETITIVE! Yes, the 2023 Mac Pro IS worse in this regard. But it's not like the 2019 Mac Pro was all that great either!

Hi. We're here talking about how the 2023 Mac Pro is worse than the 2019 Mac Pro. For some people in this thread, the 2019 Mac Pro worked great and the 2023 Mac Pro did not. You don't get to declare that the 2019 Mac Pro was never a good machine for anyone.

Again - this thread and forum is full of people who found the 2019 Mac Pro usable for GPU work, and do not find the 2023 Mac Pro usable. This existence of these people (including myself) on this forum disprove your point. You can type all you want about how the 2019 Mac Pro didn't have good GPU performance, but factually there are plenty of people here who were just fine with the 2019 Mac Pro.

Saying "Gee I wish they had more GPU options" does not automatically mean "Gee this machine is a dumpster fire why does Apple even make this."

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Two 6800duos outperformed the NVIDIA 4090s... so there's that...

 

[impulse462]

There's a lot of revisionist history here. Now apparently every mac pro and even power mac was bad so why complain about the 2023 mac pro. its all bad! why are we even wasting our money here?!

There were only 2 bad mac pros: 1. trashcan 2. 2023. they both have the same issues: no pcie-expandability for GPUs. sure there are 4 people who need a bunch of high speed networking cards. great. thats very cool. most people use pcie slots for GPUs to do what the mac pro is typically advertised to do. it can no longer do that. hence it is worse than what previously existed no matter how "bad" that is

 

[goMac]

Two 6800duos outperformed the NVIDIA 4090s... so there's that...

Right. This is why the "Apple didn't have competitive GPU performance" argument is... iffy.

MPX was a pretty neat solution depending on what you needed to do. If you were ok with multiple GPUs, the 2019 Mac Pro was actually a great performer. The W6800X Duos were pretty great. There's a lot of people in this forum who loved that setup (and are finding that setup still performs better than the 2023 in some cases.) That's perfectly competitive with Windows workstations.

On single GPU? Yes - the 3090 was the best solution. But the Radeon 6900 was still competitive. I don't think a Mac Pro with a Radeon 6900 is a bad machine at all, at least for that generation.

The biggest fault with the 6900 was Apple's pricing - which could be solved by just buying the PC version.

Saying the Mac Pro is competitive does not mean it was the very best at everything. Just that... it was competitive. It was certainly a lot more competitive than the 2013 was.

Coming out of the 2019 Mac Pro launch there were certainly a lot of people who felt Apple was moving in the right direction and that the next Mac Pro would continue to improve.

I think the biggest problem with the 2019 Mac Pro was GPU pricing. The high end options were so expensive (like a $6000 W6900X.) But I would have had no problem with a W6900X and would have found it competitive with a PC workstation. Not benchmark score to benchmark score the very best. But competitive. And we were in an alternate universe where Apple shipped a Mac Pro with a W7900X - I would have felt the same way.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I think this is why people in this thread are getting frustrated. Everyone here followed the 2019 Mac Pro pretty closely. We all understand that machine well. You're telling us we shouldn't be complaining about the 2023 Mac Pro because... the 2019 Mac Pro wasn't perfect?

No. I'm saying that the degree to which the GPU options on the 2023 Mac Pro are worse than the 2019 Mac Pro is much smaller than the degree to which both Mac Pros (let alone all Mac Pros) are poor choices for those prioritizing GPU performance above all else. Again, waste as much of your time complaining on a forum about a computer as you'd like. I won't stop you. But I will point out the futility of it after several 10+ page threads on the topic. Especially since the writing for this was on the wall several years ago...

I really don't know what you're trying to go for here.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've stated the answer to that several times already.

Of course we can make a thread complaining that the 2023 Mac Pro is even worse for graphics. The 2023 - in some respects - is worse than the 2019.

Yes. There are already SEVERAL of these threads out there. And no one is contributing anything new to them. It's the same five of you complaining about the same things over and over, ad nauseam.

You keep saying that - and that's a very broad statement. There are plenty of people who care about GPU performance, and for who the 6900 was a great option.

Relative to the Mac, sure. It was a great option. Relative to the rest of the industry, and for the cost? It's not competitive. Do recall that the original comment I replied to of yours was asserting that the 2019 Mac Pro was a competitive machine.

Again, this isn't adding anything to the conversation. It's saying the 2019 wasn't perfect so of course the 2023 is going to be even worse. It's not a... anything point.

No. It's a valid point that you keep ignoring. I'm not sure what point there is to continuing a conversation with you when you keep ignoring the things being said to you.

Again - there were plenty of people here who were ok with a machine with a 6900 or dual 6800. You keep generalizing to a bizarre degree. Plenty of pros on PC workstations run with AMD cards too. The AMD cards Apple was shipping were not out of line for the industry.

Oh yeah? Give me numbers to back that up. I'm pretty sure that, for workstation-caliber graphics, NVIDIA vastly outnumbers AMD's marketshare and by a wide margin. Those cards are out of line for "the industry" of workstation computer graphics because most workstations ship with NVIDIA.

It was not inevitable.



Was not forecasted years ago.

You must not follow Apple news closely then.

This video is from the week of the annoucement of the Apple Silicon Transition:

Explore the new system architecture of Apple silicon Macs - WWDC20 - Videos - Apple Developer

Discover how Macs with Apple silicon will deliver modern advantages using Apple's System-on-Chip (SoC) architecture. Leveraging a unified...

developer.apple.com

Apple spells it out for you and the entire rest of the world what they intended to do with GPUs across the ENTIRE Mac lineup. And that video predates the 2023 Mac Pro announcement by three years.

The fact that you didn't pay attention to it doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Furthermore, the switch to Apple Silicon was obvious as far back as two years prior to its annoucement. Once claims of the 2018 A12X iPad Pros beating out every Intel MacBook Air, every Intel 13-inch MacBook Pro, and most 15-inch MacBook Pros became talked about, it was obvious that Apple would be switching the Mac to their own in-house silicon.

You're not the "productive" police.

Yeah. And...?

Great. Now that we're in agreement hopefully you're not about to explain why we actually shouldn't be upset.

Be upset all you want. It won't do anything and it's not like what you're complaining about is at all novel. Again, the writing for all of this was on the wall for years. Welcome to the party. The keg is tapped, and most of the people here are passed out on couches, but you're welcomed to whatever beer is still in the fridge!

Again - this is a bizarre argument. Even though the 2019 Mac Pro wasn't perfect that doesn't mean it has to get worse every revision. The 2019 Mac Pro was actually a great upgrade over the 2013.

Apple's priorities are not YOUR priorities nor MY priorities nor the priorities of anyone else in this or any thread. This has always been the case. Why it's suddenly a problem for you and everyone else complaining about this specific machine as though this specific machine is the start of that systemic problem is beyond me. Some of us have been on the wrong end of these kinds of decisions made by Apple for decades.

Hey great you figured out what this thread is about. Yes, this is the "The 2023 Mac Pro is worse than the 2019 Mac Pro" discussion. That's what we're all here talking about. That's the thread topic. Welcome.

Reread the first post. That's not the thread topic. That's YOUR topic. But not the thread topic.

Hi. We're here talking about how the 2023 Mac Pro is worse than the 2019 Mac Pro.

No. The thread is about the notion that the 2023 Mac Pro could be the final one. Not about how much worse it is than its predecessor. There are already several threads on THAT topic.

For some people in this thread, the 2019 Mac Pro worked great and the 2023 Mac Pro did not. You don't get to declare that the 2019 Mac Pro was never a good machine for anyone.

Again, you made the claim that the 2019 Mac Pro was feature for feature component for component comparable to the other contemporary Xeon workstations out there and have been moving the goalpost since.

Again - this thread and forum is full of people who found the 2019 Mac Pro usable for GPU work, and do not find the 2023 Mac Pro usable. This existence of these people (including myself) on this forum disprove your point. You can type all you want about how the 2019 Mac Pro didn't have good GPU performance, but factually there are plenty of people here who were just fine with the 2019 Mac Pro.

Incidentally "Just fine with" wasn't the original goalpost of the thread, nor was it even YOUR original goalpost.

Saying "Gee I wish they had more GPU options" does not automatically mean "Gee this machine is a dumpster fire why does Apple even make this.".

It is for most of the people that have complained in this and every other forum post concerning the 2023 Mac Pro. Frankly, I agree with your statement here. I'm sure that the 2023 Mac Pro WILL serve plenty of people just as well and I don't doubt that the 2019 Mac Pro did and does as well. But that doesn't negate the fact that these were never the most optimal machines for GPU related tasks.

Two 6800duos outperformed the NVIDIA 4090s... so there's that...

You'd hope that a 4-GPU configuration from 2019 would still clobber a single-GPU configuration from 2023. That's not saying a whole lot.

There's a lot of revisionist history here. Now apparently every mac pro and even power mac was bad so why complain about the 2023 mac pro. its all bad! why are we even wasting our money here?!

There were only 2 bad mac pros: 1. trashcan 2. 2023. they both have the same issues: no pcie-expandability for GPUs. sure there are 4 people who need a bunch of high speed networking cards. great. thats very cool. most people use pcie slots for GPUs to do what the mac pro is typically advertised to do. it can no longer do that. hence it is worse than what previously existed no matter how "bad" that is

Cool...? Nothing I say negates nor invalidates the notion that one is worse than the other. Nor are "The 2023 Mac Pro is worse than the 2019 Mac Pro" and "the Mac Pro as a platform pales in comparison to PC workstations for graphics performance and always has been" mutually exclusive concepts. The idea that they are is utterly baffling.

 

[Melbourne Park]

A base studio upgraded to 38 core GPU and 64 GB RAM costs retails for $2,600.

Upgrade it to 8 TB drive, it costs $5,000. ie double the price of the whole computer, for 8 TB of data storage (really 7.5 TB). You pay $2,400 for that extra 7.5 TB. Plus you have to lock that capacity in at purchase time. But NVME drive sticks cost from $700 to $1,000. Let's say $850. So if you buy a Mac Pro, which costs $3,000 more, in fact, you save for instance $2,400 - $850 = $1,550 on storage. And no need to buy external devices.

Compared to the Studio, the Mac Pro isn't so bad ... and I wonder, how much has Apple hurt the Studio by its rip off storage policy? I guess it all feeds back to their notebooks, and Apple's apparent desire for everything to be stored in the cloud. Yet curiously, Apple's cloud storage tops out at just 2 TB, and it's comparatively expensive.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I just bout a 30tb Ssd dive for my Mac Pro. 3100.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/suggestions-for-best-bootable-ssd-card-drive-for-2019-7-1-mac-pro-eg-pci-nvme-u-2-u-3-etc.2189591/post-32353039

 

[mattspace]

I wonder, how much has Apple hurt the Studio by its rip off storage policy? I guess it all feeds back to their notebooks, and Apple's apparent desire for everything to be stored in the cloud. Yet curiously, Apple's cloud storage tops out at just 2 TB, and it's comparatively expensive.

The studio exists to make servicing the iMac customer both cheaper on inventory storage and management, more profitable on Display + Computer sales, and marketably cheaper on ownership in terms of displays outlasting computers.

While it crosses over with the Mac (Studio) Pro at the high end, it's still the 27" iMac / iMac Pro's replacement product.

I'd be interested to see the numbers on how many customers are maxing onboard storage, Vs. those primarily using NAS / iCloud Drive etc. Which of those two extremes is a greater percentage of users.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I guess it all feeds back to their notebooks, and Apple's apparent desire for everything to be stored in the cloud. Yet curiously, Apple's cloud storage tops out at just 2 TB, and it's comparatively expensive.

iCloud doesn't represent a desire for Apple to have you store everything on the cloud. It represents a desire for Apple to have one store:

- Contacts
- Calendars
- Notes
- Reminders
- Photos (in the form of one's Photos Library)
- Safari Bookmarks
- iOS/iPadOS device backups (which really are just the above + App data on an iOS/iPadOS device)

...in the cloud. Otherwise, it's just a poor OneDrive/Dropbox substitute. They don't intend you to use iCloud to replace on-device storage when it comes to Macs, let alone iPhones and iPads (where an increase in iCloud storage will not compensate for a lack of on-device storage or vice versa).