MP 14,8 Mac Pro 2023 is a scam

[Mac3Duser]

With 192gb of Ram, so something near to 180gb of vram available, the m2 ultra Mac Pro is maybe the best computer for Machine Learning... If it is the next market, imagine several m2 ultra mac pro for a cheap price compare to a xeon workstation with RTX A6000.
And, now, compare the price and performances of a M2 ultra Mac Pro 192gb of ram and 76 cores GPU with the 7.1 for video and audio edition.
in the two cases, you need a lot of storage, with a lot of writing (so it needs to be replaced)
and for video and audio , you can put some specific cards inside
the only thing we could regret is the lack of an optional apple GPU card dedicated to calculation only.

 

[mode11]

With 192gb of Ram, so something near to 180gb of vram available, the m2 ultra Mac Pro is maybe the best computer for Machine Learning...

People keep saying this, but it feels like they are stretching to find a use case for an architecture that is ultimately dictated by the needs of mobile SoCs, rather than some plan to make the world's best ML computer. RAM isn't that expensive. If 192GB really benefits ML, even with the relatively weak Ultra GPU, what's stopping Nvidia or AMD creating ML-focussed cards with that much RAM?

If it is the next market, imagine several m2 ultra mac pro for a cheap price compare to a xeon workstation with RTX A6000.

Are you talking about a cluster of Mac Pro machines? Linked by 10GbE? How is this better than a stack of Studios?

And, now, compare the price and performances of a M2 ultra Mac Pro 192gb of ram and 76 cores GPU with the 7.1 for video and audio edition.
in the two cases, you need a lot of storage, with a lot of writing (so it needs to be replaced)
and for video and audio , you can put some specific cards inside

Yes, new PC is faster than 4 year old PC shocker.

the only thing we could regret is the lack of an optional apple GPU card dedicated to calculation only.

Unfortunately, this is the crux isn't it? The market is too small for Apple to bother with, and they won't let anyone else. More importantly, they don't want to split their Unified Memory paradigm.

 

[scottrichardson]

Purely my personal opinion. All existing Apple Silicon computer shouldn't be defined as workstation. One of the main reason is lack of ECC memory.

I am not a super fans of ECC RAM, I can live without that. However, when we are talking about workstation, no matter we use the definition from Intel, or from Wiki. One of the main difference between workstation and normal PC is reliability / data integrity.

With ECC RAM, the hardware itself can detect and self correct some memory errors. This function doesn't exist on any Apple Silicon Mac, including Mac Studio and Mac Pro.

So, if a computer cannot detect memory error by itself. Which means data integrity is not guarantee. And I don't think it can't be categorised as workstation.

For reliability, it doesn't mean that the hardware on workstation cannot go wrong. But when something goes wrong, with ECC RAM, the user can know if there is any memory error straight away. Without ECC RAM, the user will need hours or even days to run memory test, and still no way to 100% sure if the RAM is really good.

I define a workstation as a computer station that I do work on. I work all day on my mac for design, coding and audio work and have not had any issues over the last decade+ that I haven’t had any ECC RAM. Not since my Mac Pro 2009 tower. I’ve been on iMacs and now a 16” M2 Max MBP.

I’m not saying ECC doesn’t have its merits. But it’s not really critical in all “workstation” use cases.

 

[Xenobius]

I define a workstation as a computer station that I do work on. I work all day on my mac for design, coding and audio work and have not had any issues over the last decade+ that I haven’t had any ECC RAM. Not since my Mac Pro 2009 tower. I’ve been on iMacs and now a 16” M2 Max MBP.

I’m not saying ECC doesn’t have its merits. But it’s not really critical in all “workstation” use cases.

Yes, you can name your own machine whatever you want, even "Hello Kitty".

 

[mode11]

Definitions are important when it comes to comparing Macs to the competition i.e. Windows PCs. Obviously, this doesn't apply if you could / would never use Windows for your main machine under any circumstances.

There's a tendency when doing value comparisons to insist on ECC RAM, workstation-certified GPUs etc. on the PC side, yet give ASi Macs a free pass on the those things. If someone would be satisfied with current ASi features, then any cross-shopping should be done against Core-i / Ryzen systems, not Xeons and Threadrippers. This will reveal the size of the Apple tax, which is obviously up to the individual to justify or not.

On the desktop, there's obviously a lot of difference between the platforms in terms of expansion / configuration; if you need / want something Apple doesn't offer, you have no option but to go PC.

 

[theluggage]

If 192GB really benefits ML, even with the relatively weak Ultra GPU, what's stopping Nvidia or AMD creating ML-focussed cards with that much RAM?

It's not just "that much RAM on the video card" it's "that much RAM shared between the CPU, GPU, neural engine and media accelerator". And, yeah, NVIDIA thinks that too: https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/data-center/grace-hopper-superchip/ - the future trend is likely to be that people who need that power, whether for ML training or pre-rendering content, will rent it on-demand in the cloud.

Serious money is to be made on the consumer/prosumer devices that will be the delivery systems for these new services - which need to do some heavy lifting locally - to ensure a fluid, low-lag interface - but also need to be small, light and low-power. What Apple have is the same sort of architecture in a form where just two die designs can scale from a moderately powerful small-form-factor desktop, down to an iPad or an AR headset. The M2 Ultra seems to be about the limit of that scalability - the Studio Ultra is a pretty powerful system for may media creation tasks, and if its also good for some types ML work that's really a bonus. The 2023 Pro is pretty much laser-focussed on people who need Studio-level performance plus specialist i/o cards or super-fast directly attached storage - if you don't need that you don't want one. Taking that any further would be pointless for Apple - sucks if you were a Mac Pro customer but, honestly, its been clear since about 2012 that Apple didn't know what to do with the Mac Pro.

 

[m1maverick]

Well, John Ternus answers your question of “why this Mac Pro at all?” @ the 21:30 minute point in his WWDC Talk Show interview with John Gruber:

Question: What are the use cases for the MacPro vs MacStudio Ultra?

Answer:
(1) Massive High Speed Storage on PCI,
(2) Fast networking requiring custom networking cards,
(3) Plug-and-play for those who’ve built PCI infrastructure and workflows around PCI and PCI cards and
(4) Users with embedded MacPro Rack Configurations

Don't know if that matters in this debate, but that is Apple’s story.

My question was somewhat rhetorical. The first point I already mentioned, the remaining three appear to be nothing more than an attempt to justify the Mac Pros existence.

I can't help but feel these are use cases which Apple is using as marketing bullet points and not really design criteria. For example massive high speed storage on PCIe. Was that really their technical criteria they used to justify making the 2023 Mac Pro? It seems odd to me they would focus on "massive high speed storage" and completely ignore those who need "massive GPU power" or "massive RAM capacity". IOW here's a slot box now we have to figure out a way to sell it to people.

 

[BadMacRumours]

No. Mac Studio is basically a MacBook without a screen.

This proves you're not arguing in good faith.

 

[m1maverick]

Is there anyone on this forum that falls into one of the 4 categories listed above? What do you do?

I can see a large video production house (i.e. Lucas Films) which can benefit from the Ultra SoC in the Mac Pro and the desire to have terabytes of fast, local storage for their projects. IOW a production house that might have been using M1 Studio Ultras with some form of network based storage. With the Mac Pro they can have those project files locally on even faster storage.

 

[m1maverick]

I’m curious @m1maverick, were you planning to purchase the MacPro, but changed your mind after the reveal?

I had considered the 2019 Mac Pro as a replacement for my Z620 virtualization system. However Apple's focus on locking things down kept me away from it. Instead I purchased a Z840 system where I do not have to worry about if Apple will allow me to upgrade / change things (yes, I am aware the 2019 Mac Pro can be expanded but the inability, at least initially, to upgrade the Apple SSD was an example of why I no longer trust Apple in this area).

 

[mode11]

It's not just "that much RAM on the video card" it's "that much RAM shared between the CPU, GPU, neural engine and media accelerator". And, yeah, NVIDIA thinks that too: https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/data-center/grace-hopper-superchip/ - the future trend is likely to be that people who need that power, whether for ML training or pre-rendering content, will rent it on-demand in the cloud.

That Nvidia superchip is doubtless uber expensive and powerful. I was thinking more like an RTX4090 but with 128GB of 'reasonably-fast' VRAM, optimised for ML workloads. But it's not something I know anything about really; just spitballing.

The 2023 Pro is pretty much laser-focussed on people who need Studio-level performance plus specialist i/o cards or super-fast directly attached storage - if you don't need that you don't want one.

I don't regard the MP as 'laser-focussed' so much as of limited scope. This is essentially the only role it can have. If you need anything else, too bad, Apple has nothing for you.

Taking that any further would be pointless for Apple - sucks if you were a Mac Pro customer but, honestly, its been clear since about 2012 that Apple didn't know what to do with the Mac Pro.

Sure; about to buy a PC.

 

[m1maverick]

...if you don't need that you don't want one. Taking that any further would be pointless for Apple - sucks if you were a Mac Pro customer but, honestly, its been clear since about 2012 that Apple didn't know what to do with the Mac Pro.

There wasn't anything to do but continue with what was working.

 

[goMac]

I can see a large video production house (i.e. Lucas Films) which can benefit from the Ultra SoC in the Mac Pro and the desire to have terabytes of fast, local storage for their projects. IOW a production house that might have been using M1 Studio Ultras with some form of network based storage. With the Mac Pro they can have those project files locally on even faster storage.

Except with the PCIe lane constraints you can't use an Apple Silicon Mac Pro for a ton of fast storage. You can do some - but less than the 2019 Mac Pro. Unless you're not really pushing that storage hard.

 

[m1maverick]

Except with the PCIe lane constraints you can't use an Apple Silicon Mac Pro for a ton of fast storage. You can do some - but less than the 2019 Mac Pro. Unless you're not really pushing that storage hard.

I've heard about the constraints. However I want to wait until systems are in hand, tested, and evaluated before concluding the constraints exist and, if so, are an issue.

 

[goMac]

I've heard about the constraints. However I want to wait until systems are in hand, tested, and evaluated before concluding the constraints exist and, if so, are an issue.

In the context of this thread... it's kind of suspicious Apple didn't give a single reviewer a Mac Pro so far. They all got Mac Studios. They all got 15" MacBook Airs. But so far no Mac Pros.

Could be wrong and maybe the reviews are just taking longer. But no one has mentioned receiving a review unit so far.

 

[m1maverick]

In the context of this thread... it's kind of suspicious Apple didn't give a single reviewer a Mac Pro so far. They all got Mac Studios. They all got 15" MacBook Airs. But so far no Mac Pros.

Could be wrong and maybe the reviews are just taking longer. But no one has mentioned receiving a review unit so far.

I suspect the raw performance of the Mac Pro will match that of a comparable Studio Ultra.

 

[Boil]

I suspect the raw performance of the Mac Pro will match that of a comparable Studio Ultra.

Seems the most reasonable conclusion, but maybe (just maybe) Apple is clocking the M2 Ultra in the Mac Pro chassis higher (rumored 4.2GHz) than those used in the Mac Studio chassis...! ;^p

The two biggest questions for the 2023 ASi Mac Pro; how does the PCIe subsystem work & what are the SoC clocks...?

 

[PlainBelliedSneetch]

Yes, you can name your own machine whatever you want, even "Hello Kitty".

HP and Dell seem to agree. They sell lots of computer models they call “Workstations” that don’t have ECC.

 

[Boil]

Yes, you can name your own machine whatever you want, even "Hello Kitty".

HP and Dell seem to agree. They sell lots of computer models they call “Workstations” that don’t have ECC.

HworKstations...

 

[rgwebb]

There is little point in the Mac Pro existing if Apple is committed to not making chips with external (to the SOC) GPU and RAM. The things those PCIe 4.0 slots can support if not GPUs can be more than adequately solved with a Thunderbolt 4 enclosure. Likely at a much better price (Mac Studio + Enclosure) than the Mac Pro tower.

Apple is trying to kill the expandable tower from their lineup. The absolute clunker they just released - at a 1000 dollar increase in the US - is an attempt to justify killing it off because the anti-expandability political faction has the upper hand right now within Apple and releasing this product can be their "well you see nobody wants a mac tower" datapoint.

 

[Alex Cumbers]

External GPU's are not needed and just can't work with their unified memory architecture, which enables some applications that can't be done at all on PC systems. However, the Mac Pro lacks any innovation above the Mx silicon. A real Mac Pro would have allowed multiple Mx modules, perhaps up to 4, each module loaded with M2 Ultra & 64/128/192GB all connected with Ultra Fusion Fabric & a special cooling system. This way you would have a machine with 4x Ultra processing and up to 768GB RAM, all the while ensuring future upgradeability. As it is, you're paying $3000 over the Studio for a few extra ports, PCI slots & keyboard & mouse. I guess if you need to add $10,000+ of PCI specific hardware, then fair enough. I'm an Apple fan / user since Apple II days, so this ain't bias.

 

[heretiq]

I had considered the 2019 Mac Pro as a replacement for my Z620 virtualization system. However Apple's focus on locking things down kept me away from it. Instead I purchased a Z840 system where I do not have to worry about if Apple will allow me to upgrade / change things (yes, I am aware the 2019 Mac Pro can be expanded but the inability, at least initially, to upgrade the Apple SSD was an example of why I no longer trust Apple in this area).

Thanks for the context @m1maverick. It gives me a better understanding and appreciation for your concern and perspective.

 

[Alex Cumbers]

The CPU is better than the best CPU of the previous model (over $12k) and the GPU has a metal score that beats the Radeon 6950 XT - and it has PCIe expansion

It’s not a scam. It’s typical Max Tech clickbait garbage. In about a weeks time they’ll be calling the best Mac ever made with the usual dramatic thumbnail and yelling.

People feel it's a scam because core memory is not upgradeable and it's $3000 more than a Studio for PCI slots, some more ports + keyboard & mouse. If they allowed extra memory to be added at the Genius Bar that would be progress. Real innovation would be allowing up to 4 Mx modules, thus 4x CPU/GPU/memory & future proof / upgradeability. I guess we should just feel this is a machine for a tiny tiny minority of people & would not be surprised if this is the last version because Apple can't be bothered to innovate in this space.

 

[MGrayson3]

A new entry in the Internet Forum Post Dictionary.
X is a Scam => X isn't exactly what I want

It joins
Company X must do Y to survive => I want company X to do Y
Pros use X => I use X
Only hipster poseurs use Y => I no longer use Y
Only wealthy amateurs use X => I can't afford X
Y is ancient technology => I have nothing of substance with which to criticize Y
Benchmarks don't tell the whole story => Something less expensive than my machine benchmarks better

 

[Grilled Cheese]

A real Mac Pro would have allowed multiple Mx modules, perhaps up to 4, each module loaded with M2 Ultra & 64/128/192GB all connected with Ultra Fusion Fabric & a special cooling system. This way you would have a machine with 4x Ultra processing and up to 768GB RAM, all the while ensuring future upgradeability.

That’s the sort of thing I was dreaming of. Imagine being able to add Apple Silicon CPU/GPU modules to expand your processing power. 4 Ultras would have been expensive but if the performance scaled up proportionally it would have been incredibly powerful, worth the price to many, and certainly worthy of the title “Pro”.