MP 7,1 Mac Pro 8.1 - WHAT IF...

[ZombiePhysicist]

In fact, the next big thing for me is the Apple Vision Pro. The ONLY thing that will get me hyper on the Mac Pro line again will be an Apple Silicon based Mac Pro that can beat the most maxed out 2019 Mac Pro. They can get render speeds above the 2 w6800x duos in there...then we are back in business. It wouldn't be faster or even close to my Puget System, but what it WOULD do, is allow me the ability to replace my M2 Max MacBook Pro as my current desktop for the Apple side of my pipeline "which is still 99% of my pipeline. It's all running on Mac outside of 3D which is now exclusively on the Puget". It would be fantastic to have a Mac I can edit all formats of footage on in butter smooth FCPX that ALSO have the rendering power of the 2019 Mac Pro maxed...or even more power!"

What iteration of the AS Mac Pro do you guys think will be able to beat the render power of the old 2019 Beast???

Think M3 Ultra has a chance? Think they'll have found a way to slot 4 M3 Ultra's by the release of the M3 Ultra? Think it'll never happen? What say you!!!?

Than your dual, 6800 duo setup!? That's like 2 4070s. Yea, I dont think the M3 will cut it, even if they manage to ship the extreme version.

The only way that happens is if the idiots at apple realize they are complete idiots. The chances of that are basically zero because the press wont even report that a lowly intel i9 dunks on the M2 ultra, and anyone that might yell and complain to apple to embarrass them, seems to already have left the platform. All you have left are apologists and sycophants, so they'll eat any crap from apple and happily call it chocolate.

I think you and I might be part of the janitorial staff at this point. We'll be locking up on our way out.

I would love to be wrong, but if I were to bet $1, I'd bet on no.

 

[maikerukun]

Than your dual, 6800 duo setup!? That's like 2 4070s. Yea, I dont think the M3 will cut it, even if they manage to ship the extreme version.

The only way that happens is if the idiots at apple realize they are complete idiots. The chances of that are basically zero because the press wont even report that a lowly intel i9 dunks on the M2 ultra, and anyone that might yell and complain to apple to embarrass them, seems to already have left the platform. All you have left are apologists and sycophants, so they'll eat any crap from apple and happily call it chocolate.

I think you and I might be part of the janitorial staff at this point. We'll be locking up on our way out.

I would love to be wrong, but if I were to bet $1, I'd bet on no.

Bruh lololololol, not the janitorial staff LMFAO! I hate this man. I hate that this is the road they're choosing to take. This is the way they're actively ending this particular legacy. Putting down their own monster, to replace it with a baby koala. Koala's are cute and all, and very fun and sweet and of course everyone wants one...but that monster...that monster protected the city. It didn't deserve to get put down like this.

But who knows...perhaps they're simply walking it back out to sea, where it will wait to come back and save the city again when the city needs it...

Sidenote to Apple - The city needs it...

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Bruh lololololol, not the janitorial staff LMFAO! I hate this man. I hate that this is the road they're choosing to take. This is the way they're actively ending this particular legacy. Putting down their own monster, to replace it with a baby koala. Koala's are cute and all, and very fun and sweet and of course everyone wants one...but that monster...that monster protected the city. It didn't deserve to get put down like this.

But who knows...perhaps they're simply walking it back out to sea, where it will wait to come back and save the city again when the city needs it...

Sidenote to Apple - The city needs it...

Agreed on all counts. Hoping your ray of optimism pans out too!

 

[MacPoulet]

Bruh lololololol, not the janitorial staff LMFAO! I hate this man. I hate that this is the road they're choosing to take. This is the way they're actively ending this particular legacy. Putting down their own monster, to replace it with a baby koala. Koala's are cute and all, and very fun and sweet and of course everyone wants one...but that monster...that monster protected the city. It didn't deserve to get put down like this.

But who knows...perhaps they're simply walking it back out to sea, where it will wait to come back and save the city again when the city needs it...

Sidenote to Apple - The city needs it...

But the whole universe exists on the back of a koala!

/startrekjoke

 

[Boil]

Koalas are rapists riddled with STDs...

 

[MacPoulet]

Koalas are rapists riddled with STDs...

They reap what they sow?

 

[impulse462]

I've already accepted it lol; way more at peace now. I'd focus more on the other companies actually innovating in this space tbh

 

[maikerukun]

Okay this got real dark real fast LOLOLOL

 

[Adult80HD]

they replace HDD's in servers and places like banks are able destroy the old disks.

Swapping a hard drive is not cannibalizing old for new. You have special new hard drives and 99.999% of the time it's part of a service plan you have with the storage array vendor.

 

[Adult80HD]

Than your dual, 6800 duo setup!? That's like 2 4070s. Yea, I dont think the M3 will cut it, even if they manage to ship the extreme version.

The only way that happens is if the idiots at apple realize they are complete idiots. The chances of that are basically zero because the press wont even report that a lowly intel i9 dunks on the M2 ultra, and anyone that might yell and complain to apple to embarrass them, seems to already have left the platform. All you have left are apologists and sycophants, so they'll eat any crap from apple and happily call it chocolate.

I think you and I might be part of the janitorial staff at this point. We'll be locking up on our way out.

I would love to be wrong, but if I were to bet $1, I'd bet on no.

Curious about this, dunks on it for what? Some things no doubt, but not everything and not by a long shot. I have and use both, and for many of the daily tasks I'm doing the M2 Ultra studio outperforms or "dunks" on the best 13th-generation i9 available. The M2 Ultra GPU also keeps even pace with an Nvidia 4080 for most of the 2D graphics work I do. The only reason I have the PCs I have are for 3D rendering. That's the one area I need them, but that's for the Nvidia GPUs, not Intel.

BTW, the lovely PC cost the same as the Studio; I built it with top quality parts and not the bargain basement options; at the end of the day it cost me $229 less for the PC but a ton of time to build it. It's big--even with compact case its 3x larger than the Studio. It's loud in comparison, even with whisper quiet fans, and it sucks down power like a drunken sailor on a shore leave.

I was amused by the fact that the Founders Edition 4090 GPU was not only bigger than whole Mac Studio, but also seemed to weigh about the same. But for rendering in Keyshot, it's what works.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Curious about this, dunks on it for what? Some things no doubt, but not everything and not by a long shot. I have and use both, and for many of the daily tasks I'm doing the M2 Ultra studio outperforms or "dunks" on the best 13th-generation i9 available. The M2 Ultra GPU also keeps even pace with an Nvidia 4080 for most of the 2D graphics work I do. The only reason I have the PCs I have are for 3D rendering. That's the one area I need them, but that's for the Nvidia GPUs, not Intel.

BTW, the lovely PC cost the same as the Studio; I built it with top quality parts and not the bargain basement options; at the end of the day it cost me $229 less for the PC but a ton of time to build it. It's big--even with compact case its 3x larger than the Studio. It's loud in comparison, even with whisper quiet fans, and it sucks down power like a drunken sailor on a shore leave.

I was amused by the fact that the Founders Edition 4090 GPU was not only bigger than whole Mac Studio, but also seemed to weigh about the same. But for rendering in Keyshot, it's what works.

At most CPU tasks. We all know that the Ultra2 has some transcoding coprocessors that it does great on, and maybe that's part of your work flow. So for you it works great. But I'm not going to abide by that cherrypicking.

Specifically it does better on Geekbench tests. Of course I'm being hyperbolic. The i9 is faster in general, but not by that much. Just as the 6900XT is faster than the Ultra by not that great of an amount. But to give it some context, the i9 is a pathetic laptop level chip. The 6900xt is generations old. The m2Ultra is the 'pinnacle of what apple can do'. It's a sad state IMO. As always, YMMV.

 

[Adult80HD]

At most CPU tasks. We all know that the Ultra2 has some transcoding coprocessors that it does great on, and maybe that's part of your work flow. So for you it works great. But I'm not going to abide by that cherrypicking.

Specifically it does better on Geekbench tests. Of course I'm being hyperbolic. The i9 is faster in general, but not by that much. Just as the 6900XT is faster than the Ultra by not that great of an amount. But to give it some context, the i9 is a pathetic laptop level chip. The 6900xt is generations old. The m2Ultra is the 'pinnacle of what apple can do'. It's a sad state IMO. As always, YMMV.

I don't use the transcoders in my workflow and in fact in one of the more important tasks, my Ultra is actually crippled at the moment due to a bug with MacOS related to the ANE, so when comparing to a Nvidia GPU right now it's at a disadvantage (and Adobe has specifically stated that when this bug is fixed, the performance gains are significant).

But let's address this accusation of "cherrypicking." The whole reason for adding special coprocessors is to make tasks that are commonly encountered much more more efficient. It's been happening for ages--Intel adding special multimedia extensions is basically the exact same thing. Or, for example, special ray-tracing cores in GPUs, or, or, the list goes on really. In addition, it's 100% logical to add functionality to your processors that make them better at common tasks. It's clearly the way of the future. Odd to make that sound like it's a problem.

Intel would probably disagree with your assessment of the i9 BTW.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I don't use the transcoders in my workflow and in fact in one of the more important tasks, my Ultra is actually crippled at the moment due to a bug with MacOS related to the ANE, so when comparing to a Nvidia GPU right now it's at a disadvantage (and Adobe has specifically stated that when this bug is fixed, the performance gains are significant).

But let's address this accusation of "cherrypicking." The whole reason for adding special coprocessors is to make tasks that are commonly encountered much more more efficient. It's been happening for ages--Intel adding special multimedia extensions is basically the exact same thing. Or, for example, special ray-tracing cores in GPUs, or, or, the list goes on really. In addition, it's 100% logical to add functionality to your processors that make them better at common tasks. It's clearly the way of the future. Odd to make that sound like it's a problem.

Intel would probably disagree with your assessment of the i9 BTW.

I'm sure they would and I dont care.

Of course there is a spectrum. You get to those old 'media instruction' extensions on intel processors that did accelerate some things, but basically for most people were ineffectual in making their systems faster in any real meaningful ways. Some of the co processors really will be helpful, and I do think transcoders are very helpful and do have value. At some point, you get enough of these effectual add-on processor accelerations, and it can become overall transformational.

IMO, the M2Ultra is not there for general use, but is there for some specific cases. And as such, judging the M2Ultra and the i9 by the Geekbench scores to be generally faster is, IMO, a fair assessment. I suspect if someone built you a Hackintosh with the current i9 and comparable gear and say the 6900XT that on average it would feel zippier. I could be wrong, but that's my assertion.

If my assertion is true, kind of a sad state of affairs that a laptop level chip and generations old GPU spanks apple's current 'pinnacle of Mac' computing.

 

[jimmy_john]

udging the M2Ultra and the i9 by the Geekbench scores to be generally faster is, IMO, a fair assessment.

It's definitely a fair assessment if your business makes money by running Geekbench on loop. 🤣

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

It's definitely a fair assessment if your business makes money by running Geekbench on loop. 🤣

Yay, you tackled a straw man! 🙄

 

[innerproduct]

Yeah I am also more at peace now when I know Apple won’t solve my needs. I have only high performance needs within 3 areas: 3d real time rendering, 3d offline rendering, and finally ML processing. For realtime graphics, apple is mostly ok except oc if you want the play games. In the two other areas there was much hype but it the end apple just has nothing enticing for pros.
Need cpu rendering? Go threadripper. need gpu rendering? Go nvidia 4090s. Need sim power, threadripper again. Need to train AI? Nvidia 4090 or their pro cards. In reality , AI/ML on mac is a joke. Neither PyTorch, tensorflow or Jax works well (many features unimplemented for example)
I use my mac for general
computing and the PC (running linux) as a remote compute server.
An m2 ultra would be nice but it doesn’t solve any of my current needs.
What needs to change for me to buy a Mac desktop: performance in the ballpark of high end PCs in both cpu and gpu. Right now that would mean that a m2 x4 that scaled well coupled with more mature software would be great. The price could at most be 4000 extra for that upgraded SoC.
192 Gig ram is ok for me and the gpu doesn’t have to annihilate what i get on the PC side.
So what about the m3 max/ultra on 3nm? Probably more than 50% faster than the m2 series. Still too slow to matter, especially since it will compete with threadrippers with up to 96 cores, and nvidas 5000 series gpus.
I will however contemplate a m3 max laptop to replace my current m1 max just because I can and enjoy “new”.

 

[impulse462]

Need to train AI? Nvidia 4090 or their pro cards. In reality , AI/ML on mac is a joke. Neither PyTorch, tensorflow or Jax works well (many features unimplemented for example)
I use my mac for general
computing and the PC (running linux) as a remote compute server.
An m2 ultra would be nice but it doesn’t solve any of my current needs.
What needs to change for me to buy a Mac desktop: performance in the ballpark of high end PCs in both cpu and gpu. Right now that would mean that a m2 x4 that scaled well coupled with more mature software would be great. The price could at most be 4000 extra for that upgraded SoC.

I can speak to this and I agree 100%. All of these other "announcements" like ROCm for AMD gpus or "pytorch on M1/2!!!!!" are just novelties at best. Anyone who does serious AI research, in terms of implementing/developing novel ML/DL algorithms uses nvidia gpus period. while I hate that nvidia basically has a monopoly in this space, credit to them for having the foresight of launching cuda in 2006/2007 which has led them into this fortuitous position, not to mention their skyrocketing stock price.

Regarding an upscaled m2, I wouldn't be surprised if apple is having trouble scaling; its known that RISC architectures have had trouble scaling to warehouse-scale computers and its why a lot of HPC is still x86 for now. I am convinced this will change in the coming years, however at the moment it seems not ready yet.

 

[mode11]

the i9 is a pathetic laptop level chip

Not sure why you keep asserting this. It’s Intel’s fastest desktop chip and arguably the fastest desktop CPU period (assuming you’re referring to the 13900K). The only thing faster on the PC will be a workstation chip like a Threadripper or Xeon, and their advantage will be in MT rather than ST, so won’t feel any snappier.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Not sure why you keep asserting this. It’s Intel’s fastest desktop chip and arguably the fastest desktop CPU period (assuming you’re referring to the 13900K). The only thing faster on the PC will be a workstation chip like a Threadripper or Xeon, and their advantage will be in MT rather than ST, so won’t feel any snappier.

Something about my old yet still nice i9 MacBook Pro…. As always, ymmv

 

[mode11]

Presumably you aren't suggesting a 9th gen. mobile i9 gets comparable Geekbench scores to an M2 Ultra though? In other posts you reference the current i9.

IMO, the M2Ultra is not there for general use, but is there for some specific cases. And as such, judging the M2Ultra and the i9 by the Geekbench scores to be generally faster is, IMO, a fair assessment. I suspect if someone built you a Hackintosh with the current i9 and comparable gear and say the 6900XT that on average it would feel zippier. I could be wrong, but that's my assertion.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Presumably you aren't suggesting a 9th gen. mobile i9 gets comparable Geekbench scores to an M2 Ultra though? In other posts you reference the current i9.

Correct, the current i9.

The point being the i9 has been the class/type of chip that can and has been shoehorned into a laptop. And perhaps even more to the point, is a galaxy away from the 64+core monsters by AMD and others used for AI and other pro tasks.

 

[mode11]

That the mobile i9-13980HX is so close to the desktop i9-13900K is an impressive achievement, given the difference in TDP. Essentially identical ST performance and about 80% of the MT performance. Neither are 'pathetic', albeit not in the league of high end workstation processors.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

That the mobile i9-13980HX is so close to the desktop i9-13900K is an impressive achievement, given the difference in TDP. Essentially identical ST performance and about 80% of the MT performance. Neither are 'pathetic', albeit not in the league of high end workstation processors.

Scope ambiguity issue in my lazy writing. To be more explicit, I don’t view the i9 as pathetic. I view that ‘the m2 ultra being the best apple can do’ and ‘no one in the Mac/tech press calling them out on it being worse than an i9’ as pathetic.

 

[mode11]

Fair enough. I think an i9 level chip in the Mac Studio Ultra is perfectly adequate - impressive even, given the size / low power consumption etc. My issue there is more with the GPU.

It is pathetic in a Mac Pro, however, especially with deficiencies elsewhere in I/O bandwidth, RAM capacity and so on.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Fair enough. I think an i9 level chip in the Mac Studio Ultra is perfectly adequate - impressive even, given the size / low power consumption etc. My issue there is more with the GPU.

It is pathetic in a Mac Pro, however, especially with deficiencies elsewhere in I/O bandwidth, RAM capacity and so on.

Agreed.