MP All Models Mac Pro M4 Extreme - The TRUTH! (Desktop Confessions)

[throAU]

the Mac Pro is in a weird spot.

For the workloads people use Macs for it just isn't really required, and for the workloads a high end machine with multiple TB of RAM and SOCs on cards (as I think they should do. the mainboard just links multiple M4 max cards together into one system - but I digress...) - they need to target a specific market with this hardware to justify it I think because video editing just isn't it any more. Can do that on a MacBook Air these days and the rendering is done on render farms.

 

[maikerukun]

Perhaps they should just give their customers what they want. If they need any hints, they can just visit the Puget website. The complication lies in finding an overlap (if any) between what their customers want and what Apple would like to make.



Presumably it would still be ARM based though? You're talking about a massive ARM CPU, with loads of PCIe lanes for GPUs?





Therein lies the problem.



Well technically, I had already made both posts before you replied to the first



But you're a self-admitted Apple super-fan. You're certainly not the only one, but are there enough to make the Mac Pro a product Apple is particularly interested in making? The evidence would suggest not. The iPad was on M4 whilst the Mac Pro was (and still is) on M2.



I don't have a 2019, but I think the MP should have upgradable GPUs and RAM, and sensibly priced SSD modules. But those all seem to be dealbreakers for Apple. It should have considerable headroom over a Studio Ultra, otherwise what's the point?



The PC workstation market gets Threadripper and Xeon platform development for 'free', as these CPUs are sold in their hundreds of thousands for server use. Apple doesn't make server hardware, so it would be like financing Threadripper development out of their own pocket, for however many Mac Pro units they sell. They'd have to be convinced that technological supremacy at the high end casts a worthwhile halo over the whole Mac range. Otherwise, they'd be better off doing something more profitable, like releasing Space Grey AirPods.



Quite. Where's the Extreme?



The 2019 was supposed to be the chosen one, to bring trust to the pro Mac market. Now they need to regain the trust they only just regained? It's too much drama. Easier to just use Windows, and only consider a switch back once Apple have demonstrated several generations of sustained interest in tower computing.

You're talking about a massive ARM CPU, with loads of PCIe lanes for GPUs...


YEP. 100% Also, the last hail mary about this whole thing...you brought up a very valid point, if they were convinced that technological surpriacy at the high end through a worthwhile halo over the whole Mac range. My thought is...if they build it, they will come LOL. Seriously...everyone in the industry already loves and uses Apple for everything other than 3D animation and VFX...if they build a machine that was even on par with the 5090, I'm 100% convinced it would sell through the roof. But as you said, it's Apple that needs to be convinced.

 

[maikerukun]

Yeah but Apple's definition of "jaw drop incredible" is often mediocre and completely not what the people who want that sort of thing want.

Exhibit A: Apple Vision Pro.

You know what's wild about the AVP? It's actually an awesome system. In fact, it's the best headset for VR and AR hands down...however...THEY NERFED TF out of it by not having a physical control system. I get they wanted to revolutionize how we can control these things via the body...but controllers should've STILL be an option for gaming. I'm hoping they learned their lesson about this as I know they are currently developing the next gen of the AVP and supposedly it will have controllers of some sort...

 

[maikerukun]

It's a bit ironic considering Apple's founding. The whole point of having an Apple II on your desk is that you could run and write your own software and use the full power of your computer without needing to pay for time-sharing on a remote mainframe. Cloud computing has its place and will possibly become more important in the future, but pushing such a thing for normal workstation (let alone consumer) use cases strikes me as a giant step backwards. I don't want to pay a subscription for things I can and should be able to run on my own computers. Also for latency sensitive use cases, such a thing would not even make sense. If Apple went this route, I would look to migrate my workflow to some variant of Linux.



The Vision Pro seems akin to the OpenDoc in that there is clearly some neat and interesting technology there, but it's not clear what problem the tech is/was trying to solve.


If I remember, there was a rumor that the next Ultra chip was going to be a monolithic design rather than 2x Mx Max chips glued together. I wonder if they will probably make use chiplet/tiling/die-stacking tech to accomplish this and then will use an Ultra-Fusion interconnect to connect to another die mainly consisting of additional GPU cores. Like take the design of the M4 Max, remove the GPU cores and replace that with additional CPU performance cores, display controllers, and while adding ungodly PCIe bandwidth. Then the GPU would be a pee-configured tiling of 64, 128, 192, or 256 GPU cores. SOC RAM would go to 256 GB, but I would include a pool of regular RAM slots that could be expanded as high as 4TB and could function as either a hidden volume for SWAP files or function as main memory if the user desires more memory capacity over wider bandwidth and reduced latency of SOC RAM.

I absolutely love this idea and would buy it in a heartbeat.

 

[maikerukun]

the Mac Pro is in a weird spot.

For the workloads people use Macs for it just isn't really required, and for the workloads a high end machine with multiple TB of RAM and SOCs on cards (as I think they should do. the mainboard just links multiple M4 max cards together into one system - but I digress...) - they need to target a specific market with this hardware to justify it I think because video editing just isn't it any more. Can do that on a MacBook Air these days and the rendering is done on render farms.

100%, in both the config you are pitching and also needing to figure out who to target and how to target them. For me, an ad with just the Mac Pro in an infinite white room sitting on a desk with a monitor. Cut to a closeup of the monitor running Crysis on ultra settings, then cutting to a white screen that just says "Yep". Then the all new Mac Pro. Instant buy from me. This could be a series. In the next one, just show about 100 AAA games running in Ultra resolutions at 100+ fps this time with quick cuts and the focus stays on the settings in the top left corner. For a third ad in the series I would show Unreal Engine 5 with a massively heavy scene running in realtime like it was nothing, OR show Octane or Redshift running a massively heavy scene in realtime. All of these would end with the white screen that says "Yep" then cutting to the final screen saying "The all new Mac Pro.".

Instant purchase for anybody that's in the target audience.

 

[maikerukun]

I keep getting bans for making political comments outside of the politics forum, so I'll just say the EU are wrong on many levels for their intervention.

Apologies in advance to the mods if I bust the rules yet again...it is IMPOSSIBLE to talk about BS EU intervention in private business without being political, because that move is itself political.

I think Apple are in their own way working towards their own GPU tech. nVidia, as good as they are, aren't the only game in town, and as far as I can see, Apple are only just getting started. The M-series has been the "can we do this?" test-run. I think there is much more coming in the decade ahead.

Intel are floundering; AMD is current king of the PC desktop, and nVidia are getting stuck into AI compute.

nVidia said recently that the PC gaming market is not their focus, either, and the 50xx series cards are going to be very expensive. Intel are trying, but will not really make a success of their second attempt at breaking into the GPU market for the same reasons their CPUs are no longer the best.

I agree with a lot of this. However, Nvidia announced officially the RTX 5 series the other day and...the prices are absolutely fair. in fact, the bottom tier is only $580 or something like that and it's supposedly equivalent to a 4090, while the top tier I think was $2500 which again, is fair.

But I definitely agree and believe Apple has been experimenting and building their own GPU solution for the better part of a decade at this point and I truly believe they will NOT announce a new Mac Pro until it is something that will be a full blown marvel to everyone. When they finally do it, it's going to be a game changer.

 

[avro707]

However, Nvidia announced officially the RTX 5 series the other day and...the prices are absolutely fair. in fact, the bottom tier is only $580 or something like that and it's supposedly equivalent to a 4090, while the top tier I think was $2500 which again, is fair.

The 5090RTX is very hard to ignore. It's around AUD$4000 (compared with AUD$9000 for the W6900X MPX or AUD$7500 for the 6800 Duo MPX) so it's very well priced for what is on offer.

It makes a strong case to move away from Apple. I'm already scoping out building a machine myself.

 

[mattspace]

The Vision Pro seems akin to the OpenDoc in that there is clearly some neat and interesting technology there, but it's not clear what problem the tech is/was trying to solve.

It has always been one of Apple's weaknesses that they almost instinctively refuse to solve a problem the way the customer wants it solved. Or, that they're disinterested in the customer's actual problem, but think it can be used as a pretext to advance something similar to (but not really) a solution, which Apple actually wants to make.

 

[mattspace]

You know what's wild about the AVP? It's actually an awesome system. In fact, it's the best headset for VR and AR hands down...however...THEY NERFED TF out of it by not having a physical control system. I get they wanted to revolutionize how we can control these things via the body...but controllers should've STILL be an option for gaming. I'm hoping they learned their lesson about this as I know they are currently developing the next gen of the AVP and supposedly it will have controllers of some sort...

Yeah you see I don't buy that "best headset" thing, when you have companies like Somnium doing headsets with higher resolution, better passthrough cameras, better hand tracking, eye tracking, steamvr lighthouse tracking, made in the EU rather than China, and able to use a proper GPU, rather then cement-shoed to an obsolete, elderly pensioner GPU like the iPad-level M2.

The things Apple prioritises with the AVP are not the things people who *need* headsets for doing inherently three dimensional tasks require, and for anyone who doesn't have inherently three dimensional tasks to do, *any* headset is a pointless burden.

 

[mode11]

100%, in both the config you are pitching and also needing to figure out who to target and how to target them. For me, an ad with just the Mac Pro in an infinite white room sitting on a desk with a monitor. Cut to a closeup of the monitor running Crysis on ultra settings, then cutting to a white screen that just says "Yep". Then the all new Mac Pro. Instant buy from me.

lol. Is Crysis still the benchmark? It probably runs on an iPad these days. I’d have thought Cyberpunk at 4K with full path tracing would be a sterner test.

This could be a series. In the next one, just show about 100 AAA games running in Ultra resolutions at 100+ fps this time with quick cuts and the focus stays on the settings in the top left corner.

Macs have never been sold as games machines. I suppose reaching 100 AAA games on the Mac would be a milestone worth celebrating.

For a third ad in the series I would show Unreal Engine 5 with a massively heavy scene running in realtime like it was nothing, OR show Octane or Redshift running a massively heavy scene in realtime. All of these would end with the white screen that says "Yep" then cutting to the final screen saying "The all new Mac Pro.".

This is more like it. But not if it’s twice the price of an equivalent PC. MacOS isn’t that much of a draw.