MP All Models Mac Pro X,Y…WHAT IF…

[avro707]

i'm curious if this changes the thought process for people in this thread for the next mac pro

The machine I have now is sufficient to do the work I need it to do for quite a while longer. I'm not thinking about a next Mac Pro.

Would I prefer a new Mac Pro with fixed RAM, processor, integrated GPU and unreliable support for PCI-E storage or a PC workstation with dual Xeons and up to four Nvidia GPUs? The latter every time.

Really they might not even do another Mac Pro.

 

[kiiso]

We must summon the most noble, most mighty, one and only @Amethyst, to give us some hints! 🙏🔮

I hereby summon @Amethyst once again! 👹🔮
Any info on M4 Mac Pro and/or the compute cards?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I hereby summon @Amethyst once again! 👹🔮
Any info on M4 Mac Pro and/or the compute cards?

Will the m4 Mac Pro have an ultra or an extreme chip?

will it have pcie5?

will it have thunderbolt 5?

will it gave GPU support of some sort?

 

[Boil]

Will the m4 Mac Pro have an ultra or an extreme chip?

I would hope for options for either...

will it have pcie5?

NVMe storage cards would benefit, as would (possible) ASi compute/render cards...

will it have thunderbolt 5?

Seems a no-brainer to go for the next-gen of Thunderbolt...

will it gave GPU support of some sort?

Doubtful on (display output) GPUs as we know them, but I could see ASi compute/render cards implemented...

 

[avro707]

Doubtful on (display output) GPUs

On a random chance when submitting some bug reports to Apple on macOS 15 I put in a feedback to get drivers for Radeon 7000 series GPUs in macOS 15.

Mentioning that us folk who have had the computer new for less than 2 years need to be able to replace GPUs when Apple cannot provide any.

It’s worth a shot and only took a minute of typing.

 

[Boil]

On a random chance when submitting some bug reports to Apple on macOS 15 I put in a feedback to get drivers for Radeon 7000 series GPUs in macOS 15.

For the folks still using MP7.1 (Intel MP) units, 7000-series AMD GPU support would be a boon, for sure...

Mentioning that us folk who have had the computer new for less than 2 years need to be able to replace GPUs when Apple cannot provide any.

Seems like you are talking about the MP14.8 (ASi MP) at this point, a unit which never had discrete GPUs to start, so trying to get third-party GPU support at this point seems quite the long shot...

I would think a M4 Ultra or M4 Extreme MP would have a good amount of GPU processing power for an interactive workflow, and (possible) ASi compute/render cards could handle non-interactive date/pixel crunching as well as the competition on the PC side of things...?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

For the folks still using MP7.1 (Intel MP) units, 7000-series AMD GPU support would be a boon, for sure...



Seems like you are talking about the MP14.8 (ASi MP) at this point, a unit which never had discrete GPUs to start, so trying to get third-party GPU support at this point seems quite the long shot...

I would think a M4 Ultra or M4 Extreme MP would have a good amount of GPU processing power for an interactive workflow, and (possible) ASi compute/render cards could handle non-interactive date/pixel crunching as well as the competition on the PC side of things...?

The big question is will we get an extreme. I may be misremembering but a regular Ultra level may be able to compete with like 7900 card, but not a 4090. I think if we got an Extreme level card, it actually might be competitive with the top of the line.

Fingers crossed, but I suspect we may not get the extreme, sadly.

 

[avro707]

Seems like you are talking about the MP14.8 (ASi MP) at this point, a unit which never had discrete GPUs to start, so trying to get third-party GPU support at this point seems quite the long shot...

No, I got my 7,1 in the later part of 2022 new from Apple when they were still selling them.

I needed it, a computer I was using died and I couldn't wait longer. Sure I could have kept going on the 6,1 but that was by then already starting to show slowness. The 7,1 was more dependable than a PC and better built.

The only thing I care about is GPU support, nothing else.

 

[Harry Haller]

Will the m4 Mac Pro have an ultra or an extreme chip?

will it have pcie5?

will it have thunderbolt 5?

will it gave GPU support of some sort?

All of the above except GPU support, imo.
GPU support would be an admission of AS workstation performance failure.
I just don't see Apple doing that.
I think they'll be satisfied with the M4 Ultra 4090 performance even with the 5000 series debut.

 

[avro707]

GPU support would be an admission of AS workstation performance failure.

It's not a workstation anyway. Workstations these days can have four Nvidia A6000 cards and dual Xeons and massive amounts of RAM (terabytes).

Now it's just a Mac Studio in a fancy looking bigger box with no ability to add more RAM beyond what it was ordered with.

It used to be a workstation when up to 1.5TB RAM (even 2.0TB) and dual W6800X Duos could be added in the previous times (August 03, 2021 the W6800X Duo was released). If you don't care for MacOS then you can quite freely add 4090s or even W7900 Radeon Pro cards and run them in Windows 11 Pro for Workstations.

Apple must make support for Mac Pro 7,1 as restricted as possible. They have to ensure external addon cards don't work properly and severely restrict GPU addon options to force those despicable 7,1 users over to Apple Silicon otherwise they'll just keep using the 7,1 for years and years. We can't have that, surely...

Because my 7,1 is working so well I ordered a second machine, also very high spec. I'll probably add more RAM to both of them soon, otherwise don't need to do anything else.

 

[Boil]

On a random chance when submitting some bug reports to Apple on macOS 15 I put in a feedback to get drivers for Radeon 7000 series GPUs in macOS 15.

For the folks still using MP7.1 (Intel MP) units, 7000-series AMD GPU support would be a boon, for sure...

No, I got my 7,1 in the later part of 2022 new from Apple when they were still selling them.

I needed it, a computer I was using died and I couldn't wait longer. Sure I could have kept going on the 6,1 but that was by then already starting to show slowness. The 7,1 was more dependable than a PC and better built.

The only thing I care about is GPU support, nothing else.

You will note I did mention that 7000-series AMD GPU support for the MP7.1 users would be a Good Thing...

The big question is will we get an extreme. I may be misremembering but a regular Ultra level may be able to compete with like 7900 card, but not a 4090. I think if we got an Extreme level card, it actually might be competitive with the top of the line.

Fingers crossed, but I suspect we may not get the extreme, sadly.

Maybe no M4 Extreme, but a M5 Extreme For Sure, right...?

It's not a workstation anyway. Workstations these days can have four Nvidia A6000 cards and dual Xeons and massive amounts of RAM (terabytes).

Apple needs to put out a Mac Pro Cube with a M4 (M5?) Extreme SoC, an ASi Compute/Render card, 1.92TB of (inline) ECC LPDDR5X RAM, and a 32TB RAID (4 @ 8TB NAND blades); the ultimate ASi/macOS Personal Workstation...!

 

[kiiso]

I hereby summon @Amethyst once again! 👹🔮
Any info on M4 Mac Pro and/or the compute cards?

Guys we need to do it 3x times again! Everybody say "@Amethyst"! 🧙‍♂️

 

[avkills]

It's not a workstation anyway. Workstations these days can have four Nvidia A6000 cards and dual Xeons and massive amounts of RAM (terabytes).

Now it's just a Mac Studio in a fancy looking bigger box with no ability to add more RAM beyond what it was ordered with.

It used to be a workstation when up to 1.5TB RAM (even 2.0TB) and dual W6800X Duos could be added in the previous times (August 03, 2021 the W6800X Duo was released). If you don't care for MacOS then you can quite freely add 4090s or even W7900 Radeon Pro cards and run them in Windows 11 Pro for Workstations.

Apple must make support for Mac Pro 7,1 as restricted as possible. They have to ensure external addon cards don't work properly and severely restrict GPU addon options to force those despicable 7,1 users over to Apple Silicon otherwise they'll just keep using the 7,1 for years and years. We can't have that, surely...

Because my 7,1 is working so well I ordered a second machine, also very high spec. I'll probably add more RAM to both of them soon, otherwise don't need to do anything else.

I highly suggest getting a lot more RAM for your machine that has the 2x W6800X Duo cards. Having more VRAM than RAM is a major performance hit; at least it was for me. Going from 32GB > 240GB was a night and day difference.

 

[avro707]

I highly suggest getting a lot more RAM for your machine that has the 2x W6800X Duo cards. Having more VRAM than RAM is a major performance hit; at least it was for me. Going from 32GB > 240GB was a night and day difference.

Will get some RAM soon.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

The cheesegrater Mac Pro could still be the best Mac ever made | AppleInsider

The original Mac Pro was launched in August 2006 — and it's still remembered as a high point in Apple history. AppleInsider celebrates the old favorite workhorse — and its rather varied sequels.

appleinsider.com

I dont think he pooped on the 2023 nearly enough.

 

[Harry Haller]

Nostalgia never grows old.
Referring to the Trashcan, "It was small and it was impressive."
Yeah it was impressively bad.

I'm not going to rant anymore about the 14.8 because that would just be kicking a dead horse, piling on and burying Caesar. Did I make myself perfectly clear? Good. I was extremely disappointed, but now I'm resigned to the fate of Apple's HEDT diminishment. If we don't hear anything this fall about surprisingly fabulous M4 Ultras or Extreme Mac Pros and Studios I'll get a Threadripper Pro system with a 5090 next year. I'll still get a couple more years out of my 2020 27" iMac and then it will be adios Apple desktops. It's sad, but it is what it is, to quote Plato.

 

[mattspace]

The cheesegrater Mac Pro could still be the best Mac ever made | AppleInsider

The original Mac Pro was launched in August 2006 — and it's still remembered as a high point in Apple history. AppleInsider celebrates the old favorite workhorse — and its rather varied sequels.

appleinsider.com

I dont think he pooped on the 2023 nearly enough.

You don't criticise Fruit Club if you want to be bodily assumed into Fruit Club.

 

[Boil]

Look, I just want an all-new Cube...

• Mac17,3
• Mac Pro Cube
• M5 Extreme SiP (2nm)
• 64-core CPU (24P/40E)
• 256-core GPU
• 128-core Neural Engine
• 1.92TB LPDDR5X RAM (inline ECC)
• 2.16TB/s UMA bandwidth
• 32TB SSD (4@8TB NAND blades)
• Two 10Gb Ethernet ports (RJ-45)
• Eight Thunderbolt 5 ports (USB-C; six rear, two front)
• Two USB4 Gen2 ports (USB-A; rear)
• SD card slot (front)
• WiFi 7
• Bluetooth 5.4
• US$29,999

;^p

 

[impulse462]

Nostalgia never grows old.
Referring to the Trashcan, "It was small and it was impressive."
Yeah it was impressively bad.

I'm not going to rant anymore about the 14.8 because that would just be kicking a dead horse, piling on and burying Caesar. Did I make myself perfectly clear? Good. I was extremely disappointed, but now I'm resigned to the fate of Apple's HEDT diminishment. If we don't hear anything this fall about surprisingly fabulous M4 Ultras or Extreme Mac Pros and Studios I'll get a Threadripper Pro system with a 5090 next year. I'll still get a couple more years out of my 2020 27" iMac and then it will be adios Apple desktops. It's sad, but it is what it is, to quote Plato.

Yeah i still remember my first thought when i saw it: "what about PCIe expansion?" its amazing how this gets lost over the years just because it "looks cool"

I really struggle to understand how this company has historically been unable or unwilling to make a desktop workstation, save for the 2006 model.

 

[Harry Haller]

Yeah i still remember my first thought when i saw it: "what about PCIe expansion?" its amazing how this gets lost over the years just because it "looks cool"

I really struggle to understand how this company has historically been unable or unwilling to make a desktop workstation, save for the 2006 model.

What is also frustrating is they came out swinging with the amazing 7.1 and then abandon it along with CPU, GPU and massive memory upgradability and replace it with the 14,8 with it hilarious $3K PCIe slots, no CPU, GPU upgradability and a ridiculous non-upgradable 1/8 maximum memory of the 7.1.

I won't be shocked if Apple announce the discontinuation of the Mac Pro because the didn't sell very many. Golly, I wonder why that is?

This just in...Apple announce an amazing Mac Mini the size of a deck of cards.
"It's our smallest Mac ever. We're sure you'll love it."

 

[avro707]

historically been unable or unwilling to make a desktop workstation, save for the 2006 model.

The 2019 was the perfect Mac Pro workstation, until they decided to duck and run away from it and make it impossible to easily get MPX modules for it and other key parts like the bespoke SSDs. I assume they thought the users would be blinded by the beautiful light and buy the 14,8...

No, we weren't and we didn't.

I won't be shocked if Apple announce the discontinuation of the Mac Pro because the didn't sell very many. Golly, I wonder why that is?

Yes, they ruined it. Meanwhile on the PC side with Lenovo you can get really powerful workstations. Apple could have had that as well, 4TB maximum ram capacity, dual 60 core Xeons, up to four GPUs, etc. But no...

 

[fuchsdh]

What is also frustrating is they came out swinging with the amazing 7.1 and then abandon it along with CPU, GPU and massive memory upgradability and replace it with the 14,8 with it hilarious $3K PCIe slots, no CPU, GPU upgradability and a ridiculous non-upgradable 1/8 maximum memory of the 7.1.

I won't be shocked if Apple announce the discontinuation of the Mac Pro because the didn't sell very many. Golly, I wonder why that is?

This just in...Apple announce an amazing Mac Mini the size of a deck of cards.
"It's our smallest Mac ever. We're sure you'll love it."

It seems like a case of creating a product right as everything else in the company was swimming the other way. Really I think the 2017-2019 era of Apple will be something of a lost golden age to some users, because it was a shift away from Ive's obsession with a very narrow definition of design and a maximal utility with a lot of their machines (still could perform some upgrades, you had eGPUs that addressed historic weaknesses of their hardware, etc.)

It's not like it's physically impossible to create an Apple Silicon Mac Pro that also could take third party GPUs, but Apple Silicon is not a system broadly designed for that and Apple clearly didn't see the point in expending so much effort into making a product that would only make up 1% or whatever of its computer sales. The same designers and engineers who made the Mac Pro I'm sure were very passionate about it, but it's a big company and you do what you're told to do.

I agree that Apple probably will get rid of the Mac Pro at some point fairly soon, because while the product certainly doesn't cost much to re-engineer if you just throw the latest M-series processor in it, you wouldn't have raised the (already kind of a bad deal base price) $1K if you wanted to sell more of them. I guess it's the internal question of weighing whether it's worth trying to sucker a few more bucks from the smaller wedge of people who want or need PCIe expansion but don't have high-end GPU needs or just cutting the costs of making a product for that smaller segment.

(You can argue the cylindrical Mac Pro was kind of a narrow use case of "mobile video workstation", and the current Mac Pro I guess is for audio people or someone who really likes internal storage? Otherwise you very much don't get any benefit versus a Mac Studio.)

 

[H. Flower]

(You can argue the cylindrical Mac Pro was kind of a narrow use case of "mobile video workstation", and the current Mac Pro I guess is for audio people or someone who really likes internal storage? Otherwise you very much don't get any benefit versus a Mac Studio.)

Internal storage, yes, but also faster speeds you can’t get with thunderbolt st the moment .

Also cleaner and simpler video in/out.

 

[avro707]

You don't criticise Fruit Club if you want to be bodily assumed into Fruit Club.

That’s true, but with most things if you criticise the new products then you won’t get anything new to test.

 

[deconstruct60]

I agree that Apple probably will get rid of the Mac Pro at some point fairly soon, because while the product certainly doesn't cost much to re-engineer if you just throw the latest M-series processor in it, you wouldn't have raised the (already kind of a bad deal base price) $1K if you wanted to sell more of them.

Apple didn't raise the price as much as they raised the base configuration sizing. The 2019 MP came with lower minimum on both RAM, SSD , and GPU . Apple isn't going to give away more of those for free. Paying more because are getting more.



" ...

Std. RAM:​	32 GB	64 GB

...
Video Options: 580X vs 60 core GPU
...

Standard SSD:​	256 GB	1 TB

...."

Differences Between Mac Pro 2019 and 2023 Towers: EveryMac.com

Compares all differences between the 2019 Mac Pro and the 2023 Mac Pro towers. Specs, expansion and more.

everymac.com

The GPU in 2023 model is closer to W5700 than a 580X ( which was dated at the MP 2019 release and just got 'older' over time. ).

For perspective, the base version 2013 MP came with a 256GB SSD 9 years earlier.

Mac Pro "Quad Core" 3.7 (Late 2013) Specs (Late 2013, ME253LL/A, MacPro6,1, A1481, 2630): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 3.7 (Late 2013). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.

everymac.com

The 2017 iMac Pro base SSD configuration was 1TB. So 2 years later going backwards in capacity. Apple already knew most users were going to pick 1TB (or larger) as a starting point.


That base SSD configuration was likely aimed at folks who either didn't like or wouldn't primarily use the SSD. ( either using MP to run a hypervisor and real user OS is stored elsewhere. Or just use the SSD to core maintenance but day-to-day OS stored elsewhere. ). The MP 2023 just goes to the standard size that most folks who wanted to substantively use the SSD selected in BTO. Similar with GPU option. Apple trying to cover the W5700 zone ; not the 580X one.

If you put the MP 2019 BTO page into 64 RAM range, 1TB SSD range , and W5700 there wasn't a price increase. If folks mostly bought that before , there wouldn't be much of a volume drop on common configurations as bought from Apple.


There was a 100% base price increase from MP 2013 to MP 2019 but that was all on Intel. There is nothing material the M-series brought to that aspect. Apple was OK with shrinking the target market before they go to 2020.


Folks can grumble at the configuration up from the base configuration. Buying 3rd party RAM versus buying Apple BTO RAM isn't an option anymore , but already at the base price.