Here’s a buyer’s guide:
Mac Studio Max 5.9 lbs
Mac Studio Ultra 7.9 lbs
Mac Pro 39.7 lbs
Mac Studio Max 5.9 lbs
Mac Studio Ultra 7.9 lbs
Mac Pro 39.7 lbs
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Mac Studio vs. Mac Pro Buyer's Guide
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Someone can always just buy an $800 skateboard and put their Mac Studio on that, so really they're both exactly the same thing
and that's important because the unit will be resting on your back while you're using it?
I used to cart my 40 lbs Mac Pro back & forth to work and home - so yeah, it’s important to me.
It's not quite appropriate to compare these two Macs since they are for different markets and use cases. However, it's still interesting to compare them. The Studio is an SoC in a box and the Mac Pro is a server grade workstation.
Between these recent Geekbench results, the 28 core Xeon edges out on Multi-core compared to the M1 Ultra. There are some areas where it vastly excels such as text compression. About the only advantage with M1 Ultra is encryption (AES-XTS).
M1 Ultra in GPU performance cannot match a W6800X, W6800X Duo, or W6900X. And in the future there will be much faster GPUs you can install in the Mac Pro. Over time, the Mac Pro presents a better value.
Between these recent Geekbench results, the 28 core Xeon edges out on Multi-core compared to the M1 Ultra. There are some areas where it vastly excels such as text compression. About the only advantage with M1 Ultra is encryption (AES-XTS).
M1 Ultra in GPU performance cannot match a W6800X, W6800X Duo, or W6900X. And in the future there will be much faster GPUs you can install in the Mac Pro. Over time, the Mac Pro presents a better value.
I'm pretty sure that there are two other possible main reasons for buying the Mac Pro:
One is that you have a use case that needs massive amounts of RAM, in which case clearly 128GB vs 1.5TB is a very, very nontrivial difference. (Also not sure that the M-series RAM has ECC-equivalent error correction; I assume not, which is another nontrivial need for certain use cases.)
And the other is you have a use case that actually takes advantage of $10,000+ worth of GPUs--dual Pro W6900X 32GB or dual Pro W6800X Duo 64GB. The performance on the 64-core GPU with 128GB of memory, some of which is going to be used by the CPU, is not going to be on that level even if the task is well optimized for it.
The Mac Studio is awesome, and will almost certainly be my next desktop when I eventually replace my top-of-line Intel iMac. But we've got computers to run simulations at work that need well over 128GB of RAM for decent performance, operating on 40TB datasets (stored on a RAID6 array with PCIe controller, although the storage could be handled just as well externally), and if we were to run those on a Mac rather than the current commodity hardware, we'd most definitely buy a Mac Pro, not a Mac Studio. It has nothing to do with the Intel CPU or modularity. We just need the ridiculously large amount of RAM.
This comparison fails to address how the Intel Mac Pro is two products in one - desktop computer and personal space heater. Yes, you could buy a separate space heater with the Mac Studio but some prefer an all-in-one solution.
This comment is misleading. Rosetta 2 is a fallback, not a feature. The main issue is that some professional applications have not been updated for Apple Silicon, so they perform better with Intel CPUs.
Apple's performance slides were debunked with M1 Max, and M1 Ultra will likely be the same.
I think at this point, the people that need the Intel Mac Pro who haven’t already bought one (or haven’t standardized it for their professional workflow) are far better off buying or building a high-end PC workstation (with Xeons or Threadrippers) than getting a Mac Pro. People doing truly GPU-intensive tasks that would require workstation graphics cards are not using macOS these days, they just aren’t. The inability to use Nvidia stuff (and thus CUDA) has clouded out a ton of data professionals and ML and AI experts — and those that do do that sort of research while working on Macs are usually doing the compute on a remote machine (cloud or local cluster), obviating the need to have it in something priced like the Mac Pro is.
Rather than spending that much money on a 3-year old DOA machine, I think the non Intel Mac Pro users in 99.99% of circumstances would be better off spending $4k - $5k on a Mac Ultra (assuming they can’t wait for the inevitable Apple Silicon Mac Pro) and $4k to $5k on a high-end Xeon or Threadripper workstation.
And even then, the Venn diagram of people who need the power of BOTH types of compute is extremely small. Most people would be better off standardizing on one or the other.
Rather than spending that much money on a 3-year old DOA machine, I think the non Intel Mac Pro users in 99.99% of circumstances would be better off spending $4k - $5k on a Mac Ultra (assuming they can’t wait for the inevitable Apple Silicon Mac Pro) and $4k to $5k on a high-end Xeon or Threadripper workstation.
And even then, the Venn diagram of people who need the power of BOTH types of compute is extremely small. Most people would be better off standardizing on one or the other.
I agree with what you’re saying, but especially that last bit. To quote you “if we were to run those on a Mac rather than the current commodity hardware” — I think this is the rub for almost all would-be Mac Pro in 2022 buyers right here. If you need that kind of compute and performance, you’re almost certainly better off with the commodity hardware.
I’m sure there are some very, very, very minute edge-cases that keep the Mac Pro something Apple still sells occasionally, but in my experience with HPC stuff, macOS is not the necessary factor here (and in fact might not even be optimal — if you want to use a macOS client, you’re probably better off using the compute remotely anyway), which to me, means that if you are choosing to buy a Mac Pro right now, it’s because you know you need it.
If you don’t know why you need it, you don’t and should get a Mac Studio Ultra or wait for the next Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
Sorry but there is no definitive proof that the M1 Ultra can outperform a W6900X or even the W6800X. If all you are looking at is video encoding and decoding then yeah the Ultra will beat them. But not in raw Metal computations or 3D object manipulation; maybe if the 3D scene requires more than 32GB of RAM.
A whole lot of "we need to wait until actual software is tested..." instead of just taking Apple's PR machine at face value.
A whole lot of "we need to wait until actual software is tested..." instead of just taking Apple's PR machine at face value.
Isn't there a footnote in the manual that says you need to train your dust not to go inside there! ?
The MacPro gets dust build up way faster than the Wintel Rig.
I don't use my PC quite as much, certainly not that often in the last couple of months. It has mesh sides. I cleaned it in Nov/Dec last year and I can already see a reasonable amount of build-up on the fans already.
It is an important thing for me, will wait until it arrives next week, hopefully by that time we will know for sure whether it can be opened.
I think they are different products. That Vega Pro GPU alone was well over $1000 before the GPUocolypse of the last few years. Also, it's a Pro GPU, not a retail GPU. That Vega GPU takes as much power as the whole Mac Studio system.
I'd guess Apple is telegraphing here that the Mac Pro is going to have a different system architecture... like a P1 stand alone processor and maybe a G1 GPU .. and it's going to be spectacularly expensive.
Mac Pro: grating
Studio: zesting!
The Mac Studio has one major flaw in my book and that's its all-soldered non-upgradeable design. Starting at $4k, the Ultra is really pushing it - a workstation of that price that can't handle a chip or RAM upgrade is borderline insane.
I can't say that I'm looking forward to Apple's Mac Pro if it's also going to be all-soldered, especially with increased power and cost it's going to bring (can you seriously imagine a $6-8k workstation that cannot be upgraded?).
I can't say that I'm looking forward to Apple's Mac Pro if it's also going to be all-soldered, especially with increased power and cost it's going to bring (can you seriously imagine a $6-8k workstation that cannot be upgraded?).
Studio cleaning accessories due to be launched as the "and one more thing" at WWDC. Get saving now.
iFixit already got in. You take off the black ring on the bottom and there are the screws.
I agree that with most HPC stuff, you might want to be running it on commodity hardware, although if you spec the really beefy stuff from Dell (for example) rather than DIY, the price is in line with the Mac Pro for similar specs so unless you need Linux you might as well get a Mac if you're comfortable in the environment and not super-price-sensitive. We certainly did that with our last generation of number crunching machines.
I suspect (though don't have enough experience in the area to say with certainty), that the most common use case for big iron Mac Pros is video/animation creative professionals for whom macOS is desirable and you can genuinely take advantage of utterly ridiculous GPU power or stupidly large amounts of RAM.
In any case, yes, if you need one, you know you need it.