MP All Models What a new mac pro 2022 needs to be?

[innerproduct]

Been holding out for a way to do 3D in a pro way on the mac for quite some time. ( I use threadrippers with high end nvidia cards in multi gpu setups for now)
When the 2019 pro was announced I expected to invest in one but not before octane and redshift was actually available and stable. And that took some time. Redshift is now since a few months usable but octane is really not. So I never got a 2019. Meanwhile, Apple silicon happened. I have a maxed out 16” m1 max and that is hands down the most impressive computer I have used. But oc it doesn’t cut it for serious 3D. The new “Studio” is impressive in the CPU department and for video editing but really underwhelming for 3D. Even with some eventual semi magic optimization for octane, redshift and blender it is still very far from even a middle of the road home pc for rendering.
All in all, this worries me when it comes to what a new Apple Silicon 2022 might be. Even with 4 x m1 max and 256 gb shared ram and 128 gou cores it might be very impressive in the Cpu department but still lacking gpu. In the absolute best case with upcoming optimizations in could perhaps reach the territory of a single rtx 3090. My current threadripper have 4 gpus, about 3x a single 3090.
And later this year, we will have the next generation of nvidia cards. Power hungry but also a very powerful.
Surely Apple is aware. How will they tackle this? Their own gpus in specialty mpx modules? Using AMD cards? What do you think?

 

[randy85]

I suppose its a question of will brute force ever be an option with Apple Silicon when they've made it all about efficiency... they kept showing their power usage graphs with the Mac Studio even though its plugged into the wall.

Perhaps M2 will have some kind of ace up its sleeve apart from doubling everything?

 

[mcnallym]

Not certain it is a market that Apple interested in.

Could be a bit niche for them.

If you don’t feel that the 2019 was up to scratch for you then I doubt that an Apple Silicon Mac Pro will do for you either.

If threadripper and multi GPU is what you are using then suspect that is where will continue to be moving forward as well.

If it is something Apple interested in then suspect that will look at dedicated hardware in the way that gone with the media engine and neural engine as opposed to using GPU cores. Probably just added to whatever goes into the SoC that Apple puts in the Mac Pro.

Kind of how did the afterburner card for the Mac Pro but have that in the media engine on the M1 Pro upwards.

However suspect would require large rewrites from apps to use the new API probably required to use the hardware. Much how handbrake to get quicksync working rewrote to use the videotoolbox as opposed to developing own access to quicksync.

 

[deconstruct60]

Been holding out for a way to do 3D in a pro way on the mac for quite some time. ( I use threadrippers with high end nvidia cards in multi gpu setups for now)
.... In the absolute best case with upcoming optimizations in could perhaps reach the territory of a single rtx 3090. My current threadripper have 4 gpus, about 3x a single 3090.
And later this year, we will have the next generation of nvidia cards. Power hungry but also a very powerful.
Surely Apple is aware. How will they tackle this?

Do they have to tackle it. The Threadripper 5995W runs around 280W TDP, The next gen PCI-e 5 power GPU cards are ramping up to 375-450W. Apple feel obligated to have to chase them? Probably not. 3 * 375 is 1125. Add 280W to that it is 1405W .. which is over what can pull from a standard US wall socket.

Yes, the Mac Pro 2019 has a 1400W power supply. Very high probability that Apple is shotting for something lower for the Apple silicon one and not trying to use up as much of a 1400W budget as possible.

Their own gpus in specialty mpx modules? Using AMD cards? What do you think?

MPX really does nothing for Apple GPUs. The extra MPX socket connector serves three primary purposes.

1, Apple 'hates' wires. So the extra provisions about 500W of power along side the standard 75W of bus power from standard PCI-e socket format. ( don't need any aux power cables)

2. to feed two x4 PCI-e v3 lanes worth of bandwidth to the some of the MPX modules to provision two Thunderbolt controllers.

3. to feed up to four video streams of DisplayPort format data to the two Thunderbolt controllers on the main body of the Mac Pro 2019. ( top/front and back TB ports pairs ).


The M-series puts the Thunderbolt controllers on the die with the GPU. That makes 'features' two and three superfluous. If move TB to the GPU then don't need to provision it remotely. The power? pff. Apple is running at much higher Pref/Watt so don't really need a sky high power budget for two GPUs. ( Pro Vega II Duo or W6800X duo or etc. ). The "Ultra" is a duo and runs far, far, far under that 500+ W budget. Even if went quad would still be far under that 500W budget.

Driving a relatively long distance signal between two (or more ) Apple GPUs will just consume more power (and lower the Pref/w ). It will also likely 'blow up' their Unified Memory ( non uniform memory access semantics and drive the need for new and different drivers.... in the context where the unified memory drivers are still not 100% finished being optimized for the scaled up state and memory sizes. ).

AMD cards are about 1.75 years in the macOS on Apple-Silicon era and still have zero driver support. Not even leaks or hints that Apple is working on this. ( WWDC 2022 could be an infliction point but if not there then outlook looks dim. ) [ other PCI-e cards works just fine via Thunderbolt and external PCI-e enclosures. That there was zero market for GPUs in same context is weak. ]

Probably going to be lucky to get Apple to put a 6-pin Aux power connector in the next Mac Pro let along some > 8 pin "mega watt" one.

The most likely thing that will happen is that there will be two or three sessions at WWDC 2022 that will show how to get more optimizations done with the dual-GPU-over-UltraFusion set up. Apple's foundation library code will get better at squeeze more performance out of the hardware already there. Other 3rd parties will follow suit over next 6-8 months and into 2023.

M2 generation Apple silicon options will bring a incremental GPU performance boost. ( IMHO, M2 won't come to the Mac Pro, but will help in other parts of the line up. )

M3 generation will do more. ( Apple going to a TSMC N3 variant while AMD/Nvidia are on some N5 variant will buy Apple some room in the single GPU showdowns. )


Apple really isn't loosing any sleep over Nvidia code that has been optimized over the last 4-6 years to very high performance. If it was something they were seriously frightened over they would sign Nvidia macOS drivers. They have not and probably will not. So it isn't really a creditable threat to them.

Where the GPU workload has a relatively large memory footprint Apple feels they have the advantage with Unified Memory. 50GB problem? Apple is most likely competitive as most Nvidia cards do go that high and many workloads are not perfectly 'embarrassingly parallel' .


It would probably help if Apple opened the door for a GPGPU , 'compute' , card API. ( a target to send highly parallel computations too. ), but we'll see if Apple opens that door at WWDC 2022. That may let AMD (and perhaps Intel ) back into the line as non GPU display cards. Don't think they will go into next Mac Pro but could be in a PCI-e to PCI-e extender box for the corner case of folks that need one.


The rumors were Apple was working on a "half sized" Mac Pro. The 8 slots of the Mac Pro were likely tied to the power supply being up need 1400W. More slot got Apple a bigger "get out jail free" card with the CA PC power regulators. Probably wasn't was extra deep love affair with ultimate modularity at max power consumption.

 

[06tb06]

A few observations:

1. The 2019 Mac Pro is largely modular and upgradeable. The AS successor will probably follow in these footsteps, minus upgradeability of the SoC. What defines the SoC at this point is largely unknown.
2. The onboard SoC could be solely a many-core CPU with Apple going the route of discrete add-in GPUs, including custom designed offerings from Apple, much like what Intel is doing with Arc, but more powerful solutions

After seeing the market disruption with the current M1 lineup, I'm sure whatever Apple unleashes will be epic.

 

[now i see it]

No pro 3D studio uses Apple computers.

 

[goMac]

A few observations:

1. The 2019 Mac Pro is largely modular and upgradeable. The AS successor will probably follow in these footsteps, minus upgradeability of the SoC. What defines the SoC at this point is largely unknown.

There’s been some noise from the rumor mill that the Mac Pro may not be based on M1 or M2. This also aligns with Apple’s comments that M1 is complete. It will still clearly be ARM. But a new chip design means that the new Mac Pro is not guaranteed to be an SoC design. It may be a discrete design.

That would also align with the Mac Pro’s biggest differentiation being as a slot box with Modular graphics.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

It needs slots or it's not a Mac Pro.

 

[mitchino]

No pro 3D studio uses Apple computers.

This one does

The Mac Pro - a year in the studio — LUNAR ANIMATION | CG Animation & Visual FX Services

Today we’re going to give a 12 month 3D computer animation perspective on the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR.

www.lunaranimation.com

 

[deconstruct60]

A few observations:

1. The 2019 Mac Pro is largely modular and upgradeable. The AS successor will probably follow in these footsteps, minus upgradeability of the SoC. What defines the SoC at this point is largely unknown.

Largely Unknown?
Apple has done over 10 A-series processor iterations. How many of those don't have a GPU? zero.
Apple done 3 dies and one "UltraFusion" connector... and have skipped GPUs how many times?

Apple has explicitly stated that they have the fastest iGPU implementation anywhere. And that they don't see a strong disconnect between "High performance GPU" and "Unified (integrated) Memory GPU".

It is completely known that macOS on Apple Silicon currently has zero support for 3rd party GPUs or discrete GPUs. The software stack that will run on this next SoC is pretty well established and know. ( all of the released M1 devices have Thunderbolt and could have provisioned eGPUs if Apple put in the work. They did not. For almost two years now. Early one there was an excuse that the Mac Transition device didn't have Thunderbolt so TB provisioning was lacking but that this point? Apple has had internal M1 TB devices for development for over two years. And nothing. That is probably on purpose of doing zero allocation of effort. )

1. The onboard SoC could be solely a many-core CPU with Apple going the route of discrete add-in GPUs, including custom designed offerings from Apple, much like what Intel is doing with Arc, but more powerful solutions

Apple could wake up tomorrow and decide that have been overcharging the loyal Mac base all along and do permanent 5-10% price cuts across the board. About as likely as abandoning their current GPU architecture stance.

The core of Intel Arc is about laptop dGPU placement which doesn't nuke SoC GPU function units at all. Later, they will do some desktop units also, but it is primarily laptop placements they are targeting. Next generation Arc units will also likely get purposed as 'tiles' in disaggregated SoCs that Intel produces. There is no huge Intel war being waged on expelling iGPUs here for more mainstream workstation placement.

After seeing the market disruption with the current M1 lineup, I'm sure whatever Apple unleashes will be epic.

It will likely be 'epic' , 'extreme', but it also likely won't be hyper modular either. Some modularity in some areas? Yes. Hyper modular as a primary objective ? Probably not.

 

[deconstruct60]

There’s been some noise from the rumor mill that the Mac Pro may not be based on M1 or M2. This also aligns with Apple’s comments that M1 is complete. It will still clearly be ARM. But a new chip design means that the new Mac Pro is not guaranteed to be an SoC design. It may be a discrete design.

M1 , M2 , M3 are generations (1 , 2, 3 ) . They are not major shifts in design focus. Just because it would be M3 doesn't mean Apple is going to toss 100's of Millions of R&D out the windows and charge off into a different direction. It more likely means they would have done substantial iterative improvements to what the previous generations did via a bigger transistor and/or power budget brought by a better fab process and more time to design something better.

The A14 to A15 transitions was to a be slightly better fab process and a few tweaks to the baseline design. M1 -> M2 is quite likely the same general idea. Will get some speed bumped cores. Some bump in GPU core count. Some PreRes decode ability (minimally like A15) across the whole line up (i.e. 'plain' M2) .

M3 will likely bring in TSMC N3 (or some variant there of) for some kind of evolutionary growth. (putting 'more' onto a single die will be one lever they leverage. )

The Mac Pro will likely have Thunderbolt sockets. Apple provisions TB sockets through the SoC now. There is little upside for them to backslide on that. It is substantially simpler, cheaper , and consistent for them to just do it on the die. ( and any discrete TB controllers they need just to buy from Intel. ).

Some thing for the security and SSD controllers. Again it is extremely likely going to be a multiple function unit SoC package. Apple backsliding to a T2 (or creating a new T3 )? Probably not. It would utterly useless in the rest of the Mac line up.

That would also align with the Mac Pro’s biggest differentiation being as a slot box with Modular graphics.

From 2013 on there has been countless laments about Apple's "form over function" . The graphics "have to be" on a slot is more of a form position than a function. If Apple delivers are 'fast/power' GPU function gap of the Mac Pro over the rest of the Mac line up then that 'function' is covered. If it has to be x , y , z centimeters tall and have a notch a by b mm wide/deep and has to have a xxx power connector shaped exactly like blah blah blah. That is primarily form, not function. If the main characteristics of importance are a fixed set of dimensions ... that is 'form'.

Mac Pro's main differentiation is performance. There is some stuff that Apple's SoC won't cover. It can't be a 'kitchen sink' of all possible functions. It is probably not going to cover networking. Probably won't cover more than one active storage drive. Audio capture? Probably not directly. 16K camera RAW data capture? Probably not. etc. There is loads more dimensionality to a Mac Pro than unidimensional graphics card options that Thunderbolt 4 (or later '5') won't cover.

There is an opening for "Compute" accelerator ( GPGPU or more dedicated and more general purpose ML ). If someone needed more "embarrassingly parallel horsepower" later .

Nvidia's "Grace Hopper" SoC isn't hyper modular internally. Nvidia has a broader set of systems they want to build than Apple, but the merged 'largish' CPU with 'largish' GPU isn't a trend line that is showing up elsewhere. Why others would follow that and Apple would completely ignore it is a deep mystery. Apple probably will not ignore it.

Will Apple be able to build a broad a set of systems as the others who do 2-3 variations on implementations? No. But when has the long term profitable Mac business been all about making the widest a set of slot boxes as possible?

Even if Apple did a discrete GPU but still had soldered LPDDR5 and CPU they'd still 'loose' the hard core , hyper modular folks. And as pointed out in previous threads, if the SoC+SSD+GPU board is pushed all onto one "modular" board then basically are not controlling upgrade costs or component re-use. Effectively at point Apple selling retail motherboards; which they really have not done in their modern history.

 

[deconstruct60]

It needs slots or it's not a Mac Pro.

Slots doesn't necessarily mean an absolute requirement to provision 350-500W max size GPU cards. There are several hundreds of non GPU, PCI-e cards that do not need that much space or power.


Should have some slots, but GPUs (or some relatively narrow 3D application space) are not the sole, defining issue. There are multiple dimensions of functionality at play for a Mac Pro.

If Apple made a incrementally bigger Studio style case and put a bigger, hotter SoC with same limited general purpose I/O in that ... it would not be a Mac Pro. There are internal storage capacity and variety issues it wouldn't solve. (one and only one internal drive). The Mac Pro probably will be priced higher than a Studio so it isn't going to be a "everything for everyone box". There will be lots of edge workload cases that don't fit, but many that do.

The Mac Pro 2009-2012 only had four slots. So if Apple 'backslides' from 8 to 4 , then it would still make the cut. If backslide to 2 slots , still would make it relative to the rest of the line up.

I suspect folks will be disappointed if "Mac Pro" is suppose to be a container for biggest power draw, 'fire breathing' PCI-e card possible. That era is probably over ( at least for Apple 'built' and labeled containers. ). [ I can see Apple pointing folks at a 'fire breathing' PCI-e card expansion box that someone else builds (e.g., blackmagic or sonnet tech or etc) . ]

 

[fde101]

Apple very publicly acknowledged back before the current Mac Pro was released that they knew that a true pro model would need to be modular.

This does not rule out an SOC design. They could simply socket an SOC designed to support multiple sockets on one board. If you want more CPU cores, a faster GPU or more memory, you would need to add a second SOC to the other socket or replace the entire chip, but at least it would still be possible to upgrade the system as a whole without replacing the chassis, power supply, and any other expansion cards/storage you might have within that case.

 

[mikas]

Modular.

Yes they did say that. I remember it too.
But then again, they said the Studio was modular too, didn't they.

Maybe I got that wrong though, I don't know. To me there seems to be nothing modular, at least not to user, in that thing. For service shops maybe? Or for Apple itself, yes, it seems so. Modular servicable components, like ethernet ports or so, straight from Apples own supplies warehouse. But for user? None.

I am really afraid that the Mac Pro is going to be exactly the same.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Slots doesn't necessarily mean an absolute requirement to provision 350-500W max size GPU cards. There are several hundreds of non GPU, PCI-e cards that do not need that much space or power.


Should have some slots, but GPUs (or some relatively narrow 3D application space) are not the sole, defining issue. There are multiple dimensions of functionality at play for a Mac Pro.

If Apple made a incrementally bigger Studio style case and put a bigger, hotter SoC with same limited general purpose I/O in that ... it would not be a Mac Pro. There are internal storage capacity and variety issues it wouldn't solve. (one and only one internal drive). The Mac Pro probably will be priced higher than a Studio so it isn't going to be a "everything for everyone box". There will be lots of edge workload cases that don't fit, but many that do.

The Mac Pro 2009-2012 only had four slots. So if Apple 'backslides' from 8 to 4 , then it would still make the cut. If backslide to 2 slots , still would make it relative to the rest of the line up.

I suspect folks will be disappointed if "Mac Pro" is suppose to be a container for biggest power draw, 'fire breathing' PCI-e card possible. That era is probably over ( at least for Apple 'built' and labeled containers. ). [ I can see Apple pointing folks at a 'fire breathing' PCI-e card expansion box that someone else builds (e.g., blackmagic or sonnet tech or etc) . ]

Slots also dont mean it necessarily includes a bridge to a fusion reactor. In fact, there is an infinity of things it doesn’t necessarily mean.

But what it does mean is, slots must be there, and despite your and others musings, it will mean 3rd party graphics.

Or it ain’t a Mac Pro.

The apple apology tour for the Mac Pro was precisely because apple’s thermal corner stemmed, in part, from their 1st party only graphics offering. Apple is arrogant enough to not learn from their mistakes, in which case you will be right, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt that they have.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Modular.

Yes they did say that. I remember it too.
But then again, they said the Studio was modular too, didn't they.

Maybe I got that wrong though, I don't know. To me there seems to be nothing modular, at least not to user, in that thing. For service shops maybe? Or for Apple itself, yes, it seems so. Modular servicable components, like ethernet ports or so, straight from Apples own supplies warehouse. But for user? None.

I am really afraid that the Mac Pro is going to be exactly the same.

Studio is anti-modular. It’s less modular than the intel Mac mini. You cannot upgrade its internal storage, you cannot upgrade its internal ram. It’s just headless like a Mac mini. That in no way makes it modular.

I don’t know if you recall but there were many threads here debating what the word “modular“ meant. Many assumed it did not mean slots. I was one of the proponents that said it actually meant slots. And in fact that is precisely what Apple meant by the word modular. At least with regard to the 2019 Mac Pro.

 

[JahBoolean]

[Redacted] {For sheer compute it is simply not cost-effective when not running dedicated render-farms}

 

[mikas]

I don't want to rewind the event right now. I believe they called mac Studio a modular design. I am afraid they will call 2022 Mac Pro a modular design on the same basis as Mac Studio was called modular. As of NOT being modular, for the user at least not, just being called as modular.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I don't want to rewind the event right now. I believe they called mac Studio a modular design. I am afraid they will call 2022 Mac Pro a modular design on the same basis as Mac Studio was called modular. As of NOT being modular, for the user at least not, just being called as modular.

Well if that’s modular. So is a Mac mini. Apparently “modular” means headless. Because it’s an even less modular design than the trash can Mac (at least that you could upgrade storage and ram) that apple admitted was not modular, and released the modular 2019 Mac Pro with slots as a consequence.

Apple is perfectly capable of being both stupid and arrogant, so nothing they do would surprise me. and while they may not care, if they release a Mac Pro without slots, that will be he end of the Mac for pros and enthusiasts. Pros/enthusiasts will simply leave the Mac and go to windows/Linux. They will keep a laptop and iPhone for a while, but with time, some will leave the eco system. With more time, those halo level people will stop recommending the Mac/apple, and it will have an outsized effect on apple. They won’t be showing apple equipment as the “good guy” machine that saves the world as often either.

 

[mikas]

I think Apple has gotten to the extreme of it. They call Apple Studio a modular design. Which it is not. What to expect next from a company that agile with their words and advertizing? A Modular Mac Pro of course.

I am partly on win10 allready, because of all this  ****. I do hate it (W10) though, but I've got nothing else to look for or to long for anymore.

 

[impulse462]

Slots also dont mean it necessarily includes a bridge to a fusion reactor. In fact, there is an infinity of things it doesn’t necessarily mean.

But what it does mean is, slots must be there, and despite your and others musings, it will mean 3rd party graphics.

Or it ain’t a Mac Pro.

The apple apology tour for the Mac Pro was precisely because apple’s thermal corner stemmed, in part, from their 1st party only graphics offering. Apple is arrogant enough to not learn from their mistakes, in which case you will be right, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt that they have.

Agree; if there's no slots it isn't modular. idk why its so hard for apple to keep one desktop like a traditional PC tower and just iterate on that. its actually probably done on purpose, i just dont know why really

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

The world still needs trucks. And us truckers need slots for our modular trailers. ?

 

[exoticSpice]

I am really afraid that the Mac Pro is going to be exactly the same.

Disagree. If the Mac Pro is like the Studio then it would have no slots and what's the point of the Pro. If that is the case how is the Mac Pro any different aside from more power.

I think Apple will use the 2019 Mac Pro and just use an ARM chip instead of a Intel one. Remember Apple likes to keep their designs for at least 6 years for the Mac Pro.

 

[exoticSpice]

Apple is perfectly capable of being both stupid and arrogant, so nothing they do would surprise me. and while they may not care, if they release a Mac Pro without slots, that will be he end of the Mac for pros and enthusiasts. Pros/enthusiasts will simply leave the Mac and go to windows/Linux. They will keep a laptop and iPhone for a while, but with time, some will leave the eco system. With more time, those halo level people will stop recommending the Mac/apple, and it will have an outsized effect on apple. They won’t be showing apple equipment as the “good guy” machine that saves the world as often either.

Balls in apples court. Slots = win and no slots = death.

 

[exoticSpice]

I think Apple has gotten to the extreme of it. They call Apple Studio a modular design. Which it is not. What to expect next from a company that agile with their words and advertizing? A Modular Mac Pro of course.

I am partly on win10 allready, because of all this  ****. I do hate it (W10) though, but I've got nothing else to look for or to long for anymore.

meh, I would not pay attention to Apple Marketing. All of Apple's keynotes are just ads. Yes, even Steve did the same.

Correction: All companies do the same when they present. Intel, AMD, Nvidia etc. They skew words and data.

I would rather use Linux than step foot onto Windows. It fricking updates every week and its not stable for me.