MP 7,1 What does Apple's switch to ARM based processors mean for the future of the Mac Pro

[Graham King]

Hey folks, just had a beautiful Pro delivered (my first) for demanding photo work. I can’t help but feel like I am second guessing my decision now with all the ARM developments given I was hoping to continue to upgrade this machine and make it last at least 5 years and hopefully 8. What do you guys think?

You're good! I'm about to place my order for a 16-core. I bet Mac Pro will be the last model to make the transition to ARM. That gives us plenty of time (years) to make money with this new machine. And I bet we'll still get a pretty penny for it on the second hand market when it's time to move on. My 2012 Mac Pro is currently selling for $1800-$2100. We're good!

 

[AlexFila]

You're good! I'm about to place my order for a 16-core. I bet Mac Pro will be the last model to make the transition to ARM. That gives us plenty of time (years) to make money with this new machine. And I bet we'll still get a pretty penny for it on the second hand market when it's time to move on. My 2012 Mac Pro is currently selling for $1800-$2100. We're good!

Thank you gentlemen that does make me feel better! Can’t wait to make the most of this machine!

 

[skippermonkey]

I was thinking the same thing as AlexFila, but then realised how long it might before an Apple A chip matches or even supersedes my 24-core CPU. And it's not like your lovely new Mac Pro suddenly stops working or becomes less useful; my old 12-core Mac Pro lasted me a full decade and would still be going strong, had I not ripped out the GPU and unplugged it! If anything I look forward to seeing how far Apple can takes these new chips. If they can come up with AMD Ryzen-style power, then I'll jump on board at some point in the future. But until then there's a lot of life left in these Intel machines.

 

[startergo]

The prices will sharply drop after the first ARM mac is in the store. Sell now and live happy. That is what I am gonna do with the 2019 MBP

 

[Adult80HD]

The prices will sharply drop after the first ARM mac is in the store. Sell now and live happy. That is what I am gonna do with the 2019 MBP

Unlikely. There are those who love the Intel Macs and if you want to run Windows, natively or on a VM, then you're going to want an Intel Mac. In fact there's a lot of things that an Intel Mac will be more useful/flexible for than an ARM Mac. I suspect that the last generations of the Intel Macs will hold their value on the resale market longer than most for precisely this reason.

 

[Krevnik]

In my opinion they will use an SoC for the Mac Pro but in the same way that AMD do on EPYC. No separate chipset. Storage, Audio, USB and so on all within the SoC. Graphics will be handled by dedicated cards. This is all how it's done in EPYC.

The big question is will they use chiplets like AMD has on Epyc, Threadripper and Ryzen or will they use a monolithic die like Intel? - I suspect for the Mac Pro they will go with a chiplet approach.

We can only hope they go with chiplets. At the very least, they could shove a lot of cores into a Mac Pro that way for folks that do need it. But they also get the yield benefits on smaller unit counts that AMD is making good use of.

I don't think we'll see that. With work really focusing on the GPU and accelerator cards more than the CPU. Just my opinion though.

Which is why I’m baffled they didn’t mention one thing about GPUs, PCIe and TB3 (or USB4). They could have spoken to it at least, and the DTK isn’t much help, other than pointing out the I/O limits of the A12Z. I’ll be devouring the WWDC sessions this year in part because there is so much, but also because I want to see if there are any hints in the ARM coverage.

But again I don't know how Apple does things. Clearly it took them ages to do this current Mac Pro. You may remember they brought in a bunch of journalists and well-known Mac enthusiasts to their design lab about two years before the new Mac Pro was shown off and told them they were planning a new Mac Pro. And in that case they weren't even making the CPU it uses.

I fully expect the 2 year lag was mostly farting around with trying to make it perfect rather than getting it out the door on a schedule. The insane attention to detail that allows 3rd party drive cages, logic board carrying the 12V rails instead of cables, MPX slots, fan-less GPUs, etc all scream that.

 

[choreo]

Hey folks, just had a beautiful Pro delivered (my first) for demanding photo work. I can’t help but feel like I am second guessing my decision now with all the ARM developments given I was hoping to continue to upgrade this machine and make it last at least 5 years and hopefully 8. What do you guys think?

In the same boat. Just ordered a new Mac Pro after the event today. Hardest button I ever clicked!

 

[bsbeamer]

I suspect the 2019 27” iMac with i9 and SSD (without T2) will be a coveted machine moving forward. Glad I have one, for now. It’ll likely stay with Catalina for awhile.

 

[Charmandrigo]

Well apple gave developer tools for cross architecture developing and they seem they will keep supporting intel based macs for I would say at least the next 8 or 9 years considering they released a really expensive powerhouse last year

 

[AlexFila]

In the same boat. Just ordered a new Mac Pro after the event today. Hardest button I ever clicked!

glad I’m not alone. Enjoy it!! It’ll be worth it!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Were I taking bets I'd say you'll be able to buy an ARM Mac Pro no earlier than December 2022

I’d agree that they’d push it as late as possible, especially considering what they did to their last Pro redesign. However, their current Apple Frame could very easily be reconfigured with Apple Silicon parts. So, maybe that gives them an opportunity to be extra slow in the development of the Mac Pro Silicon.

With how poorly Catalyst was received by the development community

I was reading an article that indicated that the developers they talked to thought any dev could get an app up and running in less than a day. Once you have a running app that’s testable, finding the areas that need tweaking/fixing becomes a lot easier.
Those that have old frameworks they haven’t removed would have a harder time updating, but that’s due to them not staying top of the latest development practices, not because Catalyst wouldn’t work.

Clearly it took them ages to do this current Mac Pro.

And that’s one of the reasons why I think they’d be really conservative and not start announcing a transition if all pieces parts weren’t solidly believed to be in place (more solidly than Air Power)

 

[choreo]

Maybe they will offer an upgrade program where they swap out the motherboard for existing owners... one can dream!

 

[endlessike]

You're good! I'm about to place my order for a 16-core. I bet Mac Pro will be the last model to make the transition to ARM. That gives us plenty of time (years) to make money with this new machine. And I bet we'll still get a pretty penny for it on the second hand market when it's time to move on. My 2012 Mac Pro is currently selling for $1800-$2100. We're good!

Not to be a buzzkill, but if things go as planned, I am guessing the cross compatability of iOS apps is going to be a killer feature that depresses the resale value of macs without it.

 

[jasonmvp]

Maybe they will offer an upgrade program where they swap out the motherboard for existing owners... one can dream!

Don't pin any hopes on that silly thought whatsoever. That is entirely unlike Apple. Once you've purchased your item from them, the transaction is over. From that point forward, it's support and nothing else until you purchase another item from them.

 

[Kpjoslee]

Maybe they will offer an upgrade program where they swap out the motherboard for existing owners... one can dream!

If the future Mac Pro has exact same layout as current Mac Pro, I think you could. At your own risk however

 

[applCore]

That's still an EXTREMELY short lifespan for those that dropped north of $40k! I have $8k into mine, which IMHO is still a boatload for a computer. I guess it's all relative and depends on perspective. For the stupidly wealthy, that is nothing. For the everyday working man, that's quite an investment!

This is exactly right and I'm pretty much done with Apple at this point - at least until I see some benchmarks. I'm losing my mind right now having thrown so much money at Apple and frankly I'm considering pure Linux if someone can somehow work a miracle of GPU acceleration OR a way to share pasteboard buffer + filesystems readily via a hypervisor.

Apple, you effing make me sick.
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As far as Intel vs AXX performance, I think anyone betting against the custom ARM chips is ignoring the performance of the existing chips. A CPU designed without mobile constraints being at the forefront is likely to be a monster.

Numbers?

 

[Adult80HD]

Not to be a buzzkill, but if things go as planned, I am guessing the cross compatability of iOS apps is going to be a killer feature that depresses the resale value of macs without it.

I'm highly skeptical. I don't see a lot of compelling apps on the iOS side that would make me feel like I have to have them on my Mac. I have an iPhone and iPads and I'm happy to have lightweight apps designed to perform there and high-end apps for my high-end software.

I think most iOS apps won't be used much on full-blown Macs. There's a subset of apps that will be, but many of those already exist in MacOS versions anyway. This whole move isn't about app cross-compatibility. Apple could care less ultimately about that. It's about them making a more tightly integrated product they can totally control, and make even more profit from every machine. Having one unified code base is great for them on a cost-savings basis and app cross-compatibility is more like a side effect, not a target goal.

 

[Quu]

And that’s one of the reasons why I think they’d be really conservative and not start announcing a transition if all pieces parts weren’t solidly believed to be in place (more solidly than Air Power)

It will be the last Mac transitioned and likely in very late 2021 or some time in 2022 as I maintained so far. This is a very low-volume high-price computer that to be honest I don't think they care all that much about.

I don't think the chip for it is ready if that time table is right. I think the chip will be ready in 2021 with the system very late 2021 (Dec) or some time in 2022.

 

[gugy]

I was about to order a MP but this announcement is making me reconsider it. I really was sold on the PS/LR/FCP demo. I might wait until the upcoming Apple Silicon pro machines arrive. I can still hold on to my current Mac for a few months or 1 year.

 

[blackadde]

The A-series chips are a genuine marvel for the devices they currently run but that isn't proof that the silicon will scale well for high-performance desktop parts. I would never believe their marketing fluff without some independent, platform-agnostic benchmarks; it certainly takes more than slapping on a HSF and cranking up the voltage to squeeze out linear performance gains. I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll have something rivaling their current high-end i9-Xeon offerings in a year or two. They're crushing the competition in the mobile space, so you've to give them some credit at least.

One thing that's certain is that Apple is steaming ahead with their One True Goal: total vertical integration of their hardware/software and gradual decoupling from the larger PC market. Apple wants very badly to avoid 1:1 commodity-style comparisons between their products and other offerings in the same product space because their entire business model relies on a significant profit margin on each item sold. It's much easier to market laptops when you've convinced your audience (rightly or wrongly) that you're the only company doing what you do.

I'd also argue that's a big reason they don't care all that much about the 'Pro' market, because by and large that segment actually does view computing power as a commodity. They just want a fast and reliable tool at a reasonable cost, interoperable with existing industry standards.

 

[choreo]

I'm losing my mind right now having thrown so much money at Apple

Apple, you effing make me sick.

It does not end there. One of the things I took away from today's event is that if I buy a new BMW, I can trade in my reliable tiny key FOB in exchange for lugging are round a huge piece of breakable glass that needs to be constantly recharged to get in my car!

 

[dspdoc]

The A-series chips are a genuine marvel for the devices they currently run but that isn't proof that the silicon will scale well for high-performance desktop parts. I would never believe their marketing fluff without some independent, platform-agnostic benchmarks; it certainly takes more than slapping on a HSF and cranking up the voltage to squeeze out linear performance gains. I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll have something rivaling their current high-end i9-Xeon offerings in a year or two. They're crushing the competition in the mobile space, so you've to give them some credit at least.

One thing that's certain is that Apple is steaming ahead with their One True Goal: total vertical integration of their hardware/software and gradual decoupling from the larger PC market. Apple wants very badly to avoid 1:1 commodity-style comparisons between their products and other offerings in the same product space because their entire business model relies on a significant profit margin on each item sold. It's much easier to market laptops when you've convinced your audience (rightly or wrongly) that you're the only company doing what you do.

I'd also argue that's a big reason they don't care all that much about the 'Pro' market, because by and large that segment actually does view computing power as a commodity. They just want a fast and reliable tool at a reasonable cost, interoperable with existing industry standards.

Based on your last statement you would think the ‘pro’ community would be leaving Apple in droves to switch to PC. There’s so much more control and power options in building your own machine. Yet if it is happening it is pretty silent. Especially amongst the pro audio community. As a matter of fact, that market seems to be hanging on by a death grip no matter how difficult Apple makes it for them, or how hard it is on the 3rd party devs who are always desperately playing “catch up” just to keep their software compatible. I mean at times it feels like Apple is literally pushing these types away and yet they come running back like a beaten animal. It’s sad really. Like a brainwashed cult. :/

Why aren’t more ‘pros’ jumping ship completely? I know I have been flirting with the idea for a long time. The one thing that keeps me is I am just not much of a fan of Windows and how it looks. Plus I am like most people, deeply buried in the ecosystem with all my devices.

 

[choreo]

I mean at times it feels like Apple is literally pushing these types away and yet they come running back like a beaten animal. It’s sad really. Like a brainwashed cult.

Not brainwashed, just beaten!

 

[blackadde]

You don't see a huge wave of people jumping ship *today* because many of them (including myself) jumped ship a long time ago. The 2013 trashcan was my own last straw. Anecdotally: I went to an art school where 95%+ of people were on first gen MacBook Pro's through our program, and almost none of them I'm still in touch with is using a Mac for their work anymore. Some are still using MacBooks casually as secondary devices.

 

[dspdoc]

You don't see a huge wave of people jumping ship *today* because many of them (including myself) jumped ship a long time ago. The 2013 trashcan was my own last straw. Anecdotally: I went to an art school where 95%+ of people were on first gen MacBook Pro's through our program, and almost none of them I'm still in touch with is using a Mac for their work anymore.

Excellent point. Apple sure does play it off like they very much have the ‘pro’ market in their hip pocket though!