Weird how the PCIe slots have always had varying bandwidth, huh?
I guess the fact that this is news to you might hint that you've never had a Mac Pro, nor are you the market for it.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MP 14,8 2023 Mac Pro is very useful
- Thread starter SDAVE
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Weird how the PCIe slots have always had varying bandwidth, huh?
I guess the fact that this is news to you might hint that you've never had a Mac Pro, nor are you the market for it.
Ok, let me weigh in on this whole "switch to a PC thing"
You gotta realize, just "switching to a PC" is like really hard. People rely on stuff like I mentioned above, and that's one of the reasons why it's hard (or impossible) for them to switch.
The other thing is that even if they use software that's compatible on Windows, the Mac is generally a more stable platform. I've seen several videos about this (and have experienced this a little myself)—where you just randomly get bluescreens/crashes on Windows when sequencing in your DAW or whatever. In my, and many other people's experience, the Mac is just a more stable platform. Also, probably every Mac user older than me has been using them in their studio since the 1990s, so that's probably another reason why they're hesitant.
You gotta realize, just "switching to a PC" is like really hard. People rely on stuff like I mentioned above, and that's one of the reasons why it's hard (or impossible) for them to switch.
The other thing is that even if they use software that's compatible on Windows, the Mac is generally a more stable platform. I've seen several videos about this (and have experienced this a little myself)—where you just randomly get bluescreens/crashes on Windows when sequencing in your DAW or whatever. In my, and many other people's experience, the Mac is just a more stable platform. Also, probably every Mac user older than me has been using them in their studio since the 1990s, so that's probably another reason why they're hesitant.
I think this shows why upgrading isn’t the be all end all. Sure with the 2019 you could upgrade RAM and GPU. But as far as I know, the CPU was not upgradeable (easily, I’m sure you could do it if you are WAY advanced). And the 2023 base Mac Pro beats a $15,000 config 2019 Mac Pro.
I fell in this trap with the 2010 Mac Pro. I kept it alive much longer than I should have. This was back when Intel was stale and even a 2019 i9 iMac didn’t do much to improve my video editing. But my M1 Mac Mini did. Even taking the CPU out, using my 2010 Mac Pro in 2019 had a lot of other issues too. So while I upgraded memory and GPUs, I lost on updated PCIe, faster storage (all four SATA2 ports would essentially be useless if I needed more than 250 MB/s speeds with an SSD), HEVC support on the CPU, FASTER RAM, etc.
I stopped buying for purely upgrade later mindset. Because by the time I need more RAM or a new GPU, I would benefit by a new computer entirely anyway.
Things are also progressing much faster today than they were 5 years ago. I had mentioned 2010 Mac Pro vs 2019 i9 iMac had no improvements for me, even on the Windows side. And yet, even with Intel going from an i9 9900k to a 13900k is a massive jump. Even 9900k to an older 11700 i7 was a large increase in some areas. 2010-2019 was a bad time for tech from a CPU point of view.
Last ~15 years we went from HDDs being the standard to not only SSDs but ultra fast NVME SSDs.
Now not all people are like me. They need a dGPU and it is a shame that is lost. But it’s crazy how much things have improved where a base Mac Pro in 2023 can go toe to toe with a config with an afterburner card at $15,000+ and be more than twice as powerful at half the cost.
I do think those needing 1.5 TB of RAM are such a niche of a niche that Apple deemed it okay to drop. It’s also a shame this happened. Maybe things will get better with M3.
Ultimately, here is what I think happened. Apple was getting pressured to finish their already overdue “two year transition” even though their rumored M2 Extreme was scrapped. So Apple just put M2Ultra in the Mac Pro and called it a day. Evidence this was rushed is because do we really need that power supply still? Especially without dGPU which would most often be the largest watt consumer PCIe card.
Will we see things change with M3? Maybe? Depends on what struggles the rumored M1 AND M2 Extremes faced. Right now it’s essentially a Mac Studio Plus and why it is I believe it was rushed due to my previous paragraph.
I will probably pick one of these up. I would like internal storage expansion vs having a couple permanent external SSDs connected to my current Mac Studio.
I fell in this trap with the 2010 Mac Pro. I kept it alive much longer than I should have. This was back when Intel was stale and even a 2019 i9 iMac didn’t do much to improve my video editing. But my M1 Mac Mini did. Even taking the CPU out, using my 2010 Mac Pro in 2019 had a lot of other issues too. So while I upgraded memory and GPUs, I lost on updated PCIe, faster storage (all four SATA2 ports would essentially be useless if I needed more than 250 MB/s speeds with an SSD), HEVC support on the CPU, FASTER RAM, etc.
I stopped buying for purely upgrade later mindset. Because by the time I need more RAM or a new GPU, I would benefit by a new computer entirely anyway.
Things are also progressing much faster today than they were 5 years ago. I had mentioned 2010 Mac Pro vs 2019 i9 iMac had no improvements for me, even on the Windows side. And yet, even with Intel going from an i9 9900k to a 13900k is a massive jump. Even 9900k to an older 11700 i7 was a large increase in some areas. 2010-2019 was a bad time for tech from a CPU point of view.
Last ~15 years we went from HDDs being the standard to not only SSDs but ultra fast NVME SSDs.
Now not all people are like me. They need a dGPU and it is a shame that is lost. But it’s crazy how much things have improved where a base Mac Pro in 2023 can go toe to toe with a config with an afterburner card at $15,000+ and be more than twice as powerful at half the cost.
I do think those needing 1.5 TB of RAM are such a niche of a niche that Apple deemed it okay to drop. It’s also a shame this happened. Maybe things will get better with M3.
Ultimately, here is what I think happened. Apple was getting pressured to finish their already overdue “two year transition” even though their rumored M2 Extreme was scrapped. So Apple just put M2Ultra in the Mac Pro and called it a day. Evidence this was rushed is because do we really need that power supply still? Especially without dGPU which would most often be the largest watt consumer PCIe card.
Will we see things change with M3? Maybe? Depends on what struggles the rumored M1 AND M2 Extremes faced. Right now it’s essentially a Mac Studio Plus and why it is I believe it was rushed due to my previous paragraph.
I will probably pick one of these up. I would like internal storage expansion vs having a couple permanent external SSDs connected to my current Mac Studio.
Agreed. I will actively avoid Windows at all costs if I can help it. Even though I have three windows systems in my workflow. Sometimes it can’t be helped.
I think I’m ducking out of PC gaming too. Windows is a hassle and it’s just not worth it if I can get a smoother gameplay on consoles even compared to my 13900k/4090 setup. Shader compilations, micro stutters, bad PC ports etc are driving me away. Even if I can experience higher FPS in some cases, the minute I turn my character I have frame pacing issues due to a shader compiling is just frustrating.
![962071040]()
![macos-catalina-mac-pro-expansion-slot-utility-automatic.png]()
Weird how the PCIe slots have always had varying bandwidth, huh?
I guess the fact that this is news to you might hint that you've never had a Mac Pro, nor are you the market for it.
Sure, but at least the 2006 Mac Pro had 26 PCIe lanes to allocate, rather than the 16 of the 2023 version.
It’s like memory. 8GB of RAM 10-20 years ago is vastly different than 8GB DDR5 RAM today.
I think the 2006 used PCIe 1 which is limited to 2.5 GT/s. The new one has version 4 mostly which has 16GT/s. So even if it gets throttled, it still has some room before it goes to speeds from previous versions. It’s a good improvement. 2019 Mac Pro was gen 3 PCIe which is 8GT/s.
Speed is per lane.
Ultimately. Current gen x8 performs the same as last gen x16.
Yes, I realise PCIe 4.0 is faster than PCIe 1.0. It's also 17 years later. We have NVMe SSDs etc. to support these days.
It has 16 lanes total coming from the SoC, all from one SoC. The lanes on the other one handle LAN, USB, storage etc. https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110493886026958843.
For comparison, an i5 has 20.
It’s easy enough to upgrade and much easier than the 2013 model (for which I have done a CPU upgrade). I’ve also done upgrades on the 2010 and pulled one apart completely to replace a dodgy Bluetooth antenna.
You don’t need to be way advanced, just take your time, read instructions carefully and again, go slowly.
Lanes don't equal bandwidth over a long period of time.
In 2006 the Mac Pro had 26 PCI-e v1 lanes worth of bandwidth. Even at x16+x8 that is x24 v4 lanes which is 96. 'Boo hoo' only have 70 more lanes of bandwidth now. Oh the tragedy..... *cough*
The actual 2006-era Xeon die has zero PCI-e lanes provisioned.
Nevermind the 26 is a bit inflated ....
How does the original Mac Pro allocate lanes for the PCIe bus? What configurations are possible?: EveryMac.com
Info about the PCI Express architecture, lane allocation, and PCIe and PCIe 2.0 configurations in the original Mac Pro.
Had to "rob Peter to pay Paul" if wanted to put something better than a x4 card in slot 4.
All the Mac Pros from 2006-2019 has PCI-e switches in them. The fact that some folks are running around having a 'hissy fit' there is a PCI-e switch in this one is goofy. If one a single x16 PCi-e v4 slot worth of bandwidth just set the PCI-e expansion utility to do it.
Folks are throwing around pictures more so of what the switch is set to ... not the die.
Apple did not support upgrading the CPU in the 2019 Mac Pro. I just checked. There is no official instructions to do so.
Does macOS even support newer Xeons? Is it the same socket? This is what I mean about upgrading it.
It's not the presence of a switch. Everyone knows that (well, except maybe for a few YouTubers.) It's the number of lanes being switched that's the problem. The 2023 Mac Pro is feeding its switches with less bandwidth than the 2019 Mac Pro.
The 2006 Mac Pro comparison isn't the great comparison that it's being portrayed as - that machine also dramatically underfed it's switches compared to later models.
At a time when every competing Intel and AMD workstation processor is shipping with more and more PCIe bandwidth - Apple actually downgraded the PCIe bandwidth. The only good thing about what Apple did is you can now run a PCIe v4 SSD card. The bad news is you can only run one of them at load. While every other competing workstation can run multiple.
Even the 2019 Mac Pro could sustain multiple v3 SSD cards.
Heck - it's not even PCIe v5 (which Intel and AMD are also shipping.) So I can't even give them brownie points for being competitive there.
The Mac Pro 2023 is a disaster and it's more than obvious that it's failing.
Apple has had the time and the resources to sincerely present a successful workstation but not even the people who has drank the kool-aid too hard like the OP here has bought it. There wasn't any need for a closed down machine like this but they had to f**k it up since marketing told them to. Especially since its not surpassing what any other chip AMD, INTEL or NVIDIA has to offer, the trade offs are just absurd and have been for nothing.
This "Can't innovate anymore my ass" attitude is precisely what made them apologize to the public a few years ago for the same product and I see the same happening a couple of year from now. Save this post.
Apple has had the time and the resources to sincerely present a successful workstation but not even the people who has drank the kool-aid too hard like the OP here has bought it. There wasn't any need for a closed down machine like this but they had to f**k it up since marketing told them to. Especially since its not surpassing what any other chip AMD, INTEL or NVIDIA has to offer, the trade offs are just absurd and have been for nothing.
This "Can't innovate anymore my ass" attitude is precisely what made them apologize to the public a few years ago for the same product and I see the same happening a couple of year from now. Save this post.
Last edited:
That is interesting because I'm reading the official instructions on how to replace CPUs and change the thermal module right now.
It's easy to do. So you can upgrade to a W3275M as the maximum - so if you have a for instance a W3245 (16 core) it's worthwhile and not that hard to do.
Do you have a 7,1 or the 2023 Mac Pro?
I am not seeing one on Apple's websites. You might be looking at a third party instructions. Or they took it down and you have it saved.
Nope, don't have 7,1 it was a joke at release with a crappy GPU and a wonderful 256GB of SSD for $6,000. I got a maxed out 2019 i9 iMac instead and it was still cheaper. I am going to get the 2023 Mac Pro though as its not a joke in the base config.
Apple has been trying. M1 Extreme and M2 Extreme were all rumored to be worked on. M1 Ultra suffered very bad scaling issues with 2x M1 Max. GPU was horrible at scaling, and the extra media encoders barely made a difference. Thankfully some of this is resolved with the M2 Ultra but there are still scaling issues going on.
Apple needed to complete the transition from Intel. So they did what they could now.
COVID, chip shortages, supply chain issues, other world issues etc all played a part in delaying A LOT of things. Also rumors are Apple pulled teams away from current projects to work on vision pro (again why I think Apple is doing way too much and why I did NOT want a ridiculous ski goggle headset).
We will see how M3 plays out. But this is not close to the situation in the 2013 Mac Pro days.
Why should I care what apple is *trying* to do? the years go on, I have work to do and I'm not going to wait for their "solutions".
The 2023 mac pro is a complete joke of a system because, even if the PCIe slots were a "feature", you can't use any of them without being bandwidth limited. So not only are you just following what apple marketing is telling you to, you're totally fine with gimping these so called "features" just because its the "new 2023 mac pro" and apple says its good.
Sure the base 7,1 had a crappy gpu, but you can either upgrade or replace it. In 3 years when the M2 Ultra GPU is straight garbage and can't compete in GPU-heavy apps, you won't be able to upgrade it aka the whole point of a workstation. As for 7,1 owners? we'll just upgrade the GPU to the newest model and run it on whatever OS we choose, the way desktop workstations have worked for the last 30+ years.
I save money, I get my work done, everything is fine. I won't need to go searching for another desktop because I just upgrade what I need and I haven't iOS-ified my desktop computer by having to replace it in 3 years when it becomes slow. Also please tell me again how apple cares about the environment.
You’re missing the point. GMShadow was saying Mac Pros have always used PCIe switches, so the fact the 2023 does is no big deal. Whilst this is true, the 2023 MP does so to a much greater extent than the 2006 example he gave. The earlier machine wasn’t trying to provision 4 slots (let alone 5) off a single 16x connection.
That the 2023 Mac Pro has greater PCIe bandwidth in absolute terms than the 2006 model is hardly impressive. Not a high bar to clear…
And where were you when Intel was pretty much stale until AMD got their act together and actually competed? There is a reason why it's a meme that Intel was on 14nm+++++++++++++. Processor upgrades from Intel were not worth it for many many MANY years.
As I said, it wasn't just the base GPU, it was the storage and yes even the base CPU was poor compared to the i9 9900k. Why would I prefer to spend $8,000 when my maxed out 2019 i9 iMac was $5,500? Talking about saving money, there you go.
3 years and the GPU will be a joke? Not even close. Heck people are still running professional workflows on NVIDIA GTX 1080s. Those are WAY MORE than 3 years old.
And BTW, my 2019 i9 iMac that I maxed out, was beaten in video editing work by the base M1 Mac mini. That would be a bigger issue if I had spent so much more on the 2019 Mac Pro. Only way the Mac Pro could have competed is if I purchased the Afterburner card, but that would be the price of two Mac minis so why?
I typically upgrade every three years now anyway. I fell into the trap of not going that with my 2010 Mac Pro and it was not fun at the end.
I agree, but I'd like to see Apple make the CPU modular. Right now, only the cooler is removable, but if the entire CPU/cooler could be upgraded for less than an ultra studio, then companies would love the efficiency of buying into an apple ecosystem that let's them keep their case and preserve the time and expense of expansion card re-installation. Also, many in the past just liked the ability to upgrade the RAM and GPU, so this would be a new way of doing just that. Now if Apple went even further and gave them credit for turning in their old module, then the extra $3k would be a very wise investment for some firms.
The 2010-2012 Mac Pro was incredibly easy to upgrade and expand. I worked with many people that ran those machines for a long time. Some finally jumped ship and replaced them with PC workstations when it looked like Apple left 'pro' users behind.
Lack of internal expansion slots and easy upgradability is what disappointed so many people when the 'Trash Can' MP was released. It seems we're back at the same crossroads.
I bought a fully loaded Mac Studio M1 Ultra while I waited for the new Mac Pro and was let down by the Mac Studio in-a-box-with-slots solution Apple is selling as a Mac Pro.
The only reason I would have considered still buying it was for the (Apple claimed) 26GB/s SSD speed in the PCIe slot. But that wasn't enough reason.
No memory expansion, no GPU cards... no sale.
Lack of internal expansion slots and easy upgradability is what disappointed so many people when the 'Trash Can' MP was released. It seems we're back at the same crossroads.
I bought a fully loaded Mac Studio M1 Ultra while I waited for the new Mac Pro and was let down by the Mac Studio in-a-box-with-slots solution Apple is selling as a Mac Pro.
The only reason I would have considered still buying it was for the (Apple claimed) 26GB/s SSD speed in the PCIe slot. But that wasn't enough reason.
No memory expansion, no GPU cards... no sale.
The future at least for Microsoft and windows is a full 100 percent run windows in the cloud. not on a local machine.
which means cheap dummy hardware. all the horsepower will be remote.
So If Apple follows the Microsoft Windows 12 future along with only fees to access your cloud based OS that means powerful machines like the Mac Pro are dead. Maybe there might be an M3 Ultra Mac Pro but most likely The Mac Pro will be Dead if Apple follows Microsoft into the cloud and 100 percent Cloud based OS computers. Sort of like the IBM Mainframe of 2025??
www.pcworld.com
which means cheap dummy hardware. all the horsepower will be remote.
So If Apple follows the Microsoft Windows 12 future along with only fees to access your cloud based OS that means powerful machines like the Mac Pro are dead. Maybe there might be an M3 Ultra Mac Pro but most likely The Mac Pro will be Dead if Apple follows Microsoft into the cloud and 100 percent Cloud based OS computers. Sort of like the IBM Mainframe of 2025??
Microsoft is working on a full cloud-based Windows OS
New internal documents revealed by the FTC investigation shows a full remote access OS could be in Windows' future.
www.pcworld.com
And let me guess, this service is going to be at least $100/month—which isn't a big deal for companies, but is for individuals.