MP All Models 2023 Mac Pro! [MERGED]

[Adult80HD]

Right now as it stands I am no longer a Mac Pro customer, which isn't really all that bad in some ways. For 3D work I moved years ago to PCs as it was clear Apple couldn't compete and had no intentions of doing so. I was hoping they'd push it with an M3-based Pro with hardware RT and with some kind of accelerator cards like the Afterburner, but it appears that's not to be the case.

For the non-3D work, the Studio Ultras I bought last year just smoke. They compete on 2D graphics and AI-based image editing with the best from Nvidia. I don't have any need any more for add-in RAID cards as external NVMe SSD drives are so fast and quite large now.

For those who need add-in cards for sound work and really need an add-in RAID card, this is nice. Pricewise though the Studio is so much cheaper--I bought a new M2 Max Studio now to replace one of my 2019 Mac Pros that lags on the work I mentioned above (frankly the W6800X is just not that great of GPU)--and to configure an identical Mac Pro was $2000 more, just to add PCIe cards. I think a ton of folks who didn't absolutely need PCIe cards will now do the same and replace Mac Pros with Studios.

 

[chfilm]

The next big thing is always around the corner. You can wait for it to show up, and then you'll realize that the next big thing will be there in another year or so. It never ends. You have to put your foot down and say, "I'm going to jump in. Today!" and deal with it.



Depends on what you're doing with those GPUs. More accurately what I mean is encoding and decoding h.26[4,5]. The AS will smoke the AMDs in the 2019 Mac Pros with that. To me, that's enough of a win right there.

You’re right, the h264/h265 acceleration is a BIG issue, probably almost the biggest one that tempts me to make the jump… that new machine just feels so…empty and weird…

 

[daveedjackson]

so looking I'm incredibly torn. Like a few others, I've barely touched mine. I have solely upgraded my GPU which requires the PCI in the 2019MP but I can't justify 3k extra to go from the Mac Studio to Mac Pro. I'm currently sitting at 256gb ram (only recently put in extra) but my m1 MBP does fly in After Effects. Especially if the MPX modules simply won't work it seems pointless for my needs.

 

[Adult80HD]

I have to say, I can put my old Mac Pro to good use running Windows, just slap an Nvidia 4090RTX in there and it will render like a champ and look good while doing so, OS aside.

 

[sn1p3r845]

Really happy I bought the mac studio m1 ultra when I did instead of holding out for the new Mac Pro.. Jeez this is super underwhelming, they completely lost the Mac Pro market to the Mac Studio. Basically if I was to configure it the same way I did with my m1 ultra the mac pro version would cost ~$3500 more. I don't think pci-e expandability is worth the $3500 upgrade - especially if you cant use it for a powerhouse GPU. I think everyone expected the Mac Pro to have a "double ultra" type of chip.

 

[ssgbryan]

Economies of scale. A lot of users do not need/want PCIe slots.

That's why 2013 Mac Pro came about & 2023 Mac Studios was created.

And it is why a lot of us are on windows boxes now.

 

[Onelifenofear]

Right now as it stands I am no longer a Mac Pro customer, which isn't really all that bad in some ways. For 3D work I moved years ago to PCs as it was clear Apple couldn't compete and had no intentions of doing so. I was hoping they'd push it with an M3-based Pro with hardware RT and with some kind of accelerator cards like the Afterburner, but it appears that's not to be the case.

For the non-3D work, the Studio Ultras I bought last year just smoke. They compete on 2D graphics and AI-based image editing with the best from Nvidia. I don't have any need any more for add-in RAID cards as external NVMe SSD drives are so fast and quite large now.

For those who need add-in cards for sound work and really need an add-in RAID card, this is nice. Pricewise though the Studio is so much cheaper--I bought a new M2 Max Studio now to replace one of my 2019 Mac Pros that lags on the work I mentioned above (frankly the W6800X is just not that great of GPU)--and to configure an identical Mac Pro was $2000 more, just to add PCIe cards. I think a ton of folks who didn't absolutely need PCIe cards will now do the same and replace Mac Pros with Studios.

I don’t understand why people think the Mac Pro can’t do 3D - I work in 3D, with Houdini, C4D, Maya and Nuke, with a Mac Pro for Film and TV and the current Mac Pro can handle anything I throw at it.

I’ll give you the Render speeds of the Nvidia’s are fantastic For redshift / Octane but 40% longer frame renders I will put up with so long as I never have to use windows. All actual animation renders go off to a farm anyway.

 

[Onelifenofear]

Really happy I bought the mac studio m1 ultra when I did instead of holding out for the new Mac Pro.. Jeez this is super underwhelming, they completely lost the Mac Pro market to the Mac Studio. Basically if I was to configure it the same way I did with my m1 ultra the mac pro version would cost ~$3500 more. I don't think pci-e expandability is worth the $3500 upgrade - especially if you cant use it for a powerhouse GPU.

Ah So that the thing. In the future I bet they will add in their own Apple silicon GPU cards.

 

[Serqetry]

In the future I bet they will add in their own Apple silicon GPU cards.

I don't know why you would think that. Apple just proved they think the integrated GPU is good enough. Macs will never see a GPU on a card again.

 

[Adult80HD]

I don’t understand why people think the Mac Pro can’t do 3D - I work in 3D, with Houdini, C4D, Maya and Nuke, with a Mac Pro for Film and TV and the current Mac Pro can handle anything I throw at it.

I’ll give you the Render speeds of the Nvidia’s are fantastic For redshift / Octane but 40% longer frame renders I will put up with so long as I never have to use windows. All actual animation renders go off to a farm anyway.

I mean the 40% is the issue for me. The rendering we do here is basic and isn't suited for a farm, but we do a lot of it. Basically we're doing 3D interactive product renderings. They each take no more than 15 minutes but we have to do a lot of them, every day, and its more a time consuming process to batch them up for a farm than its worth, especially with the cost. A basic Windows box with an RTX 4090 will power through them and saving 40-50% of the time is a lot for me, totally pays for the cost of the Windows box several times over each year. Yeah, I hate Windows but this is business.

 

[Longplays]

Ah So that the thing. In the future I bet they will add in their own Apple silicon GPU cards.

They look to the future and not the past.

Where Apple goes... the PC industry follows.

Ever wonder why Nvidia was rather aggressive with ARM?

Same with Intel doing more powerful iGPUs.

AMD's been doing more powerful iGPUs with the chips found in 2020 PS5 & Xbox.

dGPU days are numbered.

 

[randy85]

I feel like they wanted to do more with it, but perhaps the 'Extreme' chip which wasn't meant to be on this occasion. What we've got is something that ticks the box for AS Mac Pro (a completion of the transition) and leaves the door open for something more impressive with M3.

I personally wouldn't spend an extra £3K for the form factor and slots over the Mac Studio, but if you're a large company and it keeps your workspace cleaner then maybe it's not that bad. After all, for many workflows it's better at £10K than the previous Intel one at £50K.

 

[Matty_TypeR]

when the 5090 comes out it will smoke any apple chip, as the 4090 does now. but at least you can upgrade your 4090 with out buying a whole new machine for the AS M3 in 18 months.

 

[jasonmvp]

dGPU days are numbered.

No they're not. NVidia's ARM attempt had nothing to do with trying to delete their dGPU products. They actually use ARM cores in a bunch of their other (see: networking) products. Controlling that would be hugely beneficial to them.

You're smoking something good, and not sharing, if you think dGPUs are doomed. It's simply not going to happen. There's way more to NVidia's dGPU business than PCs, for what it's worth. ;-)

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I feel like they wanted to do more with it, but perhaps the 'Extreme' chip which wasn't meant to be on this occasion. What we've got is something that ticks the box for AS Mac Pro (a completion of the transition) and leaves the door open for something more impressive with M3.

I personally wouldn't spend an extra £3K for the form factor and slots over the Mac Studio, but if you're a large company and it keeps your workspace cleaner then maybe it's not that bad. After all, for many workflows it's better at £10K than the previous Intel one at £50K.

did they under feed the pci-e slots on lanes to pull this off?
now will they do an cooling change to have an Extreme chip / muilt cpu later on?
------------
as for no smaller case the planned Extreme was to big for it?

 

[mattspace]

They look to the future and not the past.

Where Apple goes... the PC industry follows.

Ever wonder why Nvidia was rather aggressive with ARM?

Same with Intel doing more powerful iGPUs.

AMD's been doing more powerful iGPUs with the chips found in 2020 PS5 & Xbox.

dGPU days are numbered.

Yup, after 2013 all the workstation vendors ditched slotboxes and went to non-upgradable appliances...

...oh wait.

 

[mrhick01]

So basically all they did was put the Mac studio guts into the Mac pro tower and added pcie slots? Nothing innovative?

I’ve got a feeling this Mac Pro released because the company promised to release something, and it has been seven months beyond its two-year Apple Silicon deadline.

I guess functions such as ray tracing in the GPU and the ability to glue two Ultras to make an Extreme failed to scale properly on the N5P process. I would guess that users will see an “Extreme” chip with the M3 and beyond.

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

This is interesting. Did this one get missed in the predictions? I know early on everyone predicted this was the last update and it would come out at WWDC, but a few months ago I saw the rumors started suggesting not yet and then everything went quiet. Mac Studio only got picked up again in the last few days so it seems like overall most people were not expecting much Mac hardware update aside from the 15" Air.

 

[jmcube]

The M2 Extreme wasn't working out so the MP was predicted to be dead. Since they were expected to have M2 Ultimate and M2 Extreme, the obvious solution was just to move forward with the M2 Ultimate (a good machine).

People who need more than the M2 Ultimate need to wait. People who just need the expansion slots can go with the new MP.

 

[GrumpyDonkey]

Really disappointing IMO. It’s literally a Studio with PCIe slots. And they raised the price! Apple Silicon was suppose to provide better value than Intel. GPU and memory upgrades gone! I think 7,1 values just went up.

No one actually thought that was going to happen did they? Apple was never going to pass the cost savings onto the consumers.

 

[-BigMac-]

The M2 Ultra Mac Studio is not much cheaper than the Mac Pro

Bro.....

Ultra Studio is $3990
Ultra Mac Pro is $6990

You are paying nearly double the price, for a few PCI slots

 

[G46&Fbnth5]

Bro.....

Ultra Studio is $3990
Ultra Mac Pro is $6990

You are paying nearly double the price, for a few PCI slots

Actually the difference is bigger than I thought 👍

 

[gokhano]

to be suspended indefinitely in a year?

that or macOS 15 will brick it (just like Ventura screwed my 27" iMac which I only bought last year)

 

[randy85]

No one actually thought that was going to happen did they? Apple was never going to pass the cost savings onto the consumers.

Lol never underestimate the hopium. There was some quite wishful thinking on price even despite the fact the price of the Mac Studio was already known, and the Mac Pro couldn't be cheaper than that.

 

[avkills]

I need to wait and see more reviews and hands on with the new Mac Pro. At face value it isn't worth it unless you have already invested in PCIe cards with super fast storage on them.

I may just get a PCIe with storage for my 2019 and hold out for the M3.