Apple Working on Next-Gen Mac Studio and Mac Pro

[Alan Wynn]

While the recent Mac Pro has been criticized by some as a poor value with fuzzy market targeting, I think that Apple can make this a highly desirable machine by doing the following:

1) Make the processor modular. By doing this, businesses would now be buying into an infrastructure, and would save money in the long run since they could get a credit for their current module trade-in, and upgrade at a price below a Mac Studio. Also, time is saved since expansion cards and drivers don't need to be reinstalled.

Having worked in Scientific Computing and Visual Effects/Post Production, no one ever upgrades machine mid-cycle. In addition, one would have to replace the PCIe slots every other cycle as they would need to have their specs increased.

2) Make dual CPU modules. That's right- go back to the dual g4 days. Of course you're not going to get double the speed of an M3 Ultra, but the OS and CPU bus could in theory be tweaked to yield 1.75x which is what the original M1 Ultra was giving over the M1 Max anyway. Moreover, Apple can set the module prices so that the "dollar per performance" graphs just make a fully tricked out Mac Pro a better overall value.

If you are arguing for two Ultra CPUs in one box with some custom PCIe switch to enable connecting either CPU to any slot, it will never happen. The engineering effort to support that, would be immense and would make such as system cost prohibitive.

3) Make the modules liquid cooled. Yes, this is an added expense, but hear me out. You're buying a Mac Pro because you want the best of the best, the cre'me de la cre'me, the - you get the point. And for this reason, the chips for the MP are typically binned for higher frequency which makes them expensive. If however, the modules are more like a liquid cooled graphics card, then 15% performance gains could be achieved with standard chips while also preserving chassis space. This in turn, would partially mitigate the less than 2x performance gain from dual configurations.

In a quick search, I do not see that they are binned chips, nor would I expect they would pay TSMC extra for them, as they are unlikely to sell enough to require that they through away any to get their required yield. The existing cooling infrastructure likely already provides enough additional cooling to mean that they can use regular chips.

4) While not presently critical, PCie 4.0 at full speed per slot would be a practical forward thinking move. As module speed increases and new cards increase their bus speeds, businesses would likewise increase the value of their chassis investment through longevity.

PCIe 5 is already out. PCIe 6 (or whatever comes next) will be here soon. Newer machines will want newer busses. No one other than hobbyists upgrade the way you describe. It is just creates too many problems.

If Apple did this, then I would buy a Mac Pro, because I could have one machine with near double the speed of an Ultra, I would have the flexibility for internal SSD and AV expansion, and I could easily upgrade as needs demand.

No, you would not, because it would cost so much more than a current Mac Pro that you could not afford it. That machine would not be twice the speed of an Ultra, as it would not have unified memory and developing for it would be quite difficult. It would be cost prohibitive, as it would require a great deal of custom engineering that would benefit very few users. It would not really be upgradable, as newer machines would have newer busses.

 

[Elyzien]

Why doesn't Apple make a dedicated PCIe Apple Silicon GPU? I mean they can use it for AI, graphics rendering, video editing... I mean thats why its a Pro computer.

I got to go to 1 Apple Park to speak with the EDU Team. I got a one on one talk with the dude the one of the leaders on the silicone team. I asked if PCIe GPUs would be a thing. He stated to me, This was 2 years before M1. "There is a thing to be made about discrete GPUs. Don't discount them!" After the response he switched to a different topic. I would say, probably not ever getting an Apple Silicon GPU. I forget the dudes name, but he was on stage with the image of all the new M Macs behind him on the M launch Keynote.

 

[docbop]

Apple is working on a new Mac Studio that is likely to launch in the second half of 2024, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes.

Gurman mentioned the details in this weekend's edition of the "Power On" newsletter. He explained that the new Mac Studio is likely to be offered with the as-yet-unannounced fourth variant of the M3 chip. This will, like previous generations, double the components of the "Max" version, meaning that it will feature up to 32 CPU cores and 80 GPU cores.

Taiwanese research firm TrendForce believes that Apple will launch a new Mac Studio featuring the M3 Ultra chip at WWDC in June, just as it did with the M2 Max and M2 Ultra Mac Studio last year. Prior to the launch of these models in 2023, Gurman reported that Apple was already working on two follow-up machines.

Gurman also believes, contrary to suggestions earlier in the week, that Apple is likely to refresh the Mac Pro with this new high-end chip. He does not believe that Apple is likely to again abandon the machine after only one year.

He added that while upcoming devices such as the M3 MacBook Air could be popular if marketed properly, the Mac roadmap for 2024 is looking "otherwise muted," suggesting some skepticism about Apple's ability to turn the Mac's underperforming sales around.

Article Link: Apple Working on Next-Gen Mac Studio and Mac Pro

Apple just pull the plug on Mac Pro you tried to make the Apple Silicon version expandable and failed. The Mac Studio is the new Mac Pro so just kill off that over price silicon parking lot you call Pro.

 

[Realityck]

Apple just pull the plug on Mac Pro you tried to make the Apple Silicon version expandable and failed. The Mac Studio is the new Mac Pro so just kill off that over price silicon parking lot you call Pro.

If all you looking at is non configurable SoC which encompasses CPU, GPU, and RAM that would be true, but if you using PCie 4 CCA’s big difference along with a substantial larger power supply. There are customers with that need obviously. Along with some of the other expanded number of ports like 8 FireWire 4 ports.

 

[jz0309]

I’m always amused at how Gurman reports product refreshes as if they’re major revelations.

They serve his purpose: clicks and income

 

[jz0309]

That's why Mac market is keep shrinking and limiting only a few software. If hardware is not good enough, who would wish to support their software to Mac?

Can you point to numbers that support your statement of “Mac market keeps shrinking”?

 

[chucker23n1]

4) While not presently critical, PCie 4.0 at full speed per slot would be a practical forward thinking move.

The problem is that M2 Ultra doesn't provide enough lanes. I'm guessing M3 Ultra won't provide enough lanes either, since it's too much of an edge case.

Having worked in Scientific Computing and Visual Effects/Post Production, no one ever upgrades machine mid-cycle. In addition, one would have to replace the PCIe slots every other cycle as they would need to have their specs increased.

"What if you could upgrade the CPU yourself" is interesting as a thought experiment, and maybe for hobbyists (even then, you often quickly end up with "well, gotta upgrade the logic board as well, oh, and the PSU, oh and… y'know what, never mind"), but isn't that relevant for professional use for the two reasons you cite.

 

[Realityck]

Can you point to numbers that support your statement of “Mac market keeps shrinking”?

Part of that is associated with Covid manufacturing delays first half of 2023 and Apple not aggressively pursuing updating models against latest AS SoC’s to present day.

 

[jz0309]

Part of that is associated with Covid manufacturing delays first half of 2023 and Apple not aggressively pursuing updating models against latest AS SoC’s to present day.

I know that the overall market is declining and that the Covid boost has waned off, but it did that for the entire market.
So where are numbers that show that Mac market share “keeps” shrinking?

 

[rafrafdesign]

Apple makes some of the greatest laptops. But once someone needs a desktop computer with several monitors, a descent GPU and enough SSD space to use Dropbox (wait for the next companies to be hacked) , they loose their edge compared to a Windows machine.

 

[Realityck]

I know that the overall market is declining and that the Covid boost has waned off, but it did that for the entire market.
So where are numbers that show that Mac market share “keeps” shrinking?

Most of this stems from April 2023 news of Apple 40% drop of Mac shipments due to manufacturing from China being limited. Later in the year this normalized. People keep only utilizing that old news as a basis. Each financial quarter report since then would see the marketplace differently.

 

[jz0309]

Most of this stems from April 2023 news of Apple 40% drop of Mac shipments due to manufacturing from China being limited. Later in the year this normalized. People keep only utilizing that old news as a basis. Each financial quarter report since then would see the marketplace differently.

Yea, agree. What we really need to look at is data from Gartner or IDC or whoever looking at the entire market, everything else is just hogwash…

 

[chucker23n1]

Part of that is associated with Covid manufacturing delays first half of 2023 and Apple not aggressively pursuing updating models against latest AS SoC’s to present day.

You have to look at it in the context of the market as a whole. In terms of revenues, the Mac has gone down compared to peak COVID, but is nonetheless up compared to pre-COVID (or pre-ARM, for that matter): Jul 18, 2023

In terms of units (Gartner estimate), we see a similar pattern: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...p.2414037/page-12?post=32814196#post-32814196

What about market share percentages (Gartner estimate)?

2018Q1	6.9%
2019Q1	6.8%
2020Q1	6.9%
2021Q1	8.0%
2022Q1	9.0%
2023Q1	8.7%

Again, slightly above pre-COVID. Better than ever.

So, no idea what Gurman is talking about.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I can’t imagine my M3 Max doubled. This thing is stupidly fast, the space black is so nice, it’s the best computer ever.

If Apple wants to turn around sales, they need to go after some PC markets, like gaming. They seem to be headed in that direction.

They should also make some devices that make sense for businesses to purchase in bulk. Not sure what form that would take—a cheaper MacBook? Better enterprise support? Idk.

Problem is, they make such good computers now, people don’t need to upgrade them often, so they need to enter more markets if they want to keep selling them. The alternative is to make crappy computers and sell them for less. That doesn’t make sense either. They’re behind in AI, and that’s going to hurt their ability to enter more business markets. A bright side is their fast hardware is good for running third party AI locally, which is more important to some businesses. And Apple can continue to focus on that with future chips, and that could provide an advantage in the long-term because of their custom hardware integration with their software.

apple ram and storage pricing is way to high for gameing

 

[switz]

Ever since my first Mac purchase in late 1989 of a Macintosh IIsi with an Apple 13" Applecolor High Resolution RGB monitor, Apple products have never been the low price product. They have always been a premium product in terms of price, engineering, product life span and usability.

Those that complain about the prices are perhaps not being realistic in their pricing demands. There never has been a "free lunch" at Apple. Steve insisted on attention to the smallest details to make his products unique. There are lots of costs associated with building the best vs the cheapest one possible.

If one does not want to pay for the Apple product's engineering and design, they have a world of cheaper equipment from "soup to nuts" so to speak in the Windows world where the race to the lowest price and quality wiped a lot of companies off the face of the earth.

I pay to play as I want no problems with the electronics and am extremely happy with what I have now. If I want (not need) the latest and greatest at some future time period, I realize that inflation will still be operating and the newest devices could be higher priced than my current devices but there could be significant performance gains.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Why doesn't Apple make a dedicated PCIe Apple Silicon GPU? I mean they can use it for AI, graphics rendering, video editing... I mean thats why its a Pro computer.

We had a hunt with the last intelligent Mac pro with their hyper card for ProRES but alas that went nowhere, typical Apple switching stuff up just because without real forward thought or direction.

 

[name99]

I speculate we will finally see the quad die M processor. I’d also like to see something like hardware level DDR-based RAM disk to allow for expandable program memory.

Yeah, I agree.

IF its's delayed until WWDC, it's delayed to announce something new. We know the Studio, we know the Ultra; the only obvious new thing is a quad-core Extreme high end model.

The other obvious contender (and/or...) is memory extension, but I don't see RAM disks as how that will be done; they're a terrible tradeoff of dollars vs capacity for what's actually required. More likely, IMHO, is something CXL-like. Not necessarily exactly CXL (like all committee designs, CXL is not exactly elegant) but something like that, a bus to "external" RAM (or possibly fast flash, like Z-NAND), along with smarts to provide automatic data movement between the two (ie "caching").

 

[avkills]

Apple makes some of the greatest laptops. But once someone needs a desktop computer with several monitors, a descent GPU and enough SSD space to use Dropbox (wait for the next companies to be hacked) , they loose their edge compared to a Windows machine.

Hmmm. According to Puget Systems After Effects benchmark, the 16" M3 Max is beating out windows desktops with 14900k and RTX 4090 in them. 🤷‍♂️

So your comment is baseless without specifically mentioning exactly what one is doing. M3 Max supports plenty of monitors for a laptop.

As far as I can tell the only place Apple is being beat is in 3D GPU rendering and games. And cheap SSD storage is a lot easier on a windows tower also, I will agree to that.

 

[MacProFCP]

I guess the M3 Max besting my Intel Mac Pro is one of the bugs then. Come on you can do better than that; explain your point in detail.

Sure.

1. Pretty much every professional grade GPU out there is beating AS chips. I'm not going to search for this now, but you can Google it. There have been several articles on MR also pointing this out.

2. YES, AS does render faster than the old Intel Macs. However, if you remove power consumption from the equation, Intel has some great chips out there that are very fast.

3. I use M1, M2, M2 Pro and M2 Max laptops for various purposes. My main machine is a 2019 Mac Pro. I can't explain why, or whether this is due to software or hardware, but the Intel Mac is far more stable.

 

[HawkTheHusky1902]

The Mac Pro ceased to exist when they put a mobile soc in an expensive case and called it a Mac Pro

This is true, why then have such a big case if you can't expand it at all really?!

 

[HawkTheHusky1902]

Sure.

1. Pretty much every professional grade GPU out there is beating AS chips. I'm not going to search for this now, but you can Google it. There have been several articles on MR also pointing this out.

2. YES, AS does render faster than the old Intel Macs. However, if you remove power consumption from the equation, Intel has some great chips out there that are very fast.

3. I use M1, M2, M2 Pro and M2 Max laptops for various purposes. My main machine is a 2019 Mac Pro. I can't explain why, or whether this is due to software or hardware, but the Intel Mac is far more stable.

I'm curious, what do you mean by 'stable'?

 

[MacProFCP]

Do you own a 2019 Mac Pro? What configuration do you have? Not sure how you expect a new X86_64 machine with an even smaller potential market to sell for less than the last generation Intel Mac Pro and for less than an Apple Silicon machine where they do not have include paying for someone else’s silicon IP.

If you are a “workstation” customer, why are you comparing anything to a Max chip, rather than an Ultra (their chip targeted at their highest end customers?


What “workstation” do you currently own? What software do you run that requires a workstation? Is it available for macOS? Why do you think that anyone will support the truly tiny market that would be an X86_64, AMD GPU machine?

1. My primary machine is a 2019 Mac Pro 3.2 at 16 core with 256 GB of RAM, dual Vega 11 GPUs. I've had it since Feb 2020.

2. I can only compare based on my own experience and the updated Mac Pro was a let down to the point that when I explained my needs to Apple, they basically said that it won't handle my setup. I use an M2 Max for mobile editing (32 GB of ram) and that is what I can compare to.

3. Software is mostly FCP and various typical office and Adobe CC software.

4. My point was solely that rather than leave a market segment unappreciated and unfulfilled, I'd rather Apple just put out another MacPro that does everything we want, even if it's Intel based. I know this is unlikely to happen but, and as I've said numerous times before...

If the editor is using a Mac Pro, the graphics will use a 27" iMac (lol), the sales guy will use a MBA and the accountant a MacMini. If you force the editor to move to a PC to get the GPU he needs, the entire office can easily move to PC.

 

[avkills]

Sure.

1. Pretty much every professional grade GPU out there is beating AS chips. I'm not going to search for this now, but you can Google it. There have been several articles on MR also pointing this out.

2. YES, AS does render faster than the old Intel Macs. However, if you remove power consumption from the equation, Intel has some great chips out there that are very fast.

3. I use M1, M2, M2 Pro and M2 Max laptops for various purposes. My main machine is a 2019 Mac Pro. I can't explain why, or whether this is due to software or hardware, but the Intel Mac is far more stable.

I have first hand proof that the M3 Max 40 core GPU beats my professional grade W6800X Duo in Redshift GPU rendering via Cinebench.

When it comes to professional grade windows cards, of course AS is getting beat (but also at a major power differential.) But who cares; I can't put any of those cards in any of my Macs anyway so for anyone who wants to stay on macOS, the only thing that matters is beating the last *fastest Mac*.

I've only had AE crash a few times so far on the M3; but it has crashed on the 2019 Mac Pro also.

 

[picpicmac]

I got a one on one talk with the dude the one of the leaders on the silicone team.

Very popular dude in Hollywood, Nashville, and Miami.

 

[chucker23n1]

I have first hand proof that the M3 Max 40 core GPU beats my professional grade W6800X Duo in Redshift GPU rendering via Cinebench.

Sure, but the 6000 series is three years old.