While technically interesting - I'm not sure why anyone would ever do this for a production system. You could buy a PC running Linux with the same card for a lot cheaper. Once macOS is out of the picture, not much reason to buy the Mac.
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MP All Models Mac Pro X,Y…WHAT IF…
- Thread starter ZombiePhysicist
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While technically interesting - I'm not sure why anyone would ever do this for a production system. You could buy a PC running Linux with the same card for a lot cheaper. Once macOS is out of the picture, not much reason to buy the Mac.
Yeah, I'd agree this is pointless.
The only point is that Apple Silicon GPUs are missing a lot of features that desktop PC GPUs have / have had for a while now such as fully featured atomics, raytracing hardware, ray coherence sorting, "optical flow" etc.
Agreed. The m2 gpu is the main reason I’m glad I bought M1. It’s the weakest part of M1 and has no meaningful improvements. But that doesn’t make the SoC approach less viable, or dGPUs more appealing, it just means apple doesn’t yet know how to make a good GPU core. i wish they would/could just by GeForce from nVidia, since that company seems completely uninterested in consumer gorahics anymore, but since that’s not gonna happen, let’s just hope they make a much larger leap for this year’s GPU and that last year’s stumbles don’t become the norm.
You guys may be right. But I hold out hope for 2 reasons. Booting into another OS with working GPUs is EMBARRASSING for apple, that open source allows it and it does.
Furthermore, I pushes a narrative that they prevent this on their system and that is an anti-trust violation. They really do not want more and more mounting anticompetitive bits of information as the government is actively building that case against them on multiple fronts.
Also, there may be some scientific/AI/3D apps where it's useful to dual boot and run those apps (much like boot camp). Heck at the very least some steam games.
Then, there is also the small chance that some of that driver work could be used on the macOS side.
Yea, I'm not holding my breath, but I'm looking for any crumbs of potentially positive news at this point.
Furthermore, I pushes a narrative that they prevent this on their system and that is an anti-trust violation. They really do not want more and more mounting anticompetitive bits of information as the government is actively building that case against them on multiple fronts.
Also, there may be some scientific/AI/3D apps where it's useful to dual boot and run those apps (much like boot camp). Heck at the very least some steam games.
Then, there is also the small chance that some of that driver work could be used on the macOS side.
Yea, I'm not holding my breath, but I'm looking for any crumbs of potentially positive news at this point.
Well at least I'm living on planet earth. Enjoy waiting for your unicorn computer lol.Wow you sound like the perfect Apple customer.
In your example why even bother selling a computer with PCI slots so you can put in cards. Or should you send in your MacPro to the Apple store for them to do it for you??
The 2019 Mac Pro happened. So it's possible. And the more people that get enraged and call the 8,1 the dud that it is, the greater the chances the 9,1 will be what people want. We do not need more apologists for apple, IMO, we need more people critical of their misfires so that it can be identified and corrected (like the trashcan eventually was with the 7,1).
As always, YMMV.
I'd be surprised if Apple even spends a second thinking about third party cards after this.
If they could be embarrassed over this they would have been embarrassed releasing a Mac Pro with the performance they did.
If enough people point out what a loser this machine is, like they did with the trashcan, they can (and have been) embarrassed. It's doable.
That said, I agree with the spirit of what you say. They smell their own farts and think "BRILLIANCE", so making them feel justified humility is not easy.
I think the best path would be their competitors absolutely roasting the Mac Pro. Apple will only put up with Dell roasting their computers for so long before they feel vaguely annoyed.
I'm waiting to see if the benchmarks that the press will do against the 4090 make any waves.
For sure they won't, hoping for support for RDNA 3 is nothing more than a pipe dream at best at this point...
Did you not see the title of this thread? This is the "walk into a crack den and ask if crack is good...CRACK IS GREAT MAN, HERE HAVE SOME CRACK!" thread.
Yea, sadly agreed.
LOL, in more shocking! (actually more like hilarious) news, These (pointless) macOS Sonoma features won't be available on Intel Macs :
On the macOS Sonoma features page, fine print indicates that the following features require a Mac with an Apple silicon chip:
SOURCE
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
On the macOS Sonoma features page, fine print indicates that the following features require a Mac with an Apple silicon chip:
- Presenter Overlay feature that displays the user on top of the content they are sharing in any video conferencing app.
- Game Mode, which prioritizes CPU and GPU performance while gaming by limiting the performance of background tasks.
- A new high-performance mode in the Screen Sharing app.
- The ability to pair Made for iPhone hearing devices directly with a Mac.
- The ability to invoke Siri by saying "Siri" instead of "Hey Siri."
SOURCE
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
OMG I just saw the same thing.
ALL of Apple operating systems are all ZOMBIE operating systems. They have no innovation worth a **** anymore. They are pure maintenance piles of ...stuff, that if anything, apple just makes worse with regard to UI version after version. I no longer care about apple's operating system updates. They are just noise. Zombie operating systems. From the been dead for years watchOS, through iOS, now iPadOS, iOS, and sadly macOS.
That they cannot do more than bs stickers, which tends to show the soul of apple seems to be dying or dead.
But for the goggles, I would be writing their obituary. That they are walking dead and don't know it yet. But the goggles were super cool. So maybe that's where the A team is.
Apple should fire 95% of its employees and it would probably be a better company and produce more, better, and worthwhile things.
No you are not.
I already have one, I run a Hackintosh.
Enjoy getting stiffed by Apple and having to take your stuff to the genius bar
Well, now you can do that.
Somewhat related... interesting...
9to5mac.com
macOS Sonoma lets developers port Windows games to the Mac
macOS Sonoma lets developers port Windows games to the Mac, here's how it works
9to5mac.com
"The company has released a new Game Porting Tool, which will help developers run their games on the Mac with little or no effort. Interestingly, Apple’s Game Porting Tool is based on Wine, a popular open-source platform that translates Windows software to Unix environments (such as macOS and Linux).
But Apple is doing more than just making these games run on macOS. As explained by the company, Game Porting Tool is also able to translate DirectX 12 into Metal 3. For those unfamiliar, DirectX is an API available on Windows and Xbox consoles that handles graphics rendering and game sounds, similar to Apple’s Metal API."
Somewhat related... interesting...
macOS Sonoma lets developers port Windows games to the Mac
macOS Sonoma lets developers port Windows games to the Mac, here's how it works"The company has released a new Game Porting Tool, which will help developers run their games on the Mac with little or no effort. Interestingly, Apple’s Game Porting Tool is based on Wine, a popular open-source platform that translates Windows software to Unix environments (such as macOS and Linux).But Apple is doing more than just making these games run on macOS. As explained by the company, Game Porting Tool is also able to translate DirectX 12 into Metal 3. For those unfamiliar, DirectX is an API available on Windows and Xbox consoles that handles graphics rendering and game sounds, similar to Apple’s Metal API."
GTA6 to launch on Vision Pro, confirmed...? ;^p
I want to see how that works with Asobo's Flight Simulator product - something that is beautiful to look at but has heavy demands of the computer in VR mode (using HP reverb G2). My 2019 Mac Pro runs it quite well, but a 4090 or 7900 Radeon would definitely run it much faster. In some of the beta releases I avoided many CTDs from out of memory thanks to the W6800X and 32GB video memory while folk with 16GB or 24GB cards encountered lots of problems.
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That is doubtful. Apple wiped out most of the pre 2018 Macs on this iteration. Next year they'd wipe out 2018's (macOS 15) . That would still leave two years ( ~40-50M Intel macs still in the non vintage state). It really isn't their fault it took Apple until 2022 (almost two years since start of transition to end the iMac 27" Intel).
There are decent sized chunks to the line up that Apple was glacial slow to remove. Two models went significantly past the deadline even if you cherry pick Nov 2020 as the starting point!
When Apple wipes out the pre-late Fall 2019 models with macOS 16 , then yes, that is getting out onto very 'thin ice'. 5 years past 2020 is 2025 ; not 2024.
this isn't the PPC->x86 transition at all which finished around 6 months UNDER the two year deadline. This time Apple is at least 6 months OVER the deadline. And in the first year of the transition Apple sold millions more x86 systems than they sold PPC ones in that transition year. The inertia is way bigger this time and Apple screwed it up. If Apple finished quicker than projected , then they would have a mildly creditable excuse to pull in termination. However, when they screw up AND they want to leave early.... and have already pre-charged folks for upgrades taking off the table ... that has got class action suit written all over it. Bigger class and documented company screw up by 'greedy trillion dollar' company ... good luck with that.
Every single step of this x86->M series transition as looked less and less like the x86 transition . In 2006 Apple was doing three different , divergent ports all at the same time. ( PPC , Arm , x86). This is a convergence , not divergence. They threw 32-bit x86 out the window before even making the transition make the convergence even bigger.
Apple themselves defines the obsolete windows as 5 years. And they have overtly reinforced that pattern last 3 years will basically 5 year rolls off to OS support.
If the high priority goal was to get them onto Apple silicon why was Apple shipping Intel Mini 2 YEARS after the first M1 Mini ! You cannot both BLOCK folks from getting off the x86 train (no alternative to switch to) and then punish them because they got off later than the 2 year schedule and seriously expect to be taken as being reasonable.
To stop supporting Intel Mac is relatively necessary prequistie should be to provide something to transition to. "Get off the Train" but don't open the door so they can get off. WTF?
New hardware components for system that has been 'withdrawn from sale" ; yes that has major problems... but for software updates windows Apple is on hypocritical slippery slope on the whole "hurry up customer and get onto Apple Silicon" when they didn't ship anything way past their self imposed deadline or provide any substantively useful guiding information about timing. If Apple wanted customers to 'run faster" they should have given them options. "Hey customer run faster because I'm running slow". That is a joke.
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There have been some wild and awesome ideas for a modular post-Intel Mac Pro. SOC on a daughtercard for not only future upgrades but a fast multi-processor configuration. Apple has the resources to pull it off and create something truly spectacular.
What ended up getting released was disappointing to put it mildly. Not that it really matters as outside of major studios it’s unlikely you’d see any of the 2019 Intel ones in use either, and major studios can afford to treat them as disposable. Most Mac Pro “enthusiasts” who want a long-lasting and upgradable system were priced out with the 2019 Intel.
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There is a big difference between "release THIS Mac Pro" and the MP M2Ultra as the only option. This M2 Ultra as the relatively more affordable options. Very probably yes they did.
Did they mean for this to be the only option. Probably not if look at the rest of the desktop line up.
M2 Mini --> Mini M2 Pro ( M2 Pro sopping up SoCs not used in MBP 14"/16" models )
Studio Max ---> Studio Ultra ( Studio Ultra sopping up SoCs not used in Mac Pro models and Maxes not used in laptops)
Mac Pro Ultra .. < empty slot >
Apple has picked the W6900 to compare with to ignore the substantially more affordable and probably much more prevalent W6800X Duo.
the empty slot likey couldn't leverage laptop parts very effectively. Costs spun out of control and it got canned.
The Mac Studio M1 generation version didn't come out until very late in the transition. So yes it could have. It really didn't make much sense to attempt to cover the Mac Pro with the M1 generation. 2nd or 3rd , but not the first.
Apple has never had anything like UltraFusion packaging done before. It is just way , way less risky to try that out on just one SoC and see how things go than to try it out on two SoCs on the first time to volume production. Gain skill and then do a more complicated package.
The M2 stuff of Mini and Mini Pro were 'late' too. It isn't just the Mac Pro that is log jammed here. The iMac 24" is comatose. Hasn't moved at all in over 2 years.
People said the same things back in 2015-2017 ... it can't take this long to get a new Mac Pro out ... it can extremely easily can if not working on it. Apple at times takes people off of product X to bail out product Y. ( use to happen regularly as iOS ramp up ... iOS was going to miss June/September deadline so "rob Peter to pay Paul" and pull folks off of macOS ( slide that release out) and get iOS back on track.
If R1 SoC and M2 "super expensive hardly anyone is going to buy it" SoC both ran into problems which one do you think Apple would assign ' trouble shooting' resources too over the last year or so? Probably R1. It is a far more critical feature differentiating and potentially strategic SoC in terms of potential ecosystem impact. For the Mac Pro Apple could just keep selling refreshed old 2019 models with GPU bump upgrades. The Vision Pro doesn't ship if don't have a fully functional R1.
Folks think that Apple has infinite resources to 'over staff' every product in their line up. Really they don't .
And Industrial design is likely a significant choke point also.
the M2 GFU doesn't have much different in opcode presented features, but in pragmatically effective bandwidth changes .... it does. They could not have scaled larger sitting on the exact same memory bandwidth cap and increased performance if they were doing absolutely nothing better.
If Apple was using GeoForce GPU cores in the Vision Pro, Apple would have a dead in the water product. Ditto with the phones.
The lower 10-25% of the dGPU market is about get 'eaten' by the better implemented iGPUs. AMD and Intels iGPUs over the next 12-24 months are going to eat the former entry category alive. And Apple has just ejected dGPUs from their whole line up. Laptops were done over a year ago. Nvidia likely saw the exit a long time ago.
Throw on top the crypto craze taking primary control that really makes it a non-consumer market. ( buying cards to make money is a business not a 'consumer'. )
Somewhat related... interesting...
macOS Sonoma lets developers port Windows games to the Mac
macOS Sonoma lets developers port Windows games to the Mac, here's how it works"The company has released a new Game Porting Tool, which will help developers run their games on the Mac with little or no effort. Interestingly, Apple’s Game Porting Tool is based on Wine, a popular open-source platform that translates Windows software to Unix environments (such as macOS and Linux).But Apple is doing more than just making these games run on macOS. As explained by the company, Game Porting Tool is also able to translate DirectX 12 into Metal 3. For those unfamiliar, DirectX is an API available on Windows and Xbox consoles that handles graphics rendering and game sounds, similar to Apple’s Metal API."
The anti-spin take on this is the Metal strategy isn't working - they built it, people didn't come, and now they have to figure out how to host other company's plumbing on their OS to keep the apps in place.
Connects with the trend of major Mac apps ditching Apple tech and going to Electron etc - though in the most famous case, 1Password, I thin that's probably able to be blamed on Private Equity investors in the early stags of strip-mining the company.
Could be it represents a pragmatism that will end up with a better situation than the creepy "all must be purity, and all must be Apple" NIH aversion the company has largely fallen back into.
It's because of the way development works. The actual developers love tools and high quality APIs like Metal, but their bosses are idiots who only care about money and say dumb things like "Hey, lets use <dumb technology choice> to save ourselves lots of money"
Back when I worked in games, even the PC port was generally a labour of love where the higher ups would be all "Who cares about the PC, they have powerful hardware so don't waste time optimising the PC port when you should be spending your time on the Playstation version"
Mac ports are similar where there is literally a 0% chance that your boss is going to come and say "Hey let's make a Mac version" unless someone at Apple has given them a suitcase full of money (and even then it would probably involve doing the bare minimum). It would essentially be up to an individual developer to prototype a Mac port and literally hand it to the higher ups and say "Hey, can we have a Mac version, I've basically ported the game already and all you have to do is accept the free money". That's why these tools are such a massive game-changer.
It's also why I don't work in games anymore because it's the most dysfunctional industry on the planet.
"Apple just lost a customer" says man who was never bought anything from them.