^ That price though, hilarious (5149).
(I think I could buy like 5 equal of those used today)
(I think I could buy like 5 equal of those used today)
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MP All Models Thinking about finally upgrading my 5,1 MacPro to a Mac Studio. Change my Mind.
- Thread starter AnimeFunTv
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lol wow - imagine paying £5k in 2022 for a 2013 Mac Pro!
No kidding! I had to do a currency conversion to find out, for $6k USD I'd be better off buying a Mac Studio with all the accessories I need to transition.
Apple doesn't base dropping OS and/or hardware support on some "upgrade MIPs benchmark" score or on how much folks paid. Stuff goes on Apple's vintage/obsolete list after the "end of sales" countdown clock goes to zero. If it is a $999 M1 system or a $16,000 system. If both are 'retired from sale' on the same month then they'll probably get dropped from macOS updates at the same time.
The hardware policy support is quite clear.
"... Products are considered vintage when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 5 and less than 7 years ago. ..."
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624
Price, CPU horse power, GPU modularity , etc. ... none of that is a factor. Those factors are not mentioned in that policy at all.
The M1 systems that were part of the initial release in 2020 are more likely to be replaced (withdrawn from sale) before the Studio ( which is only a couple of months old at this point in time. ). That is the primary factor that would get them dropped before the Studio. Not the "bloat factor" of the OS over time or some other factor. Apple just sells Studio v1.0 longer than the M1 Mini v1.
If Apple revs the Studio next March to M2 Studio (v2) then the 5-7 year countdown clock on the Studio will start running. It might make 8 years total, but may not if Apple pushes it onto the obsolete list in 6 years. ( still may not make cut in 8 years if the anniversary falls in Jan-March time frame well before Sept-October new macOS that year. ) If Apple squatted on the M1 Studio for another 18 months they probably will get an update. That really isn't being driven by cost as much as inaction by Apple.
So if the M1 Mini , MBA , and MBP are replaced in Nov 2022 - March 2023 and the M1 Studio is replaced in Feb 2023 - April 2023 then there probably won't be much material difference in when the both get dropped from macOS updates.
[ IMHO it seems more likely the Studio will pick up a M3 in late 2023 or early 2024. Original M1's are just dated at this point, so will get replacements quicker. Also suspect the M2's will 'die off' fast in Macs than the M1's pandemic extended run drove them. ]
The T2 and M-series Mac protect the firmware ... so the hackery of altering the firmware to keep up macOS support is basically gone. Apple has also announced that kernel extensions are going away in a future version of macOS. Bad bet that those will still be working in a future version of macOS 4-6 years down the road. Those backdoor hacks around following Apple's policies will probably be gone too.
Some folks try to assert that the Mac OS software is decoupled from the Mac OS hardware. That is super weak position. Apple licenses macOS to the Mac hardware you buy. During service lifetime of the hardware the macOS license is not suppose to be decoupled at all. Does that put a floor under how short Apple can go on the macOS support. Technically no. Apple has given themselves wiggle room to punt early. But longer than the hardware. Apple is going to spend more money for free? Seriously? Errr no. The funds for the upgrade costs are built into the initial purchase price. So 6=8 years of upgrades have basically burnt all of that up by the end of the hardware coverage.
The upper boundary on macOS support coverage is clear. It is tied to being on the obsolete list. [ There are some corner cases where something goes on the obsolete list mid-late in a year so that the system wasn't in "obsolete" status in June WWDC when the beta got released. That is just a temporary reprieve. Even if get that ... it will be dead for sure the next year. hardware gets replaced at various points along the year. macOS is for more regular. Syncing those up at the end has a error bar of about +12 months, but is it. Any coverage after that is just non-Apple hackery. It isn't official support. ]
Apple is probably gong to want to get rid of all the M1's in Macs by end of 2023 (if not sooner). If slides into 2024 it is just supply chain hiccups pushing them forward.
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Hardware support is completely transparent. It is a written down policy.
I think many folks create their own non-transparency when they try to completely decouple macOS software from Mac hardware. Apple pretty much usually treats them as a holistic whole system. They are not a software company or hardware company. That are far more a systems company. Not really into selling those two separate at this point beyond some extremely narrow edge cases.
Lots of folks are trying to map Apple policies back into Microsoft. Or IBM mainframe contract behavior... or someone else who just isn't Apple. And also picking out narrow corner cases in Apple's past to fixate on those.
If there is a large install base that Apple has already precharged for upgrades ... they deliver them for around the same time they support the hardware. After that? no.
You would be the first one to publish a comparison once you got both machines
Before that we could do a thought experiment. So here is what you currently have:
"MacPro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1) - 2x3.46 GHz X5690 Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 128Gb Ram, Sapphire Radeon Nitro+ RX 580 8GB, 1TB Samsung NVMe M2 970 Evo"
And here is what you plan to upgrade to:
"If I were to upgrade, the Mac Studio I would choose the 20-Core M1 Ultra/64-Core GPU/128GB/1TB model."
1. Same 128GB RAM and 1TB SSD capacities but higher throughput in the replacement machine.
2. More CPU cores with much faster single thread and parallel processing
3. M1 Ultra GPU with equivalent performance of overclocked Radeon RX 6600XT*. RX 6600XT is about 2X the performance of Radeon RX 580.
Bite the bullet now or wait for next year? If I were you, I would check:
a. is my workflow bottle necked by RAM and SSD throughput?
b. is it bottle necked by CPU performance? and/or
c. is it bottle necked by GPU performance?
If you're severely bottle necked by one of the above, you're going to see huge benefit in the upgrade. Otherwise, surely you will get a faster machine. But more productive output? Perhaps..
*Based on GB5 metal scores. I'm aware some ppl said the benchmark not fair to Apple GPU and blah. From the same metal score list, M1 Max GPU is about Radeon RX5700 XT. M1 Pro GPU is about Radeon RX580. M1 GPU is about Radeon RX560.
I feel as if I'm bottle necked by the CPU at times (more than likely single thread tasks) even though I have the maximum allowable Xeon to be installed on a 5,1. GPU seems to be alright for being a RX 580 as it seems if I go any further on a GPU upgrade that it wouldn't be much of a performance boost since itself would be bottle necked by the CPU's.You would be the first one to publish a comparison once you got both machines
Before that we could do a thought experiment. So here is what you currently have:
"MacPro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1) - 2x3.46 GHz X5690 Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 128Gb Ram, Sapphire Radeon Nitro+ RX 580 8GB, 1TB Samsung NVMe M2 970 Evo"
And here is what you plan to upgrade to:
"If I were to upgrade, the Mac Studio I would choose the 20-Core M1 Ultra/64-Core GPU/128GB/1TB model."
1. Same 128GB RAM and 1TB SSD capacities but higher throughput in the replacement machine.
2. More CPU cores with much faster single thread and parallel processing
3. M1 Ultra GPU with equivalent performance of overclocked Radeon RX 6600XT*. RX 6600XT is about 2X the performance of Radeon RX 580.
Bite the bullet now or wait for next year? If I were you, I would check:
a. is my workflow bottle necked by RAM and SSD throughput?
b. is it bottle necked by CPU performance? and/or
c. is it bottle necked by GPU performance?
If you're severely bottle necked by one of the above, you're going to see huge benefit in the upgrade. Otherwise, surely you will get a faster machine. But more productive output? Perhaps..
*Based on GB5 metal scores. I'm aware some ppl said the benchmark not fair to Apple GPU and blah. From the same metal score list, M1 Max GPU is about Radeon RX5700 XT. M1 Pro GPU is about Radeon RX580. M1 GPU is about Radeon RX560.
Moved to a maxed out spec 16” M1 Max from my 12 core Max Pro 5,1 with 128gb ram/rx580. The new M1 machine blows away the older Mac Pro. I would never go back
Just a quick update. I have yet to order after hearing about the possibly that there might be an issue with the buffer within the M1 Ultra chip that could be the probable cause of scaling performance issues. SEE VIDEO. In other words Apple hadn't really put into account of scaling the cache/buffer with the CPU/GPU cores is from what I understand. What do ya'll think?
eGPU is far inferior to even PCIE2 16 lanes. GB5 metal test of cMP5,1 with RX-580 is better than 2018 MacMini maxed out with 5700 eGPU.
The point is no M-class product can work with eGPU and no indication from Apple there will ever be support for standard GPU on the AS product line. Unless Apple suddenly changes course with macOS 13, if you want to run an AMD GPU, you need an Intel Mac. There will be an end of the road eventually and it seems that time is coming sooner than most expected.
Depends on what you mean by "blows away"...
I put an RX-6800XT in my cMP, and the benchmarks easily decimate the 20 core Ultra Mac Studio. If you keep following my posts in that thread, I post more benchmarks, and even when I ran them in Windows on my machine, I was able to score 167,594 (again, easily stomping the **** out of the Ultra Mac Studio)!
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