As long as you don't want to use external GPUs to "run a monitor" or "play a game", I expect Apple might support external GPUs for other hardware acceleration or special workloads.
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Apple's 2025 M4 Mac Pro: What to Expect
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Speaking as someone who works in film and television and has used cards like the ones you mentioned over many years…
You typically don’t need video capture cards AND audio I/O boards in the same machine, since ingest/edit is separated from audio mixing. On a television show/movie, your editor is not ALSO your sound mixer. And if you’re working on a solo passionate project, you can do plenty of mixing or editing without those cards. Anyway, point is… You don’t need a capture card AND an audio I/O card for something like ProTools in a professional environment.
For super fast storage, you’ll always do better with a large external RAID (particularly in a shared user environment). And/or working with proxy media. Having super fast storage cards (which still won’t hold all your full-res media because they’re lower capacity than a RAID) isn’t that useful in a professional setting.
The Apple Silicon chips have built-in hardware decoding for video codecs. Remember how the Intel Mac Pro had an Accelerator card? Those are no longer necessary with Apple Silicon. There’s a reason why Apple doesn’t offer the Accelerator card for its Apple Silicon Mac Pro anymore.
As for high-speed network cards… or video cards… or audio I/O cards… These can all be put into external Thunderbolt enclosures attached to a Mac Studio.
And the Mac Studio is currently just as powerful as the Mac Pro. And cheaper.
And that’s the fundamental problem.
There’s nothing special about the Mac Pro. Sure, maybe having the convenience of PCIe cards in the machine rather than using a Thunderbolt PCIe enclosure is nice… But you’re not gonna need that many cards in a professional environment. Not anymore.
Maaaaybe if Apple allowed for compatibility with high-end GPU’s that might change things. But I don’t see that happening.
Fundamentally, Apple didn’t know what to do with the Mac Pro. So they stuck a Mac Pro in an oversized enclosure from 2019 and called it a day.
They should do better. Offer more power. And allow for GPU support for extra speed… Which would occupy at least one PCIe slot when I might ALSO need a high speed network card and a capture card. Then, suddenly, I need multiple PCIe slots.
But right now, a Mac Studio with an external Thunderbolt PCIe enclosure is just as capable and far cheaper.
People keep expecting 50% performance increases across the board; and generally, keep being disappointed.
I suspect "the plan" was that the Mac Pro would ship with the M* Quadra (4x M* Max)... but they couldn't get that out the door... so here we are.
I am not sure how much the Mac Pro brings if it does not support extension cards. Part of the speed of current Mac series is linked to the very compact CPU + Memories concept that allows for incredible bandwidth - at the cost of a loss of flexibility/upgradability.
I’m not in the target audience for this, but I always thought that they should have incentivized some measure of modularity for Mac Pro users to either make it easy to swap out CPUs to the newest M series or even having something like dual CPUs (same make and configuration) that would increase processing. Like having two Ultras to make an “Extreme” or whatever. That was always my quiet assumption that left me wondering whether it was a nut Apple hadn’t cracked yet.
It would be nice to have Mac Pro that could do more from hardware and OS point of view. Apple can work on that.
But third party companies also need to spend money developing features. That is expensive and there are no guarantees Mac Pro platform will exist in 5 years.
In the PC + Linux/Windows ecosystem there is quite good backwards and forwards compatibility story. Nvidia GPUs have been around for something like 30 years? Nvidia CUDA maybe 15 years? (copied numbers quickly from Wikipedia.) You can probably trust these to be around in some form for 20+ years. It is a safe investment to build those and to build on top of those.
Some custom MacPro PCI accelerator card, software framework to use it, applications to use software framework… not so safe investment.
But third party companies also need to spend money developing features. That is expensive and there are no guarantees Mac Pro platform will exist in 5 years.
In the PC + Linux/Windows ecosystem there is quite good backwards and forwards compatibility story. Nvidia GPUs have been around for something like 30 years? Nvidia CUDA maybe 15 years? (copied numbers quickly from Wikipedia.) You can probably trust these to be around in some form for 20+ years. It is a safe investment to build those and to build on top of those.
Some custom MacPro PCI accelerator card, software framework to use it, applications to use software framework… not so safe investment.
Not many comments on the name - Hidra - which might well offer some clues.
How did they get to that name?
Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications?
Italian ceramic company?
Norwegian island?
A spelling of Hydra, the many-headed beast of myth defeated by Heracles?
The aquatic animal with multiple tentacles?
Greek island which enchanted Leonard Cohen?
A part of Jerome, Idaho?
A novel acronym?
And what interpretation can we put on it?
Take your choice - clearly I don't know. But someone reading just might come up with an interesting take on the name.
Absent "interesting", maybe "amusing"?
Really those kinds of un-informed, teenager type comments really do not even deserve you attention. I mean google PCIe add-on cards for crying out loud and then comment something....
There's also been the issue with the Mac Pro that they never had a proper roadmap for these machines. Even 15 years ago when visiting this forum there never was any certainty as to when the next hardware update was to come out and what it would be like. Or even if there'd be any new machine in this category all.
Without knowing the product will stay around and that updates can be expected to more or less stay the same just faster/better - how can you invest in these for a business?
This should have just stayed an expandable machine in a tower case, like the 2012 and earlier models were. Not a pivot to the trashcan-this, the iMac Pro-that, back to the fully expandable tower - and now just a studio but with PCI slots. Next time round - who knows what shape it will be in. Maybe just a headset with a PCI slot box attached via cable?
I think they need to put a different type of chip in these, one that doesn't really care about power consumption so the thing can take off like a rocket. I know the Ultra has this to a degree, but I think they could get more out of it.
I'm also suprised that you couldn't buy an additonal Ultra card so you could pop it into the MP for more processing and memory.
I'm also suprised that you couldn't buy an additonal Ultra card so you could pop it into the MP for more processing and memory.
Apple should Think Different (ask your Dad) and revert the Mac Pro to Intel.
Wrong. Apple lowers the price per gigaflop of computing power with each new generation. Those for whom increased power is not of sufficient value need not buy.
What I want is a MacBook Air 15" with pro-motion display like in my MacBook Pro with 16GB Ram and 512 GB storage for under 1400$ including taxes. I assume that many more would go for a Mac with that price range. Otherwise I can just hold on to my 14" M1Pro until it die or become obsolete.
They should make the mac pro on a board, and make it so you can just insert more boards for more power. Make the chassis one giant psu and bus that takes 1-8 m4 processor soc boards. Make a board as well that can take 8 nvme drives for uogradeable shared storage, and either build in or make a board for the pci adaptors as well.
While theyre at it add in 1 or 2 nvme internal enclosures to the mac studio
Jobs a good un
While theyre at it add in 1 or 2 nvme internal enclosures to the mac studio
Jobs a good un
I miss the days when you were allowed to buy cheaper ram and drives and swap them with the G towers Good days on MemoryX.com
Good days on MemoryX.com
The current edition is a placeholder. The 2019 form factor will still be in place in 2029. SoW (System-on-Wafer) is now officially a thing, and the announcement coming now (yesterday), stating it is already in production, points to Apple-TSMC.
Gurman has placed all of his eggs in the “no M3 Max local silicon interconnect = no M3 Ultra” basket. Apple should clarify the fate of the M3 Ultra at WWDC, and there’s a non-zero chance he is wrong. You might even say a good chance. I don’t know.
Gurman has placed all of his eggs in the “no M3 Max local silicon interconnect = no M3 Ultra” basket. Apple should clarify the fate of the M3 Ultra at WWDC, and there’s a non-zero chance he is wrong. You might even say a good chance. I don’t know.
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AMD Threadrippers and Epycs would be a better choice, imo.
Up to 96 core, state of the art chiplet design.
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