I spent $8K on the M2 Ultra Mac Pro even though it's DUMB
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2024
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Apple finally launched a new Mac Pro with Apple Silicon, completing the transition that began 3 years ago at WWDC 2020. The new Mac Pro is faster in its $7,000 base model than the previous $50,000 fully specced model, yet I still think it's a fundamentally flawed, and unnecessary product. The new Mac Pro misses the mark significantly, and in my opinion kills the Mac Pro category entirely. I get that it's 'not for me' but Apple seems to have made a product that's not for... anyone? Let's see how the new Mac Pro vs Mac Studio compares and test out that M2 Ultra chip!
time stamps:
0:00 This is so weird
0:59 Wonderful unboxing
2:18 Internals are nice but silly
4:52 Performance test
6:02 Thermals vs Mac Studio...
7:22 Strange performance results
8:40 M2 Mac Pro is fundamentally bad
9:35 The old Mac Pro was better
11:48 2019 Mac Pro had terrible timing
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#mac #apple #m2 #macpro - Наука та технологія
I would like to see you try slotting in random PCIE card around the studio to see what works and what doesn't, and also stress the limited PCIE bandwidth?
He did an entire Mac Pro review and didn't test a single PCIe card? That's the dumb part.
It’s not hard to tell what works with Mac and what doesn’t.. it’s not just a matter of tossing some random pcie card and seeing if it works.. look up what a kext is..
@@AwesomeMcCoolGuy whats a "next". Impossible to google as it's such a common word
Edit: he edited his comment. Used to say “next”
@@htko89kext with a k, it’s macOS driver files
I think he needed to stretch a little and talk about specific PCIE cards for this machine. Maybe make some phone calls to audio producers/engineers to see the kinds of things they might use this for.
I have a theory as to why this Mac Pro is really weird. I think that Apple wanted to be really ambitious with the Mac Pro with Apple silicon, and then failed, and so rushed this one out. Remember in 2022 we got a leak from Gurman that Apple had an M1 ‘Extreme’ (we didn’t know it would be called Ultra then), but then they canceled it for some reason? I assume they canceled it because they wanted something more than an M1 ultra in a massive enclosure, and they wanted it so badly that they would miss their transition deadline to make it. Remember how we got a leak about a 2 or 3 months ago that there was a “Mac Compute Module” found in like the code of either Xcode or the beta of Ventura? I think they wanted an expandable Mac Pro with modules that they could swap in and out depending on what you wanted, maybe with their own custom interlink to get past the limits of PCIe. But that’s obviously not what we got. I think they just gave up on that idea and just to get a Mac Pro out so they could stop selling Intel they put this out. I could see it maybe coming at some point (?) but now that they’ve already defined what a Mac Pro is with Apple Silicon I don’t really see them going back on this.
And for those who say “you don’t know who this is for”, yeah I don’t, and Apple doesn’t either. Apple’s failures to update their Pro devices has made many Audio engineers switch to Windows or Linux, it’s “worse” at 3D rendering, seeing as while the 2019 Mac Pro maxed out at 128GB of VRAM, the 192GB of unified memory seems nice, until you realize that the 2019 could max out to 1.5TB of RAM. And a 2023 Mac Pro with a 12th gen Intel Core + RDNA 3 graphics (or in an alternate universe Nvidia) would probably be able to outperform this one in video rendering projects that don’t include ProRes.
I’m not an Apple silicon hater, quite the opposite, but if they spend 3 years working on this machine, and ended the transition with this whimper of a product, I think we have the right to be a bit annoyed when it can barely beat a product that came out four years ago.
It was meant to be a Stopgap Mac Pro now because they were unable to hit timelines with their current R&D (and, ironic for a trillion-dollar company, they aren't willing to spend more time and money but hey.) Tim Cook greenlit this just to get rid of the Intel, spiritually completing the "transition" to Apple silicon.
It was indeed meant for a massive SoC (hence the cancelled "M2 Extreme") and a secondary hardware interface for external DDR memory sticks.
@@Jan-xf8sk but I don’t see them releasing this “Mac Pro X” or whatever the project name is because they already defined what the Mac Pro is. It’s just a big Mac Studio with PCIe expansion. If this was just the stop gap they would’ve told us, just like they did with the iMac Pro when they apologized to the Pro customers for stalling for so long on the trashcan.
I think this is the future of the Mac Pro, and it’s reflected in the price. It’s $1000 more expensive despite the cost (with inflation) being cheaper to make than the 2019 one. That’s because they know they’re going to sell less of them so they’re not producing as much, hence making it more expensive. They know the Mac Pro isn’t going to be the *it* machine like the Power Mac G5 was or the 2006 cheesegrater was. It’s a Mac Studio that’s going to be here for as long as these legacy applications require specific PCIE expansion cards.
I just wished they spent the RND on making an iMac Pro or a thick 17/18” MacBook Ultra with an M2 Ultra inside.
@@Jan-xf8sk more money doesn't always make things go faster. Very often, it makes it go slower. We know as an industry that "adding more people to a late project makes it later." (Mythical Man Month; Fred Brooks; 1975)
Apple did the right thing here. They're meeting the needs of their production studio market while they work on a better solution. It's not the game changer that the Mac Pro *should* be, but that simply isn't possible yet. Better to wait and release that product when it's ready (at which point everyone will forget about the old one) rather than rushing it to market and tanking their goodwill.
@@Jan-xf8sk I really wish people would stop using the term "stopgap". It is what it is. It's not a stopgap, it's just dumb. They have had years to make something better, and no one forced Apple to release this dumb thing... they just don't care about the Mac Pro very much anymore. There's nothing better around the corner. They're never going back to expandable RAM or GPUs.
They still have a chance to make the M3 Extreme with 4 m3 chips connected
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Do you think Guillermo Del Toro wound up making a movie like The Shape of Water because he likely hears and/or thinks about gills way more often than most other people?
At this point, the refusal to redesign the Magic Mouse despite continuing to bundle it with even their most expensive computers is mind boggling. if they won't make a new mouse at least give us the trackpad as standard instead.
They're not redesigning it because it's fine the way it is. People getting bent out of shape because of the way it charges is pretty silly considering it charges fast and you don't need to do it that often.
You can just pick to get the trackpad when you order it. I've always done that
I'm guessing they are saving a new mouse for the "End of Lightning" era when they take it off the iPhone and everything else.
The magic mouse is literally the worst mouse I have ever used.
@@scottbirkinshaw2009 You’re lucky. I had to use an Apple hockey puck for a year.
Luke never fails to spend too much money for our delight.
he just buys stuff to return within 14 days lol
@@wazitSomethingISaidlmfao most likely
@@wazitSomethingISaid Based
You know he can just return it after right?
@@wazitSomethingISaid Like most youtubers.
As a studio owner for me the Mac Pro makes no sense but as a live audio engineer it it the prefect solution, for me. Because you need redundancy and PCI is faster and provides lower audio latency than even thunderbolt for things like networked audio with protocols like MADI. Plus it will be used outside where temps in the summer can reach above 100 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit so running those big fans will help keep it cool along with the PCI cards. Dual 10 gig networking is nice for redundant DANTE or AVB audio. My only gripe is I would like a way to Node them together like we could in the old days and use 2 of them in redundancy or one as a server and the other as the control machine. But yea I can see the groups of people that would use this and need it over the Mac Studio but it is a very professional segment that doesn't want 5 eGPU boxes hooked up by cables just to use the cards they need. But for a recording studio its overkill unless you are scoring film and television.
I literally just read Studio owners saying they are buying the 2023 Mac Pro because it allows them to use storage cards as they are too noisy using external.
I think it does make sense for recording studios needing a lot of SSD storage for massive sample libraries. You can put a huge amount of storage in a Mac Pro, and eliminate all of those little Thunderbolt boxes with their noisy fans, and get much faster SSD storage more cheaply. There's also space on top for two 3.5" mechanical drives, for cheap, long-term storage (using a Sonnet Fusion carrier).
@@vlcthefish I'm not saying every studio owner doesn't need it because like I said at the end the scoring houses will most likely want them. But I can see where it would be used in my live audio business and be the best option over the Mac Studio. For me it would be a better option for live work, but some studios will see the benefit with DSP cards for Avid's Pro Tools HDX and storage and so on.
@@vlcthefish yes, they did say that......Just let them be. And when you see them on the streets in a few years, drop them a dollar or two so that they can buy a beer.
Yes, there is certainly a market for users who prefer internal expansion. But that still doesn't justify Apple charging an extra $3000 for this form factor. Apple has gotten so greedy to the point they're literally stabbing audio engineers on the back with this Mac Pro and its outrageous pricetag. I really feel sorry for the people who need this Mac Pro, knowing they're being nickeled and dimed by Apple just because they wanted to keep their workflow.
Spot on comparing it to the classic Mac Pro. I would pick up a 7,1 Pro over the M2 version in a heartbeat. If my 5,1 ever dies, that is. Love that thing.
@@nebylicza im watch this on my 3.1 which is still working. I bought it in 2008, with screen for 2800 euro. its got ssds in it now and the DVD doesnt work. Upgraded the ram, changed the video card because the old one gave up... It actually good still for web use, editing pictures in lightroom and video editing of HD. its now 15 years old. So at least it paid for itself. Love the look of it as well. It now serves as my Video editing server with a range of ssd'd on it serving my files for editng on a macbook pro 2017, that is absolutely fine for editing 4K. Ive just noticed that some software doesnt work on it now as the mac os is too old, sometimes there are work arounds. back in 2008 this thing was incredible.
I'm probably gonna buy a 4,1 and upgrade it.
This was rumored to be configurable with the M2 Extreme (essentially 2 m2 ultras) , but for reasons not stated they ditched that and left this product in such a awkward state.
That would've made sense and cost a fortune!
M2 Extreme is just 4 M2 Maxes/2 M2 Ultras fused into one chip but they really ditched it because it scaled badly, went up more expensive for R&D (relative to company's timeframes) and had other aspects of that planned SoC that won't make it to their target timeline. So they have to "spiritually" complete the transition from Intel so bad, they used the available M2 Ultra instead, even if this Mac Pro M2 ended up with woeful amounts of empty space on a large PCB (together with the deletion of memory and MPX module slots)
ah! let's believe your rumor!
@@Carbon_Fiber there are many things that cannot be upgraded in this planet.
It’s not as crazy as you think… if you get a Mac Studio w/ 8TB of storage, your in spitting distance of the price of a base Mac Pro. At that point I’d rather pick the Mac Pro because not only can I get 8TB of ssd storage for a cheap price, but if I wanna make a 16, 32, 64TB Mac Pro then that’s possible down the road. External storage on the Mac Studio has glitches and isn’t the same as using a PCie slot. (I use OWC’s external m.2 ssd raid setup and there comes downsides with it)
What type of downsides are you talking about? Can you be more specific?
I didn't know you were a tech guy!
"External storage on the Mac Studio has glitches and isn’t the same as using a PCie slot." You need to qualify this ridiculous statement. You may have issues with your specific external RAID storage, but that is obviously not a blanket problem with Mac Studios (it isn't with any of my externals) - otherwise we would be hearing a LOT about it from users.
Wait you can have 64 tb of ssd in a mac pro ?
PCI E cards for low latency audio recording with multiple instruments is the reason I went with the Mac Pro. I would have gladly went with the Mac Studio but I was experiencing audio drop outs and hiccups using MADI and a sonnet PCI E box before. This is just my own experience though.
For now, there's no drivers for popular audio interfaces I think?
@@pig1800 There are drivers for RME HDSPE MADI FX which is what I use.
Wow I just run a MacBook Pro M1 with a thunderbolt Antelope Orion studio and it’s such a solid setup I ditched the desktop. I haven’t been able to top it out yet and I do punish it. Granted I don’t need pcie cards which would change things a lot. But normally I run with about 1ms latency, which is quite acceptable to me.
For tracking, I can generally get as low as 0.2ms
@@chrisshelswell3222 That's cool. How many instruments do you track in at a time in a session? I run a first gen antelope Orion 32 along with the MP32 preamp module that I really didn't want to replace. I track in multiple analog instruments at the same time vs tracking one at a time. I can sometimes track in all 32 inputs within a session.
@@djbriankage hey - I also tend to track external instruments but not quite as many as you. I'm more an electronic producer often it's just one at a time. But I tend to load tracks up with FX etc Slate Digital quite heavily and Soundtoys. Never had an issue with overall track count which can really get out of hand for me as I like to layer a lot! Obviously I get along better when I'm using the Thunderbolt cable but I've never really had any issues with USB either.
This thing could have easily come out in june 2022 with the first studio
I really feel like Apple 'ran out of time' with the 'real' Mac Pro and lazily put this rushed version out just to complete the transition while not really delivering the best product they could have for this higher end professional market. Lot will be disappointed by lack of upgradability and out dated Intel design.
@@julianperry4767 I even think this Mac Pro is what Apple had in mind. I predict, in 18 months there is already a new one on the market.
@@julianperry4767 That really isn't how it works, dude.
«Is»
The first studio struggled to give 2 times the GPU performance and didn't use the extra media engines
I love the drama when you slammed the mac studio on the desk and the pan / reframing. Your channel is my go to for "no BS" mac info. Thanks Luke!
I might have specified it for the post-production facility I ran (where I bought Classic Mac Pros). Avid probably has a daughtercard right now for the 2023 Mac Pro. I know that ATTO has a Fibre Channel card for it. Then there is this: There is this thing in the software that says processor module and the animation I saw at the WWDC showed the CPU animating into the box. So when Apple comes up with the M3 3nm SOC, one may be able to upgrade this one. And we will not know that until Apple releases the M3. This system also comes in a 19” EIA rack mount version, which is what I would specify for a facility. We put rack-mounted Macs in closets with refrigeration-style cooling that, together with the internal fans, would keep the CPU below 40 Celsius. All other cards would be equal.
You are right: There is a small percentage of users who need this system. But I have been one of those who would specify it.
Here's a hot tip for you: We used to do this with Mac Pro's, but now we've completely moved to M2 Mac Studio's in Sonnet xMac Studio cases with the Echo III module for three PCI-E slots, which we run Blackmagic DeckLink, AVID HDX Core and other similar cards. Far cheaper, has zero performance drop, fits into 3U of space and if you need more you can just get another 2U thing that holds 2 more modules (you can even fit an entire M2 Pro Mac Mini in a module.) Meets feature parity with Mac Pro, saves us a ton of room and has been a massive improvement in our workflow. Seems that Mac Studio is here to stay as well which is VERY nice.
@@kamranhayden5866 Glad to see Sonnet still out there taking Mac rigs seriously - that's a nice rack unit for the Mac Studio. I must say however, Apple has done themselves a disservice by colloqializing the term "Pro" into so many products (there is nothing Pro about AirPods for example). The result is that an actual Professional product gets reviews like this that completely ignore professional use cases, and scream failure. It baffles me that he even acknowledged that people would say this, yet he didn't bother to step out of myopic UA-camr-mode to speak with actual professionals in specialized industries. There are people who will buy this because it meets needs that the Mac Studio doesn't. And $3K, or $10K is literally nothing in terms of equipment budgets. We used to do $250K upgrades every 3-5 years in a very small post house. Modern production tech is cheap in comparison, even at the high-end.
Part of me suspects that Apple rushed this design so they could say they completed their transition away from Intel. I would be looking for a redesign within the next 3-5 years. It would be neat if they designed the logic board (is this even possible?) so that you could upgrade the SoC. So after three years you could upgrade from the M5 ultra to the M8 ultra. Get longer life out of your housing, but Apple still has an income stream from selling upgrades, because you know those things won't be available anywhere else.
100% they needed to get off Intel and just released this.
In the dim and distant past (the mid nineties), Apple did sell logic board upgrades - the whole board, not just the CPU, though there were upgrades for those from third parties (and perhaps from Apple) as well. However, as much as I like Apple stuff - I'm typing this on an M1 MacBook Air, which is great - they weren't very popular, because, as with SSD and memory upgrades today, Apple charged an arm and a leg for the upgrade.
I'm not and probably never will be in the market for any Mac Pro, but I kind of hope they do release logic board upgrades for this machine - preferably not costing an arm and a leg, but they probably will, if they come out at all - because it would be great if in one or two years (I think Marques Brownlee predicted two years) they figure out how to make a RAM-expandable Apple Silicon Mac Pro, and allow buyers of this one (if there are any!) to upgrade to it by just switching out the 'board.
And I fear that if there aren't any buyers, they'll just can the Mac Pro rather than fix the problems with this one.
@@jeffreyjoshuarollin9554 yeah, I had a 2012 cheese grater from 2016-2020 and upgraded the cpu. I remember the cost to replace the logic board (I had a single cpu and wanted double) was crazy expensive, even 8 years on. It would’ve been cheaper to just buy another Mac Pro.
I saw a comment on another video where a guy was saying that he was an audio engineer and that he was super excited for the new Mac Pro. And then immediately followed that up by saying that anyone who isn’t an audio engineer has no reason to buy it
This doesn’t make sense for most people, but for others, such as music and tv studios, the pcie it is essential…kinda annoys me people think it’s pointless because it isn’t for them!
I understand what your point is. And is true. We need that machine just because we need the I/O (PCI) for legacy hardware and for equipment that have more bandwidth requirements, this is common on recording a post production studios, Audio post production, video postproduction, film digitalization, and many more applications. There are tons of expensive equipment in PCI format you can't not leave because there's no alternative. A very good example of this is Show automation on big spectacles.
I am eager to see if the pull off the “extreme” chip in the m3 generation. That might make this a compelling upgrade over the studio. They also need more PCIe bandwidth rather than what seems like a bifurcation setup in a rig at even half this price.
That is exactly what I was thinking when they released this thing. Clearly something went wrong in the eleventh hour but they were already late with the promise to be all Apple Silicone within 2 years. I am guessing the M3 update in summer of 2024 will give more reasons for this to exist. Hopefully with upgradable ram, storage, and GPU. If not, then I have no clue what Apple is thinking.
If you purchase a 3 slot Avid HDX chassis ($999) the price difference is only $2k - which for me adding more PCI NVMe drives and internal Spinning SATA storage, might be worth it.
Yea you pretty much nailed it. Only thing worth mentioning that I’ve noticed almost nobody is talking about is that you don’t even need the PCIe slots inside this machine unless you require ultra fast NVMEs with 10,000 MB/s read/write. The external Thunderbolt 3 PCI chassis you can buy and connect to a Mac Studio are fast enough for just about everything else, rendering this machine even more pointless. And that’s coming from an owner of a Mac Pro 4,1 for 14 years.
Like many comments here have already stated: Those PCIE card bays are the reason for this machine to exist because they are a must for serious music studios, tv-studios etc. This is why the previous PRO was built and it is still in good use today. There are still soooo many special demands by pro environments. This a machine is to fill those needs. The idea that you would actually need this for your home is borderline insane. This is not meant for that. This is for mission critical uses. I fail to see how hard it is to understand.
Was looking for this comment and trust me, I had to search reeeeal hard lol
there's a history of UA-camrs not getting this with the Pro line, I think because they edit videos and are a 'pro' so to speak they think they can speak for everyone, but as you've pointed out it's not true. That space inside for fast and quiet and customisable storage in of itself is a huge deal when you look at the price of quality and quiet external boxes. I remember UA-cam 'pros' getting hyperbolic about a 10 second performance increase on the latest iMac etc and acting like they couldn't live without it for their UA-cam video editing. At the time I was happily cutting, grading and doing VFX on a feature film on a trash can Mac. I thought god if bought one of those things and I take a longer than average dump my multiple thousand dollar performance increase is wiped out.
Get the exact same thing in a windows machine for 70% cheaper
I would like to see some tests with pci-e SSDs. Speed, limitations, pci-e lanes etc etc. Does it make any sense to create a VM (ubuntu server or something similar) with dedicated storage and use it as a NAS?
Yes, I too have one coming. I went with 128 RAM and with 2TB internal, the fast chip set. My reasoning was 1 - it didn't need to be portable. 2 - I needed to purchase a Blackmagic 12G extreme which externally would cost $3250. The internal PCI $1000. There is some memory expandability and last but not least was 8 Thunderbolt 4 connects. I have to say though there is that part of me that wonders if I made the right choice. Ultimately probably correct. Thanks for the video
Not being able to use powerful video cards in the PCIe slots or RAID cards makes it a hard sell to enterprise customers.
There are a lot of needs for this in Audio production as mentioned and for video production not mentioned for capture/output a smaller unit with a few PCIe slots in more of a Mac Studio form factor would be nice but there are plenty of professionals that will max out the slots in this. To say it has less upgradeability then the trash can pro is a bit ridiculous considering the lack of PCIe expansion in that computer.
agree. i don't need it, but digital techs who ingest video feeds via Blackmagic or Avid pcie cards will be happy. the real story that is being overlooked is that Apple has actually offered professionals (that don't need pcie expansion) a Mac Pro w/o pcie at an extreme discount...in the form or a Mac Studio.
I would like to see how the Ultra Mac Pro would fair against a Intel Xeon W-3400 paired with a RTX 4090 or RTX 6000. I suspect the price-to-performance ratio of the Intel based machine would be crushing and the raw performance significantly better as well. The reality is Apple Silicon is without equal in portable computing. And, it works really well for video editors (because of the architecture of Apple silicon). But, for other professional work flows, you're simply going to get better performance from an Intel and/or AMD system today, and it's not really close.
I AGREE! I originally bought a Mac because I like MacOS, but I had so much software originally on Windows. In 2006 I bought an iMac knowing I could run Windows and MacOS. It was a way to ease into Mac without having to buy all my software over again. Over the years I loved the Mac as a swiss army knife machine when it came to operating systems and multiple workflows. Especially as an IT Major student in the unibody days! The swiss army knife days are OVER! VMs aren't quite there and there is no native support for other operating systems. If you have professional applications that are Windows only a new Mac may not be for you and if your not a UA-camr giving good PR apple doesn't seem to care!
there is the issue with cost of ownership though. i love mac OS, but have to also use a Windows machine to run Unreal Engine with Nvidia graphics. it makes me sick to see the effect the Windows machine has on my electric bill. it's not just the machine, it's how much i have to use the air conditioning because of the heat output. ugh....how can Apple not figure out raytracing??????
@@darinmurano ..because Apple has not cared for graphics as long as they have been in business. 3D software has not been much over the time Apple has even existed. Yes there has been some 3D software that have worked on Mac..(back in the day) Electric Image, Cinema4D but...They have shunned this and now just maybe now they might compete. Look how long Apple has been sitting on their asses. No one really wants to write for Mac because they do not make money on Mac. Only the Studios run Render Farms and still the PC can do what Apple now wants now to achieve. I love the Mac OS and this same conversation has been going on since around 97 when Power Computing and Umax was offering a better machine than Apple. Same shit different day...
@@OneFlewOver1776 i hear ya, but it's come to the point now that the need for ray traced graphics is critical for filmmaking as well as gaming. if Apple doesn't get on board, they'll be leaving a lot on the table
@@darinmurano They always have...
Another thing, here... Some people are saying "wait for the M3 machine." We have NO idea when that might arrive. The last Mac Pro upgrade was four years ago. Considering that in four years, this machine will still be worth something if you sell it, spending $2k or less a year is not a big deal if it's being used professionally. I run a recording studio. In 1990, I spent about $45k for a Sony APR-24 24 track analog tape deck (that's the equivalent of over $100k today). I only used that machine for several years before it was replaced with a large ProTools rig, and I think I sold it for about $6k (so, a huge financial loss). A 2023 Mac Pro will do things I couldn't dream of doing with that $100k tape deck (that also needed a TON of additional equipment hooked up to it to be able to do anything). The concept of what's "A LOT" of money has sure changed over the years. ;)
Luke, you said it yourself: Audio engineers need PCIE, also it’s the same reason the Mac Pro ships in rack format.
It's not inexplainable, they configured the firmware to run the CPU at a higher thermal limit. I imagine they could do the same with the Studio Ultra.
That's what I was thinking. It's about the software that's controlling the speed of the fans.
You did a good job of explaning the new Mac Pro. Expandability is great, just not at $3000 extra. For that amount of money, it should come with upgradability as well. If it was 500-1000 bucks more than the Mac Studio, it could've been much more competitive.
Agree! And I think the main reason for That High price is the low expected volume. It's a low-volume product. So they need much higher profit margin. Maybe that's also why the replacement storage is that expensive.
This is maybe the worst PRO Mac ever made! I remember the history of PRO Macs, trying to mention as many as possible...
IIfx
Quadra 950
Quadra 840AV
PowerMac 8100 (1994)
PowerMac 9500 (1995)
PowerMac 9600
PowerMac G3 Beige Tower (1997)
PowerMac G3 Blue & White (1999)
PowerMac G4 Sawtooth (1999)
PowerMac G4 Gigabit (july 2000)
PowerMac G4 Jan 2001
PowerMac G4 July 2001
PowerMac G4 MDD
PowerMac G5 (2003)
Mac Pro 2006-2012
Mac Pro Trashcan 2013
Mac Pro Who-can-afford-it 2019
And now Mac Pro "Even-fewer-can-afford-it" 2023.
Just look at the PRO Macs. You could always buy a pretty cheap base model and do some upgrades later on when you need or want. You could spread out the cost.
Now you have to configure your Mac as "overkill" for futureproofing. Way too much RAM and SSD now at a crazy high price. The prices will always go down over the years. Apple will not let it wait to upgrade RAM later at a lower price and also from another company. I know that Unified Memory instead of classic RAM got advantages but at what cost?
Mac Pro 2023 is not how a Mac Pro should be.
The main problem is that a SoC is not a flexible architecture. I mean, they put CPU, GPU and RAM together in one single chip! So the RAM upgrade options is the bare minimum now or a little bit more than that.
This "Apple Silicon platform" starts with iPhone: the A chips. On Macs it's the M chips. For iPhones it's not a problem. But for PRO Macs it's a problem and still not solved. Mac Pro 2023 is not a solution. Mac Pro 2023 is just a "better than nothing" product and Apple hopes that at least some customers gonna buy it.
I hope that Apple can release a better product! Or at least an external storage solution (SSDs) for Mac Studio.
It's never wrong to make profit from a business, you need to make profit. But in Apple's case is a crazy "profit chasing" when Apple wanna monopolize both the storage market and RAM market for Macs...
Thanks for sharing. Wasn't planning to buy one, but it was nice to get your take on it.
01:28 New drinking game: every time Luke says "that is a BIG boy" in a video, must do a a shot.
Aside from a use for the PCI slots (which I assume is coming), upgradeable memory is a huge miss with this new Mac Pro. There are users (such as myself) that require large amounts of ram. My 2019 MP has 512GB, ram and I manage to use most of it in running my scientific computing workloads.
The whole M-series is founded on the principle that RAM is a part of the SoC.
If you added ram sticks to the equation, it would just provide a rather fast storage for a swapfile.
@@Alwarin1 Yes am aware of this. DDRAM has a latency of ~14ns; presumably the M-series approach leads to lower latency RAM, They may also have a simplified cache architecture, avoiding the necessity of multiple tiers due to the latency to RAM.
Regardless, it does not address the issue of users on the 2019 MP with very high memory requirements. A swap file is a couple of orders of magnitude slower than dram.. I am not talking about applications or environments with many apps open where the actual memory working set is much smaller, rather computations with actively using memory across 100s of GBs. While Xeon processors in the MP are slow by current standards, they were able to rather efficiently navigate high core, high memory applications.
sadly the pci slots in this machine all have to share the bandwidth compared to the previous Intel version. Also not compatible are the previous pci slot based mass ssd storage cards
@@tr8d3r What ARM system has user upgradeable RAM? Isn't it a limitation of the architecture?
This will still sell enough thanks to institutional sales, especially in university labs where the Mac Studio would be easier to steal and where the PCIe slots will likely find some use. After all, the 2019 MP was still selling surprisingly well recently and outselling the M1 Mac Studio(!), most likely thanks to institutional purchase orders. As others have pointed out elsewhere, Apple released this as a stopgap measure intended on meeting the needs of professionals who are still, for the time being, making use of software in Apple’s ecosystem but who need more low-latency internal connectivity for expansion cards.
So, certainly a dumb purchase for the “prosumer,” but not so much for the high-end digital art/music studio and the university. And now the rest of us has a perfectly-good, much lower cost option in the M2 Mac Studio. (And, let’s face it, a good chuck of power users could get by just fine with an M2 Max Mac Studio, let alone the Ultra model.)
Still in love with my Mac Pro 2019, the best computer I ever had I upgrade the CPU and put tons of PCIE slots that I really really love to because I’m an audio guy, still my 24 core upgraded CPU will have some years ahead of great work before I switch to Apple Silicon. And it was only $700 for CPU last year where I found one on eBay.
Crazy, might have to buy Mac Pro 2019 in the future
Excellent video explanation!
It comes down to being a $3000 PCIe enclosure, but with somewhat lower latency than Thunderbolt, and no need to take up your thunderbolt ports. It is probably also not much bigger, and certainly cleaner than running 6 slots of enclosures.
The Mac Pro isn't needed for 99% of Mac users (myself included), but the ones that need it are important, since moving the big iron in studios and the like off Mac would probably mean a lot of the other machines would follow. That and the developers start deprioritizing Mac. So it is a very niche, but still important, system.
Luke I agree with it’s a niche product, but you need this particular niches to still have market share in other segments. In use cases in which latency can get an issue, this thing is clearly the winner for Apple and their pro customers. When it comes to bandwidth it almost doesn’t matter thanks to thunderbolt nowadays. But latency critical environments, in which you want to reduce every ms or even ns you need specific cards. Broadcasting for example. Then there are other use cases in which you need to connect to special external racks or devices connected to your pci express card. This market is not as small as you might think. Millions of workstations are getting sold to these specific area. I have friends in this area and they’ve been very upset that their companies switched to other products as they’ve changed their company laptops also to Windows laptops after switching to other brands. The overall impact is small, but you have to have a product for these niches to increase sales in other areas. I also think that THIS is not the Mac Pro they’ve been working on. We had these rumors of Extreme chips. I think connecting the M1/M2 series to external components didn’t work as Apple wanted, that’s why they’ve released a M2 ultra version, but working on a M3 Extreme where they’ve probably changed a little bit in the architecture and adjusted to their findings. My thoughts. Thanks for the unboxing, it’s always a nice feeling to see that 😂🙈
Great video. It's too bad Apple scratched the M2 Extreme for the Mac Pro 2023. I was hoping it would be more up-gradable. But I think the Mac Pro 2019 for resale the price is most likely not going down.
This machine is for use cases that require the slots. If you don't need slots, the Studio is for you.
I do think for many applications, especially in the live performance world, the presence of PCI slots for things like SDI video in and out makes this thing worth it. If the right software hardware combinations are used this thing could be an amazing tool for live audiovisual productions that greatly simplifies and cleans up the clutter of an everything on the outside Mac Studio setup, which we have many of at my theatre. In this world $3,000 is not that big of deal if it gives you a better chance glitch free shows and a cleaner setup. Completely off topic, I wish Apple would support multi touch for us live A/V people. I get why it doesn't make sense for regular desktop users but for A/V tools multi touch is super useful and missed on desktop Mac's. You can' always rely on an iPad app to replace that functionality in use cases like audio mixers and video switchers.
There is a a British company that makes a payware multi-touch driver for mac. UPDD spread the word. I run 2 m1 macs in my rigs, both with multi touch. UPDD will be the best $50 software you buy for your mac.
The problem I have with saying "$3000 is not that big of a deal" is that it IN NO WAY *needs* to be that much. I mean, if your business use of it can absorb that $3000 extra and recoup the cost of those PCIe slots in a few months, why not make it $6000 more than the Mac Studio? Why not $10,000 more?? If you can always say, "Well, I'll be able to eventually turn a profit using this machine," do we just throw the value proposition out the window and say it's "worth it" to have those [not-all-that-unique-or-special] PCIe slots? When an entire server-grade PC logic board with 8 RAM slots and 6 PCIe 5.0 slots costs something like $1200, is it really not upsetting to professionals to pay 5x *more* than that for just a base configuration of a tower computer??
The 2019 Mac Pro base price of $5999 was already laughable. Now they have packed less expandability and upgradability in the box and upped the price another $1000! I could understand if they had trouble getting the "Mx Extreme" chip to work out or something and just had to throw in an M2 Ultra and call it good for now, but to fail like that and then still think, "Hmmm, I just don't think we're charging enough for the Mac Pro...let's add another grand"....that's insane. I guess when they do figure out how to do the Extreme version everyone keeps talking about, it'll be five figures. Nuts.
@@mrsibley5771 Yeah I have used UPDD for my Waves LV1 Mac setups. Works pretty well. Viewsonic now provides a branded version of the driver for free for Mac users for many current Viewsonic touch monitors. I will clarify, it's not "multi touch" in that if you can't control multiple things at the same time, you can do multi touch gestures. I want a driver, which is my understand would necessitate Apple providing some core functionality to support it, that would allow for moving multiple virtual faders at once, like you can do out of the box with Windows. Since professional AV people pretty muck kept Apple alive in the dark days before Job's came back, I wish they would throw us a bone with this functionality. For studio audio guys the Raven makes a couple of different large multi touch screens that do some clever work arounds to give multi-touch within the most popular DAW's by emulating HUI control data from multi touch data. At least I think that is what they are doing to achieve multi-touch within DAW. It's single touch everywhere else in the operating system.
If one needs PCI at this point, or really high RAM, better to look elsewhere than Apple. Ideally Linux. Apple will push some more high end computing off their platform with these tactics.
Great video Luke! I do believe that the Mac Pro will be available with proprietary GPUs made by Apple. Pros will be able to choose if they need absolutely huge graphics power or if… umm, already kind of huge graphics power is enough. I also believe that Apple is still working on the whole “M2 Extreme” or “X1” chip idea, but I think the M2 chip isn’t ready for that and, if it does come to fruition, it will be in the M3 series. I’ve also heard that Apple is working on expandable RAM, which isn’t ready currently because it’s as slow as the RAM on x86 systems. But when they have mastered the concept, we’ll have unified RAM that can be removed and upgraded with higher levels, rather than being soldered to the chip.
I have heard that as well. And in addition, I heard that the motherboard and in conjunction the Apple Silicon SOC will be upgradeable on this new 2023 Mac Pro. The 2023 Mac Pro is essentially a stop gap Mac Pro.
@@SeanHyland Completely agree
My 5, 1 Mac Pro was pulled from a broadcast environment and had:
- fibre networking card
- pro tools audio card
- SDI video capture card
All still relevant/necessary in that use case.
As far as processor upgrades, that gets limited by socket changes anyway.
The whole no normal NVME storage situation is unfortunate - I wonder if a PCI NVME adaptor card will be supported/tolerated?
Hi Luke
Please make a comparison on Pcie and Thunderbolt expansion options from BlackMagic AJA ATTO AViD cards
i don't wish it didn't exist, i just wish it could be upgraded
Recieved mine couple of days ago and really happy with it.
I still love this design and I'm glad that they decided to stick with it.
I mainly just bought it because it's that much better for my renders, graphical designs and video production.
I still have my 2019 version too and planning to use it as a server since there's no way I'm going to lose that kind of money just to resell it, makes no sense to me.
Are you happy you wasted money on what’s effectively an overpriced Mac Studio? 🤣🤣
Materially better than the Mac Studio how?
@@pierselliott1245it has more Thunderbolt ports.
@@emilsecker7881 Tax writeoff... so really no harm no foul
@@twoeggcupsand an extra HDMI port, and an extra 10 Gbps Ethernet port… And a few PCI slots, which aren’t exactly as fast as they could be, as they share bandwidth, but they’re better than nothing.
I suspect Apple will still move a few units for businesses, especially because the user-accessible storage modules make it easy to not only upgrade but also fix in case one of them (or the single one) dies. Still, it’s sad that they basically eschewed entire markets, which *do* need desktop GPUs and up to the old Intel Mac Pro’s 1.5 TB maximum memory capacity, and we can only hope they can add those back to their SoC/UMA architecture, even if there’s some sort of slight performance penalty.
Luke, i couldn't agree more, this is the best round up of the Mac Pro i've seen so far, the most honest one too i have to say. But most importantly (and i will toot my own horn here) it only proves i made the right choice in getting the Studio Ultra. In many ways Apple just made too good of a machine when releasing the Studio line up and it doesn't seem like they have built a Mac Pro worthy of the M-1/M-2 chip, like you said they have adapted it inside a chassis that was designed for an older (Intel like) system. Nice design and nice cool cardboard box, but that's about all it has going for it, at least at the moment in this present iteration...
RE cooling temps; The M2 Ultra Studio has a larger all-copper heatsink whereas the Mac Pro's is an aluminium fin stack connected via a heat pipe. Yes the Studio has two fans, but the capacity of those also takes into account the heat that is drawn from the underside of the logic board, including the power supply. The Mac Pro fan is cooling only the SoC, so the heatsink is likely the cause in the different temps.
My M2 Ultra Mac Pro arrived today and have no regrets. I love it.
It has the GPU power of a….. nVidia RTX 4060 ti.
since almost every mac product has at least two tiers, i wouldn't be surprised to see a mac pro ultra (or mac ultra) come out in the future that has dual m2 ultra's etc.
I didn't consider this but this makes a LOT of sense. Lower-tier Mac Pro (with m2 ultra) still being sold alongside a Mac Ultra (with m3 Extreme/Ultimate/Whatever) for an even more ridiculous amount of money... hmm...
What about the thing that everyone wants in this machine? Adding audio cards, video cards and how adding sata storage works, just like that ? Or there is any “issue” in any of them.
When I worked with Mac Pro towers in a studio we loaded them full of storage… and if the studio were still open today we would probably buy one and load it with storage. What I really want to know, and only time will tell, is if the SOC itself will ever be upgradeable. For a hot second it seemed there were rumors that the SOC would be sort of like a module that could be replaced down the line with a newer one but at least as far as what Apple has or hasn’t said that does not appear to be the case… but then again the SOC does look to be a big chunky block that could come out, so who knows.
I would argue that the Mac Pro design was planned with Apple Silicon in mind. Having the Intel CPU and cooler located as it did allowed for them to place the Apple Silicon in the same location. Internally the layout is the same and most of the chassis was able to be retained. You realize that there are use cases for this model that you just aren't aware. You should watch the release video of the Intel Version and see the ones Apple highlighted as a refresher. But to keep it simple a lot of audio/video professional studios have equipment that connects via expansion card. Equipment that cost millions of dollars that they are not going to replace. These same studios looked at that 50K cost of fully loaded Intel Mac Pros as the cheap part of their setup. You are right, if you know the product is for you then it is the product for you. If you can't grasp why it exist then it was never the product for you. I also think that your test suite is not testing long enough. Your renders are done in single digit minutes. How does it do when running work loads for 8-12 hours or longer? I bet the thermal solution really pays off at that point. But I will give one point, the Mac Pro is not meant for 99.9999% of your audience or even you. So telling your audience they should just get the Mac Studio is the best call.
this Apple Silicon version is even more niche than the previous Intel Mac Pro, for example it completely erased any appeal for the 3D rendering, scientific simulation, financial analysis and maybe other uses I forget. Limited to only 192 gb of RAM, CPU is barely better than the best Intel (not upgradable either), no GPU support, etc. If the Intel Mac Pro was already for the top 5% power users, M2 Mac Pro lost a lot of that market.
this thing looks really rushed maybe Apples contract with Intel ran out and they had to rush the replacement before the rumored M2 Extreme was ready
is there any compatibility difference between pcie cards in this thing and pcie cards in a thunderbolt enclosure? anything that works in one that doesn't work in the other?
Luke, I want to see a video going over every computer you have. I’ve been watching for a long time and you have acquired quite the collection. Let us see it. Please
The Mac Pro is a niche product, it will likely be a low production (if not one off) product. This is why it costs so much. Most folks will get the studio and be perfectly fine. But those (mainly production companies) that need specialized cards, this is what they get. Would have been more impressive if they'd had a dual Ultra processor with nearly 400GB of memory. Then there's always the argument that they made it to make the transition and be done with the Pro after this.
Well, if you were a sound engineer with like 6 cards for your job....its not crazy. This device is really only for pros of certain fields.
It’s not dumb for a very small number of people, what’s dumb is building a whole product for such a small group- basically sealing off what could be a very solid platform and complement to the Mac Studio
@@lukemianibut luke what if that small group create wonderful stuff? Like movies and songs. It would be an amazing marketing opportunity for apple. They need something to show off for the next keynote to sell the next Mac pro. Also the day of upgrading for apple is over Luke, it's the cost of apple silicon architecture. Also everything can be upgraded, you just need a soldering matching.
…but then the RAM limitation becomes a problem.
Only reason to get this one instead of just the studio I can imagine is:
You really need those 40Tb+ on a M2 system and you'll shove NVMe carrier cards into the PCIe slots..
I couldn't imagine why tho... Shared editing workstation with 10 people working on it at once ? Nah I really don't know.
Hi Luke, I can follow the argument you put here,. But for me, as a music studio owner, PCIe is important to have the soundcards (avid HDX) into the machine AND ,something some people forget with the MAC Pro 2023, I use the second LAN port also to add sound equipment (AVB compatible). On the Mac Studio there's only one LAN port. If you need a secondary on the Mac Studio you'll have to connect 2 adapters to make it work. But you are right the new MacPro is expensive, but way not as expensive as the full blown 2019 version (+50.000Eur)which beats it by far. so in the end everyone wins 🙂
I love seeing the old Pro and the New 2.0 Pro side by side. All but one of the drives have been repurposed. I still have a 5,1 collecting dust in a corner and am now rocking a M1 Mac Mini. Time marches on.
Would you be interested in selling the 5,1 👀
I think the biggest problem is there is no real professional macs anymore outside of content creation. ingest, capture and audio interfaces make sense. As do the ability to mount bifricated pcie NVME storage via 8x cards (two 4x wide PCIe NVME drives for instance). However, even several of the use cases you mentioned are likely to be SLOWER on a M2 Mac Pro then on a 2019 Mac Pro.
examples:
quite a bit of STEM use cases
anything that uses a GPU (the maxed out SKU is about 4070 in terms of performance in most well optimized cases) [I belive even the 5,1 can support 6950 XT cards with a mod to the PSU]
anything highly single threaded
anything that needs more then 192 GB of memory
If you dont use the accelerators and fixed function hardware you are effectivly sitting between a top of the line Zen 4 7950X & 13th gen Intel i9 for most CPU or compute focused tasks. Do anything using OpenCL, CUDA, or the other mixed compute libraries and your either crippled or not really gaining anything for A LOT of more money
Want to spend the same amount of money and start looking at the latest Xeon or Thread Ripper workstations? You will often run circles around it.
Want to compose, edit, or mix things that need more then 192 GB of unified memory? Your out of luck no matter how many dollars you can throw at it.
as for the trend of their transition...
Its amazing how Apple keeps comparing these to old static configurations and not compared to what would happen if they stayed the course introduced in the 5,1 or 7,1. Intel's Xeon workstations now have increasing amount of die space reserved for accelerators, similar to what makes Apple be able to claim 10x improvements. Instead they keep comparing themselves to 4+ year old hardware. Yah since 2018 there has been an explosion in efficiency and raw performance increase generation after generation.
I just cant feel like Apple once again missed the architecture shift mark. Like how it wasnt until the G3 or G4 PowerPC hit its stride. Or it took many years before x86_64 solidly completed with the G5 end to end. It feels 3 years to late for AARM and 4 years to early for RISC-V. Meanwhile X86_64 is going through its largest shift since the 386.
Outside of the Air and base Mini... its really hard to see where they gained a lot going to ARM. Don't get me wrong those are amazing. But even then apple crippled those product by locking out multi-external display support behind the Pro series silicon. And by the time your there... for most workflows a I5/Ryzen5 will give you comparable or greater performance for less money with comparable battery life for most tasks [~7 watt idle/50 watt {peak and sustained} load for M2, ~8 watt idle/45 watt load {65 few second turbo peak} for my 12th gen intel notebook]. It all comes down to OS and app optimizations at that point. [Does something use an accelerator? how aggressive does it sleep and idle? etc, etc]
It also makes me chuckle how huge of a battery they put in the Mac Book Pros to get that extra battery life compared to the older generations.
9:35 I had an old one, and I upgraded and change a lot parts, 4 hard drives, I was a insane! good machine.
I work in professional audio. I have a 2009 atm, and it's showing its age. Thank-you, Luke, for doing this video. I've been looking at used 2019 Mac Pros; their price has started to come down. It would be a good fit for my need, as I use several pcie cards in my present setup. We'll see, I guess.
Hey Luke, do you think that later on you could upgrade this Mac Pro by ordering a new logic board with M3 Ultra or M4 Ultra chips and just plug it into the chassis? So you could upgrade your Mac Pro without having to spend $7000 on the whole unit every couple years. That is the only reason I could see this making sense for me using Blackmagic Video cards.
I would be astonished if Apple offered such a thing
No.
Who do you think apple are, framework?
Mac Pro is really beautiful, it's kind of crazy how you can't add ram or gpu to it. I heard there's a space for storage expansion and all but still. Wonder if I can add something like Blu-ray player or sound cards to it.
I think it has more to do with “Repairability”. The “Right-to-Repair”. When the SSD or logic board fails you want to be able to Replace it or Recover your Data. After all your Data is your most important stuff on the computer.
If you're spending 5 figures for a computer, I think AppleCare makes sense. Whatever the problem, drop it off and have them take care of it with no thought of what the repair is going to cost. It's actually nice that Apple now gives you the option to extend AppleCare option longer than 3 years, by just paying a fixed amount every year.
With respect to losing data, you simply need to be backed up. That's what Time Machine and cloud services are for.
@@LeeBlaske Yeah, thats fine if you have high speed internet but if your internet goes down you have to rely on USB backup device. Thats is the Mac SSD is still working.
Since there isn't 3rd party GPU support, why can't Apple come out with a System on a Card. Put basically a M2 Ultra on a PCI-e card. I'd buy that and fill it with a set of 4-6 Systems on a Card for a massive GPU rendering box with Redshift. There were rumors of a "compute module," what ever happened to that?
I have a feeling those PCIe slots are going to play a big role soon.
I’m just guessing that there’s going to be some awesome things that we’ll be able to pop into those in the near future that Apple is working on that will make complete sense of the $3k price increase.
And then everyone who bought one to play with and then return will need to buy one again and be put on a waiting list because whatever expansion Apple has planned will be so amazing that Mac Pros will be on a long back order. 😝
Absolutely do NOT hold your breath. This product is a weird box ticking exercise from Apple, and I expect it to have extremely long order times quite soon - which the previous Mac Pro had too. SIX MONTHS when I tried to buy one!
Extreme wishful thinking.
@@serqetry I’m not wishful thinking… I can’t afford that crap! Lol. I’m just saying Apple isn’t stupid. I bet there’s something in the oven that goes in those PCIe slots and utilizes all that “unneeded power.”
I WILL BUY MAC STUDIO
I think this is a bridge product. They obviously had issues creating an M# chip that was too powerful for the Mac Studio chassis. But there are still niche groups that needs PCI cards and/or non-external storage. Apple also needs to send a market signal that it is not abandoning this market position. So, its real utility is limited, and its advantages over the Mac studio are also limited, but it does serve a purpose.
There were two things that I was really hoping to see with the new Mac Pro: and upgradable SOC and the use of what we might call "Level 2 RAM." They could sell a new SOC for basically the price of a Mac Studio and get some more money out of those pros who hold onto a computer for 10+ years because of workflow.
the 70c temps are from thermal throttling the soc dose and hurting performance by slowing down clock speeds by runing the fans slowly to lower fan noise.
The apple soc is great for laptops, but it limits the upgrade. I think where apple missed the boat is the updatability. Would have been nice to be able to add ram and regular ssd. Also, a way to swap the chip without changing the whole computer would be a pretty amazing feature. Let’s say you pull 2 tabs and take out the whole cpu module and put a new one for the upgradability and to save e-waste …it would makes apple looks for geniuses even if you can do that since forever on pc. I do think they had ideas that were scratched and ended up with this. The chassis looks great but since the first day the chrome bits and the legs looks cheap to me.
They obviously made this form factor for several reasons. 1. For anyone (studios, DITs) that needs pci-e slots for video output/black magic/kona/fiber cards. 2. For studios that have server cabinets that hold these. 3. For Apple Neural Core cards that haven't been released yet.
Great video. Thanks. I'm still using a 2012, 5,1 Mac Pro as my main machine. 64 Gb RAM, 4 x 2Tb internal SSD's, two 30" Cinema Display. I'd continue to use it but the software is falling behind. The M2 Ultra Mac Pro would fit the bill if it was expandable like the 5,1... I'll probably end up with the maxed out Mac Studio Ultra with a couple of monitors and two or three external SSD's. Pity. Apple's only thinking about the shareholders now, not the users.
The second and third fans are always on? or will they turn on only if you have any card in PCIE?
Can you try to align/redirect the airflow of the bottom 2 fans to the CPU? like a 3D printed board that lays diagonally maybe. to see if it helps with performance/heat.
Importantly, it also has SATA ports - could be used for some cheaper bulk storage. I'd be real interested to see if DPUs are supported on the PCIe ports, that could create some interesting opportunities.
Came here to say just that: they left in the SATA ports, though I'm curious to know whether you can boot off a drive that's been plugged into it.
Yes, only if you disable or downgrade the full security of secure boot: otherwise, all other devices other than the built-in NVMe SSD slots are treated as external non-bootable devices.
Growing up with Amiga I wonder if it is possible to have "turbo" cards on PCI with e.g. additional RAM?
I'll add that according to the Mac Pro 2023 tech specs page, it does come with 2xHDMI ports vs. 1 on the Mac Studio. Albeit maybe minor to most people, this does allow you to run 2x4K monitors at up to 240Hz. The studio would only give you 1 and then other monitor(s) would have to run at the lower 60Hz (max for monitors connected via Thunderbolt). Coming from a gaming PC with multiple monitors at 144Hz, its hard to downgrade back to 60Hz once you've tasted that buttery smooth 144Hz refresh rate. Not a big win by any means nor does it justify the retail price increase over the Studio, however in a few years when these are on eBay, I'd opt for the Mac Pro tower over the Studio just for this feature.
"But it's a business expense, Mr. IRS agent!"
"Sure it is, Luke. Sure it is."
I’m curious. Did you buy this to return it? You knew ahead of time of the limitations. Or do you actually plan on using the PCI slots?
Part of me wonders if the tower is just a way to make the Studio look more affordable? I'm sticking with my iMac Pro for now and keep my fingers crossed for a truly eye-popping jump in performance.
PS5 controller or PS5 Edge controller to use to game on Mac? Can I use it as mouse for editing too?
This exact same product with a socketed SOC would be pretty compelling tbf
Dear Luke, of course I could make use of the new M2 Ultra MacPro, it would make a great shelve to place my MacStudio and my early morning cup of coffee! 😆
I agree, a shame it doesn't work with Apple Silicon Luke. The old 2019 Intel ones are quite pricey still as well!
did you test the disk speed? that might explain the difference in export/render times
Daaaaaamn. I started on a PowerMac G4 and since then I was ALL towers. Mirrored door G4, Mac Pro 3,1, Mac Pro 5,1... but I was getting tired of these massive hot machines, I probably never needed ALL that power.
When the Mac Studio came out - my heart skipped a beat, this may actually be the first non-tower Mac I buy. And after tons of research on if/what configuration I should get... I got one.
And so far, not a single regret. The M2 Mac Studio wasn't even enough for me to wish I waited. I had been holding out for a long long time that a Silicon Mac Pro would come out thinking it'd be cheaper because it's Apple Silicon... but wow. This is worse than I thought for the Mac Pro but makes me happier than I thought about getting the M1 Max Mac Studio.
And I paid in installments over a year with no interest so it was generally affordable!
Way overkill for most of the world in my opinion. I am returning a Mac Studio Ultra because my MacBook Pro M1 Max is nearly as fast with the applications I am using. The main app I use depends on single core performance and there is not nearly enough improvement in the M2 chip to warrant $3k to $6k when the laptop I have is perfectly fine at the job.
It has 2 SATA 3 ports. That’s something. Also those PCI express slot could potentially fit some super fast storage if you’re doing 16K video footage on day
I just spent $395 on a 2015 2.5 Quad 15" MacBook Pro will Duel GPU's. Specified as "Excellent" on Back Market. Last time I purchased on that website, I bought a "Good" iPhone X and it looked new. I think buying this model in excellent condition is a good investment. It'll be replacing a mid 2012 MacBook Pro with 13" Non Retina, Dual i5. It still runs great.
Indeed, You might add DSP cards from Universal Audio to run a huge amount of UAD plugins for no-latency sound processing. Most if not all sound interfaces are external devices that rely on already fast USB-C and Thunderbolt connections. Also, since the Apple's M chips became so fast, the whole idea of DSP powered plugins in music production is slowly dying.
I’m sure the Mac Pro exists just to keep the TX assembly plant open so that they have a USA “made” product. Might be a PR bit or could be a regulatory requirement.
Apple screwed up with this machine. They had an opportunity to take back the performance crown from Windows PCs for high-end video editing/coloring by allowing multiple GPUs. But nope. Not allowed. So there is NO configuration of Mac whatsoever that can even begin to approach the performance you can get on a modest PC with an RTX 4080/4090.
Thank you, Luke for buying to review and share your thoughts on Apple's new Tower M-2 Ultra Mac Pro. To me this is, just a "stop gap" version to hold users over until the new top of the line M-3 processor chips are ready. Sure that, when this happens there will be a more powerful processor inside the Tower Mac Pro than is used inside the "Mac Studio". Also, now that prices have fallen, please buy a used 2019, Tower Intel Mac Pro and, I would love to hear your comments when you pull it apart. For myself, these are looking better and better each day (smile...smile).
Tbh, (and correct me if I'm wrong) most Audio Engineering products and thus also some studio's have already adapted to non-pcie products. For example, external Thunderbolt soundcards by Universal Audio can be slaved to each other via Thunderbolt or expanded through ADAT. Kind of diminishing the need for pci-e cards altogether in the audio engineering world. Even DSP's have also's been made to just connect through thunderbolt. While it is still used, it's only in highly specific cases.
it's just a hair under double the price of the M2 Ultra Mac Studio here in OZ.
The one benefit for audio producers is being able to use multiple AVID HDX and UAD pcie cards internally, but the lack of internal storage option upgrades to just add more SSDs is completely befuddling and you are correct, therefore makes it an inherently bad product.
Does there psu have plugs for the pcie cards???
so many of my pro audio colleagues are still rocking the 5,1 Mac Pro’s and have so eagerly awaited this totally lack-lustre release