The 24" iMac could be updated just to keep it current. It's getting a little long in the tooth.
It could be updated with an M2 just for marketing purposes--as we now know, the basic M2 is not significantly faster than the M1--but otherwise, what do you think makes it "long in the tooth?" There hasn't been much in the way of advancements since it debuted as an all-new model/design of iMac just a little over 18 months ago.
Personally, I think the Mac Studio answered most “creatives” needs, and will continue to be updated with future high-end processors.
The Mac Pro is a tiny slice of Apple’s sales at the best of times, but one way they could revive interest in it from the science & industry section is to tailor it to raw number-crunching, perhaps with another M2 variant or the first M3 chip.
As for the MacBook rumour, this has been bandied about for years and never appeared, so of course the rumourmongers now say Apple has “dropped” or “abandoned” plans they never actually had. The M2 MBA *is* what they were dreaming of.
Finally, a reminder: Gurman is frequently correct, but not always. This report is still (possibly informed) speculation, not fact. See also his previous posts about the MacBook revival …
I have a feeling that Apple will introduce an M-Series Mac Pro, but keep the Intel version around.
Apple historically doesn’t really do the hang on to the past thing.
Also consider that getting rid of Intel would vastly simplify software development efforts.
True, but there’s Mac Pro users that need massive amounts of RAM. Amounts that Apple Silicon just doesn’t support.
That said, I’m not a computer engineer so it may be a crazy idea; Would it be feasible to use two tiers of RAM? The high speed RAM built into the chip, and then a TB or more of comparatively slow conventional RAM in sticks on the MB like it has now? It would have to keep track of what needed to be kept in the extra high speed on chip space, and what could be parked on the sticks. It would be like virtual RAM does now but not to the SSD. Not sure how feasible this is but it was a crazy idea that just crossed my mind.
Maybe one or two years of Mac Pro Intel updates and maybe by then most of the higher end computing has changed to be rendered on servers as a lot of studios are already doing. Quite possible that Apple might not bring out a decent Mac Pro on Apple Silicon due to the current limitations and extreme costs. Entirely possible this category will disappear for Apple.
Personally, I think the Mac Studio answered most “creatives” needs, and will continue to be updated with future high-end processors.
The Mac Pro is a tiny slice of Apple’s sales at the best of times, but one way they could revive interest in it from the science & industry section is to tailor it to raw number-crunching, perhaps with another M2 variant or the first M3 chip.
A lot of the science industry has moved on to Nvidia compatible machines because of CUDA. Apple would need a heroic effort to win them back.
I have a feeling that Apple will introduce an M-Series Mac Pro, but keep the Intel version around.
Apple historically doesn’t really do the hang on to the past thing.
Also consider that getting rid of Intel would vastly simplify software development efforts.
True, but there’s Mac Pro users that need massive amounts of RAM. Amounts that Apple Silicon just doesn’t support.
That said, I’m not a computer engineer so it may be a crazy idea; Would it be feasible to use two tiers of RAM? The high speed RAM built into the chip, and then a TB or more of comparatively slow conventional RAM in sticks on the MB like it has now? It would have to keep track of what needed to be kept in the extra high speed on chip space, and what could be parked on the sticks. It would be like virtual RAM does now but not to the SSD. Not sure how feasible this is but it was a crazy idea that just crossed my mind.
Technically having the on-package RAM and the regular external RAM is fully feasible from the hardware POV, with all the engineering and power costs associated with it.
To make proper usage of top speed memory would ideally involve providing special APIs to enable the applications providing hints to the OS as to what’s most important to be fast, something that’s not unheard of in operating systems, No OS will know how to optimize everything as-is, and a decent OS enables developers and users to set parameters as to what and how to optimize for their needs.
Data flagging used for fusion drives and later Apple File System would already have most the information needed to balance a near far memory system
Personally, I think the Mac Studio answered most “creatives” needs, and will continue to be updated with future high-end processors.
The Mac Pro is a tiny slice of Apple’s sales at the best of times, but one way they could revive interest in it from the science & industry section is to tailor it to raw number-crunching, perhaps with another M2 variant or the first M3 chip.
A lot of the science industry has moved on to Nvidia compatible machines because of CUDA. Apple would need a heroic effort to win them back.
There's a lot of diversity in the "science industry". Not all problems are amenable to GPUs. Not all problems are amenable to GPUs sitting in a separate memory address space. I think it's conceivable (though I don't know for sure) that Apple's highly integrated approach might be really great for a some types of problems.
I recently bought an M2 MacBook Air and for my work, I find that (before thermal throttling kicks in), the M2 beats x86 by a wider margin than Geekbench would predict (beats by between 25% and 50%). If Apple (or somebody else) were to provide an R package that allowed me to access the GPU (and other Apple accelerators) somewhat transparently, then I'd gladly try using it (I already use Apple's vecLib).
The 24" iMac could be updated just to keep it current. It's getting a little long in the tooth.
It could be updated with an M2 just for marketing purposes--as we now know, the basic M2 is not significantly faster than the M1--but otherwise, what do you think makes it "long in the tooth?" There hasn't been much in the way of advancements since it debuted as an all-new model/design of iMac just a little over 18 months ago.
The M1 iMac was underpowered at launch. Previously, the smaller iMac had the same chip and graphics offerings as the Macbook Pro. So it should come with a Pro and Max chip - but does not. Though the M1 is superior to any previous intel chip from a computing standpoint, the current iMac cannot match a fully speced 21.5" version on graphics.
At this point, there is a huge gap in Apple's desktop offerings between the most capable iMac and the base Studio/Studio Display. The best iMac is an M1 with 8 GPU cores and 16 gigs of RAM, which goes for $1,899. The base Studio/Studio Display has an M1 Max with 24 GPU cores and 32 gigs of RAM, fetching around $3,900 with a mouse and keyboard. If Apple put the M2 in the iMac, at least you could get two more graphics cores and 8 more gigs of RAM. Ideally, I would like a 24" with a Pro chip and 32 gigs of RAM!
The 24" iMac could be updated just to keep it current. It's getting a little long in the tooth.
It could be updated with an M2 just for marketing purposes--as we now know, the basic M2 is not significantly faster than the M1--but otherwise, what do you think makes it "long in the tooth?" There hasn't been much in the way of advancements since it debuted as an all-new model/design of iMac just a little over 18 months ago.
Is 20 months old really “long in the tooth?” It still has its baby teeth and a magnificent display for its size.
I propose an alternative interpretation to the news above: a proper bus mainboard holding extension boards, each extension board including both RAM and Apple Silicon processors.
In this way each extra extension board (RAM+M2) would simultaneously extend both amount of RAM and number of processors.
This would be compatible with the wording "lack of user-upgradable memory".
The 24" iMac could be updated just to keep it current. It's getting a little long in the tooth.
It could be updated with an M2 just for marketing purposes--as we now know, the basic M2 is not significantly faster than the M1--but otherwise, what do you think makes it "long in the tooth?" There hasn't been much in the way of advancements since it debuted as an all-new model/design of iMac just a little over 18 months ago.
Is 20 months old really “long in the tooth?” It still has its baby teeth and a magnificent display for its size.
Two years is pretty old in tech. No updates since then and it wasn't all that when it launched either.
The least they could do is pop the same m2 the MacBook Air got, complete with ram capacity upgrades. That would have been relatively simple.
Maybe apple is waiting to upgrade when the big dog iMac launches. But either way, it’s a long time for this product to get any updates. They’re treating it like the Mac mini at this point.
Why offer a Mac Pro if no modularity is left? Apple dropped support for eGPU and the new Mac Pro support will likely not support any Nvidia or AMD GPU. As a result memory, GPU, CPU will be decided when ordering. Will it be anything but a Studio with more internal storage and even more processing power?
The 24" iMac could be updated just to keep it current. It's getting a little long in the tooth.
It could be updated with an M2 just for marketing purposes--as we now know, the basic M2 is not significantly faster than the M1--but otherwise, what do you think makes it "long in the tooth?" There hasn't been much in the way of advancements since it debuted as an all-new model/design of iMac just a little over 18 months ago.
Is 20 months old really “long in the tooth?” It still has its baby teeth and a magnificent display for its size.
It depends if you already own one or are going to spend new money on it.
I propose an alternative interpretation to the news above: a proper bus mainboard holding extension boards, each extension board including both RAM and Apple Silicon processors.
In this way each extra extension board (RAM+M2) would simultaneously extend both amount of RAM and number of processors.
This would be compatible with the wording "lack of user-upgradable memory".
Create a series of bricks having the same length and width (a la Mac Studio, OWC Ministack STX, etc.) but with different heights. Allow these to be vertically stacked to customize the server of your dreams. I would then create:
The Mac Pro 'special sauce' would be the integration between all the components. I'd make the footprint larger than the Mac Studio to support the 312mm PCI cards and appropriate cooling fans. Extra credit for allowing multiple CPU modules to work together.
Were Apple to go this route, I believe they could capture the majority of revenue associated with server hardware.
I propose an alternative interpretation to the news above: a proper bus mainboard holding extension boards, each extension board including both RAM and Apple Silicon processors.
In this way each extra extension board (RAM+M2) would simultaneously extend both amount of RAM and number of processors.
This would be compatible with the wording "lack of user-upgradable memory".
Apple tried that with the Jonathan in 1985. There are a lot of reasons that didn't end up happening. Some business, but quite a few technical as well.
I have a feeling that Apple will introduce an M-Series Mac Pro, but keep the Intel version around.
If they were to keep the Intel Mac Pro around, then I don't see the point of an Apple silicon Mac Pro that lacks upgradeable RAM. Might as well keep the Mac Pro Intel (or AMD) only and use the Mac Studio as the highest-end Apple Silicon machine.
Apple Silicon offers better performance-per-dollar than Intel workstation CPUs. The following shows the $4k Ultra Mac Studio is roughly the same performance as the highest CPU $13k Xeon Mac Pro:
The i9-13900K is pretty good value but a 3nm Mac Studio will match this. It's worthwhile to save $9k.
The hardware video encoders/decoders save another $2k vs getting the Afterburner card.
And they run cooler so better sustained performance and room for increasing clock speed.
Intel will have new Sapphire Rapids Xeons at some point this year, which will offer better performance, aiming to rival the AMD Threadripper CPUs but they will be priced the same as before:
A 3nm Ultra Duo would beat AMD's top Threadripper chip and rival it on price.
The main reason to still offer Intel chips is software compatibility, virtual machines etc. They could maintain the old design for that model and just upgrade the Xeon and AMD GPUs and the Apple Silicon version will be much lower priced for the same performance.
Comments
Entirely possible this category will disappear for Apple.
I recently bought an M2 MacBook Air and for my work, I find that (before thermal throttling kicks in), the M2 beats x86 by a wider margin than Geekbench would predict (beats by between 25% and 50%). If Apple (or somebody else) were to provide an R package that allowed me to access the GPU (and other Apple accelerators) somewhat transparently, then I'd gladly try using it (I already use Apple's vecLib).
At this point, there is a huge gap in Apple's desktop offerings between the most capable iMac and the base Studio/Studio Display. The best iMac is an M1 with 8 GPU cores and 16 gigs of RAM, which goes for $1,899. The base Studio/Studio Display has an M1 Max with 24 GPU cores and 32 gigs of RAM, fetching around $3,900 with a mouse and keyboard. If Apple put the M2 in the iMac, at least you could get two more graphics cores and 8 more gigs of RAM. Ideally, I would like a 24" with a Pro chip and 32 gigs of RAM!
Tim Cook - the king of glue.
https://everymac.com/systems/daystar/mp_plus/genesis_mp932_plus.html
I love your idea and I hope it happens but I think there’s almost no chance.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
The i9-13900K is pretty good value but a 3nm Mac Studio will match this. It's worthwhile to save $9k.
The hardware video encoders/decoders save another $2k vs getting the Afterburner card.
And they run cooler so better sustained performance and room for increasing clock speed.
Intel will have new Sapphire Rapids Xeons at some point this year, which will offer better performance, aiming to rival the AMD Threadripper CPUs but they will be priced the same as before:
https://wccftech.com/intel-sapphire-rapids-ws-xeon-cpus-w790-fishhawk-falls-platform-to-be-unveiled-in-february-launch-in-april-2023/
A 3nm Ultra Duo would beat AMD's top Threadripper chip and rival it on price.
The main reason to still offer Intel chips is software compatibility, virtual machines etc. They could maintain the old design for that model and just upgrade the Xeon and AMD GPUs and the Apple Silicon version will be much lower priced for the same performance.