Apple scales back plans for 'Extreme' Apple Silicon Mac Pro
Apple's introduction of an Apple Silicon Mac Pro won't include an "Extreme" variant of the M2 chip, with the top-end Mac said to feature an M2 Ultra instead.
An Apple Silicon Mac Pro could be smaller than the last Intel-based model.
The Mac Pro is the last model in the entire Mac range to not be offered with an Apple Silicon chip. While rumors and speculation has Apple working on one for launch sometime in 2023, it may not be as powerful as once thought.
The model was believed to use an "M2 Extreme" chip, a doubling down of the Ultra chip concept that combines two M2 Ultra chips into one piece of silicon. In theory, the chip could've offered 48 CPU cores and 152 GPU cores, but that apparently won't be happening.
According to Mark Gurman's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, Apple's pulling back from offering a Mac Pro with an Extreme chip inside, due to production problems. Due to its complexity and worries over its cost, the chip's manufacturing won't go ahead, and the high-end Mac Pro variant is scrapped.
Instead, the Mac Pro will use an M2 Ultra chip, which will have 24 CPU cores and 76 GPU cores, as well as support for up to 192 gigabytes of Unified Memory.
The M2 Extreme could've been a reason for the relatively slow introduction of a New Mac Pro. In July, Gurman said Apple had an M1 Mac Pro ready, but didn't launch it in favor of developing the more powerful M2 Extreme chip.
Despite the reduced potential computing power, Gurman insists that Apple will continue to offer some level of Mac Pro expandability, including options to increase the memory, internal storage, and other components.
An M2 Pro Mac mini and M2 Ultra Mac Pro are apparently in testing for 2023 launches, Gurman adds, while M2 Pro and M2 Max versions of the 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Read on AppleInsider
An Apple Silicon Mac Pro could be smaller than the last Intel-based model.
The Mac Pro is the last model in the entire Mac range to not be offered with an Apple Silicon chip. While rumors and speculation has Apple working on one for launch sometime in 2023, it may not be as powerful as once thought.
The model was believed to use an "M2 Extreme" chip, a doubling down of the Ultra chip concept that combines two M2 Ultra chips into one piece of silicon. In theory, the chip could've offered 48 CPU cores and 152 GPU cores, but that apparently won't be happening.
According to Mark Gurman's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, Apple's pulling back from offering a Mac Pro with an Extreme chip inside, due to production problems. Due to its complexity and worries over its cost, the chip's manufacturing won't go ahead, and the high-end Mac Pro variant is scrapped.
Instead, the Mac Pro will use an M2 Ultra chip, which will have 24 CPU cores and 76 GPU cores, as well as support for up to 192 gigabytes of Unified Memory.
The M2 Extreme could've been a reason for the relatively slow introduction of a New Mac Pro. In July, Gurman said Apple had an M1 Mac Pro ready, but didn't launch it in favor of developing the more powerful M2 Extreme chip.
Despite the reduced potential computing power, Gurman insists that Apple will continue to offer some level of Mac Pro expandability, including options to increase the memory, internal storage, and other components.
An M2 Pro Mac mini and M2 Ultra Mac Pro are apparently in testing for 2023 launches, Gurman adds, while M2 Pro and M2 Max versions of the 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I wouldn't be surprised to see an M3 based MacPro and also wouldn't be surprised if it was supposed to be an M3 MacPro all along. Apple has MacStudio which can hold over most users who need power. Apple can afford to wait to get MacPro right.
I wonder if the M series MacPro might make the 196GB proposed as a guess the cache for memory cards in slots. The speed could be decremented going off the chip to a bus but there could be a memory bus and an I/O devices bus.
I am not an EE person, but wonder if there is a physical limitation to how big a single chip can be before speeds head south? I guess the speed of light is the barrier.....
We’ve heard many similar rumours about Apple Silicon, which haven’t eventuated.
The fact that the pundits can’t tell us a release or announcement date tells you everything you need to know.
They can sit a large heatsink on two ultras next to each other and join them with a slower interconnect.
If the interconnect causes a bottleneck for some tasks, they can make it optional to use both together. In many cases, pro apps will scale across both. Video apps like After Effects, Da Vinci, Final Cut rendering will double in performance as they can render separate frames on each.
256GB RAM support would be enough but an option for 512GB would probably be useful for working with 8K frames. 8K60 10-bit uncompressed frames = 10GB RAM/second. Fast SSDs negate the need for lots of RAM in many scenarios now.
Add in a single x16 PCIe 5/6 connector and people can connect whatever else they want externally.
On 3nm, a dual Ultra would be 80TFLOPs and would be roughly equivalent to an Nvidia 4090 combined with a dual i9-13900k and the price would be under $10k, which is the price point most Mac Pro buyers are at. A 5nm model would perform ok too, it would perform like the higher-end 2019 Mac Pro at the mid-range price point and much smaller, cooler, quieter under full load.
Apple is not going to focus on grid computing because that's not how they can make money. They're a consumer company first and unless they actually come out with a very good Mac Pro, or a totally different scheme or connecting Studio type boxes (or computing servers like a specialized Mini without the extra stuff), I don't see Apple putting that much effort into the "professional" market. Those users will just have to be satisfied with the top of the line consumer devices. Do I like what I'm saying? Absolutely not but I feel that's where Apple is going.
I'm not an EE either but I worked at a place with TOP500 supercomputers. If Apple really wan't to expand their Apple Silicon line to match the hardware capabilities of their old Intel devices, they're going to have to get really creative and figure out a way to either enlarge their SoC or start stacking specialized memory and storage SOCs onto a main CPU, etc., SOC that has a minimum amount of memory and storage (for booting, etc.) but has extra I/O hardware and very fast buses/interconnects that would allow this sandwich type of system that could handle >1GB memory and lots of extremely fast storage.
Apple already does some grid computing. Final Cit Pro’s Compressor module can be installed on multiple computers to encode video. You don’t need a high amount of computers to make a difference. Every bit helps for smaller businesses. I don’t know how well it works or what kind of network is needed.
Also, remember that we had COVID pandemic shutdown causing a significant turnover with employees in many tech companies during that time - the effects of shutdowns are often not felt until a couple of years later. And now we're already seeing the effects.
Another consideration is that we have reduced our dependence on China and that means the age of cheap and quick consumerism is fading.
Also, why do we really need Apple computers for high end computing workstations which often have only a specific purpose? It just makes no economic sense. If consumers need 512GB of RAM, then they would just use a customized PC and that's gonna work just fine - pretty sure for every Mac app built for that, there is also a Windows app. It's not like they cannot do that. They can. They're called pros for a reason.
https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2022/11/08/fast-forward-comparing-1980s-supercomputer-to-modern-smartphone