Oh well, that's A$4199 down the tube. I really wanted a Max, but can't really afford it at the current prices. So, I got the upper Pro model. Should be plenty for home defence.
Plus Space Black, I mean, I couldn't not.
Now watch Windows laptops copy Apple and start making black laptops. Oh, wait...
The GPU improvements and power efficient improvements are clearly the big news. It will be interesting to see how they compare to the PC GPUs, especially with the ray tracing, shaders and memory efficiency. Power efficiency simply means long battery life under the same load. Many models now surpassing 20-hours of battery life, which could only be dreamed of on INTEL macs that were measured in single digits, often lucky to get 3-4 hours. No doubt dumping PC processors was the best decision. The PC architecture just isn't as snappy in everyday response time either.
The black option is ok, but aren’t 90% of all Windows laptops and notebooks already black? Have been for decades. How are normal folk supposed to know that you’re using a Mac?
Easy answer. They’ll see that you’re using a laptop computer without being plugged into a wall power socket. Problem solved.
Personally I still prefer silver with black keyboard. Maybe it’s due to PTSD from too many years of lugging ugly Dell Latitudes around while scouting for available wall sockets in airports to plug in a power supply the size of a brick.
You mean like my Lenovo P series workstation that costs as much as an MBP? It is cheap plastic shit that is only in my possession for software reasons. But it is grey and black.
In my experience, ThinkPad are well built and last a long time without issues. What they need is a modern, efficient processor, and it looks we'll see it next year with Qualcomm Elite X processors.
It really feels like foolish to buy a Mac Studio M2 Max/Ultra right now. An M2 Max system comes to $3800…and slower than the M3 14” MBP spec’ed above.
my guess would be the M3 studio line shows up when they can actually get the chip supply. the "missed opportunity" likely caused by the chips not being available in quantity yet. and something had to come out first.
Yesterday's announcement feels more like the death knell for the Studio. It always was a short-term product to cover up the lack of a Mac Pro. Now that an M3 Max can be put in a MacBook, it can be put in the Mini. The Studio should always have been Mini-sized. Only the top end Studio configurations justified the extra size and heat sinking - the lower-end Studios never did. The M3 range of Mac Minis will be coming out in a few months. They will embarrass the current Studio models, which I would expect to be quietly dropped.
It was never a short term product
Agree with you. The M3 Max announcement convinces me that the Studio will get M3 Max/Ultra variants in the March to June time frame. Maybe even in Space Black. The M3 Max makes for a pretty compelling option for the Studio at the $2000 to $4000 price range.
Furthermore, the size of the M3 Pro SoC is interesting. Seems they really wanted to make it as small as possible. This may allow them to put it in cheaper products. Like a Mac mini at $1000.
Starting price of 14" MBP with M3 being less expensive than previous 14" MBP is interesting. That Space Black looks pretty cool too. Definitely something to think about...
I noted that they mentioned more than a few times how much better things would be for those still on Intel Macs (rub it in, why don't ya!), and in particular, how the 24" iMac M3 was offered as a replacement for eitherthe 21.5" or27" Intel iMacs. I wonder if that means we won't see a larger iMac any time soon.
Remember it's only an M3, not a Pro/Max and this replaces the 13" MacBook Pro w/TouchBar so technically it's more expensive. Yes, it's cheaper than any other 14" MacBook Pro previously, but it's more expensive if you wanted a lower end Pro model. However, I think you're getting a much better laptop too so it's deserved. It also only has 2 Thunderbolt ports versus 3 on the more expensive models and only supports 1 Display.
It's $300 more expensive then the $1,299 13" MBP it replaces but you also get:
Double base storage (512GB) Much better screen (14.2" miniLED with ProMotion) Much better 6-speaker audio system More ports Significantly improved GPU performance A fan for better sustained performance
Yesterday's announcement feels more like the death knell for the Studio. It always was a short-term product to cover up the lack of a Mac Pro. Now that an M3 Max can be put in a MacBook, it can be put in the Mini. The Studio should always have been Mini-sized. Only the top end Studio configurations justified the extra size and heat sinking - the lower-end Studios never did. The M3 range of Mac Minis will be coming out in a few months. They will embarrass the current Studio models, which I would expect to be quietly dropped.
It was never a short term product
The Mac Studio is a design monstrosity. It should never have existed. The previous design generation at Apple would never have countenanced it.
Just loosen the wallet and you can get a model that supports 4 displays. Obviously the lower cost models have much less capability in many areas of the device. No surprise there. You get more features in a Cadillac than a Chevy.
The positioning is missing from all the commentaries I’ve read and watched so far so let’s break it down.
There are twin goals here. First, to differentiate better the Air range from the Pro which will reduce consumer confusion and allow more targeted pricing differentiation (against low end x86 laptops). Second, to fend off Meteor Lake which is imminent from Intel. Had the M3 launched after Meteor Lake, it would not look so compelling.
Along with this they cleared out the Touchbar 13" model which I had suspected had been kept for corporate users, and replaced it with a a base M3 14" Pro aimed at the same audience; remember, big company developers don't need massive power for builds as they use server farms. So they cleaned up the product lines very nicely.
Then, they pitched this at Intel Mac users who are approaching upgrade time. Several mentions throughout of comparisons to those models to drive home the point.
Finally they continued to drive home their gaming creds with the re-architected GPU, throwing in Dynamic Caching to boot. What is that? Well, we await more, but I suspect this simplifies game ports by eliminating the need to produce new builds targeted on different GPU core quantities including having the OS dynamically allocate GPU cores as needed while reserving those not needed for other tasks; but, well, this is only a guess.
Yesterday's announcement feels more like the death knell for the Studio. It always was a short-term product to cover up the lack of a Mac Pro. Now that an M3 Max can be put in a MacBook, it can be put in the Mini. The Studio should always have been Mini-sized. Only the top end Studio configurations justified the extra size and heat sinking - the lower-end Studios never did. The M3 range of Mac Minis will be coming out in a few months. They will embarrass the current Studio models, which I would expect to be quietly dropped.
It was never a short term product
The Mac Studio is a design monstrosity. It should never have existed. The previous design generation at Apple would never have countenanced it.
Just loosen the wallet and you can get a model that supports 4 displays. Obviously the lower cost models have much less capability in many areas of the device. No surprise there. You get more features in a Cadillac than a Chevy.
Spot on! Sadly, it doesn't fit their "I'm so cool because I'm negative" shtick, just easier for them to be ignorant assholes.
Yesterday's announcement feels more like the death knell for the Studio. It always was a short-term product to cover up the lack of a Mac Pro. Now that an M3 Max can be put in a MacBook, it can be put in the Mini. The Studio should always have been Mini-sized. Only the top end Studio configurations justified the extra size and heat sinking - the lower-end Studios never did. The M3 range of Mac Minis will be coming out in a few months. They will embarrass the current Studio models, which I would expect to be quietly dropped.
It was never a short term product
The Mac Studio is a design monstrosity. It should never have existed. The previous design generation at Apple would never have countenanced it.
The previous design team made this toilet seat thing:
This looks fine by comparison:
Apple's design team didn't all leave so the people who designed a lot of their old products are still at Apple.
Man, my maxed out 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro still serves me well, and the GPU improvements really piqued my interest (2.5X faster in Cinema 4D!) but, it was really the Space Black that made me realizing I'm going to have some irresponsible thoughts going through my head for a while on this one. That's a much deserved "finally"!
The CPU boost in the 16" was pretty big for a single generation, 50% more p-cores and Apple says it's 80% faster overall. The GPU boost is from hardware raytracing. Nvidia noted the same kind of speedup:
"with RT Cores and Tensor Cores, execution time shrinks significantly, translating to 2-3x faster in-game performance."
Apple's note next to the 2.5x ( https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ ) says: "Redshift v3.5.18 tested using a 29.2MB scene utilizing hardware-accelerated ray tracing on M3-based systems, and software-based ray tracing on all other units."
If the same speedup translates to Blender, this will mean with M2 Max, currently on p4, M3 Max could be on p1, just below a desktop 3080. M3 Ultra would be in the top 5 GPUs, around a desktop 4080. A 4090 would be just 50% faster. An M4 Ultra revision could potentially take the top spot.
Yesterday's announcement feels more like the death knell for the Studio. It always was a short-term product to cover up the lack of a Mac Pro. Now that an M3 Max can be put in a MacBook, it can be put in the Mini. The Studio should always have been Mini-sized. Only the top end Studio configurations justified the extra size and heat sinking - the lower-end Studios never did. The M3 range of Mac Minis will be coming out in a few months. They will embarrass the current Studio models, which I would expect to be quietly dropped.
It was never a short term product
The Mac Studio is a design monstrosity. It should never have existed. The previous design generation at Apple would never have countenanced it.
That’s nothing but nonsensical horse shit on your part.
It really feels like foolish to buy a Mac Studio M2 Max/Ultra right now. An M2 Max system comes to $3800…and slower than the M3 14” MBP spec’ed above.
my guess would be the M3 studio line shows up when they can actually get the chip supply. the "missed opportunity" likely caused by the chips not being available in quantity yet. and something had to come out first.
Yesterday's announcement feels more like the death knell for the Studio. It always was a short-term product to cover up the lack of a Mac Pro. Now that an M3 Max can be put in a MacBook, it can be put in the Mini. The Studio should always have been Mini-sized. Only the top end Studio configurations justified the extra size and heat sinking - the lower-end Studios never did. The M3 range of Mac Minis will be coming out in a few months. They will embarrass the current Studio models, which I would expect to be quietly dropped.
The MacBook Pros have been capable of running the M series Pro and Max chips from the start, the Mac mini is capable of of running the regular M series and the Pro and the studio was developed for the Max and Ultra chip variants, and the Mac Pro runs the Ultra only, this has no affect on the M3 generation as all this structure is on the M2 generation. The curious revelation here was that they did not add an M3 Pro variant to the iMac, so the Mac mini still offers a superior chip option.
Yesterday's announcement feels more like the death knell for the Studio. It always was a short-term product to cover up the lack of a Mac Pro. Now that an M3 Max can be put in a MacBook, it can be put in the Mini. The Studio should always have been Mini-sized. Only the top end Studio configurations justified the extra size and heat sinking - the lower-end Studios never did. The M3 range of Mac Minis will be coming out in a few months. They will embarrass the current Studio models, which I would expect to be quietly dropped.
It was never a short term product
The Mac Studio is a design monstrosity. It should never have existed. The previous design generation at Apple would never have countenanced it.
It's a replacement for the Old gen Mac Pros at a reasonable starting price of $2000 and the size of 2 stacked Mac minis.
Considering the Mac Pro is $7000 for the same as a $4000 Mac Studio and the only advantage is PCI lanes offered within the case rather than external Thunderbolt, the Mac Pro doesn't make sense anymore and that's the product you should be calling a design monstrosity. Also lets not forget Apple 10 years ago released the infamous trash can Mac Pro which came with tons of flaws but at least it's a case that would make more sense than todays Mac Pro and fit in the Studios footprint better.
Starting price of 14" MBP with M3 being less expensive than previous 14" MBP is interesting. That Space Black looks pretty cool too. Definitely something to think about...
I noted that they mentioned more than a few times how much better things would be for those still on Intel Macs (rub it in, why don't ya!), and in particular, how the 24" iMac M3 was offered as a replacement for eitherthe 21.5" or27" Intel iMacs. I wonder if that means we won't see a larger iMac any time soon.
They will be drawing a hard line to discontinue support for all Intel Macs in the near future. The remarks about the comparative boost is both marketing to convince people to upgrade from those and also a warning the the MacOS written to use that new speed and capacity will soon be too much for Intel Macs to handle.
Yep, that's what I'm afraid of...
My very capable 2017 27" iMac has already been locked out of future OS upgrades like Sonoma.
With "Open Core Legacy Patcher," you can run Sonoma on your 2017. Mine works just fine.
It really feels like foolish to buy a Mac Studio M2 Max/Ultra right now. An M2 Max system comes to $3800…and slower than the M3 14” MBP spec’ed above.
my guess would be the M3 studio line shows up when they can actually get the chip supply. the "missed opportunity" likely caused by the chips not being available in quantity yet. and something had to come out first.
Yesterday's announcement feels more like the death knell for the Studio. It always was a short-term product to cover up the lack of a Mac Pro. Now that an M3 Max can be put in a MacBook, it can be put in the Mini. The Studio should always have been Mini-sized. Only the top end Studio configurations justified the extra size and heat sinking - the lower-end Studios never did. The M3 range of Mac Minis will be coming out in a few months. They will embarrass the current Studio models, which I would expect to be quietly dropped.
It was never a short term product
I would agree that the current M2 Studio Pro is probably dead, but there WILL be M3 versions of Studio Max and Studio Ultra.
Comments
Lenovo ThinkPad | Military-tested Rugged Laptops | Lenovo US
In my experience, ThinkPad are well built and last a long time without issues. What they need is a modern, efficient processor, and it looks we'll see it next year with Qualcomm Elite X processors.
Double base storage (512GB)
Much better screen (14.2" miniLED with ProMotion)
Much better 6-speaker audio system
More ports
Significantly improved GPU performance
A fan for better sustained performance
That's worth $300 extra dollars.
Along with this they cleared out the Touchbar 13" model which I had suspected had been kept for corporate users, and replaced it with a a base M3 14" Pro aimed at the same audience; remember, big company developers don't need massive power for builds as they use server farms. So they cleaned up the product lines very nicely.
Then, they pitched this at Intel Mac users who are approaching upgrade time. Several mentions throughout of comparisons to those models to drive home the point.
Finally they continued to drive home their gaming creds with the re-architected GPU, throwing in Dynamic Caching to boot. What is that? Well, we await more, but I suspect this simplifies game ports by eliminating the need to produce new builds targeted on different GPU core quantities including having the OS dynamically allocate GPU cores as needed while reserving those not needed for other tasks; but, well, this is only a guess.
This looks fine by comparison:
Apple's design team didn't all leave so the people who designed a lot of their old products are still at Apple.
The CPU boost in the 16" was pretty big for a single generation, 50% more p-cores and Apple says it's 80% faster overall. The GPU boost is from hardware raytracing. Nvidia noted the same kind of speedup:
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/geforce-gtx-dxr-ray-tracing-available-now/
"with RT Cores and Tensor Cores, execution time shrinks significantly, translating to 2-3x faster in-game performance."
Apple's note next to the 2.5x ( https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ ) says: "Redshift v3.5.18 tested using a 29.2MB scene utilizing hardware-accelerated ray tracing on M3-based systems, and software-based ray tracing on all other units."
If the same speedup translates to Blender, this will mean with M2 Max, currently on p4, M3 Max could be on p1, just below a desktop 3080. M3 Ultra would be in the top 5 GPUs, around a desktop 4080. A 4090 would be just 50% faster. An M4 Ultra revision could potentially take the top spot.
Blender opendata
Considering the Mac Pro is $7000 for the same as a $4000 Mac Studio and the only advantage is PCI lanes offered within the case rather than external Thunderbolt, the Mac Pro doesn't make sense anymore and that's the product you should be calling a design monstrosity. Also lets not forget Apple 10 years ago released the infamous trash can Mac Pro which came with tons of flaws but at least it's a case that would make more sense than todays Mac Pro and fit in the Studios footprint better.
With "Open Core Legacy Patcher," you can run Sonoma on your 2017. Mine works just fine.
I would agree that the current M2 Studio Pro is probably dead, but there WILL be M3 versions of Studio Max and Studio Ultra.