atonaldenim

I agree with the analysis that this was "the best they could do" this year, and they needed to keep the Apple Silicon transition rolling. Definitely it's a disappointment compared to how impressive the 2019 one was in its time. (Still, was criticized then for not having PCIe 4.0, not being Threadripper, etc. Nevertheless a huge leap from previous Macs.)

This second shredder Mac Pro is clearly marketed at audio creatives, and Pro Tools for example only released an Apple Silicon-native version three months ago! These pro software vendors, Avid in particular, are notorious for dragging their feet with new hardware/OS compatibility. They have little incentive to invest in migrating to Apple Silicon if their users are all still on Intel Mac Pros, and can't even buy an Apple Silicon Mac Pro if they wanted to.

It looks to me based on Hector Martin analysis and Mark Gurman reporting that they planned for the Jade-4C Die aka "Extreme" chip to be the top of the line, but were not able to make it happen for M1 or M2 generations. Gurman on Discord last night said he imagines that they will keep trying to make Jade-4C happen if they can. It sounds like Apple has had a good amount of brain drain on the Apple Silicon design team, which may be part of why they haven't been able to finish the job yet on the complex Jade-4C, the desire for massive RAM expansion, or discrete GPU expansion. 

I share the hope that M2 Ultra Mac Pro is a stopgap, that getting Vision Pro launched was the engineering focus this year, and that future Mac Pro generations will go well beyond this one!

chadbag said:

The previous Intel Mac Pro used the “shredder” design that the new AS Mac Pro does.  Not sure why you're bringing ancient devices into this. 

Yes my feelings exactly. The "cheese grater" nickname was already used for the Power Mac G5 through Mac Pro 2012 era of case design. That's what I meant by "the old tower design" and by "the new design" I meant "the current design" from 2019 to present.

We need a new nickname for this new generation, when Mike wrote "It's still got the signature 'cheese grater' front and back" that to my ears is "bringing ancient devices into" the conversation, as you said. 

We already had the "cheese grater", the "trash can", and now our current design should have its own nickname, I vote that it should be called the "shredder"!

Great review Mike. I’d be curious to see where the top 28-core Xeon in the Mac Pro 7,1 would land on the benchmark charts. A lot of people are just showing benchmarks against other Apple Silicon Macs, but comparing the new Mac Pro against the previous Mac Pro is definitely the most relevant metric for someone thinking of upgrading!

Also, you said they used the same cheese grater design, but I’d have to differ. The old tower design was the cheese grater, the new design is the shredder!

rob53 said:

Nothing new. I have external SSD drives (TB and USB-C) that disconnect then reconnect for no reason. 

Yes external USB drives disconnect on sleep, especially if connected to a PCIe USB card. It’s unfortunate, but known behavior.

But internal HDDs connected by a SATA cable to the motherboard’s SATA ports should NEVER inadvertently eject on sleep. That’s very bad. 

Good report Mike. I also don’t think 2023 Mac Pro will sell nearly as well as the 2019 Pro. I hope that dip in sales prompts them to double down on improving future Mac Pros, rather than abandoning it altogether.

I’d guess that they would have liked to do more with AS Mac Pro, but for whatever reason were not able to get it done this year. Hopefully they will keep pushing forward. From taking a year longer than their 2 year transition goal, to failing to deliver the planned Jade 4C “Extreme” SoC in both M1 and M2 generations, seems like they really hit some roadblocks from their original intent. I highly doubt they would have given 2019 Mac Pro such dramatically better expansion capabilities if they knew they wouldn’t be able to maintain that level of performance after Apple Silicon transition.

One has to suspect the ongoing brain drain on the Apple Silicon design team is part of these stumbles. Let’s hope Srouji gets the big Mac back on track, and their patented multi-GPU tech comes to light soon!