thadec

Yeah ... Intel and AMD CPUs have supported both integrated graphics (AMD's RDNA 3 integrated graphics on their Ryzen 7040 laptop chips are comparable to an Nvidia RTX 2050) as well as discrete graphics through PCIE or Thunderbolt for who knows how long (and now M.2 slots). Intel drivers will even have an Intel Arc discrete GPU and an Intel Iris Xe integrated GPU be seen by the CPU as a single GPU. (AMD considered this idea but abandoned it.) And no, it isn't an x86 thing. Lots of Linux ARM servers use discrete GPUs. MediaTek and Nvidia wanted to bring discrete GPU support to ARM PCs around 2021 but abandoned it because neither Microsoft (who has an exclusive Windows on ARM deal with Qualcomm that is explicitly designed to lock out MediaTek for Qualcomm's sake and ChromeOS/Linux for Microsoft's sake) or Google (who just isn't very smart when it comes to stuff like this) were interested so it was abandoned.

So, there never has been any reason for Apple Silicon Macs not supporting discrete graphics via M.2, PCIE or Thunderbolt other than Apple simply not wanting to. Which was the same reason why Apple locked Nvidia out of the Mac ecosystem and had people stuck with AMD GPU options only: purely because they wanted to. My guess is that Apple believed that they were capable of creating integrated GPUs that were comparable with Nvidia Ampere and AMD Radeon Pro, especially in the workloads that most Mac Pro buyers use them for. Maybe they are, but the issue may be that it isn't cost-effective to do so for a Mac Pro line that will sell less than a million units a year.

Claiming that the Core i9-13900H gets only a 1600 in Geekbench is just flat out false. A 2Q 2021 x86 laptop like the Razer Blade 15 with a Core i9-11900H (from the 11th gen line that Intel just recently declared end-of-life) benchmarked better than that:

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/20452232 ;

How's about showing an ACTUAL benchmark for the Core i9-13900H which shows single core score of more than 2000?

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/20561297

Also, on the GPU score, claiming that "In raw numbers, the M2 Max is just ahead of the NVIDIA chips that are discrete GPUs" is - again - false. Instead, the M2 Max is 35% worse than the laptop version of the RTX 4070. 

https://wccftech.com/m2-max-gpu-loses-to-laptop-rtx-4070-opencl-benchmark/

I agree that the maximum of 96 GB RAM gives the MacBook Pro an advantage, but the claim that 32 GB RAM is insufficient for "developers, photographers, musicians, and others" wasn't Apple Insider's position just yesterday with the Mac Mini whose performance, according to you, " threatens its larger stablemate, the Mac Studio."

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/02/13/m2-pro-mac-mini-review-best-price-to-performance-apple-silicon-yet

Now please note that the maximum configuration Mac Mini costs $4500. According to your own argument, it is only good for "web surfing and general productivity" because of the 32 GB RAM limit. Incidentally, this would also apply to the 32 GB Mac Studio version that begins at $2000.

 But storage? Nope. The Galaxy Book Ultra has an expansion slot, as does pretty much every x86 device over $500. This means getting to 8 TB storage on this Samsung laptop only costs $600, not $2400 (which would be the cost of another Galaxy Book 3 Ultra). 

That being said, the Samsung Galaxy Book Ultra is way too light and thin for a device with a Core i7 - let alone Core i9 - CPU and a discrete GPU. Throttling will be the inevitable result, and that will keep it from reaching anywhere near peak performance. Devices that will actually let you fully enjoy the performance of the CPU and the GPU would be Razer and MSI laptops that are thicker and weigh more. 

danox said:

iOS_Guy80 said:

 Oiled be that people are starting to use iPads as a computer? 

All the things that 99% of the people use their computer for can be done on the iPad, specialize games or specialize CAD programs, or heavy duty business programs you cannot, but the overwhelming majority of people are not cad jockeys, nor are they heavy gamers heavy users of commercial business programs.

Smartphones also pick up some of the load music, messaging, emails and many other little utility like things can be done on the smartphone, i.e. calendar, calculators, notes and many other little utility programs that used to be done on a full size desktop computer or laptop.

The geek crowd hates it when you point out that many people worldwide are using their smartphone and their iPad/tablet to off load 75% of their normal computing that was done on a desktop or laptop computer. And the rest is picked up using the lab at school in class or in a library.

People such as yourself claim that an iPad replaces Windows PCs. Your ilk never claims that an iPad replaces a Mac and we all know why.

rob53 said:

pulseimages said:

So why release the Mac Studio in the first then? 

To try and pacify Mac Pro users. If I remember correctly, the Mac Studio outperformed the current Intel Mac Pro for much less money. You could build a faster Mac Pro but by the time you did, you could have purchased 2-3 Studios. Apple engineers couldn't come through with a chip(s) that would justify the Mac Pro product line--and still haven't. Mac Studio introduced in March 2022 (thought it was older than this) and now it appears the Mac Pro might be released in Spring, which would put it a year after the Studio. From other reports, the Mac Pro will use the same, oversized box as the Intel Mac Pro, which I hope isn't the final Mac Pro product. Stack two Studios on top of each other and that should be enough room for a Mac Pro with 2-4x the power of the Studio. 

Geekbench scores still put the Studio above the fastest Intel Mac Pro in single and multi-core benchmarks. Metal benchmark still gives the Ultra a score just under 100K with several faster AMD Radeon graphics cards, mainly used in the Mac Pro. 

The problem is that the current Intel Mac Pro performs about at what an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X currently does and what an Intel Core i7-14700K (coming 4Q this year) soon will. And that doesn't even get into what current Ryzen 9 and Threadripper chips (and their Intel counterparts) do. Or what they will in 2024 when AMD hits TSMC 3nm and Intel hits what is equivalent to TSMC 5nm. 

See, that is the thing. In 2020 you were comparing Apple Silicon to chips in $799 and $999 devices that had been released a year or two prior. So folks were impressed. Nobody is going to be impressed that a $6000 machine released in 2023 has a CPU that beats the Xeon W-3235 from 2Q 2019. By comparison, 2019 is when the A13 for the iPhone 11 came out. You all know what iPhone 15 and its A17 is going to do to the iPhone 11. To put it another way, beating the Xeon W-3235 is not going to prove that Apple is capable of making a competitive workstation with their own chips. You will be able to get Xeon W-3235 (and similar AMD Threadripper 3960X) workstations on eBay from people who will want to get the AMD Threadripper 7000 in a few months. I am going to restate this: nobody cares that there are not a few AMD and Intel chips that outperform the M2 (including the Pro and Max) because the Mac Mini starts at $599. That is why DigitalTrends is able to call the Mac Mini "the best mini-computer ever" in an article that acknowledges that there are faster machines available https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/apple-mac-mini-review/
 (and only gives as an example an Intel-based mini PC, knowing full well that the 6nm AMD Ryzen R9 6900HX mini PCs crushes the 10nm Intel Core i9-12900K in performance, graphics and power per watt). But for a machine that will cost 10 times as much as the Mac Mini, the fact that there are a number of faster options available that cost way less won't be nearly as easy to brush aside.

It is going to be interesting to see how Apple deals with this issue. Maybe they will be able to get away with a first gen Mac Pro that isn't competitive - and yes they do need to get it out the door this year in order to finally declare the transition from Intel "done" as they are already behind schedule and, as mentioned earlier, AMD and especially Intel workstation (and upper echelon desktop) chips are going to make huge leaps in performance between now and 2025 - but 2nd gen and going forward is going to have to be. And as I said in the comment directly preceding this one, no, the Mac Pro isn't primarily for Hollywood people who don't care about having the very best performance. Hollywood shifted to Linux server farms for rendering, 3D animation etc. ages ago. Anything that Hollywood would do on a Mac Pro today would make more sense to shift to the cloud. Instead, Mac Pros are used mainly by the workstation crowd who prefers macOS to Linux and Windows workstations. But if the Apple Silicon Mac Pros aren't competitive, then those folks are going to be forced to ditch their preferences, and the only ones left will be those who simply can't migrate their workloads from macOS to Linux or Windows (or the cloud).  

dennyc69 said:

I don’t buy it, Hollywood types use Mac Pro, the  Mac Studio fills the gap for lower prices groups of people who still want pro power. This a click bait article? Don’t make stuff up 

This is 15 year old stuff. "Hollywood types" switched to Linux ages ago. As dinosaurs are no longer roaming the earth, Mac Pro is most often used as a general purpose workstation that happens to run macOS. Such people have no use for a Mac Studio, which is engineered for audio, video and photo professionals and actually performs worse than similarly priced hardware for anything and everything else. If Apple is going to retain the general purpose workstation crowd, they are going to need to put out a competitive product for engineers, architects, simulators, medical etc. Or else all of those people are going to migrate to Linux workstations running AMD Threadripper and Xeon W.