tenthousandthings

fastasleep said:

melgross said:

tenthousandthings said:

Allow me to add that I don’t quite get the argument that it has to be M2 — I gather there is a technical reason for it, but I think that’s hard to say without knowing a lot more than we do. I find the idea that Apple would design this entire M1 line but not account for the Mac Pro to be absurd. 

In terms of naming, I don’t think they will call it the Ultra Pro or Ultra+, they will all be Ultra, just with different core counts. Basically an Ultra is 2 or 4 Max fused together. 

It’s pretty clear that they are finished with the M1. Will people please stop making new M1 chips up? They may use two or even four M1 Ultra chips. They may change their concept of introducing more powerful chips over the year, and have an M2 Ultra for the Mac Pro. We don’t know. But they won’t have a four chip Ultra. John made that pretty clear.

So what are we to make of the myriad rumors going way back of the Jade 4C-Die alongside those of the Jade 2C-Die which came to fruition with the M1 Ultra? It seems unlikely that was a very similar codename for a next gen 4x SoC design. The Ternus comments of course complicates all this, so did they maybe test that design at one point and decide to skip it this gen for some reason? Certainly possible, but it seems like it'd be a disappointment for many if the Mac Pro tops out with the same top end as the Studio. I feel like there's gotta be another trick up their sleeve. But, maybe it really is a case of them hitting a wall with production and pulling back a bit, much like it was rumored a larger iMac was going to come and they hit walls with that and reshuffled. The Ultra in a Mac Pro first gen that matches 28 core Xeon performance and most/all(?) of the current AMD GPU offerings isn't terrible, but it's not a great final act if the same power also comes in the little Studio box. 

No, the main sources behind the iMac rumor have said that everything they were interpreting as a new 27-inch iMac is accounted for by the Studio Display with the A13 + camera + microphones + sound system. It’s understandable they thought that = iMac. 

melgross said:

tenthousandthings said:

Allow me to add that I don’t quite get the argument that it has to be M2 — I gather there is a technical reason for it, but I think that’s hard to say without knowing a lot more than we do. I find the idea that Apple would design this entire M1 line but not account for the Mac Pro to be absurd. 

In terms of naming, I don’t think they will call it the Ultra Pro or Ultra+, they will all be Ultra, just with different core counts. Basically an Ultra is 2 or 4 Max fused together. 

It’s pretty clear that they are finished with the M1. Will people please stop making new M1 chips up? They may use two or even four M1 Ultra chips. They may change their concept of introducing more powerful chips over the year, and have an M2 Ultra for the Mac Pro. We don’t know. But they won’t have a four chip Ultra. John made that pretty clear.

John was introducing the UltraFusion process when he said that. That process may also allow them to connect two Ultras together, much like what you’re suggesting when you say they may use multiple M1 Ultras in the Mac Pro. It’s a plausible technical solution to the problem. That’s the whole point of the “chiplet” approach. I think you’re getting hung up on semantics, although I’ll concede that it was not a live event and everything said was carefully reviewed.

It isn’t hard to imagine how John would introduce the idea, “UltraFusion not only allows us to fuse two M1 Max together and create the M1 Ultra, but it also allows us to connect two M1 Ultras together …”

Allow me to add that I don’t quite get the argument that it has to be M2 — I gather there is a technical reason for it, but I think that’s hard to say without knowing a lot more than we do. I find the idea that Apple would design this entire M1 line but not account for the Mac Pro to be absurd. 

rob53 said:

Marvin said:

stuartf said:

Except…

John Turnes of Apple quite literally said that the M1 Ultra completes the M1 line up just days ago

It is more likely that the MacPro will be based on M2 silicon or even a completely different design

Maybe but they could also have designed the Ultra chip to be able to join to other Ultra chips in which case it doesn't need a new name. The diagram shows two M1 Ultras connected in the middle using a different connector:



The Mac Pro can be offered with M1 Ultra at the entry level and an M1 Ultra Duo. There is no higher name than Ultra. Pro = better, Max = maximum, Ultra = beyond maximum. They can only call it Ultra something like infinity + 1. I expect they will be able to offer 256GB RAM on the Ultra Duo. The amount of RAM they need to offer is just what people have been installing, they don't need to support 1TB+ just because other computers do.

This isn't what I've seen from people on youtube. There isn't an UltraFusion connector to tie into the vertical area you're showing and simply rotating them doesn't work either. What I've seen is two stacked Ultras with a double height connector in the middle so connection lengths are minimal. The only way they get the bus speed is to keep the UltraFusion as short as possible. They've also talked about how the Ultra's UltraFusion connection is added once the Maxes have been created and tested. The Ultra is only created when two Maxes test 100% side by side, then the 10K connections are made.The good Maxes next to bad Maxes are cut out and used in MBPs while some of the bad Maxes can still be used as binned or have some parts cut off and used as a Pro. Apple is trying to maximize chip production. Putting two Ultras together like you're suggesting means very few Duo Ultras can be produced from a single platter. It would make more sense to create Ultras, test them, cut them out then stack them together. 

I don't want to violate copyrighted images so check out max tech, Apple's M2 Ultra DUO Mac Pro, 7:34 mark.

Have to say that video is really good. I had heard about Apple’s patent and had seen the image of basically two Ultras sitting back-to-back, connected via UltraFusion. But I hadn’t seen the full argument about everything, so it’s good to see that guy pull it all together. 

Kuo sees and hears a lot of things from the supply chain, but putting it all together is not easy, especially when it comes to Macs, as opposed to mobile devices.

So he was hearing and seeing a lot of things that pointed to the Mac Studio, but he understandably thought that meant the Mini was getting a Pro version, which is what he predicted. Which is pretty much exactly what the Mac Studio is, except they aren't calling it the Mini, because the Mini is going to live on a separate product.

So now Kuo sits back and reflects on what he saw and heard, and he concludes the M2 Mini is not going to change form factor. However, most likely this is just him saying he's got nothing left that indicates a change in the Mini's form factor. The reality is that such a change could and certainly would use components from the MacBook line. So there might not be anything in the supply chain to indicate a change in form factor. 

My own instinct is that the fact the Studio has exactly the same footprint as the current Mini means the new Mini will change its form factor. Apple will want the Mini to be clearly differentiated from the Studio. So it will shrink in size and basically be a MacBook without the Book, as it were. It wouldn't surprise me if there were no M2 Pro version of the Mini at all. That all the rumors of a Mini Pro were based on information about the Studio...