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Well there was 3 interesting questions about the apple silicon mac pro going into the keynote: - how will they provide more RAM than the Mac Studio? - how wil

by nico_h 3y ago

Well there was 3 interesting questions about the apple silicon mac pro going into the keynote: - how will they provide more RAM than the Mac Studio? - how will they provide more GPU than the Mac Studio? - how will they provide more CPU than the Mac Studio? And the answer is « let’s not! » I’m disappointed there was no surprise on that front. I’m sad they mentioned gaming and created a « gaming mode » and then the Mac Pro has no GPU story to speak of. So all the 3d artists will keep stacking green team or red team GPU in their intel or amd boxes. This is not a good sign for 3d authoring software.

wilg 3y ago
It's bizarre that you'd pay $3000 more over the Mac Studio for zero extra performance, upgradability only for storage, and a bunch of useless PCI slots that don't support GPUs.
- ucm_edge 3y ago
  Yeah the Pro feels like a miss. I figured it would have same specs as the Studio for its SoC but would come with a bunch of options for co processor cards akin to the Afterburner card. So a studio you can kit out for additional specialized performance. Maybe those cards will trickle out over time, but not having them ready at launch makes the Pro feel like an afterthought right now.
  - wilg 3y ago
    It might have been a good idea to put the M2 itself on a replaceable board. Other than adding some professional video out or capture cards, which you could probably just do via Thunderbolt, I'm just baffled by this product.
    - geerlingguy 3y ago
      I would love if Apple used something like COM-HPC or even the new daughtercard approach Intel and Nvidia are using in their high end server CPU+GPU chips.
- avidphantasm 3y ago
  Yeah, it’s a bit baffling. Maybe the Pro has better thermals and can run the chips at higher frequencies/at peak frequency all the time compared to the Studio?
- threeseed 3y ago
  There are a lot of professionals who travel with their computers e.g. movie industry who would appreciate being able to fit everything in one box. Likewise if you're in a studio being able to reduce the amount of equipment in your rack is always a win.
smoldesu 3y ago
The GPU situation is getting really dire, and showing the obvious limitations of putting everything on one die at-scale. The Blender benchmarks tell the entire story now that Metal is supported: https://opendata.blender.org/benchmarks/query https://opendata.blender.org/benchmarks/query The M2 Max renders on-par with a 90 watt, 12nm RTX 2070 laptop card. From 2018.
- Apofis 3y ago
  Is there really no GPU passthrough? This seems insane.
- threeseed 3y ago
  So that Blender release contains an alpha release of OSX Metal: https://code.blender.org/2023/01/introducing-the-blender-metal-viewport/ https://code.blender.org/2023/01/introducing-the-blender-met... Would be good to at least see it stabilise and optimised a bit before jumping to conclusions. And yes Apple could make a better GPU by building a 450W discrete card but given that they make the most sales from lower end devices probably not a sensible strategy.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > Would be good to at least see it stabilise and optimised a bit before jumping to conclusions. How much further do you think they can optimize? Nvidia cards have hardware-accelerated BVH traversal and have been designed with ray-tracing in mind since 2009. Apple Silicon in it's current incarnation closer resembles a phone GPU with dedicated media engines. Maybe Metal will improve in time, but it's not going to close the performance gap. It probably won't even close the performance-per-watt gap, at least in Blender demos. > And yes Apple could make a better GPU by building a 450W discrete card They're already halfway there with the M1 Ultra's 200w TDP. It's concerning that their desktop focused SOC is being outperformed by last-gen 90w laptop GPUs, at least in my book. It signals that scaling the Mac beyond mobile SOCs will require a unique approach.

by nico_h 3y ago

wilg 3y ago

It's bizarre that you'd pay $3000 more over the Mac Studio for zero extra performance, upgradability only for storage, and a bunch of useless PCI slots that don't support GPUs.

ucm_edge 3y ago
Yeah the Pro feels like a miss. I figured it would have same specs as the Studio for its SoC but would come with a bunch of options for co processor cards akin to the Afterburner card. So a studio you can kit out for additional specialized performance. Maybe those cards will trickle out over time, but not having them ready at launch makes the Pro feel like an afterthought right now.
- wilg 3y ago
  It might have been a good idea to put the M2 itself on a replaceable board. Other than adding some professional video out or capture cards, which you could probably just do via Thunderbolt, I'm just baffled by this product.
  - geerlingguy 3y ago
    I would love if Apple used something like COM-HPC or even the new daughtercard approach Intel and Nvidia are using in their high end server CPU+GPU chips.
avidphantasm 3y ago
Yeah, it’s a bit baffling. Maybe the Pro has better thermals and can run the chips at higher frequencies/at peak frequency all the time compared to the Studio?
threeseed 3y ago
There are a lot of professionals who travel with their computers e.g. movie industry who would appreciate being able to fit everything in one box. Likewise if you're in a studio being able to reduce the amount of equipment in your rack is always a win.

smoldesu 3y ago

The GPU situation is getting really dire, and showing the obvious limitations of putting everything on one die at-scale. The Blender benchmarks tell the entire story now that Metal is supported: https://opendata.blender.org/benchmarks/query https://opendata.blender.org/benchmarks/query The M2 Max renders on-par with a 90 watt, 12nm RTX 2070 laptop card. From 2018.

Apofis 3y ago
Is there really no GPU passthrough? This seems insane.
threeseed 3y ago
So that Blender release contains an alpha release of OSX Metal: https://code.blender.org/2023/01/introducing-the-blender-metal-viewport/ https://code.blender.org/2023/01/introducing-the-blender-met... Would be good to at least see it stabilise and optimised a bit before jumping to conclusions. And yes Apple could make a better GPU by building a 450W discrete card but given that they make the most sales from lower end devices probably not a sensible strategy.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > Would be good to at least see it stabilise and optimised a bit before jumping to conclusions. How much further do you think they can optimize? Nvidia cards have hardware-accelerated BVH traversal and have been designed with ray-tracing in mind since 2009. Apple Silicon in it's current incarnation closer resembles a phone GPU with dedicated media engines. Maybe Metal will improve in time, but it's not going to close the performance gap. It probably won't even close the performance-per-watt gap, at least in Blender demos. > And yes Apple could make a better GPU by building a 450W discrete card They're already halfway there with the M1 Ultra's 200w TDP. It's concerning that their desktop focused SOC is being outperformed by last-gen 90w laptop GPUs, at least in my book. It signals that scaling the Mac beyond mobile SOCs will require a unique approach.