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The might even skip it? Or rearchitect it. The M3 Max would need to have the silicon space to turn into an ultra right now, and thats a lot of die area to spen

The might even skip it? Or rearchitect it. The M3 Max would need to have the silicon space to turn into an ultra right now, and thats a lot of die area to spend.

smoldesu 3y ago
My bet is a rearchitecture. The M1/M2 Ultra feels constrained by the thermal limitation of the Mac Studio. That's fine, but the current Mac Pro is a testament to how this doesn't really scale up very well. If you want my perverted guess, I think Apple has a skunkworks Mac Pro with a disabled/removed iGPU for testing dGPUs on Apple Silicon. If the eventual goal is to reprise the size, memory capacity and IO throughput of the old Mac Pro, you can't really keep scaling a mobile architecture. You can get pretty far, but the Mac Studio marks a line in the sand where Apple decided to go no further. If Apple sees that market as a valuable one to capture (which I think they do), I think they'll introduce a new Mac designed around the thermal envelope of the current rackmount Mac Pro. The desktop case would get a slight reworking to match it's capacity and specs. From there, I'd expect them to invest heavily in on-die PCI controllers and external GPU support on the software side. If they know what's good for them, it would also be cool to see them extend these features to lower-end Macs with eGPU support over Thunderbolt. Remove the VM limitation, document iBoot for the hardware owners and you've got yourself a surprisingly attractive Apple Silicon server/pro offering. It's a bit of a pipe dream, but it wouldn't shock me to see Apple reintroduce a proper Mac Pro as a "one more thing" moment for us frothing nerds.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  I have heard rumors about a discrete Apple GPU actually. I was thinking its something VR related... But also, its possible that Apple does precisely none of this and just makes huge GPU tiles when their SOCs go tiled anyway. With their margins, they could sell something akin to a MI300A right now.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    A new lineup of Macs with Apple dGPUs would be an interesting development. Here I was, insinuating they'd bury their hatchet with Nvidia. Personally speaking though, I struggle to imagine anything other than a greenfield approach to the Pro/server space. Apple has their work cut out for them with the new Ampere and Grace systems hitting shelves, and I don't think "M4 but we glued 8 of them together" will scale up to that point. My biggest hope is that they do see this market as worthwhile, and use it as an excuse to make MacOS feel like a regular OS again. Me and my wild imagination, huh...

The might even skip it? Or rearchitect it. The M3 Max would need to have the silicon space to turn into an ultra right now, and thats a lot of die area to spend.

smoldesu 3y ago

My bet is a rearchitecture. The M1/M2 Ultra feels constrained by the thermal limitation of the Mac Studio. That's fine, but the current Mac Pro is a testament to how this doesn't really scale up very well. If you want my perverted guess, I think Apple has a skunkworks Mac Pro with a disabled/removed iGPU for testing dGPUs on Apple Silicon. If the eventual goal is to reprise the size, memory capacity and IO throughput of the old Mac Pro, you can't really keep scaling a mobile architecture. You can get pretty far, but the Mac Studio marks a line in the sand where Apple decided to go no further. If Apple sees that market as a valuable one to capture (which I think they do), I think they'll introduce a new Mac designed around the thermal envelope of the current rackmount Mac Pro. The desktop case would get a slight reworking to match it's capacity and specs. From there, I'd expect them to invest heavily in on-die PCI controllers and external GPU support on the software side. If they know what's good for them, it would also be cool to see them extend these features to lower-end Macs with eGPU support over Thunderbolt. Remove the VM limitation, document iBoot for the hardware owners and you've got yourself a surprisingly attractive Apple Silicon server/pro offering. It's a bit of a pipe dream, but it wouldn't shock me to see Apple reintroduce a proper Mac Pro as a "one more thing" moment for us frothing nerds.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
I have heard rumors about a discrete Apple GPU actually. I was thinking its something VR related... But also, its possible that Apple does precisely none of this and just makes huge GPU tiles when their SOCs go tiled anyway. With their margins, they could sell something akin to a MI300A right now.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  A new lineup of Macs with Apple dGPUs would be an interesting development. Here I was, insinuating they'd bury their hatchet with Nvidia. Personally speaking though, I struggle to imagine anything other than a greenfield approach to the Pro/server space. Apple has their work cut out for them with the new Ampere and Grace systems hitting shelves, and I don't think "M4 but we glued 8 of them together" will scale up to that point. My biggest hope is that they do see this market as worthwhile, and use it as an excuse to make MacOS feel like a regular OS again. Me and my wild imagination, huh...