With the release of the M2 Pro Mac mini, the only Apple computer on sale still using an Intel processor is the Mac Pro. In this article, we investigate whether an Apple silicon-powered Mac Pro has a future or not.
In Brief
It would appear that the two key features of the Mac Pro, being the most powerful and most expandable Mac computer, are no longer going to be part of the Apple Silicon powered 2023 Mac Pro model. This calls into question whether the Mac Pro is worth getting, as the Mac Studio could be just as powerful as the Mac Pro. In addition, the Mac Pro will have very limited user-expandable options.
History
The Mac Pro was first released in 2006 as a replacement for Apple’s Power Mac range which continues all the way back to 1994 when Mac computers used the PowerPC processor and offered six PCI-X expansion slots and seven internal drive bays. What is more, the story doesn’t stop there; the Power Mac range replaced the Quadra 900 and 950 models with the Quadra 900 powered by a 25MHz 68040 processor and five NuBus slots.
Apart from the blip with the Mac Pro trash can from 2013 to 2019, you can trace these two key features of being the most powerful and most expandable computers in the Mac range all the way back to the Quadra 900.
In 2003 we first saw the iconic cheesegrater style with the release of the Power Mac G5, but it wasn’t until 2006, when Apple moved to Intel processors, that we saw the name Mac Pro as Apple’s top-of-the-range Mac desktop computer.
In 2013, Apple changed the ethos behind the Mac Pro and released the ‘trash-can’ Mac Pro. With the trash-can model, the Mac Pro remained the most powerful Mac computer, but Apple limited the degree of expandability by removing internal drive bays and PCIe card slots. However, the trash can Mac Pro did bring Thunderbolt and USB 3 connectivity to the Mac Pro model, something that the old cheesegrater models never got.
In 2019, Apple did a U-turn and dropped the trash can form factor and produced a new take on the cheesegrater form factor with the 2019 Mac Pro model. Still the most powerful Mac, the 2019 Mac Pro brought expandability back to the top of the list, supporting up to 1.5TB of RAM across 12 slots, 8 PCI Express slots, as well as a range of video, graphics and storage expansion options.
Apple Silicon
In June 2020, Apple announced Apple silicon, in which the CPU, GPU and memory are all brought together on one chip. A large part of what Apple Silicon brings to the table is the system-on-a-chip (SoC) design. In particular, unified memory. Here’s what Apple had to say about it when it first unveiled the M1 chip.
“As a system on a chip (SoC), M1 combines numerous powerful technologies into a single chip, and features a unified memory architecture for dramatically improved performance and efficiency. […]
Macs and PCs have traditionally used multiple chips for the CPU, I/O, security and more. Now with M1, these technologies are combined into a single SoC, delivering a whole new level of integration for greater performance and power efficiency. M1 also features a unified memory architecture that brings together high-bandwidth, low-latency memory into a single pool within a custom package. This allows all the technologies in the SoC to access the same data without copying it between multiple pools of memory, further improving performance and efficiency.”
During the WWDC 2020 keynote address, Apple also said that the transition to Apple silicon would take two years. However, with the passing of WWDC 2022 in June, it marked two years since Apple announced the transition from Intel to its own chips, with still no Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
Even if we start the clock from the point that the first Apple Silicon Macs were announced in October 2020, it’s still more than two years from that point.
But dig under the surface, and it looks as though, at one point, Apple could have been on track to release a Mac Pro much earlier. Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, in this PowerOn newsletter, said…
“When Apple first set out to build a replacement for the Intel Mac Pro, it planned a machine with a processor based on the original M1 chip. The approach called for two main configurations: one chip equal to the power of two M1 Max processors — the highest-end MacBook Pro chip — and another equal to four M1 Max components combined.”
During the Mac Studio launch event in March 2022, Apple senior vice president of Hardware Engineering John Ternus confirmed that a Mac Pro would be coming "another day" to clear up any confusion about the future of the Mac Pro product line.
In June 2022, we learned that Apple has been testing a Mac Pro, codenamed J180. This machine was expected to include a successor to the M1 Ultra chip used in the Mac Studio computer. In addition, Mark Gurman revealed a tidbit about the Mac Pro development in his interview on YouTube with Vadim Yuriev, saying…
“They also had an M1 Mac Pro ready to go months ago. But they scrapped that to wait for the M2 version.”
In October 2022, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported this…
“Onto the Mac Pro. That new high-end machine will include chip options that are at least twice or four times as powerful as the M2 Max. Let’s call those chips the M2 Ultra and the M2 Extreme. My belief is that the Mac Pro will be offered with options for 24 and 48 CPU cores and 76 and 152 graphics cores—along with up to 256 gigabytes of memory.
In fact, I can share one configuration of the Mac Pro in active testing within Apple: 24 CPU cores (16 performance and 8 efficiency cores), 76 graphics cores and 192 gigabytes of memory. That particular machine is running macOS Ventura 13.3”.
This would have enabled Apple to offer two Apple Silicon powered Mac Pro desktop computers…
An M2 Ultra option with 24 CPU cores, 76 graphic cores and up to 192GB of unified memory.
An M2 Extreme option with 48 CPU cores, 152 graphic cores and up to 384GB of unified memory.
The second option would maintain the 2023 Mac Pro as the most powerful Mac computer in Apple’s range, with a Mac Pro the only Apple computer with an M2 Extreme chip. But then, in December 2022, Mark Gurman dropped a bombshell when he reported…
“The company has likely scrapped that higher-end configuration, which may disappoint Apple’s most demanding users — the photographers, editors and programmers who prize that kind of computing power.
The company made the decision because of both the complexity and cost of producing a processor that is essentially four M2 Max chips fused together. It also will help Apple and partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. save chip-production resources for higher-volume machines. […]
Based on Apple’s current pricing structure, an M2 Extreme version of a Mac Pro would probably cost at least $10,000 — without any other upgrades — making it an extraordinarily niche product that likely isn’t worth the development costs, engineering resources and production bandwidth it would require.”
Instead, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman believes that the new Apple Silicon-powered Mac Pro, when it is released in 2023, will rely on the M2 Ultra SoC but still retain its unique features, offering ‘easy-expandability’, implying that at least the 2023 Mac Pro would still be the most expandable Mac, even if it had lost the ‘most-powerful’ crown, with the loss of the M2 Extreme.
But the expandability options are now being called into question.
Firstly in his PowerOn Newsletter published on 8th January 2023, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported…
“In another disappointment, the new Mac Pro will look identical to the 2019 model. It will also lack one key feature from the Intel version: user-upgradeable RAM. That’s because the memory is tied directly to the M2 Ultra’s motherboard.”
But at least the 2023 Mac Pro would still have some expandability, with Mark Gurman adding…
“Still, there are two SSD storage slots and for graphics, media and networking cards.”
The next Mac Pro may lack user upgradeable GPUs in addition to non-upgradeable RAM. Right now Apple Silicon Macs don’t support external GPUs and you have to use whatever configuration you buy on Apple’s website. But the Mac Pro GPU will be powerful with up to 76 cores.
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) January 26, 2023
But perhaps not? In a pair of Tweets on 26th January 2023, Mark Gurman first tweeted that the SoC design would mean that there would be no user expandable GPU option with the 2023 Mac Pro…
“The next Mac Pro may lack user upgradeable GPUs in addition to non-upgradeable RAM. Right now Apple Silicon Macs don’t support external GPUs and you have to use whatever configuration you buy on Apple’s website. But the Mac Pro GPU will be powerful with up to 76 cores.”
That last point refers to an M2 Ultra being two M2 Max SoCs being put together, and we know that there is already an M2 Max that comes with a 38-core GPU.
That will leave storage as the main user-upgradeable component in the new Mac Pro, which will have the same design as the current, Intel model. The big difference between a Mac Pro and a Mac Studio — in addition to M1 Ultra to M2 Ultra — should be performance from more cooling.
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) January 26, 2023
So if memory and GPUs cannot be user expandable, that leaves storage, to which Mark Gurman tweeted…
“That will leave storage as the main user-upgradeable component in the new Mac Pro, which will have the same design as the current, Intel model. The big difference between a Mac Pro and a Mac Studio — in addition to M1 Ultra to M2 Ultra — should be performance from more cooling.”
What’s Left?
Based on Mark Gurman’s sources, who are some of the most reliable in the business, a 2023 Mac Pro will now not have user upgradable CPUs, GPUs, or memory.
What will make the 2023 Mac Pro stand out from the Mac Studio once it has been upgraded to M2 Max and M2 Ultra SoCs are “two SSD storage slots” and “performance from more cooling”, which should offer an improved sustained performance than the Mac Studio.
The only other factor to consider for those who need to use DSP cards like Avid’s HDX cards is that because Gurman says in his recent tweet, “the new Mac Pro, which will have the same design as the current Intel model”, we can be reasonably sure there will be the same configuration of PCE Express slots.
Effectively the 2023 Mac Pro will be a Mac Studio with two extra SSD slots, better cooling and built-in PCI Express slots, but you should expect to pay a premium for those Mac Pro exclusive features, especially if Apple has continued with an M2 Extreme version because, as Mark Gurman said…
“The company [Apple] made the decision because of both the complexity and cost of producing a processor that is essentially four M2 Max chips fused together.
Moreover, there are concerns about how much consumers are willing to spend. Based on Apple’s current pricing structure, an M2 Extreme version of a Mac Pro would probably cost at least $10,000 — without any other upgrades.”
What About The Price?
But even with the M2 Ultra SoC, a 2023 Mac Pro with a reasonable spec is likely to be around $9,000. Compare that to the current price for a Mac Studio with an Apple M1 Ultra with a 20-core CPU, 48-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine SoC, 128GB of unified memory and a 1TB SSD that comes in at $4,800. With Apple’s track record of upgrading Mac computers from M1 to M2 chips, the prices of the M2 are usually the same as its M1 cousin or sometimes even a little cheaper.
OK, with the Mac Pro, you won’t need to buy an expansion chassis if you need it for DSP cards like Avid’s HDX; But if you go for a Mac Studio and need HDX cards, there is a Sonnet Echo Express III-D (HDX Edition) Optimized for Avid HDX Cards that offers 3 PCIe slots and costs $800, which is a lot cheaper than the $4,000+ predicted price differential between a similar speed Mac Pro and Mac Studio. That seems to be a very significant price difference to pay for complete integration.
But it gets better, you could go for the Sonnet xMac Studio/Echo III, which is a combined Mac Studio rack mount and 3 slot PCIe expansion chassis approved for 3 Avid HDX cards that would cost around $1,650 and effectively give you the same level of integration.
The only limit now is that both the solutions would only support a maximum of 3 HDX cards, but in reality, even this isn’t an issue because even though the 2019 Mac Pro has more slots, currently Avid only supports up to 3 HDX cards in a 2019 Mac Pro.
Release Dates
This is where we have very little firm information until yesterday. Although both analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman sources had suggested sometime in 2023.
Other unnamed sources are suggesting that the 2023 Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra SoC could be announced as soon as March 2023, with the Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra chip announced at WWDC 2023 in June.
However, yesterday in the Q&A section of his latest PowerOn newsletter Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that…
“I wouldn’t anticipate the introduction of a Mac Studio in the near future. The upcoming Mac Pro is very similar in functionality to the Mac Studio — and adds the M2 Ultra chip rather than the M1 Ultra. So it wouldn’t make sense for Apple to offer an M2 Ultra Mac Studio and M2 Ultra Mac Pro at the same time. It’s more likely that Apple either never updates the Mac Studio or holds off until the M3 or M4 generation. At that point, the company may be able to better differentiate the Mac Studio from the Mac Pro”
So it looks like Apple doesn’t want an upgraded Mac Studio to trash the sales of the Mac Pro and plans to fix it by holding back on upgrading the Mac Studio.
The Elephant In The Room - Memory
There is, however, one elephant in the room, the lack of memory for handling VIs. Compared with the 1.5TB of RAM that the 2019 Mac Pro can support, the maximum amount of memory possible with an M2 Ultra-powered Mac Pro is likely to be 192GB.
Interestingly when it comes to RAM, the 2103 Mac Pro, like its cheesegrater predecessors, could only support up to 128GB of memory, which is less than the 192GB that we expect the 2023 Mac Pro to support.
That said, the consensus is that Apple Silicon, because of the SoC architecture, uses memory very differently, with the suggestion that you need less memory with Apple silicon.
However, for those of you loading a lot of VIs into memory, it’s not clear how that will impact your workflow. You might need to look at a number of networked machines to spread the VI load across.
Conclusion
From my perspective, putting that use case to one side, it seemed to me, before Mark Gurman’s latest bombshell, that with what we expect from an Apple silicon-powered Mac Pro, there would be little reason to pay a significant premium for what are very small benefits.
But that assumed Apple would release an upgraded Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra SoC sometime soon.
If Mark Gurman’s information is correct, Apple is blocking the Mac Studio upgrade to prevent users from being able to save significant amounts of money by buying a Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra SoC.
What Now?
So your choices now, for the foreseeable future, will be to buy a Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra with 20-core CPU, 48-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, and 128GB of unified memory (the maximum possible with the M1 Ultra) for $4,800 or go with an upgraded Mac Pro with its very limited expandability with an M2 Ultra with 24 CPU cores, 76 graphic cores and up to 192GB of unified memory, with an expected price of around $9,000.
If the Mac Studio does get an M2 Ultra SoC anytime soon, then for me, it is a no-brainer; wait for the M2 Ultra-powered Mac Studio, get it with as much unified memory as you can afford, and get a Sonnet chassis, if you need HDX cards, rather than go for a new Mac Pro.
But if Mark Gurman is correct and Apple chooses not to upgrade the Mac Studio until the M3 is released in 12 to 18 months, or even delay until the M4 comes out in, say 3 years time, then from a cost-performance basis, I still see the M1 Ultra Mac Studio as a very good deal as the expected cost of the new Mac Pro is likely to be twice that of the Mac Studio.
What do you think? Are you still planning to get a new Mac Pro? If so, please do share your reasons in the comments below.