Apple reportedly had an M1 Ultra-powered Mac Pro ready to ship months ago, but decided to put it on hold due to supply chain constraints. The company will instead ship its new Mac Pro powered by M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme chips by year end.
Rajesh Pandey for Cult of Mac:
In an interview with YouTuber Max Tech, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman reveals that Apple had an “M1 Mac Pro ready to go months ago.” However, the company scrapped its release and decided to wait for the more powerful “M2 Extreme” version.
The reporter believes the Cupertino company will preview the Apple silicon Mac Pro by the end of this year. The machine will then go on sale by spring next year. Apple seemingly planned to preview the Mac Pro at WWDC22, but that did not pan out due to semiconductor shortage and supply chain issues.
Rumors suggest the M2 Pro/Max chips will feature more cores for the CPU and GPU. Like the M2 chip inside the new MacBook Air, the Pro/Max version should bring about a 20-40% performance jump. So, the M2 Ultra should also offer a similar performance uplift compared with M1 Ultra. As for the M2 Extreme, it will basically be two M2 Ultras fused together to deliver even better performance.
MacDailyNews Take: M2 Extreme. Something wicked this way comes!
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may be faster but when you pull back the smoke and mirrors they yet to be released M2 extreme is still much slower then AMD’s top thread ripper. Of course Apple’s chip requires less power but that’s notes much an issue for desktops and workstations
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-ultra-benchmarked-in-passmark
IF (admittedly a huge IF), the M2 cores in the Extreme (again, IF it comes into being) are 10-20% faster than the M1 and the Extreme is effectively two Ultras together, then that may project to 2.4 times faster than the top end M1 system in your referenced article, thus pulling nearly even with the fastest chip referenced there. IF Apple can pull that off for a desktop/deskside machine that does not required liquid cooling or a raised floor environment it will be an amazing feat.
Cinema 4D is a 3D software animation program that pushes multithread multicore CPUs to the the max. Complex photo real rendering and simulation Mac all cores for extended periods of time. Maxon C4D got its start as a Mac only program. To this day Maxon has been an early adopter of Apple technology and was the first 3D program to fully support apple M series processor. Apple has invited Maxon C4D to showcase on stage at many Mac World and Apple keynotes through the years. Even today apple references C4D rendering speeds on Apple’s Mac product pages.
C4D Cinebench is a trusted “real world’ bench mark program that measure the multicore processing speed over time.
Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)
Apple M1 Ultra (64-GPU) (20C) Results: 24,420
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Results: 74,422
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cinebench_r23_multi_core-16
the 3990X is 3 years old. The New AMD Threadripper 5995WX can be overclocked, waiting on official scores on that new CPU, but some tester are reporting results of over 90,000 on CineBench R23.
20 percent increase of the Ultra will not get Apple in the top three. A second M2 ultra will not get them there (but close). Meanwhile AMD has announced the 7th Gen Rayzen that will most likely hit the streets before a 2x M2 Ultra sees daylight. AMD also uses TSMC manufacturing so in terms of potential they can match Apple. No doubt Apple makes the superior OS and the best mobile solutions by far. But Apple prioritizes mobile chip design over workstation performance. Instead of designing a performance based chip, Apple workstations just get multi mobile chips stitched together. Apple also throttles their chips to limit energy use. Remember after making a 38% profit margin Apple has to save the planet.
I want apple to design a chip to beat windows system more then anybody, but I also know apple marketing dept has a history of framing data to make things look better then the actually are. The truth is that for raw CPU performance, the yet to released Mac workstations will be slower for multi core rendering than 3 year old AMD windows options. Almost no major studio or independent visual effects house would use Macs for large render workloads. Even the majority of freelance 3D/metaverse artist will have PCs for Unreal development and rendering. But you can bet they all use MacBoo Pros.
But at Apple’s next release they will claim to have the faster cpu ever (and in very little letters, per watt) and I guess Honda could say we have the fastest car ever (over 50 mpg) … But here on the track thats fake marketing.
What about twin M2 Extremes?
Or even a quad of them? You want Extreme right? The only thing more extreme than that is 8 extremes. Or one always-wrong AppleCynîc, he’s the equivalent of 16 Extremes
I commented before that it was strange (and seemingly a last minute call) that lower-end M2 MacBooks were introduced at WWDC. The last TWO Mac Pro models (and iMac Pro) were introduced at 2013, 2017, and 2019 WWDC, then released later in those years. Later this year is the two-year mark of the Apple Silicon transition. If this rumor is true, Apple may introduce the new Mac Pro to meet deadline, but it won’t ship until some time 2023.
I don’t think there was an M1-based Mac Pro (“ready to go”) except as a testing prototype. It would not have been more powerful compared to Mac Studio, and the full-blown Intel Mac Pro config out-performs the best Mac Studio config in many ways. It’s been Apple’s practice so far to NOT release an Apple Silicon Mac unless it is undeniably better than the Intel Mac it replaces. That’s probably a Mac Pro with M2 Extreme inside.
A 20% increase with the M2 extreme will not match the multicore performance of either the Intel Core i9-13900k or the Intel Xeon Platinum 828L. Actual not really close. But the M2 will run more efficiently and with less heat and power. Apple will need to design a dedicated workstation chip or offer a quad M2 extreme. With the M2 lowest in class power/performance ratio Apple could actually pull it off. But who thinks Apple has they balls to offer a 4x M2 Extreme workstation.
I want a 32xExtreme!
You didn’t read the rumor details carefully. The 20% increase refers to M2 over M1 in general. So maybe M2 Ultra is 20% more performance over M1 Ultra. But this M2 Extreme is TWO M2 Ultra merged. That’s not just a 20% increase, it’s essentially dual M2 Ultra (or quad M2 Max) each 20% faster than M1 counterpart.
and its a rumor. but also remember Apple’s presentation at WWDC 2022 didn’t claim a 18% increase in CPU performace but a instead an 18% increase in CPU performance vs. power. So theoretical the M2 could be the same level of performance but require 18% less power. again apple is mainly designing these chips for iPads and laptops where portable performance is the goal.
lastest benchmarks for the M1 vs M2 show less then 20%… Cinebench R23 M2 beats M1 by 14% with a score of 8738. Geekbench Shows a 9% increase between M1 and M2 … again apple marketing at work .. they say its 20% faster but 20% faster vs power… desktop user dont really care about power… apple M series is a great mobile chip for playing COD on an iPad Pro 🙂
Yes, it’s a rumor. But the key part of the rumor is 2x Ultra equals Extreme. Even if M2 is generally just 10% faster than M1, that’s not the relevant part of rumor. Energy consumption is important but also not the relevant part of rumor. This M2 Extreme would be at least 2 times faster than the best M1-based variant. And THAT would be worthy of putting in the new Mac Pro, to make it undeniably better than the current M1 Ultra Mac Studio and the current Intel Mac Pro. Only something like that justifies releasing the new Apple Silicon Mac Pro with price tag Apple will hang on it.
Probably costs, $8k. What’s the point if Apple don’t support video cards, expansion, What video cards or pci cards are compatible with ARM? Zero? Apple is so intent to hardwire ssds, ram and other components, So why a Mac Pro for? So your gonna have to spend $15k for a set up. Ridiculous.
Video cards, no. But I believe you CAN currently connect other general-purpose PCI-E cards to Apple Silicon Macs using a Thunderbolt external enclosure. OWC and other vendors sell such enclosures. They’re not just producing expensive (new) gear for use with legacy Intel Mac hardware. The utility of a Mac Pro (beyond what Mac Studio provides) includes mass storage beyond the “integrated” storage on the motherboard, interfaces for specific needs, specialized processing, etc. All housed internally and securely in a “big box” with sufficient power and cooling. No need to connect a bunch of clutter using unreliable and limiting Thunderbolt cables. Not ridiculous for customers with the need.
Thanks to Apple for finally seeing the light and making a workstation that isn’t reliant on a mess of non-locking external cables. The Pro and the Studio are both excellent hardware platforms.
But Apple charges way too much for its entry level models and, come on, why does Apple lean so heavily on OWC and others to fill the obvious end user needs? Apple spends way too much time on the cutesy bent chrome handles and machined alyoooooominyum gridwork, and nowhere near enough time on “bang for the buck”. It’s as though Apple wants to price itself out of the mainstream, leaving 3rd party software makers to make the obvious decision to prioritize development on software for the OS with ~90% global market share. Big time self defeating if you ask me.
Apple’s prices are obviously NOT unreasonable (nor “self-defeating”) because Apple sells it Macs, lower end to higher end, as fast as they are produced. With the exception of the current Mac Pro and any other Intel Macs still in inventory, Apple does not need to do “fire sales” like others who make less desirable lower cost products. Because Apple’s customers are happy to pay the price Apple asks for the ability to have a premium user experience.
Apple is no different than any other electronics maker in that regard at the present…they all sell as fast as they build because everything is supply constrained now.
I agree with Bob & Paul. Apple has done a huge disservice especially to desktop users making expensive fashion when professionals really want better performance and more/better native software for the Mac. It will take many years to recover from the trashcan debacle. KNOWING its customers were jumping ship, Apple never dropped the price of the stupid trashcan and took 6 years to replace it. It was still sporting obsolete TB2 when Apple and everyone else had USB-C TB3 ports in every other workstation. Apple was slow and uncompetitive, period.
Thanks to high prices and shitty desktop product management back then, Apple lost several computer markets. But they haven’t actually done enough to win them back. Apple still screws customers on stuff like overpriced RAM, inoperability for stuff like video card upgrades, and of course Jony’s fancy designs with special chrome wheels and absurdly expensive display stands. Exclusivity doesn’t impress anybody who has work to do with a computer. Apple isn’t even trying to recover educational, gaming, engineering, medical, or other highly lucrative computer markets. Price correction and some fresh software partnerships could fix that but apparently 90% of Apple’s efforts now are on subscription services. Sad. Just another corporation taking away personal computing one step at a time. Some people at Apple obviously want you to rent its one size fits all sealed box, and be a happy drone using thin client iOS software that requires constant internet monitoring to operate.