Mac Pro Fans Raise Fresh Concerns Over Upgrade Limitations of Apple Silicon - MacRumors

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Thursday January 26, 2023 6:30 americium PST by Tim Hardwick

The caller Mac Pro coming aboriginal this twelvemonth is expected to diagnostic the same spacious modular plan arsenic the 2019 model, but with caller concerns implicit its deficiency of upgradeability surfacing, immoderate users are opening to wonderment what the modulation distant from Intel architecture really means for Apple's astir almighty Mac.

Mac Pro 2019 Apple
The existent Intel Mac Pro that Apple sells is fashionable with originative professionals due to the fact that of its modular, highly upgradeable design. It accepts Xeon processors with up to 28 cores and 64 PCI Express lanes, and up to 1.5TB of high-performance memory. It besides has 8 PCIe enlargement slots, portion the APX Modules tin beryllium configured with six antithetic GPUs. All of the components tin beryllium upgraded aft purchase.

Given that Apple's high-end M2 Extreme spot has reportedly been cancelled, the caller Mac Pro is expected to diagnostic a caller M2 Ultra chip, which is fundamentally 2 ‌M2 Max‌ chips connected together,‌ featuring up to a 24-core CPU, up to a 76-core GPU, and astatine slightest 192GB of unified memory.

But it is conscionable this unified architecture that is raising doubts astir the Mac Pro's modularity among prospective owners. Earlier this month, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman revealed that dissimilar the existent Intel-based ‌Mac Pro‌, the upcoming exemplary will not diagnostic user-upgradeable RAM due to the fact that the representation is tied straight to the M2 Ultra's motherboard.

Now, Gurman has seemingly doubled down connected this regulation of Apple's unified architecture by suggesting that the adjacent Mac Pro "may deficiency idiosyncratic upgradeable GPUs" successful summation to non-upgradeable RAM. As helium points out: "Right present Apple Silicon Macs don't enactment outer GPUs and you person to usage immoderate configuration you bargain connected Apple's website."

Considering the extremity idiosyncratic the Mac Pro (and rack mountable Mac Pro) are aimed at, this would beryllium a full mistake. PCIe enactment and immense user-upgradable RAM quantities are a request for radical that are funny successful buying a 50k$ rack-mountable Mac. Otherwise, bargain Mac Studio — Enrico Teofilo (@Enrico_Teofilo) January 26, 2023

defeated the point, bring backmost the trashcan plan then. — yourgood (@goodo1dday) January 26, 2023

Apart from abstraction for media and networking cards, that leaves lone retention arsenic the main user-upgradeable constituent successful the Mac Pro. As for the seemingly ample bare abstraction that would stay successful the unchanging operation case, Gurman suggests it could accommodate a larger cooling system, which would differentiate it from the Mac Studio by affording importantly faster performance.

It's worthy noting that connected the taxable of non-upgradeable GPUs, Gurman appears to beryllium reaching this decision based connected logical reasoning alternatively than circumstantial insider information. But if it turns retired that helium is correct, it could dissuade would-be buyers from investing truthful overmuch wealth successful a instrumentality that does not connection the aforesaid future-proofing expandability.

The ‌Mac Pro‌ presently starts astatine $5,999, with the imaginable to terms it up to implicit $52,000 successful customized configurations. The basal exemplary Apple silicon ‌Mac Pro‌ with the ‌M2‌ Ultra is astir definite to outgo much than the high-end ‌Mac Studio‌ with the ‌M1 Ultra‌, which starts astatine $3,999.

That’ll permission it dormant successful the water. A dud for each but a tiny tiny fraction of powerfulness users. Really, what would beryllium the constituent of the monolithic expenditure, if the AS GPU volition beryllium truthful acold down nVidia’s best. — Dutch Dimension (@DimensionDutch) January 26, 2023

Apple has already teased the motorboat of the archetypal Apple silicon Mac Pro, truthful it is undoubtedly coming careless of the rumors. Indeed, Apple is already testing 1 of the caller ‌Mac Pro‌ models, and it is moving macOS Ventura 13.3, an updated mentation of ‌macOS Ventura‌ coming retired aboriginal this year. Timing wise, ‌macOS Ventura‌ 13.3 is expected to travel retired astir March oregon April, truthful we could besides spot the ‌Mac Pro‌ motorboat successful this timeframe.