Consolidated Apple Silicon Mac Pro rumors.

[Colstan]

Over at the other place, there's a poster that is probably the most reliable Mac leaker that I am aware of. This person leaked the Mac Studio, along with the name, specs and form factor a week before it was announced. They claim to have a friend that has access to early Mac prototype hardware for testing purposes, which I believe is true, based upon the poster's history and being bang on with unannounced details. Some of the renders we've seen on various Youtube channels were based upon this person's information, and those renders were also nearly identical when compared to what was ultimately released with the Mac Studio. Even the likes of Kuo and Gurman apparently don't have the specifics that this individual has access to. Recently, this poster has come back with more details about the upcoming Mac Pro.

Here's what they said about the original prototype, that they posted about in mid-July. (Obviously, this person's native language isn't English, which makes it a bit difficult to parse.)

I have some info about next Mac Pro?? chips
- Total 40 cores, contains 32 P-Core and 8 E-Core.
- Total 128 GPU Core!!
- A sample board contains PCI-E slot but no ram slot (Doesn't know it exists on Production Mac Pro)
- Try to put 6900XT on that slot, its not working at all.
- Although it is in sample board, stability with macOS is great!!

That's alleged to be an unreleased version, and the leaker has since updated the post with what they consider to be closer to a finished version:

I want to confirm Gurman info:

Latest Prototype Mac Pro is now based on 24 Core M2 and 192GB <<Unified Memory.>>
Prototype board is allocate in 7,1 Case with More than 1 PCI-E Slot, <<my pay tell me that 6 pci-e++>>
GPU is now show it's name in system preference. but not working properly.
Still no ram slot.

PS. That latest Mac Pro include beefy SoC thermal cooler.

Clarification, including the weird "++" next to the PCI slots:

1. sorry it is my typo, prototype machine is contain 6 pcie slot.
2. it recognize (shown as RX6900XT) but not working.

Another clarification:

Ok i've to explain an info about third-party GPU and PCI-E.

As my workflow heavily based on GPU, so the question about next mac
i've ask my friend is mainly point to GPUs thing.
So he tell me that all the thing to support 3rd party GPU is on the table.
the card is found on Mac, the pci-e slot is spot on <<every>> Mac pro prototype,
the driver is only last jigsaw to find.

In nutshell he tell me that if Apple want to support 3rd party GPU on AS,
it can available in just matter of days.

In the other hand, he believed that a next Mac Pro GPU option can make me
satisfied so i will not ask him about 3rd party GPU support again,
as well as majority of Mac Pro user.

The poster confirms Gurman's info is correct, which is:

• M2 "Extreme" SoC
• 24 or 48-core CPU
• 76 or 152-core GPU
• 192GB RAM, up to 256GB
• Currently running Ventura 13.3

Gurman has never mentioned the number of PCIe slots.

Credit to @theorist9 for these thoughts on the reduction of the PCIe slots from 8 to 6, compared to the 2019 Mac Pro:

If they're planning on making the AS Mac Pro half the size of the Intel Mac Pro, offering 6 PCIe slots is pretty good, since that's just two less than the eight on the Intel Mac Pro (which has four double-wide, three single-wide, and one half-length slot preconfigured with the Apple I/O card).

They may be getting some space savings by converting the four double-wide slots to single-width, since the double-width spacing was needed for the MPX GPU modules, which the AS Mac Pro won't have (unless they decide to offer plug-in AS GPU modules, and need double-width for those).

I think that's solid reasoning.

Also, even though the AMD graphics card is apparently recognized inside macOS, it doesn't work. I question the "In nutshell he tell me that if Apple want to support 3rd party GPU on AS, it can available in just matter of days." statement.

Some posters over there jumped on this immediately as being an indication that AMD graphics cards would be supported, but I pointed out that if you plug an eGPU into any Apple Silicon Mac, it will be recognized, but it won't function without drivers. Other than obviously putting the engineering resources into those drivers, I'm not sure whether or not Apple's design model supports third-party graphics cards in that way.

My assumption has always been that the next Mac Pro will be an extension of what we have already seen, reflecting the entirety of the current Apple Silicon lineup, and the high-end model will simply be four M2 Max dies glued together with an UltraFusion interconnect, essentially a doubling of the Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra. I remember that @Cmaier predicted that the Mac Pro would use an M2 "Extreme", skipping the M1 generation. Legend has it that he has some experience with such things, and that came to pass.

There's a certain subset of users over at MR that were certain that there would be another Intel Mac Pro. Then they pinned their hopes on external DIMMs. When that apparently fell through, they've now decided that Apple will definitely have support for third-party graphics cards. I've contended that the 2019 Mac Pro is the result of Intel's design philosophy, not Apple's. All Apple did was to design the pretty case and the oddball MPX modules, but everything else is a result of Intel's high-volume Xeon platform. For Apple, the Mac Pro is a niche of a niche, and I don't foresee them putting the engineering resources into anything other than their own silicon. I think there will be PCIe slots, that's a given, but they will be for non-GPU additions. I also believe that Apple is using the transition to Apple Silicon to cut out the PC guys from their product lines, wherever possible, including GPU providers. Heck, Apple even eliminated Intel's retimer for Thunderbolt support and replaced it with a custom solution.

We've talked about this on this forum before, but since a few new details have apparently leaked out, and the next Mac Pro is starting to coalesce into its final manifestation, I'm wondering if anyone has updated predictions on what we can expect for the Mac Pro? Do you think that it will support third-party graphics cards? Are there any exotic technologies that you expect to see? Is it going to diverge significantly from current Apple Silicon Macs? As much as I liked the 2019 Mac Pro during the short time that I owned one, I have no plans to purchase another, but it does interest me from a technological standpoint, seeing how this is Apple's "halo product".

 

[Cmaier]

Over at the other place, there's a poster that is probably the most reliable Mac leaker that I am aware of. This person leaked the Mac Studio, along with the name, specs and form factor a week before it was announced. They claim to have a friend that has access to early Mac prototype hardware for testing purposes, which I believe is true, based upon the poster's history and being bang on with unannounced details. Some of the renders we've seen on various Youtube channels were based upon this person's information, and those renders were also nearly identical when compared to what was ultimately released with the Mac Studio. Even the likes of Kuo and Gurman apparently don't have the specifics that this individual has access to. Recently, this poster has come back with more details about the upcoming Mac Pro.

Here's what they said about the original prototype, that they posted about in mid-July. (Obviously, this person's native language isn't English, which makes it a bit difficult to parse.)

That's alleged to be an unreleased version, and the leaker has since updated the post with what they consider to be closer to a finished version:

Clarification, including the weird "++" next to the PCI slots:

Another clarification:

The poster confirms Gurman's info is correct, which is:

• M2 "Extreme" SoC
• 24 or 48-core CPU
• 76 or 152-core GPU
• 192GB RAM, up to 256GB
• Currently running Ventura 13.3

Gurman has never mentioned the number of PCIe slots.

Credit to @theorist9 for these thoughts on the reduction of the PCIe slots from 8 to 6, compared to the 2019 Mac Pro:

I think that's solid reasoning.

Also, even though the AMD graphics card is apparently recognized inside macOS, it doesn't work. I question the "In nutshell he tell me that if Apple want to support 3rd party GPU on AS, it can available in just matter of days." statement.

Some posters over there jumped on this immediately as being an indication that AMD graphics cards would be supported, but I pointed out that if you plug an eGPU into any Apple Silicon Mac, it will be recognized, but it won't function without drivers. Other than obviously putting the engineering resources into those drivers, I'm not sure whether or not Apple's design model supports third-party graphics cards in that way.

My assumption has always been that the next Mac Pro will be an extension of what we have already seen, reflecting the entirety of the current Apple Silicon lineup, and the high-end model will simply be four M2 Max dies glued together with an UltraFusion interconnect, essentially a doubling of the Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra. I remember that @Cmaier predicted that the Mac Pro would use an M2 "Extreme", skipping the M1 generation. Legend has it that he has some experience with such things, and that came to pass.

There's a certain subset of users over at MR that were certain that there would be another Intel Mac Pro. Then they pinned their hopes on external DIMMs. When that apparently fell through, they've now decided that Apple will definitely have support for third-party graphics cards. I've contended that the 2019 Mac Pro is the result of Intel's design philosophy, not Apple's. All Apple did was to design the pretty case and the oddball MPX modules, but everything else is a result of Intel's high-volume Xeon platform. For Apple, the Mac Pro is a niche of a niche, and I don't foresee them putting the engineering resources into anything other than their own silicon. I think there will be PCIe slots, that's a given, but they will be for non-GPU additions. I also believe that Apple is using the transition to Apple Silicon to cut out the PC guys from their product lines, wherever possible, including GPU providers. Heck, Apple even eliminated Intel's retimer for Thunderbolt support and replaced it with a custom solution.

We've talked about this on this forum before, but since a few new details have apparently leaked out, and the next Mac Pro is starting to coalesce into its final manifestation, I'm wondering if anyone has updated predictions on what we can expect for the Mac Pro? Do you think that it will support third-party graphics cards? Are there any exotic technologies that you expect to see? Is it going to diverge significantly from current Apple Silicon Macs? As much as I liked the 2019 Mac Pro during the short time that I owned one, I have no plans to purchase another, but it does interest me from a technological standpoint, seeing how this is Apple's "halo product".

I would assume that the pcie slots are for things like storage, networking, etc. I doubt Apple will release drivers for AMD or nVidia cards, and I doubt AMD or nVidia will either. Maybe there will be some solution to use AMD cards for at least compute, if not graphics, though I wouldn’t bet my own money on that.

I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Apple comes out with a card or two of its own for those slots. Maybe even something with a ton of GPU cores on it. Or a bunch of ML cores. Such solutions may not be all that helpful for many types of workloads, though, depending on how bad you are penalized for having to run back over the bus and into the SoC to hit the memory (and I’m pretty sure the RAM will be packaged in the SoC and not slotted or centralized somewhere else on the mainboard with an external memory bus arbiter).

 

[Citysnaps]

Are there any exotic technologies that you expect to see?

Not very exotic, but what would thrill me, just noodling/brainstorming a bit:

1. Rack mount with slides (similar to the current Mac Pro rack option). Perhaps 5U or 4U height,
2. PCIE with a bunch of slots for custom designed SDR/signal processing/bulk memory cards.
3. A decent power supply. Doesn't need to be 1.4 kW. And room for an analog supply for data converters.
4. 10 Gbit ethernet
5. A back panel that can be modified for various interfaces.
6. Quiet.
7. Somewhat affordable.

 

[Colstan]

3. A decent power supply. Doesn't need to be 1.4 kW. And room for an analog supply for data converters.

I have no proof of this, but what I think killed my x86 Mac Pro was the 6900XT, which AMD recommends 850w for. The lower wattage graphics cards didn't seem to put the same level of stress on the computer as AMD's top card. The 1.4kw number didn't compensate for this issue, but I suspect something on the motherboard went daisies up.

See the chip circled in yellow?

That's the Intel C621, which controls the PCI lanes and USB I/O. It's also bare without a heatsink, sitting directly underneath where the default graphics card goes, which also happens to be the hottest, most power hungry part inside the machine. Again, this is just my hunch, but I think that's the bum part inside the giant beautiful metal paperweight I sent back. Hopefully, power routing will be much simpler with the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, since almost everything will probably be on the SoC.

6. Quiet.

This would be my number one, because controlling the temps and therefore noise in the 2019 was the biggest bugbear to deal with.

7. Somewhat affordable.

When I win the lottery, I shall buy one for both of us.

I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Apple comes out with a card or two of its own for those slots. Maybe even something with a ton of GPU cores on it. Or a bunch of ML cores. Such solutions may not be all that helpful for many types of workloads, though

The MR crowd will hate that because it won't be able to run Crysis fast enough, nor compete with their custom gaming machine, housed inside an anime themed case.

 

[B01L]

My own thoughts towards an ASi Mac Pro...

ASi Mac Pro:

• M2 Extreme SoC
• 48-core CPU (32P/8E)
• 152-core GPU
• 64-core Neural Engine
• 384GB LPDDR5 SDRAM
• 1.6TB/s UMA bandwidth
• 8TB SSD - (2) 4TB NAND blades
• (2) 10GbE ports
• (6) PCIe slots

(Possible) PCIe slot specs (and what they might be used for):

• Gen4 - x4 - Apple I/O card (USB/TB/3.5mm headphone jack)
• Gen4 - x4 - third-party audio DSP card
• Gen4 - x8 - third-party 8K video I/O card
• Gen4 - x16 - third-party 64TB M.2 NMVe SSD RAID card
• Gen5 - x16 - Apple ASi MPX GPGPU card
• Gen5 - x16 - Apple ASi MPX GPGPU card

Seems like a well-rounded macOS/ASi production workstation to me...!

Call it US$45K fully loaded with all the above add-in cards...!

 

[Citysnaps]

I kind of think of an AS-based Mac Pro, assuming it has a lot of PCIE slots, as a blank sheet of paper, with all sorts of customization possibilities as potential products.

Long ago I developed similar systems using Macs and custom signal acquisition and DSP boards to real-time process certain types of RF/IF/AF signals our customers were interested in collecting and processing. We removed the MAC motherboards and put them in our own chassis, with our own custom floating point DSP boards I designed, driven by custom software, which we then sold to customers.

Later, at another defense/aerospace startup, I used commercially available rack-mount PCs as a basis for creating a line of high performance all digital radios, usually called "Software" Defined Radios (SDR), a term I HATED as the processing wasn't done in software, rather in special full-custom ASICs driven by high speed A/D converters sampling an RF spectrum.

So... when I think of a new Mac Pro (with a bunch of slots), my first thought is, what kind of interesting product can I make out of it?

 

[Deleted member 215]

I'm honestly struggling to imagine what an AS Mac Pro will be. It was rumored today that there will be no more Macs in 2022, meaning the "two-year transition" is out the window. It makes me wonder if Mac Pro development is more complicated than Apple thought (hard to imagine that they didn't anticipate an AS Mac Pro being available by now when they announced the transition in 2020). What can AS offer in a higher-end machine other than higher core counts? It's hard to imagine AS with PCIe slots and modularity. Even with the Mac Studio release they used the term "modularity" to refer to the fact that there's an external monitor. I guess we will find out.

 

[Cmaier]

I'm honestly struggling to imagine what an AS Mac Pro will be. It was rumored today that there will be no more Macs in 2022, meaning the "two-year transition" is out the window. It makes me wonder if Mac Pro development is more complicated than Apple thought (hard to imagine that they didn't anticipate an AS Mac Pro being available by now when they announced the transition in 2020). What can AS offer in a higher-end machine other than higher core counts? It's hard to imagine AS with PCIe slots and modularity. Even with the Mac Studio release they used the term "modularity" to refer to the fact that there's an external monitor. I guess we will find out.

I assume there’s been some sort of supply chain issue with silicon, and apple has decided that meeting demand for iphones is more important than releasing new macs before january.

I would not be surprised at all if the new mac pros have PCIe slots. I would be surprised if they don’t. There are lots of things you can put in those slots other than graphics cards.

 

[Citysnaps]

I would not be surprised at all if the new mac pros have PCIe slots. I would be surprised if they don’t. There are lots of things you can put in those slots other than graphics cards.

I think an AS MacPro with slots would open up a lot of possibilities for use in a wide variety of markets. Certainly not high-volume markets like laptops and phones, but interesting enough to support those possibilities in commercial markets.

That's something Steve Jobs recognized while at Apple, and later on when he founded Next. At Next he visited and made a presentation pitch at the company I was working for at the time (ESL Inc.) to integrate the Next computer for special processing, data collection, etc for government projects we were involved in, and eventually signed an agreement.

 

[Colstan]

After repeatedly telling us that new Macs were "imminent", Uncle Gurman is now saying that there will be no new Macs this year, and that we can expect announcements in the Feb-Mar timeframe. If he is correct, I'm guessing this will be when we see updated Pro/Max models of the MacBook Pro, new Mac minis, and at least an announcement of the Mac Pro. I'd say there's an outside chance for an updated iMac and Mac Studio, but Apple likes to stagger releases.

 

[Deleted member 215]

The 24" iMac and the Mac Mini are in the weirdest positions right now. Apple has not even released M2 Pro/Max, so it's understandable that those might be pushed until later, but M2 is already out and it's in the iPad, MBA, and 13" MBP. Why is M2 still not in the 24" iMac and Mac Mini? Unless they're planning on M2 Pro for the 24" iMac and Mac Mini and that's why they're waiting?

I'm giving myself a headache trying to apply logic to this...

 

[theorist9]

Over at the other place, there's a poster that is probably the most reliable Mac leaker that I am aware of. This person leaked the Mac Studio, along with the name, specs and form factor a week before it was announced. They claim to have a friend that has access to early Mac prototype hardware for testing purposes, which I believe is true, based upon the poster's history and being bang on with unannounced details. Some of the renders we've seen on various Youtube channels were based upon this person's information, and those renders were also nearly identical when compared to what was ultimately released with the Mac Studio. Even the likes of Kuo and Gurman apparently don't have the specifics that this individual has access to. Recently, this poster has come back with more details about the upcoming Mac Pro.

Here's what they said about the original prototype, that they posted about in mid-July. (Obviously, this person's native language isn't English, which makes it a bit difficult to parse.)

That's alleged to be an unreleased version, and the leaker has since updated the post with what they consider to be closer to a finished version:

Clarification, including the weird "++" next to the PCI slots:

Another clarification:

The poster confirms Gurman's info is correct, which is:

• M2 "Extreme" SoC
• 24 or 48-core CPU
• 76 or 152-core GPU
• 192GB RAM, up to 256GB
• Currently running Ventura 13.3

Gurman has never mentioned the number of PCIe slots.

Credit to @theorist9 for these thoughts on the reduction of the PCIe slots from 8 to 6, compared to the 2019 Mac Pro:

I think that's solid reasoning.

Also, even though the AMD graphics card is apparently recognized inside macOS, it doesn't work. I question the "In nutshell he tell me that if Apple want to support 3rd party GPU on AS, it can available in just matter of days." statement.

Some posters over there jumped on this immediately as being an indication that AMD graphics cards would be supported, but I pointed out that if you plug an eGPU into any Apple Silicon Mac, it will be recognized, but it won't function without drivers. Other than obviously putting the engineering resources into those drivers, I'm not sure whether or not Apple's design model supports third-party graphics cards in that way.

My assumption has always been that the next Mac Pro will be an extension of what we have already seen, reflecting the entirety of the current Apple Silicon lineup, and the high-end model will simply be four M2 Max dies glued together with an UltraFusion interconnect, essentially a doubling of the Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra. I remember that @Cmaier predicted that the Mac Pro would use an M2 "Extreme", skipping the M1 generation. Legend has it that he has some experience with such things, and that came to pass.

There's a certain subset of users over at MR that were certain that there would be another Intel Mac Pro. Then they pinned their hopes on external DIMMs. When that apparently fell through, they've now decided that Apple will definitely have support for third-party graphics cards. I've contended that the 2019 Mac Pro is the result of Intel's design philosophy, not Apple's. All Apple did was to design the pretty case and the oddball MPX modules, but everything else is a result of Intel's high-volume Xeon platform. For Apple, the Mac Pro is a niche of a niche, and I don't foresee them putting the engineering resources into anything other than their own silicon. I think there will be PCIe slots, that's a given, but they will be for non-GPU additions. I also believe that Apple is using the transition to Apple Silicon to cut out the PC guys from their product lines, wherever possible, including GPU providers. Heck, Apple even eliminated Intel's retimer for Thunderbolt support and replaced it with a custom solution.

We've talked about this on this forum before, but since a few new details have apparently leaked out, and the next Mac Pro is starting to coalesce into its final manifestation, I'm wondering if anyone has updated predictions on what we can expect for the Mac Pro? Do you think that it will support third-party graphics cards? Are there any exotic technologies that you expect to see? Is it going to diverge significantly from current Apple Silicon Macs? As much as I liked the 2019 Mac Pro during the short time that I owned one, I have no plans to purchase another, but it does interest me from a technological standpoint, seeing how this is Apple's "halo product".

Thanks for the attribution .

I was curious about the 256 GB max RAM for the Mac Pro. If it's a 2x Ultra, that should be a max of 32 RAM modules, so 256 GB means 8 GB/module. But they offer 12 GB modules in the M2 (which is what enables the top option of 24 GB RAM), so why not in the M2 Extreme as well (=> 32 x 12 = 384 GB)? Pure speculation, but could it be that the M2 Extreme will be using a different type of memory from the M2 (say, LPDDR5 with inline ECC, or LPDDR5x*), such that 12 GB modules aren't readily available? [*LPDDR5x was just certified by Samsung, and it's possible only low volumes are available for the near future, but the Mac Pro doesn't need much volume.]

I don't think Amethyst mentioned the process in their post. Do you think the M2 Mac Pro might be on 3 nm?

 

[Cmaier]

Thanks for the attribution .

I was curious about the 256 GB max RAM for the Mac Pro. If it's a 2x Ultra, that should be a max of 32 RAM modules, so 256 GB means 8 GB/module. But they offer 12 GB modules in the M2 (which is what enables the top option of 24 GB RAM), so why not in the M2 Extreme as well (=> 32 x 12 = 384 GB)? Pure speculation, but could it be that the M2 Extreme will be using a different type of memory from the M2 (say, LPDDR5 with inline ECC, or LPDDR5x*), such that 12 GB modules aren't readily available? [*LPDDR5x was just certified by Samsung, and it's possible only low volumes are available for the near future, but the Mac Pro doesn't need much volume.]

I don't think Amethyst mentioned the process in their post. Do you think the M2 Mac Pro might be on 3 nm?

I believe all the m2 parts other than the base M2 will be 3nm.

 

[Yoused]

I believe all the m2 parts other than the base M2 will be 3nm.

Which would splain why there is nothing else coming out this fall. N3 will be a sock-knock-offer, with its ridiculous power advantages. Next year will be about the right time for the new process to be giving usable yields. And just once it would be nice to hear them say "delivering toworrow" instead of 3 weeks from now.

 

[Colstan]

Thanks for the attribution .

Sure thing! I always respect your opinion and insights, @theorist9.

I was curious about the 256 GB max RAM for the Mac Pro.

I have to wonder if Gurman was simply wrong about the maximum RAM for the Mac Pro. I had always assumed it would be 384GB, but maybe there's some limitation, either financial or technical, that is holding that maximum back.

I don't think Amethyst mentioned the process in their post. Do you think the M2 Mac Pro might be on 3 nm?

I don't think this leaker has access to that information, since process size is not readily accessible inside System Settings. These are all second-hand specs based upon prototype Mac hardware that his friend has access to. Process technology leaks would likely come from elsewhere. @Yoused's and @Cmaier's speculation is probably better than mine, especially considering the Pro/Max/Ultra/Extreme/Tasty editions are apparently delayed until next year. It would make sense, if Apple is waiting for volume 3nm production. I don't see any other reason for the delay.

I do think we can all agree that it will be a good thing when Apple finally announces the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, just to get all of the speculation out of the way.

...and thus commence the griping, recriminations, calling for Tim Cook's head, and prognosticating Apple's doom, just because the Mac Pro won't allow DIMMs or third-party GPU upgrades. It's a highly specific sort of downfall, you see.

 

[B01L]

3nm

I was curious about the 256 GB max RAM for the Mac Pro.

I would think it was a typo...

I believe all the m2 parts other than the base M2 will be 3nm.

Which would splain why there is nothing else coming out this fall. N3 will be a sock-knock-offer, with its ridiculous power advantages. Next year will be about the right time for the new process to be giving usable yields.

I don't think this leaker has access to that information, since process size is not readily accessible inside System Settings. These are all second-hand specs based upon prototype Mac hardware that his friend has access to. Process technology leaks would likely come from elsewhere. @Yoused's and @Cmaier's speculation is probably better than mine, especially considering the Pro/Max/Ultra/Extreme/Tasty editions are apparently delayed until next year. It would make sense, if Apple is waiting for volume 3nm production. I don't see any other reason for the delay.

N3 (N3E/N3P/N3S/N3X) means more space for stuff, like the GPU cores the higher end Macs need, especially the Mac Pro...!

The lineup includes the original N3, set to enter high-volume manufacturing (HVM) later this year, with the first chips set to be delivered in 2023; N3E with performance-per-watt and process window improvements; N3P with additional performance enhancements; N3S with increased transistor density, and N3X with support for increased voltages, enhanced power deliver; and augmented clock rate potential for ultra-high-performance applications.

N3X is supposed to be in 2025; imagine a M3 Ultra/Extreme Mac Pro with higher clocks & power limits...

I do think we can all agree that it will be a good thing when Apple finally announces the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, just to get all of the speculation out of the way.

One billion percent this...!

...and thus commence the griping, recriminations, calling for Tim Cook's head, and prognosticating Apple's doom, just because the Mac Pro won't allow DIMMs or third-party GPU upgrades. It's a highly specific sort of downfall, you see.

I think Apple will also release ASi MPX GPGPUs; if so, I hope they (dual cards & the on-SoC GPU) are performant enough to withstand criticism from the "I need quad 4090s" crowd...

 

[theorist9]

I believe all the m2 parts other than the base M2 will be 3nm.

Any chance they'll also update the uarch to M3 in the spring 2023 models (and, if so, possibly add hardware RT)? I assume the CPU cores of the M3 would be based on A16's Everest/Sawtooth design, and that was already released with the iPhone 14 in Sept.

 

[Colstan]

I think Apple will also release ASi MPX GPGPUs;

At this point, I think GPU and compute are the big unanswered questions. The leaker that I mentioned above says that Apple's Mac Pro GPU solution should be plenty enough for him and everyone else concerned about it, hence he won't be asking his friend about third-party GPUs anymore.

I'm fully in the camp that believes that Apple is using the transition as a way to start fresh and dump all of the PC suppliers, vertical integration from top to bottom. Whether they have their own solutions for the hardcore crowd, I don't know, but I don't think they'll be using AMD or Nvidia for those tasks. Instead, like you, I think they would do it themselves, if they do it at all.

if so, I hope they (dual cards & the on-SoC GPU) are performant enough to withstand criticism from the "I need quad 4090s" crowd...

There's always going to be a subset of users who won't be happy no matter what Apple releases, the sort that are still dreaming of a new Xeon Mac Pro. Fortunately for Apple, those users are disproportionately obnoxiously noisy compared to their actual buying power. I admit that I'm going to enjoy reading the Mac Pro forums over at the other place, after the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is fully announced. I don't have a puma in this race, I'm not the target market for the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, but watching the self-righteous "I know better than Apple" types have an implosion will be an absolute joy.

 

[Cmaier]

Any chance they'll also update the uarch to M3 in the spring 2023 models (and, if so, possibly add hardware RT)? I assume the CPU cores of the M3 would be based on A16's Everest/Sawtooth design, and that was already released with the iPhone 14 in Sept.

Well, that’s the big question. I have no idea. My best guess is no. Porting Everest/sawtooth to 3nm would likely be no less effort than porting M2. I don’t *think* they would “skip” M2 in the high end products.

But who knows.

 

[exoticspice1]

Here is a the thought if M3 is launching after iPhone 15 wouldn't it be A17 based. The M1 was based on A14(The M1 came out after A14 iPhone 12), not A13.

A16 CPU and GPU is very minor in perfomance improvements. So minor that in the GPU department next gen Snapdragon launching next month will be 30% better than A16 GPU accroding to rumours.