WWDC 2023 Thread

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dada_dave said:
Look you obviously know way more about this than I do so is there a reason why if I had to pick between the Mac Pro and the above Sonnet product, why would I pick the Mac Pro?
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That would be a good question to ask Neil Parfitt up above, the music producer and sound designer who was not happy with his PCIe expansion boxes.

If it were me... I'd of course pick the Mac Studio because I don't need slots. As an aside, I have a Mac Studio and am pretty stoked with it.
 
Citysnaps said:
That would be a good question to ask Neil Parfitt up above, the music producer and sound designer who was not happy with his PCIe expansion boxes.

If it were me... I'd of course would pick the Mac Studio because I don't need slots. As an aside, I have a Mac Studio and am pretty stoked with it.
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I did watch this video ...

I keep asking myself "why a Mac Pro in the Apple Silicon age"?

I have to admit that, to me, it doesn't really make sense for there to be a new Mac Pro or even for the current model to continue. This is why I believe this (and I could easily be wrong): 1) Apple Silicon is not built around the idea of modular components. It is an integrated SOC and leverages...
techboards.net techboards.net

... when you posted it last and rewatched it to make sure but I don't think that actually applies with the new Mac Pro vs Mac Studio Rack mount. His complaints about the old expansion boxes was that it lead to lots of clutter and it couldn't go into his furniture cabinet and was therefore less functional for the reasons he explained. What Sonnet has done is essentially created a rack mount Mac Pro case that you stick your Studio into and you have the slots and expandability all together just like the actual Mac Pro rack mount but for roughly $2,000 less money. Maybe he had other issues and other videos but I dunno man, that's hard to argue with?
 
dada_dave said:
I did watch this video ...

I keep asking myself "why a Mac Pro in the Apple Silicon age"?

I have to admit that, to me, it doesn't really make sense for there to be a new Mac Pro or even for the current model to continue. This is why I believe this (and I could easily be wrong): 1) Apple Silicon is not built around the idea of modular components. It is an integrated SOC and leverages...
techboards.net techboards.net

... when you posted it last and rewatched it to make sure but I don't think that actually applies with the new Mac Pro vs Mac Studio Rack mount. His complaints about the old expansion boxes was that it lead to lots of clutter and it couldn't go into his furniture cabinet and was therefore less functional for the reasons he explained. What Sonnet has done is essentially created a rack mount Mac Pro case that you stick your Studio into and you have the slots and expandability all together just like the actual Mac Pro rack mount but for roughly $2,000 less money. Maybe he had other issues and other videos but I dunno man, that's hard to argue with? I seriously wonder if someone at Apple really just took the old price of the old Mac, went "Ehh let's tack on $500" and no one bothered to do market research about what people could do never mind with PCs but even their own equipment?
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I think in a later video he mentioned latency (playing his electronic (music) keyboard accompanying previously recorded tracks being playing back) being eliminated.

The Sonnet rack sounds interesting. But not something I'd use with respect to what I used to design. For personal use, sure, if I needed slots.

I don't knock Apple for how they price their products. Especially on something as niche and (no doubt) low volume as the Mac Pro. It is what it is. And makes sense for them.
 
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This is a very cool feature (to me) and something I've wanted for a while.
1686101889295.png
 
Cmaier said:
Why aren’t we talking about the Game Porting Kit thing being modified WINE?

@Colstan?

www.codeweavers.com

Wine comes to macOS: Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit powered by CrossOver source code | CodeWeavers Blog

By Meredith Johnson | We are ecstatic that Apple chose to use CrossOver’s source code as their emulation solution for the Game Porting Toolkit.
www.codeweavers.com www.codeweavers.com
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We are! I made a new thread so people could post there.

Mac - New Game Porting Toolkit is Wine

Introduced at the latest WWDC, it’s basically Apple Proton: Hopefully they support and develop it well!
techboards.net techboards.net

I’m not sure @Colstan has been around today or I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have commented on Wine coming to macOS officially endorsed by Apple! :)
 
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dada_dave said:
There's absolutely no proof that a super secret Mac Pro M2 Extreme chip existed and was killed because it was too costly. That's Gurman and given his track record of breadcrumbs mixed with spurious speculation I wouldn't put any stock into it. None of the max chips were build to go to more than 2-dies and having said even in that rumor it wouldn't be allocating fab space for only the Mac Pro for an exotic die that no one else uses - under his rumor it uses the standard Max dies already being made, again no special dies required. Further, halo products exist at every manufacturer and are used explicitly for that purpose - a tiny percentage of users who will pay a premium to get the best and which serves as a baseline in the mindset of the people buying your computing product regardless of whether or not they are purchasing that premium product. That's actually quite economical. Companies do it all the time. The problem is the Mac Pro isn't a halo product they way they structured it. You've combined the worst of all worlds with the current Mac Pro and pricing.
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Not sure what's up here - I posted more than once in this forum that I don't believe Extreme even exists or ever will. Apple isn't going to waste fab space on something with a truly tiny run. You seem to be disputing me but we're saying the same thing?
 
Joelist said:
Not sure what's up here - I posted more than once in this forum that I don't believe Extreme even exists or ever will. Apple isn't going to waste fab space on something with a truly tiny run. You seem to be disputing me but we're saying the same thing?
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We are not. I’m disputing the notion that the reason we haven’t seen a larger chip is due to economics/wasting fab space. That’s not a concern for the reasons I outlined in that post, especially with Apple’s overall SOC design philosophy. Whatever the reason we haven’t seen a larger than ultra chip is, a lot of people believe such a chip was or is planned. In fact @Cmaier said just putting an M2 Ultra into the Mac Pro was not the original plan. I don’t know if that’s a personal opinion or based on knowledge but I agree. My guess is that the Mac Pro was supposed debut with M3 but delays in the N3 mode by over a year disrupted it to the point that Apple had to shift gears. Others have other ideas and some do wonder if it has been cancelled. I think whether it has or not will be determined by what Apple releases in the next generation as I don’t think this generation was ever meant to go beyond the Ultra.
 
Leaving aside the value proposition, the $3,000 price differential for the MacPro seems in-line what Apple charges for pro products relative to manufacturing costs. With $1,000 for a monitor stand, or $800 for a wheel set, an extra $3,000 for the MacPro case + internals seems unsurprising.

I can see users preferring this over a Studio + Sonnet PCIe boxes, since while I've heard the Sonnet stuff works reliably, it also has a reputation for being noisy. On the Sonnet forums, users used to discuss replacing the existing fans with Noctua models. Sonnet may have itself switched to Noctua fans in its more recent devices, but while switching a fan helps, it's not enough by itself; the whole thing needs to be engineered for quietness from the start.
 
theorist9 said:
Leaving aside the value proposition, the $3,000 price differential for the MacPro seems in-line what Apple charges for pro products relative to manufacturing costs. With $1,000 for a monitor stand, or $800 for a wheel set, an extra $3,000 for the MacPro case + internals seems unsurprising.

I can see users preferring this over a Studio + Sonnet PCIe boxes, since while I've heard the Sonnet stuff works reliably, it also has a reputation for being noisy. On the Sonnet forums, users used to discuss replacing the existing fans with Noctua models. Sonnet may have itself switched to Noctua fans in its more recent devices, but while switching a fan helps, it's not enough by itself; the whole thing needs to be engineered for quietness from the start.
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Yes, the market for the Mac Pro is recording studios, video editing suites where 3k can be made in a few hours.
 
Formerly_Jimmyjames said:
Anyone had the time to watch the latest Metal Ray Tracing video to see if we can guess if hardware ray tracing is coming in the future?
developer.apple.com

Your guide to Metal ray tracing - WWDC23 - Videos - Apple Developer

Discover how you can enhance the visual quality of your games and apps with Metal ray tracing. We'll take you through the fundamentals of...
developer.apple.com developer.apple.com
Click to expand...

Apple has a bunch of patents related to hardware raytracing, with a very recent consolidating patent. I believe Apple RT is ready to go and will likely be very impressive.
 
theorist9 said:
Leaving aside the value proposition, the $3,000 price differential for the MacPro seems in-line what Apple charges for pro products relative to manufacturing costs. With $1,000 for a monitor stand, or $800 for a wheel set, an extra $3,000 for the MacPro case + internals seems unsurprising.
Click to expand...

That's not a great argument. Those $400 wheels and $1K stands were widely derided as excessive by Apple (I'm sure they've still sold them) and further this is where a difference in scale becomes a difference in kind - the way the Mac Pro is priced, you're 3/4 of the way to buying a second Ultra Studio. That's different from buying "optional" features that are 1/5 to 1/16 the cost of the item you're purchasing. This is almost double.

theorist9 said:
I can see users preferring this over a Studio + Sonnet PCIe boxes, since while I've heard the Sonnet stuff works reliably, it also has a reputation for being noisy. On the Sonnet forums, users used to discuss replacing the existing fans with Noctua models. Sonnet may have itself switched to Noctua fans in its more recent devices, but while switching a fan helps, it's not enough by itself; the whole thing needs to be engineered for quietness from the start.
Click to expand...

Formerly_Jimmyjames said:
Yes, the market for the Mac Pro is recording studios, video editing suites where 3k can be made in a few hours.
Click to expand...

The Studio is also marketed towards recording studios and video editing suites and that 3K can buy you or go towards buying you other high end audio/visual equipment that can make you even more money in a few hours. I couldn't find any reviews for the xMac but given that its a quiet Studio + quiet Noctua fans that only have to cool the cards in a relatively large enclosure (and 3 of them), it's a leap to say that it'll be noisy. But, as I said above, to test for absolute answers as opposed to reasonable doubt is still necessary for the professionals buying these products and you can add quietness to the PCIe/thunderbolt performance (including latency) as necessary tests.

But think about what you guys are saying ... by not offering any kind of chip upgrade with no performance gains and no extra PCIe lanes (this later point especially important for the target demographic) and pricing it like they have done, they've taken the product line from anyone who wants the tower/rack to only those who absolutely have to have a tower/rack. They've taken a niche product and made it a niche of a niche product, that's gotta be less sales and even less pure profit relative to the Studio in aggregate sales. Remember I said, that Apple views each product tier has having to justify its existence given the tier below it? I don't think that bodes well for the Mac Pro's future. That it was released when it was and given the circumstances gives me hope we'll see good revisions to this product, the price dampens that hope and I think should be concerning to those who want the Mac Pro to continue. Again, overall I'm hopeful, but this gives me doubt.

That's my final piece on the subject I swear. I'll leave the subject alone in peace now. :)
 
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I have to believe Apple knows what they are doing regarding pricing and marketing the Mac Pro; having far more information and insight about its market as well as having Mac Pro customer and sales data going back years.

Personally, with having zero skin in the game, I just can't get too invested or pumped in trying to suss out Apple's Mac Pro strategy. I will say Apple didn't become the hugely successful company they are today simply by winging it.

I do feel for Colstan's situation, though.
 
dada_dave said:
But think about what you guys are saying ... by not offering any kind of chip upgrade with no performance gains and no extra PCIe lanes (this later point especially important for the target demographic) and pricing it like they have done, they've taken the product line from anyone who wants the tower/rack to only those who absolutely have to have a tower/rack. They've taken a niche product and made it a niche of a niche product, that's gotta be less sales and even less pure profit relative to the Studio in aggregate sales. Remember I said, that Apple views each product tier has having to justify its existence given the tier below it? I don't think that bodes well for the Mac Pro's future. That it was released when it was and given the circumstances gives me hope we'll see good revisions to this product, the price dampens that hope and I think should be concerning to those who want the Mac Pro to continue. Again, overall I'm hopeful, but this gives me doubt.
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For now I think so. However when the M3 arrives, perhaps they will finally make an Extreme chip.
 

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