by 
On March 8, 2022, the Mac Studio, Apple’s most powerful computer ever at the time, was introduced, leaving many Mac Pro users a little confused and confused. Even more so when Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, John Ternus, unveiled a new processor for the Mac Pro that was on stage at that event, saying “one more product to go: Mac Pro, that another day.” (via MacRumors (opens in a new tab)).
Could the Mac Pro launch happen within the next few weeks? We’re not so sure, despite the recent publication of four patents (via Appleinsider (opens in a new tab)) which tackles the issue of third-party GPU support while looking around the others (system memory expansion, third-party accelerators etc). However, Appleinsider is quick to note, “Apple is constantly applying for patents, and there’s no guarantee that even granted patents will lead to products directly. Plus patents could be applied for years before Apple can use them.”
The current Mac Pro was launched all the way back in December 2019, and the previous model (including the infamous cylindrical design) in June 2013, only to be discontinued just six years later when its successor So Apple is happy with it, however, making its target audience wait. If the gap is maintained, you won’t get a new Mac Pro until at least June 2026, which is about twice the refresh cycle for any business machine and AppleCare+ warranty for the MacPro.
A changing landscape
Apple has been ruthless in canceling product lines when the ROI isn’t there: the Xserve, the iPod and the MacBook to name just a few. So it wouldn’t be such a big deal to add the Mac Pro to that list; he’s not a household name – after all – and would make sense at a time when worldwide laptop and desktop sales have suffered record declines due to tightening budgets. Then there is the Mac Studio which could be said to be a great replacement for some Mac Pro users at a much more affordable price point.
The arrival of the Arm-based M series caters to most of Apple’s product lines and the Mac Pro is the only one left out due to its special features. This is great for mobile CPUs with integrated graphics, but more difficult when they go up against workstations with up to four dedicated GPUs like the previous Mac Pro, or Windows-based workstations. So Apple will have to add the ability to use upgradable GPUs to satisfy demanding users. The M1/M2 chips also use unified non-upgradable RAM built into the package, which isn’t going to fly with a full workstation where users want to be able to upgrade their RAM at any time.
I spoke with engineers and consultants at Puget Systems, a boutique PC vendor specializing in Windows workstations, which has a clear vested interest in the Mac Pro debate.
One of them told me “Yes, we are actually seeing Mac changes crossing over. These are fun for me, because I use both MacOS and Windows, so I think it’s great to help these people understand that they can have more control over their experience. The main reason is cost to performance. They understand that a $5000 system can be better than the Mac Studio they’ve been using, or the fact that Threadripper often outperforms a $24,000 Mac Pro to check out a good amount of the Mac options.”
The hardware race
Another vendor told us they’ve seen a fair number of Apple faults as well, “We don’t always know the specific issue they’ve run into from Apple, but hardware relevance and modernity are two very common themes and the total value.” our interlocutor told us.
Then there is the issue of software: “the move to Apple M1/M2 chips seems to be a confusing move for some, as Apple is now using their own proprietary CPU/GPU chips and software is tied to the hard -these are new items that need to transfer software. which ran on the previous CPUs that Apple had been using for over a decade. Some customers came to us feeling left behind by the move to Apple CPUs.”
This is something that came to light when I put together a list of the best laptops for AutoCAD. Although AutoCAD supports MacOS, many of the important plugins and add-ons do not, running only on Windows. At least one US university has issued a complete ban on using Apple computers for AutoCAD, showing that it is very expensive and time-consuming to run software natively on the M2 and without a base already established user base, it’s a bit of ROI. confrontation
I don’t believe, for one second, that Apple’s engineers are unable to solve any of the technical challenges that an M2-based Mac Pro might present but there is a significant opportunity cost involved and Apple could see it as a distraction to attend to. needs a small share of the total audience. After all, adding multiple GPUs, ECC memory more than 1TB, RAID, support for an external GPU and that could support multiple processors that go against the unified vision of Apple, which tends to be more monolithic. It wouldn’t surprise me if Apple, in the future, decided to bring solid state storage to the die itself – somehow.
The last piece of the puzzle is the relentless drive for more powerful components at the top of the market, which is partly due to AMD’s resurgence. Intel and AMD on the CPU side and AMD and Nvidia on the GPU side are delivering the kind of hardware upgrades that Apple will struggle to match even with a refreshed Mac Pro.
The Xeon processor in the 2019 Mac Pro was launched almost four years ago and although it is being compared to a laptop processor in a consumer benchmark (Passmark) it may not tell the whole story, the Xeon W-3223 is more delayed is the AMD Ryzen 7 4980U, a processor equipped with several 2021 Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 devices.
And the same for graphics cards, storage technology and things like Wi-Fi or USB. The ability to spend money to get much better performance is not something that Mac Pro users can imagine. Will that be different in a month? We’ll see.
