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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Apple Event — March 8

Did Apple just release the 'PERFECT?!' Creator 'PC' ...ahem... MAC Studio?

by Tech Notice





like he mentioned in the video, if you upgrade the Mac Studio M1 MAX to the M1 ULTRA chip you can save $200. I also configured one with the M1 MAX configurator instead of the M1 ULTRA configurator.

Screenshot-4061.png

Screenshot-4060.png


With M1 ULTRA configurator with only an increase in Ram from 64GB to 128GB

Screenshot-4062.png
 
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rand thompson said:
Craig,

From what I gathered from some of reviewers above in the videos, this might be a replacement for the iMac Pro. Also in the Apple presentation, one of the presenters made a statement along the lines of:

" Now we have only one more thing to go, the Mac Pro, and that will come at a later time"

So no real mention of any other thing of significance, but I may be wrong.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've seen some of the videos and it may well be a replacement for the 27inch iMac or indeed the iMac Pro as well. Especially since the iMac Pro was likely only introduced as a holdover until they worked out the current MacPro design, as they reminded themselves on Macbreak weekly.

I think it will be really interesting to see what happens with the Mac Pro tower design, I think speculation is a 4 chip M1 Ultra solution so up to 256GB of unified memory. Though it would be interesting to see if they did anything different. Perhaps on top of the unified memory you'll have ram slots to that you can go even further than that with the ram. It will be interesting to see what happens and when it happens.

That said I would rule out the re-introduction of a bigger iMac in the future should the next generation of chips allow it.
 
Craig,

I was thinking the same thing maybe 4, Hell maybe 6 M1 Max Chips fused together for the Mac Pro. I was also thinking that since Apple seems to be headed toward more compactness, that the Mac Pro will probably be much smaller than people are thinking it will be. Judging by how much cooling and heat dissemination the Mac Studio needs, and with Apple making things thinner and more compact, I think the iMac has or will be a thing of the past atleast in the higher-end Pro range.
 
Wait, Is The MAC STUDIO a Mac mini Pro? Or A New 2013 Mac Pro? Is It Both?

By
Matthew O'Brien


 
Craig W. Bickerstaff said:
You've pretty much limited yourself to the Mac Pro as that's the only Apple computer which comes close to "American made".
Click to expand...

I have a trashcan Mac Pro (which I bought secondhand). It's as much power as pretty much any photographer needs. However, as the years go by I'll look at a new pro-level Mac, and by then, more of them will be American made (or even Indian made).
 
Some day in the distant future when applications support Metal .r3d debayer these will be quite useful for working with Red footage.
 
For laptops - moving from TSMC 5nm (M1) over to 4nm (very likely M2) will reduce wattage power (and provide a very competitive landscape until 2024).

For Mac Pro - Apple could develop a 3D crossbar switch (I have not seen it suggested yet). Used with an M1 it would allow 2.5TB of non-blocking bidirectional data for each SoC.

intplan5985337851680156970.jpg

My expectation is that Apple will want to leverage features in the ARM v9 ISA (Instruction 'set') which are were not in the M1 (ARM V8.4-A). The new (v9) graphics primitives allow CPUs to perform specific GPU functions incredible efficiently - something of particular interest where your GPU and CPU are on the same SoC - and share the same memory. Something that extensions for Metal would eventually be rolled out.

A TSMC 4nm + ARM v9 + 3D_Crossbar_switch + 4SoC_M2_Ultra at $10,000 could make for very appealing HPC...

AJ
 
Mac Studio: GPU Cores Galore


by TWiT Tech Podcast Network


 
Putting the 3D Crossbar switch (referred to as 'FABRIC' in the 2nd patent) in the interposer makes sense (I presume this is what Apple and TSMC have been working towards on the packaging tech front).

TSMC 4nm : Increases transistor density or lowers power (wattage). It could mean squeezing in more (CPU or GPU) cores - or it could mean switching over from ARM V8 to V9.

If the move to V9 bring with in an inherent architectural efficiency increase of 10%, but can accelerate machine vision, maths, and atomicity instructions - it will enable Metal to be fine tuned ahead of the release of a new OS dedicated to vision, gesture and voice processed on device (ie 'edge') as the primary form of interaction (rather than keyboard).

If Apple utilised Pyrolytic Carbon (or similar) - they would be able to the heat away from most outward facing layers of a SoC vertical sandwich (very top of top SoC or very bottom of SoC underneath) - which Could allow Apple to stay with V8 on TSMC 5nm (ie M1).

What we don't know is IF the M1 inter SoC 'fusion' fabric can be flipped upside down and still work (like a USB-C) - or Not. It would be a shot in the foot (in terms of inter SoC latency) if the 3D CrossBar switch added 15ns latency.

If the '2 year transition' end in July 2022 - and Apple released a 2-way M2 Ultra a few months after releasing 1-way M1 Ultras - it would raise several questions (eg why didn't Apple use the M2 Ultra in the Studio?). Perhaps Apple intend to always have the Mac Pro on the latest and greatest chips (like the iPhone N Max) and the Studio, mini, imac on an 18 month update cadence (like the iPhone SE / Apple TV)?

AJ
 
Thanks Antony for your very knowledgeable insights on this topic. I confess that most of the terminology and concepts discussed in that video went over my head like the Hubble space telescope. I appreciate you being able to interpret what was said and to help make better sense of it.

I think the reason they made the decision to use the 1-way M1 Ultras instead of a possible 2- way M2 Ultra chip in the Mac Studio was to simply differentiate it as a seperate lower tier mac. A Tier for those whom don't need Mac Pro performance, that will most likely use the 2- way M2 Ultra chips, from those whom wanted better performance than the Mac M1 Max Laptops or iMacs could provide. Also according to Max Tech, I believe he stated that Apple has a patent for 3 different numbered Chips. The M1 Max and the M1Ultra both have the same chip number. So that means two other chips have yet to be announced and released.

So we have and idea about what one will be, it will be interesting to see what the other will look like and be capable of.
 
M1 Ultra vs Intel & NVIDIA - Did Apple FAKE Performance?


by Max Tech


 
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