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Why Does the M2 Mac Pro Exist?

— June 28, 2023 31 comments




In a world where you can get the exact same performance from a computer half the price… what’s the point? MKBHD Merch: …

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About the Author: Marques Brownlee

31 Comments

  4. It's amazing that reviews like this don't lead with the most obvious reason the MacPro is bigger and more money: PCIe slots. Most people don't even know what the heck these things are for. There are various high-end industries [like pro audio, telecommunications – some cards costing more than the entire computer] which use these, to which the vast majority of people wouldn't need. The extra goodies on the MacPro (more Thunderbolt/USBC ports, second Ethernet, better cooling for slightly higher performance) aren't the main reason for the extra expense.

    Rather than complain that the raw processing power of this MacPro is virtually identical to the highest end Mac Mini, one should praise the fact that you don't have to buy a MacPro if you don't need PCIe slots but you want the fastest Mac.

  7. Apple got their dongle port handed to them for the trashcan Mac Pro not having any expansion. With all the Thunderbolt ports, it was basically just a matter of not having any internal expansion, even if you could technically have all the storage or PCIe slots you need in external enclosures. I guess people move their Mac Pros around a lot?

    So, this one seemed obvious enough to me: "You want slots and bays, we give you slots and bays." You (being: the community at large) asked for it. 🙂 But I do expect that same community will now be asking, "Who even wants this??" You. You did. You didn't want adapters and cables and external devices.

  10. Instead of an essay I'll condense my comment to this-
    The M2 Mac Pro existing is not a question of the expansion slots or anything else of that nature. For a fraction of the cost you can build a system that would crush the performance of this product so the real question is how and why does a market exist for this specific option at all given the alternative options. Are the few Mac only software options (Final Cut Pro, etc.) really worth spending so much money on a system that already has an EOL before you even open it???
    (Having said that I think the Studio option seems interesting given its form factor, power efficiency and relative performance, assuming you are happy with the Apple ecosystem).

  11. 2:21 Stop spreading misinformation, reducing the time from 1 minute and 45 seconds to 57 seconds represents approximately a 45.71% improvement. Not a “80 something improvement”.

  13. I have an M1 Mac Studio Max, in an actual recording studio, and absolutely love it for that use case. I’m driving 4 screens, one of which is a 55” tv on the wall (used to display the mixing console). My largest compliant with the M1’s, and this includes my M1 MacBook Pro, is the USB side, stuff just randomly stops working.

    I debated before getting it about the upgrade path issue, meaning none internal, but then looked back at the machines I’ve had in the past decade. Not one of them had changed in the time I owned them, even though I could. So after some brutal honesty, and self-reflection, expandability doesn’t appear to be all that critical to me. Why did I care? Because we HATE not being able to do something.

    As for the IO, use powered hubs, I have 2 of them, 8 ports each, rack mounted above it. For cards you can use an external GPU on it, just not certain ones, for now.

    This one is designed for a couple very specific use cases, and that’s maybe 1% of the users.

  14. As someone who has PCI-e cards for specific applications,… Yes, the reason the MacPro exisists, is the same reason the TrashCan was a a failure – We didn't buy TrashCan Mac's because we couldn't put cards like the Kona's and the M2 Raid cards in to them. Johny Ives didn't understand this, still doesn't – Connectivity is King.
    Heck, some of us only buy the new MacPro (or still have 5.1's kicking around) because companies like AJA do a shit job of writing drivers and software for Intel PC based systems.

  15. Apple could have designed the motherboard to fit in the old Mac Pro chassis. It's so wasteful to have to throw away an overpriced, for no reason, case and power supply only to buy a case and power supply nearly the same as the old one just to upgrade. What's the point of a semi-modular computer when the entire thing isn't modular?

  16. Low key one of the more interesting features of the Mac Pro is that you can now buy it in a rack mounted configuration. So that means cloud services can now put macs in their datacenters for highly specialized mac-only scenarios. Apple used to have a mac server option years ago but stopped selling it (likely due to low demand).

  18. With the GPU for pcs costing more and more, Macs are looking more and more enticing. Probably not the Pro though, that's still more expensive than my budget.

  23. Apple can not make a high performance chip anyway because it's not just about connecting 2 or 4 chips, it still requires to manufacture for each which will costs a lot of money and yet low volume. Apple just proven themselves.

    There are quite a lot of Mac users or Apple fanboys justifying Mac Pro 2023 because Apple don't care about Mac and pro markets anymore which is pathetic.

  29. After watching this, I don't think anyone should buy Mac Pro, or Mac, or Apple. I'm sorry, you can keep the iPhone, and the processor for Apple is huge success, but with the limitstions of apps and plugins and driver's… Unless we see Apple do the unthinkable, which is to combine x86 with Arm… Somehow… This is merely concept with you as the beta tester, were past Alpha, I can see that, however, revisioning PC requires not just upgrading, but also adapting the past software etc. to work as continuem when moving on to new hardware, and thats not what I'm seeing here… I'm glad games have gotten some support, but there's an overwhelming expectation from Apple that the developers do the rest after having an emulator made. It's the sort of an reminder that everything thats done and is new is great, but you couldn't bother to upgrade and enhanced the past stuff for everyones benefit…

  30. Hang on, there's going to be a subscription service to unlock extra cooling from those giant fans for extra performance boost, worth every penny

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