New Desktop Mac? Stay tuned 3/8

[mikehalloran]

I watched the presentation, the new Mac Studio computers look very impressive but again I didn’t see a mention of internal storage, and of course no PCI slots. I wonder when the new Mac Pro will be announced?

The reason I need a slot is for my UAD OCTO eight processor PCI card. Perhaps I’ll rethink my priorities and sell that thing.


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Internal storage up to 8TB priced the same as adding it to any other current Mac.

No slots in that form. Tim Cook did state a new Mac Pro is coming — no hints as to when.

[greg328]

Right, thanks Mike, he did pique our curiosity, didn’t he at the end? It may be worth waiting for it, just for the slots. But I’ll bet it starts at 3 or $4000.


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[dix]

I watched the presentation, the new Mac Studio computers look very impressive but again I didn’t see a mention of internal storage, and of course no PCI slots. I wonder when the new Mac Pro will be announced?

The reason I need a slot is for my UAD OCTO eight processor PCI card. Perhaps I’ll rethink my priorities and sell that thing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The internal storage is expensive. Same pricing as the 2021 MBPs. Up to $2200 more.

If the future M1 (M2?) Mac Pros, mentioned in passing today, do have PCI slots I doubt they'll be compatible with your current Octo card. ...UAD Octo Tb Satellite is $1200 or less fyi. My Quad satellite works flawlessly.

[James Steele]

I watched the presentation, the new Mac Studio computers look very impressive but again I didn’t see a mention of internal storage, and of course no PCI slots. I wonder when the new Mac Pro will be announced?

The reason I need a slot is for my UAD OCTO eight processor PCI card. Perhaps I’ll rethink my priorities and sell that thing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The internal storage is expensive. Same pricing as the 2021 MBPs. Up to $2200 more.

If the future M1 (M2?) Mac Pros, mentioned in passing today, do have PCI slots I doubt they'll be compatible with your current Octo card. ...UAD Octo Tb Satellite is $1200 or less fyi. My Quad satellite works flawlessly.

I see a satellite in my future also. Want to keep using my UA plugs.

[greg328]

Right guys, yes, the thunderbolt UAD satellite box is a good option. I live four houses down from the semi world-famous Tim Palmer, British audio engineer. He’s got one and loves it. But he’s a Slo-Tools guy! Boo!! Lol—


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[James Steele]

I hope EuControl for my Artist/MC Control and Mix control surfaces will work too.

[mikehalloran]

…The internal storage is expensive. Same pricing as the 2021 MBPs. Up to $2200 more.

"expensive" is a relative term.

Since July 2019 when it dropped considerably, Apple's price for internal storage has been fairly competitive. This 8TB external NVMe 3x4 storage is $1,999 but it's limited to 4 lanes over TB3. It's not a bad price at all.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3 ... InEALw_wcB

That same 8TB storage inside a T2 Mac is a pair of 4TB blades in RAID 0 (ish) array on the PCIe bus and will be faster. Yes, you lose the additional 512GB or 1TB base storage but I'm ok with that.

So… Why not go small and swap projects in and out or keep projects on an external? Time. I was reminded of this last Friday when I had to tweak a 2 yr old project and decided to leave it on my 4TB external over TB. It was like swimming in molasses compared to the way I am used to working. Worst was syncing the newly edited audio to the old video — what is normally a 10 minute process took over an hour.

Knowing this upfront, no way am I going to hobble the speed of my new machine by having important processes happen outside the box. I'll still keep an external for installer files and my half TB of Apple Music and other non-essentials. Time Machine will remain over Ethernet, of course.

I've not yet determined the exact specs but without the 8TB, I wouldn't be considering replacing my iMac Pro.

[Michael Canavan]

Tim Cook did state a new Mac Pro is coming — no hints as to when.

What's crazy to think about is it's probably going to start with the 20 core ultra. I think I'm going to wait for the Mac Pro with PCI slots. It's probably a long shot, but I want to be able to add my own 7000MB/s NVME SSDs etc.

Then again it might be possible with 10GbE to get that speed if there's ever an enclosure solution offered. I'm pretty happy 10GbE was introduced, that really helps the NAS connectivity.

[mikehalloran]

I'm pretty happy 10GbE was introduced, that really helps the NAS connectivity.

Yea, I don't know about the laptops (2016 MBP?) but the first desktop was the iMac Pro in 2017 followed by the 2018 Mini where it was a $100 option (really?). Apple told us that 10GBe was wonderful and that we could do all sorts of cool things with it such as link 20 Minis into a supercomputer controlled by an iMP or MBP but never followed up and released practical instruction guides as to how and why. Once the MP 7.1 was released, no one talked about it anymore since most of this can be done in the box.

One thing I like about the WD NAS boxes is that Time Machine is a supported protocol—it just works. So... where are the 10GBe versions? I'm waiting…

As part of my Apple support hell ordeal*, they reset my T2 chip and the full 4TB Time Machine restore took 40 hours over gigabyte Ethernet. I since put a 4TB SSD into my TB dock to prevent that again but still…

*I finally got everything resolved by updating a Codemeter runtime (Antares) and my Adobe apps plus Dropbox updated and dropped depreciated code. It now boots as it should and I have no more random crashes. Yesterday, the company that was supposed to replace the logic board and SSDs (that I knew I didn't need) finally got the parts in. First, they ran the comprehensive diagnostic that I'd been asking for over a month and gave it the clean bill of health that I expected.

[James Steele]

What's crazy to think about is it's probably going to start with the 20 core ultra. I think I'm going to wait for the Mac Pro with PCI slots.

Random thought, but if PCI slots make a comeback on Macs and look like they will be around for a while, will companies like UA create new versions of their PCI UAD DSP cards? I could be hopeful that MOTU might make a new version of the PCI-424e card, but I'm very doubtful on that score. Would be awesome if it used audiowire connections and were backward compatible with old MOTU PCI audio interfaces, but again... wishful thinking.

Another thing I wonder is might there be certain advantages in terms of monitoring latency or throughput that would make PCI audio interfaces a desirable option, or with Thunderbolt available today, is that pointless?

[Michael Canavan]

What's crazy to think about is it's probably going to start with the 20 core ultra. I think I'm going to wait for the Mac Pro with PCI slots.

Random thought, but if PCI slots make a comeback on Macs and look like they will be around for a while, will companies like UA create new versions of their PCI UAD DSP cards? I could be hopeful that MOTU might make a new version of the PCI-424e card, but I'm very doubtful on that score. Would be awesome if it used audiowire connections and were backward compatible with old MOTU PCI audio interfaces, but again... wishful thinking.

Another thing I wonder is might there be certain advantages in terms of monitoring latency or throughput that would make PCI audio interfaces a desirable option, or with Thunderbolt available today, is that pointless?

IMO the main advantage of PCI cards is the speed of SSDs, dedicated DSP cards are pretty much a waste of money if you can find the plug ins natively at this point. I'm more than happy with my M1 Air which is essentially as powerful as a i9 8 core MacBook Pro, and the M1 Max is 1.6X as powerful as the M1, the M1 Ultra is going to be roughly 3x as powerful. The SSDs in these machines are running at roughly 12X the speed of a 2.5" SSD.

[mikehalloran]

Another thing I wonder is might there be certain advantages in terms of monitoring latency or throughput that would make PCI audio interfaces a desirable option, or with Thunderbolt available today, is that pointless?

As I've mentioned a few times, the RTL differences between a Fast USB 2 and a TB3 are about the same as moving your ears 12–14" closer to or away from your monitor speakers. No matter how fast you get the electrons moving, the speed of sound is quite slow. Interface marketing depts do their best at screaming RTL numbers as if they make much of a difference. Nobody expects anyone to do the math. True zero latency cannot exist and near-zero for Fast USB 2 is so speedy that it's hard to hear unless you put the I/O Mix knob of say, an M4 in the 50/50 position and hear the comb filtering caused by partial phase cancellation — gone in the 45/55 or 55/45 positions.

[Michael Canavan]

Another thing I wonder is might there be certain advantages in terms of monitoring latency or throughput that would make PCI audio interfaces a desirable option, or with Thunderbolt available today, is that pointless?

As I've mentioned a few times, the RTL differences between a Fast USB 2 and a TB3 are about the same as moving your ears 12–14" closer to or away from your monitor speakers. No matter how fast you get the electrons moving, the speed of sound is quite slow. Interface marketing depts do their best at screaming RTL numbers as if they make much of a difference. Nobody expects anyone to do the math. True zero latency cannot exist and near-zero for Fast USB 2 is so speedy that it's hard to hear unless you put the I/O Mix knob of say, an M4 in the 50/50 position and hear the comb filtering caused by partial phase cancellation — gone in the 45/55 or 55/45 positions.

There is some truth to the battle between high plug in count and low latency settings, but I routinely have my setup at 128 or 64 even with little issues, and that's with the M1 Air. Granted I'm using the Mac Pro with VEP for orchestral work but that to me means that any configuration of these new Mac Studio machines would pretty much handle what both of my machines are doing together at low latencies. I can't even imagine being a kid these days, we I think all started with the Mac Plus or earlier computers.

[James Steele]

Another thing I wonder is might there be certain advantages in terms of monitoring latency or throughput that would make PCI audio interfaces a desirable option, or with Thunderbolt available today, is that pointless?

As I've mentioned a few times, the RTL differences between a Fast USB 2 and a TB3 are about the same as moving your ears 12–14" closer to or away from your monitor speakers. No matter how fast you get the electrons moving, the speed of sound is quite slow. Interface marketing depts do their best at screaming RTL numbers as if they make much of a difference. Nobody expects anyone to do the math. True zero latency cannot exist and near-zero for Fast USB 2 is so speedy that it's hard to hear unless you put the I/O Mix knob of say, an M4 in the 50/50 position and hear the comb filtering caused by partial phase cancellation — gone in the 45/55 or 55/45 positions.

Well, I know I should read every post on this forum, but but I've missed the other times you mentioned it... so forgive me. Thanks, Mike. Just didn't know if it might still be superior for monitoring as you're tracking, etc.