M2 Max and M2 Ultra Studio; M2 Ultra Mac Pro announced today

[James Steele]

...and she confirmed that they had automatically (without my having to ask) replaced the Mac Studio I had purchased with the newest machine, as well as the three upgrades I had made. It was the exact same cost.

I had ordered the 10-core CPU (M1), 32-core GPU, 64GB RAM and 1TB drive.

Now I get 12-core CPU (M2) and 38-core GPU!

Bro!!! That is AWESOME NEWS!!! Congrats!!

That must have been a great feeling. I can just imagine me in that position having to call them up and bracing myself psychologically to have to "go to battle" and then getting that response!

That IS a happy ending!!!

[James Steele]

[Tidwells@aol.com]

Good one, James! I had to look carefully at the photo on the right before I realized it was a snorkel. At first I thought it was some type of musical breath controller....

Doug

[mikehalloran]

…
Any good reason not to keep this same setup with the new Studio, or do folks consider it robust enough to run work projects / samples etc off say the large internal 8TB in the new studio? My inclination is just to go with a 1TB internal and keep my outboard enclosure for all my work and samples.

I'm posting my answer in a new thread.
https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73244

[mikehalloran]

I had a gut feeling about this. Apple are producing their own chips, there's no other market for them. The Mac Pro is simply too small of a market to design a chip specifically for, the chips in the Studio and Mac Pro are exactly the same, down to memory bandwidth etc. It doesn't even look like they redesigned the case at all, no NVME slots, the only advantages are PCI, larger probably quieter fans, and some internal storage etc.

IMO they're just doing it for the random UAD etc. user.

Actually, Apple is licensing ARM to make their chips — as are many others. At the moment, Apple is the leading edge for consumer products but others are catching up.

I don't know that Lucasfilm/Disney is the random UAD user.

The PCIe slots will allow NVMe 4 x6 blades to be installed on expansion cards, not unlike what people have done with NVMe 3 x4 cards on the cheesegrater. Unlike Apple NAND, the controller is on the blade, not the GPU. For that reason, I'm not certain that the additional storage can be combined with internal to make one big 16TB RAID 0 array. I may try to find that out.

The real reason to consider the M2 Ultra Mac Pro is the new Afterburner card, now built-in to all models. I'm fine with AV files that render in minutes, frankly, and am not seeing the need to spend a few grand to render faster. My other concern is that, because of my handicap, accessing the ports is easier if the thing is on my desk… ok, there are optional wheels, something my G3/4/5 never had.

[Michael Canavan]

Actually, Apple is licensing ARM to make their chips — as are many others. At the moment, Apple is the leading edge for consumer products but others are catching up.

Respectfully I'm not sure how that has anything to do with it? They are not making a chip specifically for the Mac Pro, because the batches would be too small to justify.

I don't know that Lucasfilm/Disney is the random UAD user.

Again goes back to the size of the crowd, just because something can be considered exclusive in no way makes it profitable or a worthwhile venture.

The PCIe slots will allow NVMe 4 x6 blades to be installed on expansion cards, not unlike what people have done with NVMe 3 x4 cards on the cheesegrater. Unlike Apple NAND, the controller is on the blade, not the GPU. For that reason, I'm not certain that the additional storage can be combined with internal to make one big 16TB RAID 0 array. I may try to find that out.

Yeah that's what I did in my cheesegrater, but I don't know if the tradeoff of 3k is worth any difference in speed to TB4, which is s a ridiculously fast protocol.

The real reason to consider the M2 Ultra Mac Pro is the new Afterburner card, now built-in to all models. I'm fine with AV files that render in minutes, frankly, and am not seeing the need to spend a few grand to render faster. My other concern is that, because of my handicap, accessing the ports is easier if the thing is on my desk… ok, there are optional wheels, something my G3/4/5 never had.

OK this one I think you're misinterpreting, the 76 core GPU built in to the M2 Ultra is being touted as the equivalent of 7 Afterburner cards, I see nothing on the Apple site about the Mac Pro to think otherwise.

So yeah, the Mac Studio is a better choice for almost every single use case. If you absolutely need PCI slots I suppose it's great, but even then PCI 4 at 26GBs VS TB4 at 40GBs makes you question that. Of course these are the stated throughputs and with the amount of theoretical VS real world nonsense there is with that, it's possible that PCI 4 is faster in actual use.

The point I was making is that the Mac Pro is moving completely into niche territory, as in it makes no sense for musicians even. Obviously Apple could do things to keep it alive but I do kind of think they're killing it off while draining niche case clients at the same time. 3K for a keyboard, case and PCI slots with no difference in performance is out of hand.

[Rick Cornish]

Still have no use for the Apple Watch.

As I grow older and become more handicapped, I'll be paying attention, big time.

My cardiologist just told me I can record my own EKGs on my Apple Watch and email them to him when needed without going to the doctor or hospital. I didn't even know I could do that. He says they're as accurate as any EKG you can do at home with any over-the-counter equipment.

[Chris T]

Ok thanks Mike. What you wrote is all a bit above my head to be honest!....

So if I were to opt with the M2 Ultra Mac Studio, what would be the best / fastest option for my additional work / sample drives?

Would my current OWC Thunderbay (Thunderbolt 3) containing 4 Samasung (or Crucial) SSDs be a bottleneck, or do I need a whole new solution using NVMe drives in a new enclosure(s) ?

[mikehalloran]

…The point I was making is that the Mac Pro is moving completely into niche territory, as in it makes no sense for musicians even. Obviously Apple could do things to keep it alive but I do kind of think they're killing it off while draining niche case clients at the same time. 3K for a keyboard, case and PCI slots with no difference in performance is out of hand.
…
Again goes back to the size of the crowd, just because something can be considered exclusive in no way makes it profitable or a worthwhile venture.

Who said that it was? BTW, many were expecting the MP to hold off till the M3 was ready but the prototypes had major stability issues. Interestingly, Apple let multiple rumors leak that the M2 Ultra had the same problem (and, like the recent Logic Pro for iPad rumors, I expect some of those leakers to be prosecuted).

I believe that Apple invaded niche territory with the MP 7.1 — but it was designed to kick the crap out of the $150,000 Win10 56 core MAYA Box rendering stations the film industry was using at the time. I have no idea if it was at all profitable but that wasn't the point.

Going back to the Tim Cook's MP 6.1 and 7.1 announcements, Apple is determined to keep a flagship product. This latest is $41,000 less expensive than the last.

OK this one I think you're misinterpreting, the 76 core GPU built in to the M2 Ultra is being touted as the equivalent of 7 Afterburner cards, I see nothing on the Apple site about the Mac Pro to think otherwise.

I think you're right and I stand corrected. It was a 2 hour Keynote. Here is a page with transcripts referring specifically to the Mac Pro announcements.
https://ymcinema.com/2023/06/07/apple-t ... -built-in/

it's possible that PCI 4 is faster in actual use.

There's no doubt about that—if you listen to the PC crowd (here in the Silicon Valley, they make a lot of noise). The Studio was Apple's entry to PCIe 4. PCIe 4 x6 NAND is used in the Studio, old and new as well as the Mac Pro.

Since the new Mac Pro is the M2 Ultra Studio with four PCIe 4 slots and 8 TB4 ports, I expect it to sell well enough and be profitable — even if you or I will never buy it. It would surprise me if Apple did not make larger NAND kits available like they have the MP 7.1. Since the current kits can upgrade the iMP, there's no reason they couldn't upgrade the M1/M2 Studio as well (I already know the procedure for initializing them after installation).

I don't know if the tradeoff of 3k is worth any difference in speed to TB4, which is s a ridiculously fast protocol.

Like TB3, the TB4 pipe is limited to 2800 over 4 lanes. You can daisy-chain or connect up to six TB3 devices on a hub to a TB4 port. TB3 was limited to one and a hub was pass-through to one port only. You're right, that's pretty damned fast but internal R/W on the iMac Pro/MP 7.1 is about 2.5x faster while the Studio/new MP is about 3.6x faster (with two NAND modules; with one, only about 1.6x faster). Again, all this speed has little to do with audio.

I don't need a crystal ball to predict that the next big breakthrough announcement for desktop computing will be TB5 / USB 4.2. For the laptops, it will be the M3 series—yes,they'll be faster but the big feature will be increased battery life with some expecting over 24 hours in a MBP.

The current offerings are good enough for me.

[Michael Canavan]

Who said that it was? BTW, many were expecting the MP to hold off till the M3 was ready but the prototypes had major stability issues. Interestingly, Apple let multiple rumors leak that the M2 Ultra had the same problem (and, like the recent Logic Pro for iPad rumors, I expect some of those leakers to be prosecuted).

I believe that Apple invaded niche territory with the MP 7.1 — but it was designed to kick the crap out of the $150,000 Win10 56 core MAYA Box rendering stations the film industry was using at the time. I have no idea if it was at all profitable but that wasn't the point.

Going back to the Tim Cook's MP 6.1 and 7.1 announcements, Apple is determined to keep a flagship product. This latest is $41,000 less expensive than the last.

OK that makes sense, I was expecting that the Mac Pro would be the first to introduce a chip, i.e. M3 Ultras introduced, or maybe M3 Max in laptops, then the Ultra in the Mac Pro, then the Ultra in the Studio. The fact they put out the expected M2 Ultras in both the Studio and the Pro is odd to me.

I don't know if the tradeoff of 3k is worth any difference in speed to TB4, which is s a ridiculously fast protocol.

Like TB3, the TB4 pipe is limited to 2800 over 4 lanes. You can daisy-chain or connect up to six TB3 devices on a hub to a TB4 port. TB3 was limited to one and a hub was pass-through to one port only. You're right, that's pretty damned fast but internal R/W on the iMac Pro/MP 7.1 is about 2.5x faster while the Studio/new MP is about 3.6x faster (with two NAND modules; with one, only about 1.6x faster). Again, all this speed has little to do with audio.

I don't need a crystal ball to predict that the next big breakthrough announcement for desktop computing will be TB5 / USB 4.2. For the laptops, it will be the M3 series—yes,they'll be faster but the big feature will be increased battery life with some expecting over 24 hours in a MBP.

The current offerings are good enough for me.

Hmm? I remember that number being thrown around, but I've gotten higher than 2800 in various benchmarks out of a TB4 enclosure with a Crucial in it with the M1 Air here.

Mostly Apple itself claims higher throughput for TB4 than PCIe 4. Which is shocking, and likely lab tests, but it's not impossible, both are near system bus level performance.

For almost every single use case the Studio is a far better deal, and you're literally losing next to nothing performance wise, especially in terms of track counts and plug ins, in a DAW.

[joelfriedman]

Just as an FYI: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/mac-studio-vs-mac-pro/

[mikehalloran]

Still have no use for the Apple Watch.

As I grow older and become more handicapped, I'll be paying attention, big time.

My cardiologist just told me I can record my own EKGs on my Apple Watch and email them to him when needed without going to the doctor or hospital. I didn't even know I could do that. He says they're as accurate as any EKG you can do at home with any over-the-counter equipment.

My doctor isn't asking for that —yet? It's a good point, though.

If the watch could keep track of my glucose levels without my wearing a special patch, I would feel it's time for me to own one. Apple bought a Japanese company a few years ago to get that technology. Problem is that it has to be FDA certified as a medical device for them to include that.

Till then, I'm happy to wear a watch that tells me the time, date and nothing else.

[mikehalloran]

…
Like TB3, the TB4 pipe is limited to 2800 over 4 lanes. You can daisy-chain or connect up to six TB3 devices on a hub to a TB4 port. TB3 was limited to one and a hub was pass-through to one port only. You're right, that's pretty damned fast but internal R/W on the iMac Pro/MP 7.1 is about 2.5x faster while the Studio/new MP is about 3.6x faster (with two NAND modules; with one, only about 1.6x faster). Again, all this speed has little to do with audio.
…
The current offerings are good enough for me.

Hmm? I remember that number being thrown around, but I've gotten higher than 2800 in various benchmarks out of a TB4 enclosure with a Crucial in it with the M1 Air here.

Mostly Apple itself claims higher throughput for TB4 than PCIe 4. Which is shocking, and likely lab tests, but it's not impossible, both are near system bus level performance.
…

Lots of smoke and mirrors in those numbers. Let's see if I can decode some of the nonsense,

First, the rated throughput of TB3 and TB4 is 40Gbps or 4000MB/s (well, sort of since there are not 10 bits in a Byte). That's the theoretical maximum. Where does the number come from? Well, since both pipes are only 4 Lanes the theoretical maximum for Data Transfer is actually 32Gbps. Huh? They then add 8Gbps DisplayPort Video which is where the 40Gbps number comes from. None of this takes into account that, because of overhead, theoretical claims are always faster than the real world.

So what's the difference between TB3 and TB4? Per Intel which owns the standard (even though it was developed by Apple ????) TB3 is supposed to achieve a minimum data transfer of 16Gbps while TB4's minimum is 32Gbps. This allows more devices with higher bandwidth to be connected to TB4 ports.

Although Intel says that TB3 should allow two TB3 devices, Apple says only one. TB4, being more robust allows up to six (Intel says four) plus more monitors of higher bandwidth. The Pro (4) and Studio (3 or 2) have more busses than the Minis (2 or 1) allowing more monitors of greater resolution depending. Apple's info on this is much better than Intel's basic poop sheat on the subject.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... 32%20Gbps.

A lot of enclosure and device makers get this completely wrong and make false claims such as TB3 hubs that support six TB3 devices. OTOH, OWC's fastest TB enclosures, like Sanyo and Samsung's is rated at • up to 2800MB/s Data transfer. Allowing for -400MB/s overhead from the theoretical max, that's about right. Yes, a burst can always test a bit faster—done it myself.

I have never seen an actual TB4 enclosure advertised. Do you have a link? Hubs, of course, and the best ones allow a lot of connectivity and take advantage of the increased video bandwidth.

Unlike the four Lane limit of TB3/4, PCI 4 can have six lanes — not all do, however. The Studios, MBP and M2 Mac Pro use NVMe 4 x6 NAND. The four PCIe slots in the Pro, likewise, are 4 x6. Data throughput with six Lanes is a lot greater than four and greater=faster in this case.

A lot of m.2 blades are advertised as NVMe 4 x4 — of course, they cost less than 4 x6. All are backward compatible with PCIe 3 enclosures but, as long as that four Lane pipe exists in TB3/4, they will not be faster when used in an external enclosure. TB5/USB 4.2 hasn't shipped yet but it's expected to blow the roof off of these speed limitations. There were many rumors that the next Pro was waiting on TB5, BTW.

Again, none of this means much in the world of Audio. Those 2 Lane TB enclosures from OWC rated • up to 1556MB/S are plenty fast. They're 3x the speed of the SATA III dock I'm using over TB2 connected via the TB3 to TB2 adapter.

[mikehalloran]

Ok thanks Mike. What you wrote is all a bit above my head to be honest!....

So if I were to opt with the M2 Ultra Mac Studio, what would be the best / fastest option for my additional work / sample drives?

Would my current OWC Thunderbay (Thunderbolt 3) containing 4 Samasung (or Crucial) SSDs be a bottleneck, or do I need a whole new solution using NVMe drives in a new enclosure(s) ?

You're asking me the time. Let's see if I can answer without telling you how to build a clock.

The Thunderbay name has been around for awhile and refers to a number of enclosures rated from 1500MB/s to 2700 (multiple drives increase capacity but are a little slower). If that Thunderbay has SATA III drives, it's probably as robust as you need for audio. If doing a lot of video, you may want to move up.

I think you are good for now. Don't spend money now to solve a problem that may never exist. A 4 bay enclosure RAID 0 rated at 1500 is 3x faster than what I am using. If RAID 1 or JBOD, it's exactly the same speed (SATA III bottleneck).

[Michael Canavan]

I have never seen an actual TB4 enclosure advertised. Do you have a link? Hubs, of course, and the best ones allow a lot of connectivity and take advantage of the increased video bandwidth.

Cool Break down BTW.

The enclosure I ended up with is now only $99. TB4 "compatible" which turned out to be true enough, on Black Magic speed tests it hits 2600MB/s at 1GB chunks (the smaller read/writes are far more important for what we do)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BP9 ... =UTF8&th=1 It read significantly higher in Amorphous DiskMark, the other disk speed reader at 3162MB/s read. This is all off a TB3 port on an M1 Air. I have no doubt the numbers would be better with a different actual NVME (Crucial 35000MB/s theoretical read), and on an actual TB4 port on these new Macs.

I highly recommend it, plug and play, and actually performs at 2800MB/s I'm sure with a faster SSD and real TB4. I can only think that maybe for video the PCI 4 slots in the Mac Pro might provide some extra speed with a 5000MB/s NVME, VS an enclosure like this, but it's splitting hairs IMO for anyone not doing video. Plus with an actual TB4 slot this enclosure "should" do better. The random 4k write numbers are actually the ones you want for streaming and loading sample libraries which is the most intensive thing us in the audio world do.