Posted March 8, 2022 Summary Apple announced the Launch of their Mac Studio desktop, targeted towards creative professionals. The product comes in two SKU's: One utilizing the M1 max first used in last year's Macbook Pro and the other utilizing two M1 Max dies stitched together using a infinity-fabric like interconnect in what Apple calls the M1 Ultra. The M1 Ultra chip has 20 CPU cores in addition to 64 GPU cores in the top end trim, and is capable of playing back 18 streams of 8k ProRes Video simultaneously. The preconfigured Mac Studio models start at $1999 and $3999 USD respectively. They are to be paired with Apple's New 27" Studio display, which starts at $1599 USB, Stand included. With options to buy a vesa mount and a Pro-Display XDR like adjustable stand for a premium. The display is capable of reaching 600 nits peak brightness, while featuring a 5k resolution. Quotes Quote "The foundation for M1 Ultra is the extremely powerful and power-efficient M1 Max. To build M1 Ultra, the die of two M1 Max are connected using UltraFusion, Apple’s custom-built packaging architecture. The most common way to scale performance is to connect two chips through a motherboard, which typically brings significant trade-offs, including increased latency, reduced bandwidth, and increased power consumption." (1) "Apple today introduced Mac Studio and Studio Display, an entirely new Mac desktop and display designed to give users everything they need to build the studio of their dreams. A breakthrough in personal computing, Mac Studio is powered by M1 Max and the new M1 Ultra, the world’s most powerful chip for a personal computer. It is the first computer to deliver an unprecedented level of performance, an extensive array of connectivity, and completely new capabilities in an unbelievably compact design that sits within arm’s reach on the desk. With Mac Studio, users can do things that are not possible on any other desktop, such as rendering massive 3D environments and playing back 18 streams of ProRes video". (2) My thoughts These models, and the tease of an Apple Silicon based Mac Pro on the Horizon, the final stages of Apple's transition to ARM are clearly showing their benefits on the High End. Have fun validating this thing Linus! Sources https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/03/apple-unveils-m1-ultra-the-worlds-most-powerful-chip-for-a-personal-computer/ https://www.cnn.com/tech/live-news/apple-march-event-live/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 Single monitor, sadge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 4 hours ago, MoonMaroon said: My thoughts These models, and the tease of an Apple Silicon based Mac Pro on the Horizon, the final stages of Apple's transition to ARM are clearly showing their benefits on the High End. Have fun validating this thing Linus! Quote The new SoC consists of 114 billion transistors, the most ever in a personal computer chip. M1 Ultra can be configured with up to 128GB of high-bandwidth, low-latency unified memory that can be accessed by the 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine, Finally, an ARM Mac Product at parity with a high end Windows Desktop. I can't wait to see the benchmarks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 Looks so bad, but seems like a pretty good deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 My first thought was "please call it the Mac medium please call it the Mac medium" Then I thought "oh, it's the Mac mini on steroids." Then I thought "that looks cool I might get one- $4000?!!" elephants Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 4 minutes ago, FakeKGB said: My first thought was "please call it the Mac medium please call it the Mac medium" Then I thought "oh, it's the Mac mini on steroids." Then I thought "that looks cool I might get one- $4000?!!" It is a workstation class desktop. The Lenovo P620 with a Threadripper 3975WX starts at 5k, with 16GB of RAM + a Quadro with another 2GB of RAM. A more reasonable setup would be with 32/64GB of RAM + a Quadro A500 with 24GB of RAM, which costs around 7-8k. Will it beat a normal workstation? I doubt it. But the price is pretty compelling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 1 hour ago, Forbidden Wafer said: It is a workstation class desktop. The Lenovo P620 with a Threadripper 3975WX starts at 5k, with 16GB of RAM + a Quadro with another 2GB of RAM. A more reasonable setup would be with 32/64GB of RAM + a Quadro A500 with 24GB of RAM, which costs around 7-8k. Will it beat a normal workstation? I doubt it. But the price is pretty compelling. Consider that GPU's are still unobtanium and the asking price is more than the base model here, it's probably a bargain for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 5 hours ago, HomeBoi said: Single monitor, sadge What do you mean? The thing has a ton of type c ports which I would assume are capable of outputting displayport so you would be able to do multiple displays. Granted this is just my assumption I could be wrong. That being said I would find it highly unlikely that they would make their high end workstation series incapable of multiple displays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 15 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said: What do you mean? The thing has a ton of type c ports which I would assume are capable of outputting displayport so you would be able to do multiple displays. Granted this is just my assumption I could be wrong. That being said I would find it highly unlikely that they would make their high end workstation series incapable of multiple displays. It was shown powering multiple displays. Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly; the ill deeds along with the good, and let me be judged accordingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 They could have made an AIO even with M1 Ultra | Ryzen 7 7800X3D | AM5 B650 Aorus Elite AX | G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5 32GB 6000MHz C30 | Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XTX | Samsung 990 PRO 1TB with heatsink | Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 | Seasonic Focus GX-850 | Lian Li Lanccool III | Mousepad: Skypad 3.0 XL / Zowie GTF-X | Mouse: Zowie S1-C | Keyboard: Ducky One 3 TKL (Cherry MX-Speed-Silver) | Beyerdynamic MMX 300 (2nd Gen) | Acer XV272U | OS: Windows 11 | Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 Fun fact: the GPU is really seen by the OS as a big single GPU with up to 128GB of unified memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 5 hours ago, KWelz said: It was shown powering multiple displays. IIRC, they said capable of powering 4 Studio Displays AND a 4k TV (at once). Motherboard: MSI A320M PRO-VH PLUS ** Processor: AMD Ryzen 2600 3.4 GHz ** Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 1070 TI 8GB Zotac 1070ti Memory: 32GB DDR4 2400 ** Power Supply: 650 Watts Power Supply Thermaltake +80 Bronze Thermaltake PSU 2012 iMac i7 27"; 2007 MBP 2.2 GHZ; Power Mac G5 Dual 2GHZ; B&W G3; Quadra 650; Mac SE iPad Air2; iPhone SE 2020; iPhone 5s; AppleTV 4k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 1 hour ago, Video Beagle said: IIRC, they said capable of powering 4 Studio Displays AND a 4k TV (at once). I can understand the desire/requirement for that much screen real estate, but I recently tried vertical stacking of monitors so I could use a single desk setup for my work + personal hardware and the results were … not great. Maybe there’s something about the higher monitor tilt angle I’ve not gotten quite right, anybody aware of any good information about getting that kind of setup right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 2 hours ago, Video Beagle said: IIRC, they said capable of powering 4 Studio Displays AND a 4k TV (at once). They actually said it can drive four XDRs (6k each) and a 4k TV-- so even more pixels! (studio display is "only" 5K) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 So it has a great cpu, they didn't compare any gpu stats that I saw. Does it render faster? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 57 minutes ago, Heliian said: So it has a great cpu, they didn't compare any gpu stats that I saw. Does it render faster? ~Twice as fast. (twice as many GPU cores) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 49 minutes ago, Heliian said: So it has a great cpu, they didn't compare any gpu stats that I saw. Does it render faster? The GPU rendering performance will almost certainly won't be anything exceptional but it will beat any GPU on the market when rendering scenes that require an obscene amount of VRAM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 Author 1 hour ago, WereCat said: The GPU rendering performance will almost certainly won't be anything exceptional but it will beat any GPU on the market when rendering scenes that require an obscene amount of VRAM Apple claims that it has more performance per watt compared to an RTX 3090, which honestly seems kind of promising because if the M1 Ultra can meet anything close to that level of performance It'd be a steal in this GPU market. Honestly though, I prefer to take my apples with a little bit of salt, considering how heavily they depended on the Media engine to achieve the 3080 mobile like performance in their M1 Max benchmarks from last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 4 minutes ago, MoonMaroon said: considering how heavily they depended on the Media engine to achieve the 3080 mobile like performance in their M1 Max benchmarks from last year. I think we can be pretty certain that's the case. It's the test that makes them look best, as well as being the most relevant benchmark for their target audience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 23 minutes ago, MoonMaroon said: Apple claims that it has more performance per watt compared to an RTX 3090, which honestly seems kind of promising because if the M1 Ultra can meet anything close to that level of performance It'd be a steal in this GPU market. Honestly though, I prefer to take my apples with a little bit of salt, considering how heavily they depended on the Media engine to achieve the 3080 mobile like performance in their M1 Max benchmarks from last year. Yeah but in what application exactly? RTX 2060 12GB can easily beat RTX 3080 10GB in perf per watt when rendering scenes that use above 10GB of VRAM but that doesn't mean it's beating it in anything else. For example, A6000 will definitely demolish the M1 Ultra in rendering performance maybe even by an order of magnitude but only as long as the scene fits into its 48GB VRAM buffer. Once the scene becomes much larger the A6000 simply has no chance. That's why the M1 Ultra is so damn impressive. It literally has no competition in that price range, not even close to anything else in that specific workload. It's perfect for movie making /animation /huge sets, etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 3 minutes ago, WereCat said: Yeah but in what application exactly? RTX 2060 12GB can easily beat RTX 3080 10GB in perf per watt when rendering scenes that use above 10GB of VRAM but that doesn't mean it's beating it in anything else. For example, A6000 will definitely demolish the M1 Ultra in rendering performance maybe even by an order of magnitude but only as long as the scene fits into its 48GB VRAM buffer. Once the scene becomes much larger the A6000 simply has no chance. That's why the M1 Ultra is so damn impressive. It literally has no competition in that price range, not even close to anything else in that specific workload. It's perfect for movie making /animation /huge sets, etc... That’s kind of the point, a A6000 alone costs more than a maxed out (on cpu and gpu side) Mac Studio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 11 minutes ago, Spindel said: That’s kind of the point, a A6000 alone costs more than a maxed out (on cpu and gpu side) Mac Studio. That's... what I'm trying to say Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 I think the M1 Ultra being “one last” addition to the M1 generation raises some interesting possibilities for the next Mac Pro. I see there being two possible scenarios: 1) Apple sees the M1 Ultra and Mac Studio as “replacing” the Mac Pro for the purposes of the “complete transition within 2 years” statement. With the Mac Studio, you can now buy an Apple Silicon machine at every previous Intel performance level, so it’s not an unreasonable position to take IMO. In this scenario, the Mac Pro remains mainly unchanged for the next 18-24 months (maybe at most an upgrade to a new Xeon generation, and new GPU options), until it is refreshed at a similar point in the M2 timeline with an M2 Ultra, and a CTO option to an M2 Extreme (4x M2 Max). I presume the M1 generation Jade 4c leak was killed by COVID. 2) The Mac Pro is upgraded with an M1 Ultra at WWDC. In this situation, the M1 Ultra is exactly the same chip as in the Mac Studio, as we know there’s no extra cores etc. to enable on the silicon. Maybe the large power and thermal limits in the Mac Pro enclosure allow it to be clocked higher, but at it’s core, this Mac Pro would be basically a Mac Studio with PCIe expansion, and maybe some upgradability in storage and RAM (I’d presume the 128GB On-Package RAM stays, but with DDR5 basically acting as a new “L4” cache). Following this, the next Mac Pro has the full Jade 4C-class chip. I’d wager on scenario 1 being somewhat more likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 Author 36 minutes ago, Aidoneus said: I think the M1 Ultra being “one last” addition to the M1 generation raises some interesting possibilities for the next Mac Pro. I see there being two possible scenarios: 1) Apple sees the M1 Ultra and Mac Studio as “replacing” the Mac Pro for the purposes of the “complete transition within 2 years” statement. With the Mac Studio, you can now buy an Apple Silicon machine at every previous Intel performance level, so it’s not an unreasonable position to take IMO. In this scenario, the Mac Pro remains mainly unchanged for the next 18-24 months (maybe at most an upgrade to a new Xeon generation, and new GPU options), until it is refreshed at a similar point in the M2 timeline with an M2 Ultra, and a CTO option to an M2 Extreme (4x M2 Max). I presume the M1 generation Jade 4c leak was killed by COVID. 2) The Mac Pro is upgraded with an M1 Ultra at WWDC. In this situation, the M1 Ultra is exactly the same chip as in the Mac Studio, as we know there’s no extra cores etc. to enable on the silicon. Maybe the large power and thermal limits in the Mac Pro enclosure allow it to be clocked higher, but at it’s core, this Mac Pro would be basically a Mac Studio with PCIe expansion, and maybe some upgradability in storage and RAM (I’d presume the 128GB On-Package RAM stays, but with DDR5 basically acting as a new “L4” cache). Following this, the next Mac Pro has the full Jade 4C-class chip. I’d wager on scenario 1 being somewhat more likely. Opinion: My assumption is that Apple will debut the largest configuration of Second Generation Apple silicon first and bin it down for later models rather than creating entirely new DIES for each variant like M1 to improve efficiency and production capacity. Maybe allowing them to remedy some of M1's shortcomings when it comes to I/O and upgradability? WWDC seems like it'll be the place where Apple will announce "M2" and based on the tease of a ARM Mac Pro at the end of their keynote the announcement of one based on M2 at WWDC seems plausible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted March 9, 2022 2 hours ago, Aidoneus said: I think the M1 Ultra being “one last” addition to the M1 generation raises some interesting possibilities for the next Mac Pro. I see there being two possible scenarios: 1) Apple sees the M1 Ultra and Mac Studio as “replacing” the Mac Pro for the purposes of the “complete transition within 2 years” statement. With the Mac Studio, you can now buy an Apple Silicon machine at every previous Intel performance level, so it’s not an unreasonable position to take IMO. In this scenario, the Mac Pro remains mainly unchanged for the next 18-24 months (maybe at most an upgrade to a new Xeon generation, and new GPU options), until it is refreshed at a similar point in the M2 timeline with an M2 Ultra, and a CTO option to an M2 Extreme (4x M2 Max). I presume the M1 generation Jade 4c leak was killed by COVID. 2) The Mac Pro is upgraded with an M1 Ultra at WWDC. In this situation, the M1 Ultra is exactly the same chip as in the Mac Studio, as we know there’s no extra cores etc. to enable on the silicon. Maybe the large power and thermal limits in the Mac Pro enclosure allow it to be clocked higher, but at it’s core, this Mac Pro would be basically a Mac Studio with PCIe expansion, and maybe some upgradability in storage and RAM (I’d presume the 128GB On-Package RAM stays, but with DDR5 basically acting as a new “L4” cache). Following this, the next Mac Pro has the full Jade 4C-class chip. I’d wager on scenario 1 being somewhat more likely. My guess is... 3) Mac Pro gets an M2 based chip. The M2 has additional mesh points, that allow them to do 2-4X M1 Ultra (so 40-80 cpu cores and 128-256 GPU cores), plus whatever generation over generation improvement they get going from M1 to M2 (which is likely 10-25%, assuming the M2 is A15 based, since that was the A14 (which the M1 is based on) to A15 improvement. ... unless the M2 is A16 based, since the M2 is still months out and the A16 is (probably) only 6 months away, in which case maybe a little more? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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