Mac Pro on Back Burner
Apple’s high-end Mac Pro desktop computer is currently “on the back burner,” according to the latest word from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said he heard that Apple has “largely written off” the Mac Pro, with the sentiment inside the company being that the Mac Studio represents the present and future of Apple’s pro desktop computing.
I just don’t understand Apple’s thinking with this product. The arguments for and against the Mac Pro seem to me to be the same as before the 2023 model was introduced. Some people want PCI slots, more ports, internal storage, etc. Most don’t, but Apple already knew that. So what changed?
I get that not every processor will have an Ultra version, but why did they not even bother to update the Mac Pro with the M3 Ultra? Why keep it in the lineup at all if they were going to let it get 3 or more generations behind? Why bother to make it in the first place if they were going to ignore it? Were the future plans tied to the quad chip that didn’t work out?
My best guess is that the current Mac Pro was the result of an internal power struggle, where one side didn’t want to make it at all. So we ended up with a compromised and overpriced product that didn’t really offer what a lot of people wanted (e.g. graphics cards, lots of RAM). And so the sales were probably even lower than expected, and eventually that side will say “told ya so” and they’ll all agree to kill it.
Not surprised to see Apple maybe moving on from the Mac Pro - but still a bummer.
M3 Ultra has finally caught up to the Radeon 6900 XT in my 2019 Mac Pro. And that is an old GPU that is only a fraction the power of something like a GeForce 5090. Apple is really behind on GPU performance. Even if I wanted to upgrade today - it would be a side grade or a step back. I’m hoping M5 Ultra is better. But I was really hoping for an M5 Extreme (the mythical 2x Ultra) Mac Pro.
Previously:
- Mac Pro 2023
- Mac Pro Historical Perspective
- Five Years to Mac Hardware Turnaround
- Mac Pro 2019
- The Mac Pro Lives
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The real joke is that the ONLY justification for the 2023 Mac Pro was NVME SSD storage on a card being faster than over Thunderbolt... and then the entire release of Sonoma, which was that machine's default OS has a flaw where NVME SSDs would just randomly not be mountable at boot (not even visible as attached to the system), or disappear while under load, requiring full hardware power off and unplug / reset to restore functionality.
The scuttlebut being that this was because the storage subsystem had been replaced with an iOS / iPadOS derived version, and there's no iPad which has slot-based storage. The problem doesn't crop up in any other Mac. The 2019 was also effected.
