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Apple Mac Studio

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Re: Apple Mac Studio

#161

Post by kube-system »

lquist wrote: post #151
areoform wrote: post #22

I would like to highlight just how much Apple is focusing on their customers and use cases right now. It seems that they're targeting products to what their professional customers actually want. And in this case, it's a 3.7" little thing that can process 18 streams of 8k video (fully specced out). That's kinda crazy, and they're doing it at a price point that's competitive compared to all of the companies out there.…

Why are they doing this? Trickle down effects for their mass market products? There is no way that the prosumer market is big enough to justify this distraction for Apple even if it used to be their core business line.

More margin than ever now that they're just gluing ARM processors together instead of buying Xeons from Intel?

Re: Apple Mac Studio

#165

Post by hughrr »

jeffbee wrote: post #148
hughrr wrote: post #4

This is actually really cheap. Maxed out at £7999 is less than half the price of an HP Z with similar numbers configured in which it probably can’t even get near the mac. And it doesn’t need $1000 wheels.

$8100 for a 20-core, 128GB, 8TB, 2x10ge, 2xTB3 BTO config of a HP Z6 G4. You get more expandability but fewer and slower TB ports, random graphics, and a much slower CPU, also a different operating system. Z workstations won't be competitive for people who can choose macOS until they refresh them with a newer Xeon. On the other hand, Mac won't be competitive for people who require ECC or Windows or Linux. https://zwo…

Stick two bigger GPUs in it to drive multiple 4k screens.

But yes no ECC. Linux arm64 works on my M1 Pro in UTM using native virtualisation. And it’s fast as anything.

Re: Apple Mac Studio

#166

Post by cyber_kinetist »

rovr138 wrote: post #115
cyber_kinetist wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though maybe we can get some NUMA-like affinity control for the M1 Ultra, so HPC control freaks can finally tune the fuck out of this hardware.

I'm actually curious about memory. Since they're 2 distinct chips, will a single chip be able to handle 128GB? Not sure how the interconnect works.

Yes, as all NUMA machines do, one CPU can access all memory, both local (to the CPU) and global (through the interconnect). The problem is that there is a significant latency cost when a CPU accesses non-local memory (limitations of the interconnect). So the HPC people writing their algorithms make sure that this happens at a minimal amount, by enforcing that the data each CPU is using is allocated locally as possible (ex. by using special affinity controls provided by libnuma)

I was just curious if these kinds of optimizations are possible in the M1 Ultra.

Re: Apple Mac Studio

#167

Post by andjd »

the_lucifer wrote: post #63
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Mac Pro is almost like a phantom product at this point. Or a riff. Like they're going to say "the new Mac Pro is there is no more Mac Pro". What can they really do, in a single machine, that is more "Pro" than the Studio? How are they going to bring developers along when most aren't developing for twenty-core machines? I still think something else is coming. Maybe something unconventionally stackable. Som…

> What can they really do, in a single machine, that is more "Pro" than the Studio? I'm guessing the Mac Pro will focus more on Upgradability and adding expansion slots? That seems like a direction Apple is willing to go tbh.

Agreed.

They showed it being used for pro audio, but that's a niche that still uses expansion cards a lot. Keeping the current mac pro form factor enables a lot of niche use cases.

One question is whether the M1 chips have enough connectivity to efficiently handle as many expansion cards as the current pro. Even the Max version of the CPU is limited to 4 thunderbolt ports.

Re: Apple Mac Studio

#168

Post by nightski »

minimaxir wrote: post #135
jachee wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Apple supported gaming more You mean if gaming supported Apple more, right? The industry's reliance on DirectX and the frameworks that build on it are largely what keep gaming so PC-centric. If we saw AAA studios embrace macOS-compatible (or better yet Open Source) graphics architecture, the need to have separate gaming PCs (and the insanely expensive GPUs associated therewith) would evaporate.

Even games running on engines like Unity and UE4 that support macOS/Metal don't support macOS because the userbase size isn't worth the overhead. It's a chicken and egg problem, although Apple Arcade is a good approach to try and bridge that gap.

There is no chicken and egg. Apple has tens of billions of dollars. If they wanted to support games it could be done really quickly. They straight up are anti-gaming unless it is of the exploitative micro-transaction mobile kind where they can reap that store tax.

Re: Apple Mac Studio

#169

Post by andrewmcwatters »

bogwog wrote: post #155

The 2TB option is an extra $400. That's $200/TB. The 4TB option is $250/TB. The 8TB option is $275/TB. That looks like planned obsolescence to me. A customer with 1TB will likely want to upgrade sooner than a customer with 8TB, so this pricing strategy discourages people from buying the more future-proof options. Other SSDs on the market tend to be cheaper per TB as you go up in size, but Apple's seem to be completel…

A lot of professionals use external drives for their work, and Apple has the right of charging beyond market value per TB of storage because the space is integrated, so you'll find that most people will purchase on-the-curve storage and rely on high-performance commodity drives for day-to-day artifacts and asset work.

Re: Apple Mac Studio

#170

Post by my123 »

bogwog wrote: post #155

The 2TB option is an extra $400. That's $200/TB. The 4TB option is $250/TB. The 8TB option is $275/TB. That looks like planned obsolescence to me. A customer with 1TB will likely want to upgrade sooner than a customer with 8TB, so this pricing strategy discourages people from buying the more future-proof options. Other SSDs on the market tend to be cheaper per TB as you go up in size, but Apple's seem to be completel…

Those are desktops, and Thunderbolt/USB 4 allows for fast SSDs. You can have the OS installed on an external drive too.

It's much less of an issue there than on laptops.

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