WWDC 2023 Announced for June 5-9

From all said I think the only reason is just the performance compared to the workstations from Intel/AMD + discrete GPUs and tons of upgrades options. Apple chips are pretty impressive in performance to power consumption, but making the machine not upgradable at all will set a dead path for the Mac Pro. No professional will throw thousands of dollars for a workstation that will be outdated 2 years later with no option to upgrade even the storage.

Bogito said:

From all said I think the only reason is just the performance compared to the workstations from Intel/AMD + discrete GPUs and tons of upgrades options. Apple chips are pretty impressive in performance to power consumption, but making the machine not upgradable at all will set a dead path for the Mac Pro. No professional will throw thousands of dollars for a workstation that will be outdated 2 years later with no option to upgrade even the storage.

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That's why Hackintosh must stay alive... upgradeability and better performance than Apple's offerings. It's a nightmare if we have to switch off our hackintoshes some day soon and take the traditional road of Apple!

Bogito said:

From all said I think the only reason is just the performance compared to the workstations from Intel/AMD + discrete GPUs and tons of upgrades options. Apple chips are pretty impressive in performance to power consumption, but making the machine not upgradable at all will set a dead path for the Mac Pro. No professional will throw thousands of dollars for a workstation that will be outdated 2 years later with no option to upgrade even the storage.

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The MacPro7,1 started shipping December 10, 2019. Just about every aspect of it can be upgraded.

3 years and 4 months later, it's so outdated that people can't sell them for a fraction of the price they paid for it. How much has upgradability helped it retain it's value?

I agree. The problem with Mac Pro 2019 was again price/performance. With a base price of 6000$ for an 8c/16t CPU with 256 GB SSD and RX580X was already a bad deal for a workstation. Surely you can find it now for less than half the price in ebay. Also we have to mention the huge jump in performance last 2-3 years from both Apple and Intel/AMD that makes 2019 MacPro upgrade pointless. I have many friends who moved to Hack from Mac Pro simply because Mac Pro is not competitive for it's price or directly went to PC despite the system they were used to for years. Most of them in the music production. There's no step back for Apple to upgradability anymore, I know it. Feels like an end of an era for Mac Pro.

Bogito said:

I agree. The problem with Mac Pro 2019 was again price/performance. With a base price of 6000$ for an 8c/16t CPU with 256 GB SSD and RX580X was already a bad deal for a workstation. Surely you can find it now for less than half the price in ebay. Also we have to mention the huge jump in performance last 2-3 years from both Apple and Intel/AMD that makes 2019 MacPro upgrade pointless. I have many friends who moved to Hack from Mac Pro simply because Mac Pro is not competitive for it's price or directly went to PC despite the system they were used to for years. Most of them in the music production. There's no step back for Apple to upgradability anymore, I know it. Feels like an end of an era for Mac Pro.

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The last hack that I built was an i9-9900K system. Everything was upgradeable, RAM, storage, graphics... But in order for me to get anywhere near the the performance level of my Mac Studio, I'd pretty much have to replace everything.

Instead of trying to upgrade, I just got a Mac Studio. I'll use it for a few years and when I start getting the upgrade itch, I'll just replace it with a new model. I'd just have to unplug a few cables, drop in the new system, plug the cables back in and I'd be up and running. And, the resale value of my current Mac Studio will probably be much better than anything I built.

Economically, I think this makes much more sense. Imo, "upgradability" is overrated.

pastrychef said:

The last hack that I built was an i9-9900K system. Everything was upgradeable, RAM, storage, graphics... But in order for me to get anywhere near the the performance level of my Mac Studio, I'd pretty much have to replace everything.

Instead of trying to upgrade, I just got a Mac Studio. I'll use it for a few years and when I start getting the upgrade itch, I'll just replace it with a new model. I'd just have to unplug a few cables, drop in the new system, plug the cables back in and I'd be up and running. And, the resale value of my current Mac Studio will probably be much better than anything I built.

Economically, I think this makes much more sense. Imo, "upgradability" is overrated.

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Unfortunately I canont see it that way. Yes the mac Studio is a very powerful machine that got outdated very soon. An intel 13900k and a Radeon 6950xt (even 6800) will provide faster speeds in every aspect. Yes the 13900k is a very hungry cpu with poor thermal performance (100c) and along with a 6950xt will sum up the electricity bill by far against mac studio... but I can upgrade Ram, HDDs, SSDs, NVMEs, pci controllers etc. I have also 2x systems with 9th gen Intel cpus and the only thing I have to upgrade is Cpu, mobo and Ram. So my towers, PSUs, NVMEs, HDDs are here to stay for the next upgrade. Im fan of Apple many years now (since 2013) but I cannot agree with it's strategy since Apple Silicon (I have a Macbook Air M1 W 16Gb Ram). I hope and wish Mac Pro will come with upgradeability options including at least Ram and Disks and mostly a Radeon gpu which will provide us with some longevity for our hackintosh systems for some years more.

skroutz999 said:

Unfortunately I canont see it that way. Yes the mac Studio is a very powerful machine that got outdated very soon. An intel 13900k and a Radeon 6950xt (even 6800) will provide faster speeds in every aspect. Yes the 13900k is a very hungry cpu with poor thermal performance (100c) and along with a 6950xt will sum up the electricity bill by far against mac studio... but I can upgrade Ram, HDDs, SSDs, NVMEs, pci controllers etc.

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It won't beat it on FCPX render times.

Not only does it suck down a ton more power, it requires lots of cooling which means noise.

If you keep all your storage external, upgradable storage won't even be in the discussion anymore. I moved all my storage to a NAS and configured my Mac Studio with 2TB. In the 5 years or so that I had my i9-9900K system, I never had the need to upgrade the RAM because cause I configured enough at the start.

skroutz999 said:

I have also 2x systems with 9th gen Intel cpus and the only thing I have to upgrade is Cpu, mobo and Ram.

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That's basically a new computer.

skroutz999 said:

Im fan of Apple many years now (since 2013) but I cannot agree with it's strategy since Apple Silicon (I have a Macbook Air M1 W 16Gb Ram). I hope and wish Mac Pro will come with upgradeability options including at least Ram and Disks and mostly a Radeon gpu which will provide us with some longevity for our hackintosh systems for some years more.

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Configure enough RAM and use external storage and you will be fine.

Even if Apple released an Apple Silicon Mac with PCI-e slots, I really doubt AMD or Nvidia will release any drivers for their video cards.

As long as you are comfortable with being stuck on one version of macOS after Apple drops support for Intel systems, then that's fine. There's no reason to think whatever you build won't last for decades or more.

@pastrychef I see your point and for the most part I agree with you. If you can throw ~3000$ every 2-3 years for the latest and greatest that's amazing! Since Apple M1 and Intel 12th gen game was changed, and for specific tasks there will be pros and cons for the both sides. Being able to upgrade your workstation is important because the work you have to do may change in weeks, sometimes days, and having the option to upgrade your storage, RAM, GPU sometimes is crucial.

By the way most of my friends who work in the music production use mostly Mojave, some of them Catalina/BigSur, and I think this applies to the majority of the professionals. They don't like to "try" the new OS unless is a widely tested by us - everyday users.

The lifespan of the hardware/software depends on your needs. I still have my Ivy Bridge computer working like a charm from Mountain Lion all the way to Monterey. Upgraded it to 32 gigs of RAM, RX 580 and bigger SSD's that costs just a fraction of the price of a new PC or Mac. So yea, it lasted more than a decade and for the job assigned it's still great. Not to mention the electronic waste.

I live in US but never liked that crazy consumer desire to always buy the new crap despite the old one is perfectly fine. Everybody has it's own point of view. That's mine. Don't want to go off topic that much, we are waiting for the new Mac Pro

Bogito said:

@pastrychef I see your point and for the most part I agree with you. If you can throw ~3000$ every 2-3 years for the latest and greatest that's amazing! Since Apple M1 and Intel 12th gen game was changed, and for specific tasks there will be pros and cons for the both sides.

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Don't forget the resale or trade-in value of the Mac. Whether you "throw" money at a new system or at upgrades, you are still spending. Is it better to throw your money at upgrading an old clunker or to get a shiny new rig?

Bogito said:

Being able to upgrade your workstation is important because the work you have to do may change in weeks, sometimes days, and having the option to upgrade your storage, RAM, GPU sometimes is crucial.

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In corporate environments, how often are the systems upgraded? From what I've seen, at best, the RAM may get upgraded but little else. Again, if you configure your system with enough RAM from the get go, this should not be a problem.

Configuring a system with too little RAM can be a waste of money too. Example, if I configured my i9-9900K system with 4x8GB of RAM and decide it wasn't enough, I would have had to buy 4x16GB and what would I do with the old 4x8GB RAM? it would just sit around wasted.

How many users here have more than 64GB of RAM? More than 128GB?

Bogito said:

By the way most of my friends who work in the music production use mostly Mojave, some of them Catalina/BigSur and I think this applies to the majority of the professionals. They don't like to "try" the new OS unless is a widely tested by us - everyday users. The lifespan of the hardware/software depends on your needs. I still have my Ivy Bridge computer working like a charm from Mountain Lion all the way to Monterey. Upgraded it to 32 gigs of ram, RX 580 and bigger ssd's that costs just a fraction of the price of a new PC or Mac. So yea, it lasted more than a decade and for the job assigned it's still great. Not to mention the electronic waste. I live in US but never liked that crazy consumer desire to always buy the new crap despite the old one is perfectly fine. Everybody has it's own point of view. That's mine. Don't want to go offtopic that much, we are waiting for the new MacPro

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That's great. I'm sure there are lots of users to keep old systems running with old software. For them, none of this matters because they have no interest in new systems, OSes, or software. For them, they should be looking to eBay for old hardware.

If the Ivy Bridge user already have 32GB of RAM, how much more can they upgrade? What are they going to upgrade to if they already have a 4790K?

Buying new hardware may contribute to e-waste, running old, inefficient power hungry hardware will use a lot more power. My i9-9900K idled at over 80W. My Mac Studio idles at 10-13W. What's worse for the environment?

pastrychef said:

Don't forget the resale or trade-in value of the Mac. Whether you "throw" money at a new system or at upgrades, you are still spending. Is it better to throw your money at upgrading an old clunker or to get a shiny new rig?




In corporate environments, how often are the systems upgraded? From what I've seen, at best, the RAM may get upgraded but little else. Again, if you configure your system with enough RAM from the get go, this should not be a problem.

Configuring a system with too little RAM can be a waste of money too. Example, if I configured my i9-9900K system with 4x8GB of RAM and decide it wasn't enough, I would have had to buy 4x16GB and what would I do with the old 4x8GB RAM? it would just sit around wasted.

How many users here have more than 64GB of RAM? More than 128GB?

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I been running 64 gig memory since 2013, I have not ever seen a need for more. The 90GB might be good with M2

I have swapped out my video cards from time to time, depending on what kind of upgrade cycle I am on. When GPU were overly bloated in price I stayed with the Vega 64 for a very long time. Honestly I did not upgrade anything in that window of time. While waiting for AS products to not be two months in the specs I wanted I did upgrade the GPU to tide me over. My Hack got a new CPU after 2 years and new GPU after 4 years, but not more memory or even drive space. I can easily push the Mac Book Pro with 32gb of memory to the point it shuts itself down. But I subsepct it has more to do with parallels, windows on arm, running x64 apps in emulation while running a very GPU intensive rendering software.

After about 4 hours vtdecoder goes off the rails and pushes its memory use to 200gb and the swap to 60gb...





When I worked in a corporate environment 20 years ago when the computers needed upgrading the IT department came threw grabbed the tower unplugged it, put the new tower in its place and plugged it in. Every 3 to 6 months they had a used hardware auction for the employees.