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Apple Silicon Mac Pro Revealed at WWDC 2023

Barryjp said:
I didn't say it was a fact. I said "it may be", meaning "it is possible", and "as much as", meaning "up to". I hope this clarifies, I don't know if English is your first language.

The only facts I gave were Apple's 8% share of computer sales and their 14% share of the desktop OS market. The proportion of people running macOS is 66% higher than the proportion of people buying Macs.
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I don't see any way to make these "facts" comparable: the terms market, sales, running, computer, even macOS are all too vague in context. Then you swizzle it further with "proportion of people buying macs". What's a people, in context?

And if they're not comparable, I don't see any way to get from these two facts to an estimate of rate of conversion into hackintoshes.

Let's drill down a little to see the difficulty.

First, the two stats are for different intervals:

- The interval of those "running macOS" is the lifespan of the oldest unit in the group.

- The interval of people "buying macs" is probably annualized.

To make these directly comparable, you have to assume that both the rate of sales of all computers and the proportion of sales of macs are constant over all time, which is a gross oversimplification.

And as @etorix notes: The proportion of running macs also depends on retirement age of all computers. If macs have longer lifespans, their share will grow over time.

With these points I think we must find we are already heading down the road towards some fallacy, but we can go further...

How does a "desktop OS market" relate to "computer sales"? There's no reason to think these are measured consistently with each other:

- Do you have to assume that every computer sold also "runs" a desktop OS?

- If a device is an Apple Mac, is it part of the Mac "desktop OS market" from the moment it's manufactured?

- Presumably a PC must be converted to a hack before it can "run macOS" and enter the market, but by then has it already been counted for "computer sales"?

The more I think about it, weirder these categorie become: a single device can manifest in both groups of "computers" and "macs" just by being rebooted, or "running" a VM.

What exactly is a desktop OS? And so on...

I think I speak English and I don't see any way to get from those two factoids to any estimate of the rate hackintosh adoption. Props on a fair bit of handwaving, but it doesn't make sense.

Of course my own arguments always make complete sense, up until the point that they don't!

That is "it may be", meaning "it is possible", that my arguments make sense "as much as", meaning "up to," the point that they make no sense.

Carry on
 
bombardier10 said:
But apple doesn't even list any PCIe card that is compatible with this computer :eek:
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The WWDC keynote included this slide (conveniently saved by ServeTheHome, and used to illustrate their article on the M2 Mac Pro):
Apple-Mac-Pro-M2-Ultra-PCIe-Gen4-Cards-Large.jpeg


From left to right, we have Sonnet Fusion Dual (2*U.2 with PLX switch), an unidentified card (storage?), four audio/video I/O cards, and two x16 network cards (one with two QSFP cages, the other with four cages loaded with modules with LC connectors—given the x16 card, this must be SFP28, so 4*25 GbE).
Apple appears to have a clear idea of what they expect their clients to do with PCIe slots.

Looking up the Fusion Dual, I've came across this useful compatibility list for SSDs. I can personally confirm that Toshiba/Kioxia XD5 and CD5 drives work very well with macOS Mojave and later. Seeing that some drives are compatible from Catalina (Samsung PM1725a) or from Big Sur (Intel/Solidigm P4xxx series) onwards is interesting, as it implies that Apple is silently adding or updating NVMe drivers, the same way it is adding network drivers.

bombardier10 said:
I don't remember ever checking compatibility.
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One should always check the compatibility of a card with the OS it's intended for…
 
etorix said:
The WWDC keynote included this slide (conveniently saved by ServeTheHome, and used to illustrate their article on the M2 Mac Pro):


From left to right, we have Sonnet Fusion Dual (2*U.2 with PLX switch), an unidentified card (storage?), four audio/video I/O cards, and two x16 network cards (one with two QSFP cages, the other with four cages loaded with modules with LC connectors—given the x16 card, this must be SFP28, so 4*25 GbE).
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Yes that is some explanation . I expected that the NVMe drives could be connected via an adapter. I had already forgotten that there are such archaic devices for older computers. Nowadays decent PC motherboard for 250$ has even four M.2 connectors ...Now in Mac Pro You must pay 3000$ for PCIe slots and next 200$ for adapter to connect NVMe drives. I don't know if this can be called an innovative idea. I was hoping for support graphics cards . The new Silicon Mac Pro is badly designed. Or it is not possible to use other graphics besides the one built into the M2 Ultra. I don't see any point in it other than the fact that apple makes good money from it.
 
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bombardier10 said:
Yes that is some explanation . I expected that the NVMe drives could be connected via an adapter. I had already forgotten that there are such archaic devices for older computers. Nowadays decent PC motherboard for 250$ has even four M.2 connectors ...Now in Mac Pro You must pay 3000$ for PCIe slots and next 200$ for adapter to connect NVMe drives. I don't know if this can be called an innovative idea. I was hoping for support graphics cards. The new Silicon Mac Pro is badly designed. Or it is not possible to use other graphics besides the one built into the M2 Ultra. I don't see any point in it other than the fact that apple makes good money from it.
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If you do not see a point in it, then it is not for you, move along. Not everything Apple releases has to be innovative. If it is useful for the market it is intended, then it has its place (hint you are not the market). It is not badly designed just because it does not fit your needs, or because it does not support a DGPU. I think secretly you really want it but you can not afford it so you bash on it. Apple has a 2.8 trillion market cap they must be doing something right.
 
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bombardier10 said:
The new Silicon Mac Pro is badly designed. Or it is not possible to use other graphics besides the one built into the M2 Ultra.
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The slots are there... If AMD, Intel, or Nvidia wants to write macOS drivers for their GPUs, nothing can stop them...
 
pastrychef said:
The slots are there... If AMD, Intel, or Nvidia wants to write macOS drivers for their GPUs, nothing can stop them..
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Nothing is stopping them from doing it, thought it’ll be useless for us since we’re on the x86 and not ARM.
 
oli.mathieu said:
Has anyone mention that each M2 Max can only handle 16 PCIe lanes ?
Ive read that in French article : https://www.macg.co/materiel/2023/06/apple-bride-les-debits-du-pci-express-du-mac-pro-2023-137475
View attachment 567702
So M2 Ultra handle 32 PCIe lanes
It seems a big failure for this class & price computer.:confused:
What do you think ?


MP 2019 has 64 PCIe lanes

It's very Urgent to wait the MP M3 :lol:
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I think it all depends on individual users. If you don't have many things to plug in to the system, how many lanes it has really won't affect you.
 
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oli.mathieu said:
Has anyone mention that each M2 Max can only handle 16 PCIe lanes ?
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No, but I found the article very unclear as to lanes are actually handled. There's no obvious PLX chip on the motherboard—which would be the most appropriate solution—or are the lanes actually shared, and if so how (block diagram please!).
Hopefully, we'll get the answer once the Mac Pro is released and in the hand of reviewers.
 
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