I mean, it’s just a really bad value compared to the rest of the lineup. It’s basically a Mac Studio in a larger case and a PCIe breakout board bolted on. That’s it. But for twice the price of the Mac Studio and 10 times it size.
The only unique features is has are PCIe and SATA ports. So unless you really need a ton of local storage or a ton of GPU-power, there’s no reason to buy it.
If you need a ton of local storage, it would be cheaper to buy a NAS and some 20TB drives for it than to upgrade from a Studio to a Mac Pro. Especially with a 10-gig Ethernet connection.
I’m really not sure about the speed. Your setup is limited by thunderbolt, I’m not sure how exactly the SATA ports are hooked up in the Pro, maybe there could be an advantage?
But that’s really a niche scenario for like 5 people. A proper server would be a better solution in that case.
I’m pretty sure it’s technically possible to install a GPU, but realistically there are no drivers and none of the GPU vendors are likely willing to write drivers.
The market for those drivers is really small - almost nobody would buy them.
That was my understanding. I suppose the other things that would use the PCIe slots is tasks requiring churning through massive datasets, maybe ingesting media like raw audio and video feeds, maybe science/research. Things where just getting the data in and out of the computer is more limiting than the actual processing of the data.
I think that’s a pretty tiny market, but Apple wants to keep it going as much to say they have one of the most powerful desktop computers available as the actual economics.
I mean, it’s just a really bad value compared to the rest of the lineup. It’s basically a Mac Studio in a larger case and a PCIe breakout board bolted on. That’s it. But for twice the price of the Mac Studio and 10 times it size.
The only unique features is has are PCIe and SATA ports. So unless you really need a ton of local storage or a ton of GPU-power, there’s no reason to buy it.
If you need a ton of local storage, it would be cheaper to buy a NAS and some 20TB drives for it than to upgrade from a Studio to a Mac Pro. Especially with a 10-gig Ethernet connection.
I’m really not sure about the speed. Your setup is limited by thunderbolt, I’m not sure how exactly the SATA ports are hooked up in the Pro, maybe there could be an advantage?
But that’s really a niche scenario for like 5 people. A proper server would be a better solution in that case.
If I recall correctly, you cannot even put GPUs in there, right? Only other pci peripherals, or did this change?
I’m pretty sure it’s technically possible to install a GPU, but realistically there are no drivers and none of the GPU vendors are likely willing to write drivers.
The market for those drivers is really small - almost nobody would buy them.
That was my understanding. I suppose the other things that would use the PCIe slots is tasks requiring churning through massive datasets, maybe ingesting media like raw audio and video feeds, maybe science/research. Things where just getting the data in and out of the computer is more limiting than the actual processing of the data.
I think that’s a pretty tiny market, but Apple wants to keep it going as much to say they have one of the most powerful desktop computers available as the actual economics.
correct, no GPUs
It’s a hilariously giant and empty case. Especially now that it’s entirely unupgradeable.