[HN Gopher] Apple Mac Studio
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Apple Mac Studio
        
       Author : 0xedb
       Score  : 450 points
       Date   : 2022-03-08 18:59 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
        
       | nanna wrote:
       | Is it just me or have apple clearly not tested this page on
       | Android Firefox?
        
         | ShamelessC wrote:
         | You're not alone.
        
       | Kalanos wrote:
       | yes! i have been so worried about my macbook 2014 dying because I
       | don't want the new macbooks. this looks awesome.
        
       | tonguez wrote:
       | Don't a lot of people want a computer in the 1000-2000$ range?
       | The average person who wants to do video editing on an M1 mac
       | just wants >=32GB of RAM. The only way to get that is to shell
       | out $2000+.
       | 
       | M1 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for $1100
       | 
       | M1 Max Mac Studio with 32GB RM and 512GB SSD for $2000
       | 
       | Yeah because nobody ever buys a computer that costs between $1000
       | and $2000... ?
       | 
       | A 512GB SSD in a $2k computer? People who deal with HD video are
       | going to want at least 1TB right? So it basically starts at
       | $2200?
       | 
       | Is Apple going to release anything anytime soon for the
       | young/not-rich kids who want to do real video editing (need
       | >=32GB RAM)?
        
       | borodi wrote:
       | I imagine the mac pro is going to have a Super Sayan M1
        
       | livinglist wrote:
       | can't wait for M1 Ultra Pro Max Utimate
        
       | aetherspawn wrote:
       | It would be nice if it was rack mountable.
        
       | gbrown_ wrote:
       | Can't wait to see a teardown of the cooling solution. Not sure
       | how the air flows between the bottom and the heat sink as there's
       | a board between them.
        
         | rovr138 wrote:
         | It looked like it had space in the back and then the blowers
         | were in the front to force the air over. Then it went out the
         | top.
         | 
         | Looks very interesting. I'm curious of benchmarks and if
         | there's throttling.
        
       | greendave wrote:
       | Nice machine, but for all the lip service to sustainability and
       | environmental friendliness, the insistence of soldering
       | everything in makes for a disposable device. In particular, once
       | the SSD goes, it's just a very expensive brick.
        
       | GeekyBear wrote:
       | Interesting tweet from Hector Martin, who is leading the Linux
       | port:
       | 
       | >Chances are our kernel will Just work on M1 Ultra with just
       | device tree changes, might not even need any m1n1 changes.
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1501271229763706882
        
         | speed_spread wrote:
         | Good. None of these releases matter to me if all those machines
         | can run is Mac OS. I'm not a Linux freak, but I like machines
         | that last a long time. Long term support is the weak spot of
         | any proprietary design. Given the incredible hardware
         | capabilities of these new boxes, the 5 or 6 years official
         | expected official lifecycle is waaay too short.
        
           | jazzyjackson wrote:
           | Latest MacOS is supported by Mac Pro from 9 years ago, that's
           | pretty good. Macbook Pro from 7 years ago. These M1 machines
           | are the new baseline, I wouldn't be surprised if they're
           | supported a decade from now, it's not like MacOS is going to
           | need 10x the CPU/RAM to run in 2032 _knock on wood_
           | 
           | https://www.apple.com/macos/monterey/ (have to scroll all the
           | way down for supported devices)
        
             | humanwhosits wrote:
             | But chrome will
        
       | mrcwinn wrote:
       | If anyone thinks Apple is not very serious about AR/VR consumer
       | products, their renewed focus on creative professionals, intense
       | workloads, and GPU performance seems to suggest otherwise.
       | 
       | Whatever the marketing out of Microsoft Surface, it's the Mac
       | that has always enabled creative workflows. I'm genuinely more
       | excited about the Mac than any other product, which I haven't
       | felt or said for many years.
       | 
       | Nice work, Apple silicon and hardware teams!
        
       | boboguitar wrote:
       | Can I build my large xcode project in less than 20 minutes with
       | this?
        
       | kulix425 wrote:
        
       | jsz0 wrote:
       | Apple finally releases a powerful affordable desktop computer.
       | Now I am worried it's the start of WW3 or otherwise the end of
       | the world. Going outside now to look for flying pigs
        
         | randcraw wrote:
         | What? $2000 for the Studio plus $1600 for their 5K display
         | means Apple's new entry level workstation now costs $3600.
         | That's a LOT more expensive than the old iMac 27 i7 at about
         | $2400.
         | 
         | To sum up, Apple just hiked their entry level workstation's
         | price by $1200. AND they convinced you they performed magic.
         | 
         | No, I think that flying pig you saw was proof that Jobs'
         | reality distortion field is still alive and well.
        
           | mkaic wrote:
           | Except you don't have to buy their display, that's part of
           | why the Studio is so nice. You can buy any generic display
           | you want that doesn't cost 1600 bucks. For what you get, the
           | 2k Studio is an absolute steal in terms of compute per watt,
           | I/O, form factor, and longevity (Macs last _ages_ ). Plus,
           | having 64 gigs of VRAM is absolutely amazing at that price
           | point.
        
       | cube2222 wrote:
       | Looks like all the people saying "just start fusing those M1
       | CPU's into bigger ones" were right, that's basically what they
       | did for the top of the line new M1 CPU (fused two M1 Max'es
       | together).
       | 
       | And since the presenter mentioned the Mac Pro would come on
       | another day, I wonder if they'll just do 4x M1 Max for that.
        
         | jws wrote:
         | The dialog around unveiling the Ultra had a "one final member
         | of M1" vibe to it. I think that is the end for M1. The next cpu
         | bumps will be M2s.
         | 
         | Also I wonder about fabrication nodes. The iPhone SE is going
         | to take a _lot_ of dies and keep that fan very busy. M1 is on
         | something else, but it isn't going to free the A15 fab for
         | other customers.
         | 
         | I expect M2 is on a different process.
        
           | GeekyBear wrote:
           | An entry level M2 has been showing up in software developers
           | logs.
           | 
           | 4 big cores, 4 little cores (like the M1, but based on newer
           | gen iPhone cores) and 10 GPU cores instead of 8. Said to be
           | based on TSMC 4nm.
        
           | Someone wrote:
           | > and keep that fan very busy
           | 
           | The wonders of auto-correct, I guess. It took me a moment to
           | correct that to _"and keep that faB very busy"_.
           | 
           |  _"faN"_ made me wonder why you thought that phone ran hot
           | and had a fan.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | quirino wrote:
         | If they do create another chip for the Mac Pro, I wonder what
         | they'll call it.
         | 
         | We have the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra so far.
        
           | cehrlich wrote:
           | Pro, Max, Ultra, Mega?
        
           | nameless912 wrote:
           | There's a New Nintendo 23DSLite iXL[1] joke in here
           | somewhere.
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4MHRcPLr38
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | minimaxir wrote:
           | M1 Plus Ultra.
           | 
           | Just go full anime.
        
           | dilap wrote:
           | M1 Ultra Pro, baby
        
           | moooo99 wrote:
           | When handing over to the M1 Ultra part of the keynote he
           | literally said something along the lines of "we're adding
           | this last M1 chip to our lineup". So maybe an upcoming Mac
           | Pro will have the next generation of Apple Silicon (M2).
           | 
           | I am curious to see how that device will look like.
           | Surprisingly, with the last Mac Pro the modularity of the
           | device and the ability to user-upgrade GPU, RAM or storage
           | was actually a huge selling point that Apple emphasized. I
           | can't imagine how this would work with Apple Silicon.
        
           | nicoburns wrote:
           | Maybe it won't be M at all? I still reckon they might do
           | discrete GPUs for the pro model, which could make it quite
           | different to the other M chips.
        
           | pg_bot wrote:
           | Mega, Supra, Domina, Prima, Stellar, Noto, Nova, Jumbo.
        
           | can16358p wrote:
           | M1 Epic (late 2022)
           | 
           | M1 Ludicrous (early 2023)
           | 
           | M1 Insane (late 2023)
           | 
           | Probably they'll make enough changes to release M2 by that
           | time.
        
             | mkaic wrote:
             | M1 Maximum Plaid (late early 2024)
        
             | doctor_eval wrote:
             | You missed M1 Plaid.
        
           | eyelidlessness wrote:
           | I'm surprised they've introduced four M1 variants already,
           | and while that makes a fifth variant seem more likely... I
           | still think they'll want to find another way to differentiate
           | the new Mac Pro. What seems more likely to me: the M2 MBA is
           | released either in tandem with a M2 Ultra MP, or a few months
           | ahead of it, and the other higher spec models will lag 6-12
           | months behind from then on. Especially given the significant
           | delays on M1 Max, it makes sense to me they'll want to roll
           | out the next gen in a lower volume/higher margin while they
           | ramp up production.
        
           | nojito wrote:
           | M1 Ultra Max
        
           | hughrr wrote:
           | Reminds me of this from Minions: https://youtu.be/Xs4LF8QnELM
           | 
           | At least it's less confusing than the fucked up Intel and AMD
           | product numbers.
        
           | speed_spread wrote:
           | M1 Double Plus Good
        
           | deadcore wrote:
           | Holding out for the M1 Ultra Magnum Turbo
        
           | Toutouxc wrote:
           | M1 Hammersword Despacito.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | unfocussed_mike wrote:
         | 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. Something for render farms.
         | 
         | Whatever it is, it feels like it's going to need novel OS
         | support.
        
           | bredren wrote:
           | It has been a phantom product, because Apple has needed to
           | fill major gaps in the desktop space first.
           | 
           | I suspect Apple is set to debut powerful revision to the Mac
           | Pro focused on AI/ML at WWDC.
           | 
           | I wrote about this 10 months back[0], and it still applies
           | following Studio:
           | 
           | > It may not be obvious, but Apple has repair work to do in
           | the pro community. Four years ago this month, Apple unusually
           | disclosed that it was "completely rethinking the Mac Pro."
           | [1]
           | 
           | > The current Mac Pro design wasn't announced until June of
           | 2019 and didn't hit the market until December 10th of 2019.
           | That's just _six months_ prior to the Apple Silicon
           | announcement.
           | 
           | > It seems unlikely Apple spent 2017-2019 designing a Mac Pro
           | that they would not carry forward with Apple Silicon
           | hardware.
           | 
           | > The current, Gen 3 2019 Mac Pro design has the Mac Pro
           | Expansion Module (MPX). This is intended to be a plug-and-
           | play system for graphics and storage upgrades. [2]
           | 
           | > While the Apple Silicon SoC can run with some GPU tasks, it
           | does seem it does not make sense for the type of work that
           | big discrete cards have generally been deployed for.
           | 
           | > There is already a living example of a custom Apple-
           | designed external graphics card. Apple designed and released
           | Afterburner, a custom "accelerator" card targeted at video
           | editing with the gen 3 Mac Pro in 2019.
           | 
           | > Afterburner has attributes of the new Apple Silicon design
           | in that it is proprietary to Apple and fanless. [3]
           | 
           | > It seems implausible Apple created the Afterburner product
           | for a single release without plans to continue to upgrade and
           | extend the product concept using Apple Silicon.
           | 
           | Given "Ultrafusion" it seems plausible that M2 would be able
           | connect multiple custom SoCs that are littered with GPU cores
           | as stackable accelerator cards.
           | 
           | > So, I think the question isn't if discrete Apple Silicon
           | GPUs will be supported but how many types and in and what
           | configurations.
           | 
           | This prediction not come to pass:
           | 
           | > I think the Mac Mini will remain its shape and size, and
           | that alongside internal discrete GPUs for the Pro, Apple may
           | release something akin to the Blackmagic eGPU products they
           | collaborated on for the RX580 and Vega 56.
           | 
           | But at least the mid market display now exists. > While
           | possibly not big sellers, Apple Silicon eGPUs would serve
           | generations of new AS notebooks and minis. This creates a
           | whole additional use case. The biggest problem I see with
           | this being a cohesive ecosystem is the lack of a mid-market
           | Apple display. [4]
           | 
           | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26956886
           | 
           | [1] https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives
           | 
           | [2] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/apple-unveils-
           | powerfu...
           | 
           | [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ywFqY5o1E
           | 
           | [4] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/wishful-thinking-
           | wwdc-d...
        
             | unfocussed_mike wrote:
             | > It seems unlikely Apple spent 2017-2019 designing a Mac
             | Pro that they would not carry forward with Apple Silicon
             | hardware.
             | 
             | I am really not sure about this bit, as you can probably
             | deduce from what I've said elsewhere.
             | 
             | The rest is interesting but I think it's entirely possible
             | they designed a tail-end tower PC to sell for three years.
        
           | valine wrote:
           | New die with 64 M1 cores and support for 4TB of ram.
           | Basically fill whatever market the threadripper fills.
        
           | cududa wrote:
           | They literally said in the keynote that the new Mac Pro is in
           | the pipeline
        
             | unfocussed_mike wrote:
             | Right, but the keynote is marketing. And they've been
             | saying that for, what, nearly a decade now? [0] And in that
             | time they have chipped away at that segment from different
             | directions, with the iMac Pro and the Mac Studio. The
             | latter of which is a _beast_ already.
             | 
             | What's left? Render farms, scaleable computing.
             | 
             | I guess I think there will be some sort of new machine in
             | that segment. But I figure it's not going to be what people
             | expect from a single, unitary Mac Pro desktop.
             | 
             | Because once you're up at that level of performance
             | requirement, you start to want modular and scaleable
             | things.
             | 
             | What is the pitch for the part of the market that is used
             | to using commodity hardware in scaleable configurations?
             | 
             | [0] Edit: I obviously forgot the cheese grater
        
               | yurishimo wrote:
               | They released a new Mac Pro in 2019. I think there is a
               | strong possibility for a revision late this year or next
               | year.
        
               | unfocussed_mike wrote:
               | OK but to what end?
               | 
               | Looking at the Mac Studio... what would an M1-based,
               | drop-in Mac Pro replacement offer on top? That sounds
               | like a tail-end product.
               | 
               | It's not like 2022 Apple is the kind of business that
               | announces deep partnerships with graphics card makers.
               | 
               | It feels more to me like we're going to see either
               | something that is half-rack-half-Mac, or something with
               | major developments in neural engine hardware, or
               | something.
               | 
               | A new segment -- something that is going to need
               | significant new OS work.
        
               | cududa wrote:
               | CGI, CAD, rendering, driving huge screens, running live
               | sporting events, scientific workloads, massive
               | simultaneous automated app testing, etc. Just because you
               | can't imagine why someone would need that much compute
               | doesn't mean the use cases don't exist.
        
               | unfocussed_mike wrote:
               | I did not say -- at all -- that I can't imagine that kind
               | of power requirement.
               | 
               | Not at all.
               | 
               | What I said if you read the rest of my comments is that I
               | find it difficult to believe there is a specifically
               | _single-desktop-machine_ use case for that kind of power
               | over and above the Mac Studio.
               | 
               | The reason I mention this is that high end (TV and
               | cinema) CGI just is not the domain of single machines
               | anymore; it's the domain of render farms. The people who
               | do that kind of work for TV and cinema now expect to run
               | farms of commodity hardware that can be swapped out and
               | replaced. And that technology is available to everyone in
               | a way that can be constructed more pragmatically.
               | 
               | Scientific workloads, similarly: most of that market is
               | not going to spend a bucketload on a single Mac when they
               | can spread their risk with cluster computing.
               | 
               | App testing: again, an application for clustering, and
               | low cost hardware spreads risk.
               | 
               | So my point, again: given the existence of the iMac Pro
               | line, and the M1 Ultra Mac Studio (with its evident
               | astonishing GPU performance), given that I imagine most
               | Mac Pro users never put an expansion card in their
               | machines (which is the grand theme of Apple -- people
               | don't upgrade or expand, usually), and given that cluster
               | hardware is commonly in use and well-supported, is the
               | niche for single mega-expensive desktops _really_ big
               | enough?
               | 
               | I don't think it is -- you think it is. But I think you
               | can disagree with me without imagining me stupid, as I
               | disagree with you without doing the same.
        
               | cududa wrote:
               | The real-time rendering demos of the Studio were
               | incredible. If the pro is 4x that it would be insanely
               | cool. If I were still doing music videos I'd kill to have
               | one of those on set. Or what we did for Kanye's Yeezus
               | tour (live motion tracking of the dancers with some
               | kinects and putting them into models projected on the
               | screen) - could've been so much cooler with this much
               | compute in a small box. You're talking about this as if
               | you have knowledge from working in an industry that you
               | clearly haven't. $100,000 fragile rack or $8,000 shoe box
               | you can drop and it'll still work fine.
               | 
               | The visual arts this thing is going to enable us going to
               | be amazing, and we haven't even seen the Pro yet. One
               | former client has been texting me all day about ideas
               | from 10 years ago that weren't feasible but now are with
               | this lil thing. I keep telling him to wait for the Pro
               | then we can take some REALLY neat ideas off the shelf.
        
               | unfocussed_mike wrote:
               | > I keep telling him to wait for the Pro then we can take
               | some REALLY neat ideas off the shelf.
               | 
               | Aside from the fact that you're making my point for me --
               | you think the Mac Studio could do the job you imagine a
               | Mac Pro doing -- there is this:
               | 
               | You tell your former customers to wait for an unreleased,
               | as yet unscheduled update to a product to which
               | historically Apple has displayed considerable, time-
               | insensitive indifference, rather than order maybe
               | multiples of the product that _has_ been announced, or
               | try to make it work somehow with kit that exists?
               | 
               | I'll note down your prediction about $8000. That, I
               | guess, would be interesting. But if it's that cheap it's
               | going to be after the chip shortage is over, surely.
        
               | karlshea wrote:
               | > And they've been saying that for, what, nearly a decade
               | now?
               | 
               | The latest generation is from 2019?
        
               | unfocussed_mike wrote:
               | I guess. I mean, it's a forgettable stopgap machine (I
               | forgot it ;-) It's not really what people wanted, is it?
               | It's just something they had to put on sale to shut
               | people up. A conventional, Intel-era thing.
               | 
               | They've been saying "something really great is coming",
               | all that. That Mac Pro was not that.
               | 
               | Does Apple still care about the market that wants to plug
               | in internal GPU cards? Does that make much sense even in
               | the context of hardware the speed of the Mac Studio?
               | 
               | I wonder.
        
               | cududa wrote:
               | If their GPU can do workloads replaceable ones can't then
               | it's worth it. If you need that amount of GPU, you're
               | doing high end shit with a high end budget, and can
               | afford to just replace the machine in 2 years (if you
               | even need it - many people stick with their Mac Pro 5-10
               | years).
               | 
               | Tons of people in pro industries bought it and love it.
               | Pre-COVID it was sold out for almost a year. Every
               | professional music producer I know bought one, and I'm
               | sure they'll get the M1 Mac Pro.
               | 
               | Funny story. Max Martin partnered with Creative to make a
               | new audio rack to enable the audio for the first Back
               | Street Boys album. That got miniaturized to audio cards
               | for gaming which further shrunk down to a DAC and that
               | lead to the iPod which lead to the iPhone which lead to
               | Apple Silicon which brought us here today. Music
               | producers are huge fucking tech nerds and literally move
               | technology forward. Apple frequently works with producers
               | when developing their highest end products that
               | eventually trickle down to consumer grade.
        
               | karlshea wrote:
               | What? It's a whole new tower with PCIe slots and
               | everything, and was super well received. Were you still
               | under the impression they were selling the trashcan Mac
               | Pro?
        
               | unfocussed_mike wrote:
               | I simply forgot that they made it. I forgot a lot of
               | stuff in 2020 and 2021, like most people.
               | 
               | But by extension I certainly _don 't_ remember it being
               | "super well received", or I'd probably have remembered it
               | at all.
               | 
               | Either way: look at it. It's a tower PC. Do you think the
               | current Apple trajectory has any meaningful room for
               | that? What are people going to really be putting in it
               | except disks?
        
               | cpuguy83 wrote:
               | "I forgot about it so it must not be great".
               | 
               | It's an amazing machine. It's an incredibly expensive
               | machine, but still amazing.
               | 
               | > Do you think the current Apple trajectory has any
               | meaningful room for that?
               | 
               | Are you upset that you think Apple is going to stop
               | making something that you forgot they made, except there
               | is absolutely 0 evidence that they will stop making it?
               | We know for a fact that they are going to release a new
               | Apple Silicon based Mac Pro. We knew Mac Pro would be the
               | last thing they move over to Apple Silicon. Apple even
               | gave a timeline when they first launched M1, and so far
               | it seems to be on track.
               | 
               | Apple has been extremely pragmatic lately, backtracking
               | on objectively bad decisions around everything from
               | keyboards and ports to form factors.
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | They've been very pragmatic ever since Jony Ive left.
        
               | unfocussed_mike wrote:
               | > "I forgot about it so it must not be great".
               | 
               | I didn't phrase it that way, but thanks, I guess.
               | Whatever.
               | 
               | > Are you upset that you think Apple is going to stop
               | making something that you forgot they made, except there
               | is absolutely 0 evidence that they will stop making it?
               | 
               | I didn't say they'd stop making it, quite.
               | 
               | So much as that I think the product designation is a
               | phantom, in a way. And the more alternatives they add to
               | the Mac Pro, the less the market needs it.
               | 
               | How many people who bought the forgettable machine put an
               | expansion card in it, do you think? How many of those
               | people thus simply do not need anything more than the
               | Studio?
               | 
               | And also: how many third party manufacturers are going to
               | rush out of the gate to port their drivers to some
               | complex new multiprocessing M1 machine?
               | 
               | I agree they have been pragmatic. But I think they've
               | also sliced and diced this segment to the point where it
               | doesn't make the sense it did.
        
               | karlshea wrote:
               | If all you want is disks then the Mac Studio seems to be
               | exactly what you'd want. I would assume people that want
               | a tower want exactly what you were asking for above,
               | which is GPUs or other cards like audio engineers need.
               | 
               | I didn't see a single negative review of the tower at
               | all, so I'm really not sure where that comes from. And
               | they said during the keynote today a new one is coming.
        
               | kiratp wrote:
               | Here is the target market
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIQINCWMd6I
               | 
               | This is Apple's core creative audience.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | the_lucifer wrote:
           | > 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.
        
             | rovr138 wrote:
             | I'm just curious how that would look like and what would be
             | compatible.
             | 
             | Seems interesting!
        
             | unfocussed_mike wrote:
             | Why does it need expansion slots? Is that still a thing?
             | :-)
             | 
             | Drive bays, yeah. Maybe some approach towards coprocessor
             | boards.
             | 
             | But none of this new direction shrieks out "install your
             | own graphics card" anymore.
        
               | kiratp wrote:
               | This is one of the reasons why - pro audio -
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIQINCWMd6I
        
               | pvarangot wrote:
               | There's USB-C MADI/DANTE stuff already and it handles a
               | lot of bandwidth with similar latency to those PCIe
               | cards. That guys setup is a niche in the niche.
        
               | rovr138 wrote:
               | Yeah. I'm wondering about network cards for some higher
               | throughput setups.
        
             | andjd wrote:
             | 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.
        
             | andrewjl wrote:
             | Connecting additional devices was the second thing talked
             | about in the introduction, after power & performance. If
             | anything, the focus on upgradability is growing.
             | 
             | And I bet the Studio is a way to release what they've done
             | so far to serve a subset of the Pro market that has simpler
             | expansion needs. The Pro likely requires a ton more work.
        
       | sid-ant wrote:
       | Apple claims M1 Ultra is faster than 28 Core Intel Xeon W chip,
       | which they ship in Mac Pro. If that's true, then Mac Studio is an
       | excellent value.
       | 
       | Mac Pro with 28 Core, 96GB RAM, 1TB SSD = $14,199
       | 
       | Mac Studio with M1 Ultra (48GPU Cores), 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD =
       | $4,800
       | 
       | Also it looks like they compared their CPU performance with the
       | latest intel generation in their demo.
       | 
       | > "16-core PC desktop CPU performance data from testing Core
       | i9-12900K with DDR5 memory" https://www.apple.com/mac-
       | studio/#footnote
       | 
       | It's kinda scary how monster of a company Apple has become
       | lately. Their product line-up in compute is now unmatched.
        
       | rconti wrote:
       | Perfect. Recently went to a 40" ultrawide display to share
       | between work laptop (during work hours) and personal desktop
       | (after hours) to simplify my desk, and felt the Mini was probably
       | just a little too limiting/low-end.
       | 
       | Finally, the replacement to my 2015 iMac 5k.
        
       | londons_explore wrote:
       | So it has USB-C... yet can't be powered via USB-C?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | torginus wrote:
       | As a dev, I think this is neat - but unfortunately, to this very
       | day, the most important workloads usually are single-threaded,
       | even the ones that are multi-threaded, rarely scale to more than
       | 8 cores.
       | 
       | This usually means that the advanced M1 variants don't really
       | offer an advantage over the base offering, although, more RAM is
       | always nice.
        
       | srvmshr wrote:
       | I am genuinely crestfallen that there was no update to Mac Mini.
       | That thing has the right balance for most computer science folks
       | who want a Mac. Not everyone needs/runs a silicon Godzilla on
       | their desk after all.
       | 
       | As of the current lineup, Mini is still stuck with 16 GB RAM and
       | a disappointing number of ports.
        
         | BonoboIO wrote:
         | Apple M1 | 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 16GB
         | RAM, 10Gbit LAN = 899$
         | 
         | Apple Studio | 20-Core CPU, 48-Core GPU, 32-Core Neural Engine!
         | 64GB RAM! 10Gbit LAN = 3999$
         | 
         | I think the M1 is a nice product for 95% of people including
         | iOS Devs.
         | 
         | Silent, ,,cheap", cost effective, nice build server. If you
         | need more power ... well get the small studio or buy another
         | one.
         | 
         | Renting from hetzner is also cheap. 49EUR with really unlimited
         | bandwith. 20 TB traffic in a month? No problem, nobody cares.
         | 
         | https://www.hetzner.com/de/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-apple
        
         | thaw13579 wrote:
         | There's only a gap of roughly $500 between a maxed out mini and
         | the entry studio, so perhaps the studio is the answer to what
         | you're looking for?
        
           | tonguez wrote:
           | M1 mini with 16GB RAM (most possible RAM): $1100
           | 
           | entry studio: $2000
           | 
           | That's a pretty big gap. Basically it means you have to shell
           | out $2000+ if you want to do video editing on any M1 mac.
           | Buying a brand new computer to do video editing that has only
           | 16GB RAM in 2022 is unjustifiable.
           | 
           | $2k+ is too much for most people especially young "creatives"
           | that are making entertainment (videos). Lots of people here
           | make hundreds of thousands a year but none of those people
           | make that money doing video editing or working in
           | entertainment.
        
             | thaw13579 wrote:
             | Maybe it's too much to expect a $1K computer to do heavy
             | video work? Even then, I've been using an M1 macbook air
             | myself for computational work, and haven't run into any
             | memory issues and am surprised by how much power it
             | provides for the price, and without a fan. The only issue
             | I've had with the M1s is the display support, i.e. the mini
             | only supports two displays and the macbooks only support a
             | single external display.
        
               | srvmshr wrote:
               | Thats sounding more like being an Apple apologist. And
               | there are certainly other uses of graphics without using
               | PS or InDesign involved e.g Meshlab 3D renders, computer
               | graphics & raytracing where more RAM definitely counts.
               | Upselling the Studio definitely hits the academic bracket
               | (mine) hard, when it was perfectly possible to just
               | introduce M1 variants, with its advantage of ports & more
               | RAM. That sort of upgrade would have cost ~$1500
               | theoretically given Apple component listing, which is
               | still 25% cheaper than baseline Mac Studio.
               | 
               | (For students looking to upgrade, $400 is a month's rent
               | saved)
        
             | CharlesW wrote:
             | > _Basically it means you have to shell out $2000+ if you
             | want to do video editing on any M1 mac._
             | 
             | 16GB is plenty, and in fact the conversation when the M1
             | Macs were introduced was whether having 16GB vs. 8GB of RAM
             | made a difference. (Mostly, it doesn't.)
             | 
             | https://www.4kshooters.net/2021/01/27/8gb-or-16gb-ram-for-
             | vi...
        
             | jazzyjackson wrote:
             | > 16GB RAM in 2022 is unjustifiable.
             | 
             | MacOS on ARM handles memory differently, try it you might
             | like it.
             | 
             | They can only print so many M1max chips at a time, they
             | want to sell them in a high margin machine. Give em a year
             | and the M1max will trickle down to the mini.
        
               | tonguez wrote:
               | "MacOS on ARM handles memory differently, try it you
               | might like it."
               | 
               | Wow, you sure have given me a lot to think about.
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | lol, if you're being sarcastic all I can say is I don't
               | get a commission
        
               | srvmshr wrote:
               | > MacOS on ARM handles memory differently, try it you
               | might like it.
               | 
               | I already use the 16 GB 13". And while your comment is
               | correct for most consumer applications regarding memory
               | compression, it may not work that well in numerical
               | computing on Python or C++ e.g. where a lot of RNGs are
               | used or 2D/3D arrays are juggled. Just clarifying. Your
               | statement is mostly true - but not always. Having a
               | higher RAM machine could help definitely.
        
               | digisign wrote:
               | 16GB RAM was a ridiculous amount for hobby needs, just a
               | short time ago.
               | 
               | If you have pro needs, step up to the pro machine. $2k is
               | paltry in this inflationary environment. Will pay for
               | itself in productivity forthwith.
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | xienze wrote:
         | What update were they going to do? Make an M1 Max model? That
         | would cut into sales for the base Studio.
        
           | infinityio wrote:
           | They don't have a desktop M1 Pro implementation yet afaik?
        
             | dopu wrote:
             | This would make sense -- you can get the mac mini at the
             | base M1, upgrade it to an M1 Pro, or jump up to a Mac
             | Studio for M1 Max and above.
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | heartbreak wrote:
         | > Not everyone needs/runs a silicon Godzilla
         | 
         | Right, which is why the Mini exists.
         | 
         | > Mini is still stuck with 16 GB RAM and a disappointing number
         | of ports.
         | 
         | Because people who need more are expected to buy the Studio.
        
         | yurishimo wrote:
         | WWDC is a few months away. There might be a refresh of the Mini
         | there? If we don't see a refresh of the mini this year, I can't
         | see them not upgrading it for M2 next year.
        
         | dopu wrote:
         | I initially thought the Mac Studio was the "pro" version of the
         | Mac Mini. But no -- they're still selling the i5/i7 mini. This
         | makes me wonder whether they're going to update it at all.
         | Maybe they'll just quietly drop it at some point down the road?
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | Easily the most obnoxious scroll/parallax presentation I've seen
       | thus far 2022.
       | 
       | Guess I'll watch to mkhb video to see what the product is
        
       | QuikAccount wrote:
       | This is such a random thing to complain about but I hate these
       | Mac product pages with the animations as you scroll. I guess they
       | are designed for mobile but I navigate them on a desktop using a
       | mouse wheel and they always look super clunky.
        
         | dmitriid wrote:
         | They used to be quick and smooth on the desktop, too. But it
         | looks like Apple has been taken over by designers in the name
         | only.
        
         | MBCook wrote:
         | Apple does them FAR better than anyone else. I can't remember
         | if they did it first, or just popularized it, but it works well
         | for what it is.
         | 
         | That said, while it looks cool, after the first time you've
         | used it it's just a pain to navigate. I kind of wish it was a
         | separate "intro" page or something.
         | 
         | (They're annoying on mobile too, but work better than desktop)
        
         | gowld wrote:
         | It's terrible on mobile too.
        
         | scrumbledober wrote:
         | the first time they did it i was like wow apple is so good at
         | this stuff this is really cool. It's gotten very old and
         | annoying.
        
         | adrianmonk wrote:
         | It's like going to the library but someone has hired dancing
         | cheerleaders to grab the book you're trying to read and wave it
         | around so that you're more excited about reading it.
        
           | wmeredith wrote:
           | I'm going to use this example in my next usability review
           | meeting. It's perfect.
        
         | cwdegidio wrote:
         | Yeah, I don't get it. They are such a UX nightmare. My company
         | was trying to implement something like that in our latest
         | redesign of our site and I put my foot down about it. We are in
         | the financial B2B space and I had to explain to the marketing
         | team that people come to our site for information... not to be
         | shown cute animation. Also (I haven't tested Apples take on
         | it), they are often ADA nightmares.
        
         | kube-system wrote:
         | Mouse wheels mostly just don't have a good input resolution.
         | It's one of the main reasons I stopped using a mouse and
         | switched to an apple trackpad full time. I can't stand static
         | pages that scroll in chunks either.
        
           | dilap wrote:
           | it sucks w/ trackpad too tho! it's just totally breaks any
           | physicality to scrolling
           | 
           | it's insane to me that they keep using this
        
       | cosmiccatnap wrote:
        
       | simonjgreen wrote:
       | This gives me distinct G4 Mac Pro tower aesthetic vibes but with
       | a modern twist. Love it :)
        
       | andjd wrote:
       | I'm really happy they're not going with a iMac pro form factor
       | for these. Having a separate display and computer is great for
       | avoiding e-waste. There are a ton of iMacs out there that have
       | obsolete hardware but a screen that still works great.
        
         | wmeredith wrote:
         | I died inside when they got rid of target display mode for
         | iMacs.
        
           | rsynnott wrote:
           | This was initially kinda justifiable; when the first 5K iMac
           | came out there was no commonly available connection that
           | could do 5K (the iMac used a somewhat overclocked DP link
           | internally, I think), so their only option would have been
           | two DP cables (a configuration that then also had very
           | limited support).
           | 
           | That excuse really went away with TB3 and newer iterations of
           | DP, tho, and it's pretty disappointing that they didn't bring
           | it back at that point.
        
           | infinityio wrote:
           | I've seen projects online about converting 5k iMacs into
           | external displays by essentially ripping out the insides and
           | putting in a driver board instead - I wonder what the
           | relative cost (/value proposition) of that is compared to
           | these new displays if you don't need a webcam?
        
       | vbezhenar wrote:
       | It's ugly. And I love it. No more obsession over form.
        
       | pipeline_peak wrote:
       | I don't even care about the specs.
       | 
       | Just love the fact they fit it all in that tiny case, flush under
       | a Studio display monitor.
       | 
       | There's something 90s about it, SGI maybe?
        
         | robotresearcher wrote:
         | Sun SPARCstation IPC: a lovely form factor and a great client
         | machine. The matching monitor could sit on top. The whining
         | fans were not so great.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_IPC
         | 
         | It was quickly obsolete as CPUs got fast and too hot for that
         | box.
        
       | w-m wrote:
       | The amount of compute paired with the shared memory and fast
       | bandwidth would make this an awesome fit for machine learning.
       | But for PyTorch, the framework everybody is using now at least in
       | computer vision, there seems to be no support at all for the GPU
       | or the neural cores (which the presentation went on and on
       | about).
       | 
       | I guess I'd better not hold my breath about support there, given
       | Apples historical stance on support third party APIs/frameworks?
        
       | bogwog wrote:
       | 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 completely
       | backwards (and obscenely overpriced, of course).
       | 
       | Or am I being too cynical here, and this is just that famous
       | "luxury tax"?
        
         | kube-system wrote:
         | "Options" are a popular marketing scheme to have your customers
         | with deep pockets subsidize a lower starting price at the
         | bottom end while keeping the same overall margin. Doesn't
         | matter if you're Works the same way whether you're buying a
         | Mac, buying SaaS software, or buying a car.
         | 
         | Apple does use very good quality SSDs, so I would expect them
         | to be premium priced regardless.
        
         | exhilaration wrote:
         | I would argue that the professionals they're targeting are
         | storing terabytes of assets on network-attached storage, not on
         | the local machine.
        
         | cehrlich wrote:
         | Depends on what you compare it to.
         | 
         | A basic 8TB SSD is about $500, but it's also more than 10x
         | slower than what's in the Mac. A fast 8TB SSD from Sabrent,
         | which is still slower than what's in the Mac, is about $1800.
         | 
         | Of course not everyone needs a blazing fast SSD for all their
         | stuff. But that's why it has USB ports in the back.
        
         | andrewmcwatters wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | my123 wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | kayodelycaon wrote:
         | That seems pretty typical for Apple. Upgrading from 512gb to
         | 1tb on a MacBook Air is $200.
        
         | turdnagel wrote:
         | I've never heard of an accusation of planned obsolescence based
         | on price before.
         | 
         | > A customer with 1TB will likely want to upgrade sooner
         | 
         | Though I have no data to back it up, I think this is your
         | mistaken assumption. I think it's much more likely that people
         | upgrade because of CPU/RAM than disk space.
        
       | mynameisvlad wrote:
       | I think from a design perspective, this is the most disappointing
       | Apple release so far. It's just way too tall, imo. There's a lot
       | of empty space on the front which just seems odd.
       | 
       | I'm not exactly sure what they could've done to keep the Mac Mini
       | footprint, but this ain't it.
        
         | yurishimo wrote:
         | I'm convinced the design is a tradeoff to make this work in the
         | datacenter. With the exact same footprint, racks of Mac Mini
         | servers can be converted to fit these with very little effort.
        
           | mynameisvlad wrote:
           | Unfortunately, the height (3.7") is _just_ above a 2U (3.5 ")
           | rack. It's also not a multiple of a Mac Mini height (1.4")
           | which means you'll have some leftover space if you're
           | replacing 3 Minis with one of these.
        
             | MBCook wrote:
             | But most rack mounted Mac minis seem to be placed on their
             | sides with space between each individual machine. Perhaps
             | it still works in that orientation, just fewer per rack?
        
               | yurishimo wrote:
               | Yeah, this was my thought as well.
        
               | mynameisvlad wrote:
               | I was thinking that as well, but I believe they still use
               | some sort of support to keep them propped in place, so
               | not being an exact multiple means modifying them would be
               | harder than, for instance, just cutting some of the
               | vertical supports off to fit a 3xMini.
        
           | NorwegianDude wrote:
           | In...datacenters? That's a strange usecase!
        
             | yurishimo wrote:
             | https://www.macstadium.com/datacenters
             | 
             | If you scroll to the bottom of this page, there is an image
             | carousel with an example.
        
               | NorwegianDude wrote:
               | But why would anyone do that? IO is very limited, memory
               | on the m1/mini doesn't support ECC from what I know, and
               | repairs/parts/redundancy is terrible.
               | 
               | I can understand it if it's just for fun, but otherwise
               | it seems like a really strange idea.
        
               | yurishimo wrote:
               | It's one of the only sane form factors available if you
               | need off-site compute power running on MacOS. The rack
               | mount Mac Pro helped to fill that niche somewhat, but
               | they're just insanely expensive.
               | 
               | Amazon has dedicated Mac hardware in AWS as well and the
               | pricing is also crazy expensive.
               | 
               | For large app devs though, the cost is worth it to build
               | their apps in the cloud without bogging down their local
               | machines constantly. If you have rebuild targets for a
               | half dozen OS versions, it can add up!
               | 
               | Datacenters are the solution and the Mac Mini just so
               | happened to be the form factor that was available and
               | could be made to work with less hassle than accommodating
               | laptops.
        
         | minimaxir wrote:
         | From the presentation, the _entire top half_ is the thermal
         | system so can 't really put I/O there.
        
           | mynameisvlad wrote:
           | Maybe extending the grill all the way around with some other
           | design changes to make it feel fresh, and not just a taller
           | Mac Mini?
        
             | rovr138 wrote:
             | You also have to consider thermals and how the air would
             | flow over components.
             | 
             | It's not just as simple as adding more holes
        
               | mynameisvlad wrote:
               | Fake grills have existed for years. More airflow is
               | _usually_ , but not always, better.
               | 
               | All I'm saying is the current design doesn't look good to
               | me, and some more work could've been done to not just
               | make it look like a weird, tall Mac Mini.
        
               | abraae wrote:
               | > All I'm saying is the current design doesn't look good
               | to me
               | 
               | That's not what you said. Here's what you actually said,
               | which is ridiculously hyberbolic, hence this discussion.
               | 
               | > I think from a design perspective, this is the most
               | disappointing Apple release so far.
        
               | mynameisvlad wrote:
               | Yes, that's called an _opinion_. I think the design doesn
               | 't look good, I think it's the most disappointed I have
               | been with hardware design from Apple, and made my
               | disappointment known. It even starts with "I think".
               | 
               | What, exactly, is your issue with someone posting their
               | opinion?
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | Agreed, they should have gone for cube proportions. I'm sure
         | someone will come out with a NAS that has the right height to
         | bring it back into harmony.
        
       | hughrr wrote:
       | This is actually really cheap. Maxed out at PS7999 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.
        
         | jeffbee wrote:
         | $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://zworkstations.com/configurations/2944242/
        
           | hughrr wrote:
           | 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.
        
         | tonguez wrote:
         | It's not cheap for the type of people who would actually want
         | this the most (people working in entertainment, young
         | "creatives", etc). The trust fund children depicted in the
         | keynote who have $50k of A/V equipment in their room bear no
         | resemblance to actual people living in the real world instead
         | of some weird ivory tower of wealth.
         | 
         | It's like a commercial for a fragrance where someone in a suit
         | is rolling around in the middle of a field. It makes no sense
         | except to delusional rich people like Tim Cook.
        
           | hughrr wrote:
           | I don't think you have worked in typical big city media
           | companies...
        
           | criddell wrote:
           | It's cheap for what it is. If you need a machine like this,
           | then what else could you buy?
           | 
           | The Studio starts at $2k. If you are going to use it for the
           | next 4 years, that's less than $1.50 / day. No trust fund
           | required.
        
             | schleck8 wrote:
             | 32 GB of unspecified frequency ram? 512 GB of unspecified
             | speed and type ssd?
             | 
             | That's not a 2000 dollar configuration. For reference, that
             | memory capacity costs 120 euros with 3200 Mhz
        
               | geraneum wrote:
               | That 32 GB is not a typical stick. It's a unified memory
               | on SoC like how it is in smartphones. It affects
               | performance significantly. You can read more about how
               | they work and how they are different here:
               | 
               | https://www.howtogeek.com/701804/how-unified-memory-
               | speeds-u...
               | 
               | Also it was mentioned, if I'm not mistaken, that the SSD
               | has 7.5 Gb/s read, which is actually pretty good.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | forgotmyoldacc wrote:
         | My workstation build with Epyc is ~$5,000 and has more cores
         | (24 core), more memory (256 GB), faster GPU (3090), a 2TB pcie
         | 4 SSD and I suspect will perform better on standard benchmarks.
         | Definitely not as compact as the Studio though but lot more
         | extendable.
        
         | rovr138 wrote:
         | $5,799 for:
         | 
         | * 20 core cpu
         | 
         | * 64 core gpu
         | 
         | * 32 core neural engine
         | 
         | * 128GB of ram
         | 
         | * 1TB SSD
         | 
         | fully maxed out, 8TB SSD
        
           | hughrr wrote:
           | Yeah stuff SSD array in TB4 hole for less money.
        
             | rovr138 wrote:
             | Yeah.
             | 
             | Obviously depends on people's workload. For myself and to
             | future proof, I can see a benefit for 2TB locally.
             | 
             | The rest I can offload to network storage.
        
               | hughrr wrote:
               | Indeed. I'm running on a 512Gb MBP 14" and have 310Gb
               | free so no point in this for me.
        
               | londons_explore wrote:
               | Start editing high res video, and those TB's will quickly
               | fill up.
        
               | scottlamb wrote:
               | That's why hard disks are still made and sold: they're an
               | inexpensive way to achieve high capacity. I wouldn't
               | expect seek latency to be problematic for video editing,
               | and if it is, using the SSD as cache would likely be
               | sufficient.
        
               | hughrr wrote:
               | I have been purposely avoiding that situation to save
               | money :)
        
               | gumby wrote:
               | A TB4 connection is, for all intents and purposes,
               | "local". Way faster than any network storage.
        
       | ejb999 wrote:
       | I'd buy one in a second if only it would support running vmware
       | fusion - I still have to have one foot in Windows world, and not
       | being able to spin-up and old windows vm is a deal breaker for
       | me. (M1 chips won't support it).
       | 
       | Sure hope my latest macbookpro with intel chip lasts a while, I
       | fear it may be one of the last ones they make.
        
         | AlphaSite wrote:
         | For what its worth there is a tech preview:
         | https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2021/09/fusion-for-m1-pu...
        
           | temac wrote:
           | For now do not attempt to run Win11 on it though. It kinda
           | sorta works a little after doing tons of workarounds
           | including some really crazy ones (network through a kernel
           | debugger stuff or something; manually installing x64 store
           | packages if you want the store, etc...), the graphics is
           | crap, rdesktoping is not very good. Seems fine for Linux VMs
           | though (then use them with ssh).
           | 
           | If you want Win11 use Parallels, it works very very very
           | well.
           | 
           | You can even run Fusion tech preview and Parallels at the
           | same time :)
        
         | tonyedgecombe wrote:
         | I expect Microsoft's answer to that will be to run an instance
         | of Windows in Azure.
        
         | TheRealPomax wrote:
         | Why would you overload this machine for that need, though? Just
         | have a laptop sitting on a shelf for when you need to spin up
         | those old VMs, do what you need to do, and put it back on the
         | shelf.
        
           | ejb999 wrote:
           | Its just the inconvenience of having to lug around multiple
           | machines, and backup multiple machines - its nice when
           | everything you need fits under your arm, but you are right -
           | I could offload my old VM's, and may need to do that at some
           | point.
        
         | gzer0 wrote:
         | Have you tried Parallels?
         | 
         | It works incredibly well on the M1 macs.
         | 
         | https://www.parallels.com/
        
           | hughrr wrote:
           | Also UTM if you are a cheap ass like me.
           | 
           | https://github.com/utmapp/UTM
           | 
           | I use native virtualisation to run Debian arm64 and emulation
           | to run Debian x86-64
        
             | temac wrote:
             | Quite slow and not multicore for x64-64 though. It
             | eventually works, but you better take a spare PC for any
             | non trivial task.
        
               | hughrr wrote:
               | I usually just run one in AWS when I need one if I'm
               | honest.
        
           | duskwuff wrote:
           | ARM versions of Parallels can only run ARM VMs. They can't
           | run x86 VMs.
           | 
           | Parallels' marketing site does not make this very clear.
        
           | nebula8804 wrote:
           | They may be referring to the Non-Arm Windows. Let me tell you
           | Parallels running Windows ARM is the snappiest Windows
           | experience I have had in years....only problem is that its
           | Windows 11 :/
           | 
           | Really wish there was someway to easily run Windows 7 or 8 on
           | this thing. It would be bliss. Now that Windows XP Source has
           | been leaked, maybe we can come together as a community, try
           | to harden the OS and make it forward compatible with ARM.
           | Bring back the Windows that people actually somewhat liked!
           | If only that wasn't a monumental task :/
        
           | ejb999 wrote:
           | Yes, but AFAIK, M1's will not support emulation of x86 based
           | regardless of software vendor - and unfortunately, I still
           | have to run some old VM's several times a week - include a
           | very old Windows XP environment, and I don't think anyone's
           | in any rush to support that anytime soon.
           | 
           | Who knows, maybe get a Mac studio for my Mac work, and keep
           | my MacBook Pro for when I need to run non-arm VM's
        
       | 0x0 wrote:
       | So an M1 max is not... max anymore (>_<)
        
         | sanedigital wrote:
         | Technically "Ultra" means "Beyond", so putting it above "Max"
         | means it's "beyond the maximum" :P
        
         | can16358p wrote:
         | Well yes and no. M1 Ultra is obviously faster, but that
         | actually is two M1 Maxes glued together. (Of course it's much
         | more complicated than that) In that sense it's not a completely
         | new processor so it's not exactly breaking the "Max" promise...
         | or am I playing devil's advocate here?
        
       | georgeburdell wrote:
       | I don't buy Apple products for philosophical reasons, but the Mac
       | Mini, and now Mac Studio, are everything I wish Intel NUCs were.
       | I have an Intel Skull Canyon system from 2016 as my gaming PC and
       | it fits in my wife's purse. Since then, the gaming NUC variants
       | have gotten larger and larger so that they're nearly mini-ATX
       | form factor again.
        
         | dangus wrote:
         | You should get into the small form factor (SFF) Mini ITX gaming
         | scene.
         | 
         | Brands like Velkase, Custom MOD (in Ukraine, cannot currently
         | conduct business), Phanteks, DAN Case, NZXT H1 V2, and many
         | others are really interesting options.
         | 
         | I've built systems that use either SFX PSUs or Flex ATX PSUs
         | (the latter are usually modified with Noctua fans to quiet them
         | down, so using a case that requires an SFX power supply is more
         | noob-friendly and will have more generous power limits)
         | 
         | The Optimum Tech channel on YouTube is a great as a general
         | small form factor resource. Here's a case roundup:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo8T81nuLFM
         | 
         | Gamers Nexus sometimes covers small form factor, but Optimum
         | Tech has a lot more focus on SFF in particular.
        
       | minimaxir wrote:
       | The Mac Studio's HDMI doesn't support 120Hz out (so likely HDMI
       | 2.0?) and it also doesn't come with a keyboard and mouse.
        
         | the_lucifer wrote:
         | Seems like it shares the same shortcomings as the M1 Pro/Max
         | family then.
        
           | birdyrooster wrote:
           | At least the display port goes 120Hz beyond.
        
         | TheRealPomax wrote:
         | The complete lack of what HDMI port it uses is indeed pretty
         | bizarre, but why would it come with a keyboard and mouse? The
         | people who buy this already have those, or know which ones they
         | need far better than Apple does, and will buy the exactly
         | models they want on their own.
        
         | SZJX wrote:
         | The Thunderbolt ports support 120Hz though. I've been using the
         | company MBP 14" with a 144Hz display without a hitch.
        
       | kccoder wrote:
       | Apple said that Max's CPU is up to 2.5x faster and the Ultra's
       | CPU is up to 3.8x faster than whatever intel CPU is in the iMac
       | Pro, so you're getting about 52% more CPU performance with
       | Ultra's doubling in CPU cores vs the Max, so definitely feeling
       | some linear scaling limitations with the interconnect.
        
         | rovr138 wrote:
         | There has to be overhead to not have to deal with the multi-cpu
         | architecture in software.
         | 
         | It's impressive
        
           | andjd wrote:
           | I don't work in the relevant space, but what makes coding for
           | multi-cpu substantially harder than programming for multiple
           | cores? Is it just having to manage separate memory for each
           | CPU?
        
           | cyber_kinetist wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | rovr138 wrote:
             | 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.
        
               | cyber_kinetist wrote:
               | 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.
        
               | MBCook wrote:
               | But IS there an interconnect?
               | 
               | The way Apple presented it sounded more like the chips
               | talked at a lower layer, much like if it was all built as
               | one physical chip, than when you have two normal chips
               | with an interconnect fabric.
               | 
               | Someone will figure it out with benchmarks or something.
        
         | maronato wrote:
         | Maybe, but performance doesn't usually increase linearly with
         | cpu count anyway. See
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law
        
       | alberth wrote:
       | Mac Pro scale up?
       | 
       | How is this going to scale up to a Mac Pro, especially related to
       | RAM?
       | 
       | The Ultra caps at 128 GB of RAM (which isn't much for video
       | editing, especially given that the GPU uses the system RAM).
       | Today's Mac Pro goes up to 1.5TB (and has dedicated video RAM
       | above this).
       | 
       | If the Mac Pro is say, 4 Ultra's stacked together - that means
       | the new Mac Pro will be capped at 512GB of RAM.
       | 
       | Would Apple stack 12 Ultra's together to get to 1.5TB of RAM?
       | Seems unlikely.
        
         | stirlo wrote:
         | Hector Martin who's developing Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon
         | recently tweeted about this. The M1 Pro, M1 Max and the at the
         | time unannounced "Double M1 Max" have a completely different
         | series identifier (T600x) to the forth coming Mac Pro chip
         | (T6500) so no it won't just be a doubling/quadrupling of an
         | existing design.
         | https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1498317101245034502?s=21
        
         | rpmisms wrote:
         | Production houses working on massive projects will get the Pro.
         | Anyone else will get the Studio and use proxy clips.
        
       | xwowsersx wrote:
       | Could/would this machine makes sense as a development machine? I
       | use a Macbook Pro (M1) and it's always docked...I basically don't
       | need it to be transportable. I could also use more power (I'm
       | regularly running a bunch of docker containers + PyCharm +
       | DataGrip + Android Studio).
        
         | eyelidlessness wrote:
         | I'll pretty likely swap this in for my almost always docked
         | intel 16", and keep that around for the rare times I go mobile.
        
       | turndown wrote:
       | I was kind of disappointed as I expected this to be the keyboard
       | thing that was leaked to the news a bit ago; seemed to fit just
       | right with their arguments of portability, connectivity,
       | modularity.
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | yea they kinda glossed over "modularity", I didn't see any
         | modules...
        
           | kitsunesoba wrote:
           | This is pretty squarely marketed towards current users of 27"
           | iMacs and iMac Pro's, so from that perspective the
           | "modularity" being spoken of is the ability to use the
           | display with things that aren't the Mac as well as the
           | ability to upgrade the display. Thunderbolt 4 also makes it
           | better than the previous TB3 iMacs in terms of external
           | expansion.
        
           | copperx wrote:
           | I'm pretty sure they meant "buy and connect up to three our
           | new displays however you like".
        
         | rovr138 wrote:
         | I just couldn't see it. Specially for the studio.
         | 
         | The thermals would have been insane to deal with
        
       | colesantiago wrote:
       | Is there any point to building a PC anymore?
        
         | andrewmcwatters wrote:
         | At the moment the PC market is upside down, too. If you're
         | building a professional workstation, you'll find with current
         | prices that a business XPS desktop is cheaper by a significant
         | margin over building your own workstation with the highest end
         | parts available today.
        
       | etaioinshrdlu wrote:
       | Hey look, it's finally the "Missing Mac" as longed for here:
       | https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/the-missing-ma...
       | and here: https://www.cultofmac.com/1899/the-missing-macintosh/
       | 
       | Fans have been asking for such a thing for so many years.
        
       | dcchambers wrote:
       | It's a little funny looking, proportionally speaking, but I am so
       | happy to see some ports on the front. It can be incredibly
       | awkward to try and find ports on the back of a machine. At first
       | glance it seems a little expensive, but the value based on
       | performance is actually fantastic. Well done, apple.
        
       | sys_64738 wrote:
       | It looks like the son of the Mac Cube.
        
       | ar_lan wrote:
       | Why is the M1 Max not... the maximum spec?
        
         | andrewjl wrote:
         | It is the maximum for a single chip. Ultra is two chips in a
         | single package. I think the name subtly emphasizes the
         | distinction.
        
         | eddieroger wrote:
         | It is the most they can get on one die, but they can glue
         | multiple dies together and get more.
        
       | lwkl wrote:
       | Great they avoided $1000 stand memes by offering a more
       | reasonable $400 stand.
       | 
       | To be more serious looks like a pretty good product that fits
       | well into offices. I stopped working in IT in 2018 but back then
       | SFF was all the rage and a powerful workstation with a smaller
       | form factor will probably be attractive to a lot of customers.
        
         | hughrr wrote:
         | I want a vesa mount one which should be cheaper. Hrumph.
        
           | hagbarddenstore wrote:
           | It's "free". No additional cost.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | nerdjon wrote:
       | More and more I see the M1 chips and I wish Mac worked seriously
       | well for gaming. Would love too see something like Proton but for
       | Mac (given up hopes for native support).
       | 
       | I hate that I have my gaming PC and then my Mac for everything
       | else.
       | 
       | I have to wonder though what their plan is for the M2. Are they
       | laying the groundwork for when the M2 comes out all of these
       | variants will be ready at the same time? Or a gradual upgrade but
       | the same series (Normal, Pro, Max, and then Ultra) for each.
        
         | GeekyBear wrote:
         | The good news is that optimized iPhone, iPad, and Mac games now
         | share most of their code and run on the same CPU and GPU cores.
         | 
         | There aren't many Mac games that have been ported over to both
         | Metal and ARM, but World of Warcraft is an example.
        
           | lwkl wrote:
           | > but World of Warcraft is an example.
           | 
           | Blizzard games are or were probably the outlier. They
           | supported Macs even back in the PowerPC days. As a kid with a
           | PowerBook G4 Blizzard games were the only good games I was
           | able to play (Warcraft 3, WoW, Diablo). I have no idea if
           | this is still the case for their newer games though.
        
             | mcphage wrote:
             | > I have no idea if this is still the case for their newer
             | games though.
             | 
             | Diablo 2 Remastered doesn't run on a Mac :-(
        
               | smoldesu wrote:
               | Sure as hell won't get better now that they're owned by
               | Microsoft. You can expect DirectX to take center stage
               | for their upcoming releases.
        
             | amatecha wrote:
             | Yeah, in fact, Blizzard supported Mac since the 68k days.
             | Warcraft: Orcs and Humans required 68030 processor or
             | better :) https://web.archive.org/web/19961019194943/http:/
             | /blizzard.c...
             | 
             | Blackthorne ran on 68040 as well. I think WarCraft came out
             | first though...
        
             | GeekyBear wrote:
             | Given the sheer size of the market for iOS games, having
             | Mac games share most of the same code makes a Mac port
             | downright cheap.
        
         | otterley wrote:
         | Tell the game developers! They need to hear from you that the
         | demand is there.
        
           | NorwegianDude wrote:
           | Giving Apple more power by making software for their products
           | for free that Apple wants a large cut from doesn't sound like
           | a good idea.
           | 
           | Make games for Linux, and let Apple figure out a
           | compatability layer to make it work on their products. That's
           | the way it should be.
        
             | criddell wrote:
             | > Apple wants a large cut from doesn't sound like a good
             | idea
             | 
             | It sounds like a good idea if it leads to higher profits.
             | Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all charge game developers
             | similar fees.
        
               | NorwegianDude wrote:
               | Maybe short term. Helping a company grow that is know to
               | lock down their products and force developers to pay them
               | for access might not be the best long term plan overall.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | otterley wrote:
             | Apple doesn't get a cut of software that's sold outside the
             | App Store on MacOS.
             | 
             | And the most performant MacOS APIs for graphics rendering
             | aren't on Linux AFAIK. Besides, game developers generally
             | eschew compatibility layers because they harm performance.
        
           | criddell wrote:
           | Has everybody forgotten about Apple Arcade? It has all the
           | hits like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja!
        
           | JAlexoid wrote:
           | There's more demand for streaming games, than games for Macs.
           | 
           | Desktop Macs with GPUs even remotely capable of gaming are
           | not that plentiful.
        
         | xyst wrote:
         | In reality though would you really want your games to be
         | installed on the same machine as your daily driver?
         | 
         | Game companies and their parent companies tend to install some
         | shady spyware on your machine in the name of "anti-cheat
         | software" (ie, installed in the ring0/kernel space). I am kind
         | of relieved that I have 2 separate machines.
         | 
         | Although if they develop virtualized environments to sandbox
         | games from the host machine (similar to QEMU) then I suppose
         | that might work.
        
           | bart_spoon wrote:
           | > In reality though would you really want your games to be
           | installed on the same machine as your daily driver?
           | 
           | Yes. The vast majority of people that I'm aware of don't buy
           | multiple desktops. If I spend $1000+ for a gaming machine, I
           | don't want to spend hundreds more to have multiple machines
           | to jump between and to manage connections to and to take up
           | space in my office.
        
         | code_witch_sam wrote:
         | - [x] RGB'd out PC with RTX 3090 for playing Minecraft and
         | Elden ring
         | 
         | - [x] Decent wired network in-home
         | 
         | - [x] Connect via Moonlight from Mac Mini M1 to Gaming PC
         | 
         | - [x] Best of both worlds
         | 
         | It's wonderful. I only wish my Mac Mini had a 120hz display
         | attached.
        
           | joemi wrote:
           | Minecraft runs great on M1 Macs, btw.
        
         | nouveaux wrote:
         | I don't feel the need to play cutting edge games anymore.
         | Playing Windows games in Parallel on my M1 is pretty good. I
         | was shocked to see how well it worked. It's unlikely to run
         | Elden Ring well. However, the vast majority of games are fine.
        
           | cube2222 wrote:
           | It'd be cool to see some gaming-oriented benchmarks of the M1
           | Ultra with Parallels.
        
           | ar_lan wrote:
           | Technically, I think this is illegal (Microsoft doesn't have
           | a license for ARM support that isn't Qualcomm based). So for
           | the pirating community this might not be an issue, but for
           | long term survivability of the industry that would need to
           | change.
        
         | hammock wrote:
         | Mac is going back to their most successful niche - creators.
        
           | Tiktaalik wrote:
           | Game developers are creators!
           | 
           | Additionally all the creators, musicians, artists, etc that
           | are making assets for and working with the game industry are
           | having to use PCs to interface with the game.
        
             | nkozyra wrote:
             | Almost all of those assets can be created entirely
             | independently, though. There's no need to use a PC to
             | interface.
        
               | neoberg wrote:
               | Yes but to try and experiment with those assets "in
               | game", they'd need to use a PC.
        
               | Tiktaalik wrote:
               | Yeah but in game dev increasingly the tooling is
               | integrated in the engine and so doing assets on a mac,
               | then bringing them over to a PC and putting them into the
               | game is an incredible unnecessary and annoying friction
               | point.
               | 
               | Increasingly rare to find an artist that only works in
               | photoshop and isn't working in the engine, directly
               | putting their work into the game.
               | 
               | Accordingly even the art side is using PCs.
        
           | LegitShady wrote:
           | Creators is not one group but many groups who create
           | different things.
        
           | satsuma wrote:
           | and it makes total sense! computers are slowly transitioning
           | back to professional/enthusiast/educational focused as casual
           | internet browsing continues to move onto mobile devices. you
           | don't have people buying laptops to browse the internet on
           | their couch anymore.
        
         | mshockwave wrote:
         | Same, I want to run AAA games using these crazy Mac hardwares.
         | A more interesting question will be: how hard it will be to
         | implement such Proton for Mac? Is there any previous project?
        
           | randmeerkat wrote:
           | Some more donations to Proton's Patreon would probably help.
           | They only get about $400 / month right now...
           | 
           | https://www.patreon.com/protondb
        
             | Anon1096 wrote:
             | That is a Patreon link ProtonDB, not Proton. Proton is
             | funded by Valve and ProtonDB is unaffiliated.
        
               | randmeerkat wrote:
               | You're right, thanks for pointing that out.
        
           | zten wrote:
           | It exists as a proprietary product. Final Fantasy 14's Mac
           | "port" is using Crossover, which slaps some magic on Wine.
           | Definitely not a AAA graphics title but you could run it
           | today. On a 16" MBP with the top spec M1 Max, it will get
           | about 30-50fps with medium detail and I think I tested it at
           | 1680x1050 - which feels like a miracle, almost, but gets
           | trounced by an Intel i9 + AMD Vega 56(?) MBP running Windows
           | from a few years ago. If the right APIs were available and an
           | aarch64 binary were published instead, it would probably be a
           | different story.
        
           | Thaxll wrote:
           | Well crazy mac hardware is actually not very good compared to
           | PC graphic cards.
        
             | yurishimo wrote:
             | The comparison chart for the high spec M1 Ultra was using a
             | 3090.
             | 
             | So even if it "only" reaches 3060 levels of performance in
             | games, I think many people would be okay with that. Reality
             | will likely place it somewhere between a 3060 and the 3090.
        
               | ohgodplsno wrote:
               | "Reality will place it between a low end enthusiast card
               | and a high end enthusiast card"
               | 
               | thanks nostradamus, i can also tell you tomorrow's
               | temperature is going to be between 0 and 100C
        
               | borodi wrote:
               | So 3090 price for 3060 performance, doesn't sound very
               | promising. I wish we could exploit those gpus easier for
               | compute, but compute with metal is simply not there, at
               | least for now.
        
               | yurishimo wrote:
               | It's not priced like a 3090 though? There's an entire
               | computer there and the CPU performance is no slouch, even
               | if the GPU may be lacking for what gamers want today.
        
               | JAlexoid wrote:
               | You're right, it's priced higher than RTX3090. Because HP
               | sells the whole system with RTX3090 at $2909 right now.
        
               | brimble wrote:
               | I'm pretty sure the gamers who're always rocking high-end
               | video cards are a small minority of PC gamers, anyway,
               | even if we only count "serious" gamers (not just Candy
               | Crush or whatever) to remove that potential objection.
               | 
               | A lot more probably find a best-bang-for-the-buck
               | midrange card and hang on to it for ~3 years, before
               | upgrading to another midrange card.
        
               | Thaxll wrote:
               | It's their perf per watt chart that is irrelevant for
               | gaming.
        
               | olyjohn wrote:
               | Honestly, performance per watt is probably the least
               | important consideration for a desktop computer.
               | 
               | Running a farm of these things? Maybe perf per watt makes
               | sense to save some money. Mobile device running on
               | battery? I totally get it.
               | 
               | But surely, the difference in cost for one person running
               | it in their house, or a few hundred people in an
               | office... like who cares? The cost savings won't even be
               | noticeable on the power bill.
        
             | BirAdam wrote:
             | Actually, they're excellent as one can actually easily
             | purchase an M1 mac at the moment.
        
             | rootusrootus wrote:
             | What's the M1 Max equivalent to? Roughly a RTX3070 or
             | thereabouts? That doesn't seem too awful.
        
               | Keyframe wrote:
               | Unless you want more or replace it.
        
               | JAlexoid wrote:
               | At almost twice the price of a desktop with the same
               | RTX3070 from Dell or HP.
               | 
               | It's definitely a great machine, but if you're a gamer -
               | stay away.
        
               | rootusrootus wrote:
               | I would like to see better gaming on Mac just so I
               | wouldn't need two computers, or compromise just to get a
               | machine that can be a halfway decent gaming setup.
        
               | Apocryphon wrote:
               | Guess that means consoles will always have a place as
               | that "second computer".
        
               | JAlexoid wrote:
               | GeForce Now is there for you...
        
           | nerdjon wrote:
           | Doing some quick searching around.
           | 
           | I know there is Crossover, Wine technically works on Mac from
           | what I can tell also. So not sure if there is a technical
           | reason Proton couldn't work on Mac other than just not
           | building it.
           | 
           | Apple does talk a lot about gaming now on the iPhone and
           | iPad, I would love to see them talk about it more on Mac
           | (especially with how powerful these are) and maybe work with
           | Proton like Steam is for the Steam Deck.
        
             | chaosharmonic wrote:
             | Proton also depends on DXVK, an additional translation
             | layer that specifically bridges the Windows graphics APIs
             | to Vulkan (as opposed to WINE handling its system calls in
             | a general sense).
             | 
             | Meanwhile, newer versions of macOS (and the M1 that runs
             | the ARM builds in particular) don't use Vulkan at all,
             | opting for Metal instead.
        
             | xrisk wrote:
             | Crossover is proprietary. Pure Wine cannot run x86 apps on
             | ARM if I understand correctly.
        
           | nouveaux wrote:
           | I don't think something like Proton will pan out. What will
           | likely happen is that the larger studio making AAA games will
           | want an iOS port. At that point, it will be trivial to tweak
           | it for the M1 chips. Games like Elden Ring and and GTA are
           | perfectly playable on an iPad with a controller. M1 Apple TVs
           | are definitely in the pipeline. iOS makes it worthwhile for
           | AAA studios to port their hits over to the Apple ecosystem.
        
         | SamuelAdams wrote:
         | There is a lot of support for M1. See these lists. Please note
         | though that "playable" does not mean "on par with other
         | platforms", ie, Windows and Xbox / Playstation.
         | 
         | https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1er-NivvuIheDmIKBVRu3...
         | 
         | https://applesilicongames.com/
        
           | lelandfe wrote:
           | I believe OP meant Mac, not M1 - I.e. that there are many
           | multitudes of AAA games that still have not hit macOS.
           | 
           | You're right, though, that M1 has pretty decent parity with
           | Intel Macs for games now.
        
           | neogodless wrote:
           | Games I've played over the past two years:
           | 
           | Valheim - not in database
           | 
           | ARK: Survival Evolved - "game won't launch"
           | 
           | Conan: Exiles - not in database
           | 
           | Grounded - not in database
           | 
           | Civ V and Civ VI - each shows one record and seems it ran for
           | that person (30-60 fps - for comparison, both run 144 fps on
           | my $1000 Lenovo laptop.)
           | 
           | It Takes Two - not in database
           | 
           | That's all anecdotal, i.e. the games this one person likes to
           | play are not supported, or don't play very well, and some of
           | them are 5+ years old.
           | 
           | Overall the point being, it's hard to shell out all that
           | money for a device that won't play your games. (If this sort
           | of gaming is part of your computer use case). So to that
           | original comment's point "I wish Mac worked seriously well
           | for gaming."
        
           | jamesy0ung wrote:
           | X-Plane is great on M1.
        
         | Tiktaalik wrote:
         | Seriously. If Apple supported gaming more I'd be able to drop
         | this PC.
         | 
         | Could be the sort of thing that could cause an avalanche of
         | switchers.
         | 
         | You'd also pull over the entire games industry into the Apple
         | space. Right now we code on PCs. As Apple silicon gets better,
         | it's gonna be more and more painful to not be able to make use
         | of that.
        
           | npunt wrote:
           | Not sure about game developers, but gamers are a low-margin,
           | high-touch, low-satisfaction-score, garish-aesthetic, speeds-
           | and-feeds market. Pretty much antithetical to Apple's core
           | focus and I think they rightly avoid them. Despite personally
           | wanting more games on Mac :)
        
             | outworlder wrote:
             | > low-margin
             | 
             | Really?
             | 
             | Have you missed the insane markups on anything 'gaming'
             | related for many years?
        
               | andrewmcwatters wrote:
               | Could you provide an example?
        
             | jdgoesmarching wrote:
             | Also I feel like everyone is missing their AR/VR push right
             | around the corner. VR headsets with these chips will be
             | dramatically more powerful than other devices on the
             | market. Combine that power with Apple product marketing,
             | and devs will be there regardless of how much the Metal
             | APIs suck.
        
           | jachee wrote:
           | > 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.
        
             | risho wrote:
             | if they would just support vulkan they could basically pick
             | up directx for free off of the back of valve
        
             | minimaxir wrote:
             | 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.
        
               | nightski wrote:
               | 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.
        
               | smoldesu wrote:
               | Yeah, it's pretty sad to see them pimping the likes of
               | Genshin Impact. Even among the people who do play and
               | enjoy it, I've yet to meet anyone who will defend it as
               | anything other than a Breath of the Wild ripoff with a
               | slot machine-shaped tumor attached to it's hip.
        
             | MattSteelblade wrote:
             | It's Apple's refusal to support Vulkan that is it's biggest
             | detriment to the gaming industry.
        
             | ohgodplsno wrote:
             | Right, it's the studio's fault, not because Metal is a
             | dogshit API with dogshit performance. And instead of paying
             | 900$ for a RTX 3090, you could pay 4000 for something with
             | the equivalent power of a 3060Ti that you can't upgrade
             | without buying an entire new SoC.
             | 
             | But go on, blame directx for being the one API actually
             | moving things forwards. Not Apple's shitty behavior.
        
               | jachee wrote:
               | You got a source on $900 3090s?
               | 
               | I can't find 'em for under $2000.
        
             | l-p wrote:
             | > As of June 3, 2021, there is no native support for Vulkan
             | API provided by Apple devices.
             | 
             | > Apple deprecated OpenGL in iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 Mojave
             | in favor of Metal, but it is still available as of macOS 11
             | Big Sur (including Apple silicon devices). The latest
             | version supported for OpenGL is 4.1 from 2011.
             | 
             | OSX accounts for 2.62% of Steam users.
             | 
             | Implementing another graphics backend is prohibitively
             | expensive for small studios whereas you could implement
             | either OpenGL or Vulkan and get the other 97.38%. And
             | that's without factoring in the required investment in
             | single-use hardware, people, and skills.
             | 
             | DirectX is another safe choice but I try to stay away from
             | anything proprietary or Microsoft-related.
        
             | mhh__ wrote:
             | Why would you spend a huge chunk of your R&D money
             | supporting a platform with users who don't game built by a
             | company that won't spend a tiny amount of their R&D budget
             | supporting industry standard technology that's been
             | established for years.
        
             | asiachick wrote:
             | AFAIK Unreal and Unity but support Metal. It's a chicken
             | and egg thing. There is no game market on MacOS because no
             | gamers are on MacOS because there are no games on MacOS so
             | there are no gamers on MacOS ....
             | 
             | Of course consumer level macs have never had GPUs that
             | could run AAA games. I don't know what an M1 MacBook Air's
             | perf is. If it's able to run AAA games and a reasonable
             | framerate then maybe a market would build? But if you're
             | limiting gamers to M1 Pro/M1 Max/M1 Ultra users only then
             | it's probably a pretty small market?
        
             | georgeecollins wrote:
             | >> You mean if gaming supported Apple more, right?
             | 
             | I can tell you from long experience-- more than 20 years
             | ago I produced a Mac games with Apple's financing and as
             | recently as five years ago I produced a game that sold over
             | $100m on an Apple device-- Apple has been extremely
             | consistent in their attitude. They are much less supportive
             | of gaming then Microsoft or Sony. Part of it is that they
             | see games as a lesser use of their devices over other use
             | cases. Another part is that they consistently promote the
             | kind of experiences they wish their customers wanted over
             | the experiences their customers choose.
        
           | cyberpunk wrote:
           | How's your internet connection? I'm playing on a RTX3080
           | thanks to geforce now, but I admit it's only possible due to
           | my living in a big city with a very low ping connection to
           | nvidias data centres.
           | 
           | But the economics make total sense. It's like 15/euro a
           | month. A RTX 3080 would cost me like 1200 euro to buy at the
           | moment, without the rest of the PC to go with it. And I'd
           | need to run windows, which I've not done since '98.
           | 
           | Outsourcing hardware it seems, does work for gaming, if
           | you've got the 'net for it, :}
        
             | cyberpunk wrote:
             | And cyberpunk 2077 or farcry 6 on full on ultra settings
             | makes me almost want to cry it's so pretty. I'll walk past
             | a puddle and just... walk back and forward. It feels like
             | what your teenage overclock made crysis look look like in
             | the early 2000's, I can recommend.
        
               | jakear wrote:
               | As someone who hasn't really gamed since Crysis, looking
               | at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5rYjHuZsM0, I have to
               | say I feel.... not impressed at all? Maybe that video is
               | a poor example, but the plants for instance look
               | absolutely awful, especially up close.
        
               | asiachick wrote:
               | Yea, here's Crysis and you're right IMO. At a glance I
               | can't see much difference. I'm sure I could find them but
               | they certainly don't stick out
               | 
               | https://youtu.be/KVmc2P2PPRw?t=841
        
               | Apocryphon wrote:
               | The core gameplay mechanics of Far Cry have not changed
               | significantly since Crysis, either. (Okay, more
               | accurately since Far Cry 3- released a decade ago- or
               | so.)
        
               | asabla wrote:
               | ha! are you me?
               | 
               | Had the benefit to purchase my self a beasty computer
               | right before Cyberpunk launched.
               | 
               | I don't know how many times I just stopped what I was
               | doing and just look at something shiny/bright.
               | 
               | Last time I felt this way must have been back with HL2
        
               | cyberpunk wrote:
               | Fortunately it's gotten better. I didn't play it much
               | during the first months as it was such a terrible
               | shitshow of bugs. Seems they're getting ontop of it now
               | though. I feel deeply sorry for the devs that they made
               | them release it in such a condition. We've all been there
               | I guess!
        
             | mrtksn wrote:
             | What I don't like about this model is that you are not
             | allowed to run whatever you want, you can't even run all
             | your library from Steam or Epic but select games only.
        
               | cercatrova wrote:
               | There are other services that allow you to run base
               | windows from which you can run whatever you want.
               | 
               | https://shadow.tech/
        
             | nr2x wrote:
             | 100% this: cloud gaming tech is solid but the business
             | model is still in infancy. By the time Apple caught up in
             | gaming I expect cloud gaming will have taken root.
        
             | JAlexoid wrote:
             | I'm in a rural area 1.5 hour north of NYC - I use GeForce
             | Now and Stadia with 6ms latency. It's available to more
             | than just the big cities.
        
               | cyberpunk wrote:
               | Okay, try that in rural Scotland ;)
        
             | madeofpalk wrote:
             | RTX3080 but you've got low bitrate mpeg artifacts. I've
             | tried them, they're fine when its your only option.
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | It's important to note that Apple cut off the Proton devs; not
         | the other way around. It would indeed be pretty cool to see
         | that sort of thing running on Apple Silicon, but the plethora
         | of architectural changes that came along with Catalina stopped
         | Mac support from being a viable target for Valve.
         | 
         | Not very surprising though; Mac native games don't really work
         | that well either. If it relies on 32-bit libraries, it won't
         | launch. If it uses outdated OpenGL, you can expect a plethora
         | of errors to accompany you to an instantaneous crash. Apple has
         | their work cut out for them, I just doubt they'll have the
         | "courage" to bring back the features they so courageously threw
         | away.
        
         | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
         | Same. That chunky PC serves only one purpose now and rest of
         | the time is unused.
        
           | nerdjon wrote:
           | The unused part is what bothers me, like I actively make sure
           | I use windows for as little outside of gaming for various
           | reasons.
           | 
           | But for the price to use it, ok not rarely since I game a
           | lot... but considering I also have consoles. I would say I
           | use my Mac more.
           | 
           | I just wonder if this is ever going to be a realistic
           | alternative or am I just always going to have 2 personal
           | computers.
        
             | tannedNerd wrote:
             | What Im hoping for is with fiber/5G things like GeforceNow
             | become more popular. I used it recently thanks to 6 free
             | months from ATT when I had an unscheduled layover due to a
             | missed flight, and it was actually playable with 7 Days to
             | Die (a FPS). Granted it wasn't as good as my home machine,
             | but this was also over hotel wifi so not bad
        
         | ralfd wrote:
         | > More and more I see the M1 chips and I wish Mac worked
         | seriously well for gaming.
         | 
         | I guess Apple will never play the console game, with having
         | their own game developer studios and buying exclusives.
         | 
         | But I wish they would put a M1 in an Apple TV, releasing their
         | own controller and just do something!
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | Third/fourth/fifth time's the charm I guess? I really hope apple
       | gets the "Mac Pro" form factor right this time.
        
         | the_lucifer wrote:
         | > I really hope apple gets the "Mac Pro" form factor right this
         | time.
         | 
         | Tbh, they did mention at the end that their Apple Silicon Mac
         | Pro is coming later down the line, which I'm guessing will
         | focus more on upgradability and modularity
        
           | mkaic wrote:
           | hopefully M2 as well!
        
       | ShakataGaNai wrote:
       | As a comparsion a quick build on PCPartPicker: Xeon E5 22 core,
       | Radeon RX 6900 XT, case, power supply, 64 gb of ram, motherboard,
       | 1TB SSD and CPU cooler. Comes in at just shy of $5,000
       | 
       | That CPU isn't as powerful as the one the M1 Ultra beat in their
       | specs, but should be about the same GPU as they compared and
       | beat. If the benchmarks are to be believed.... the $4,000 Mac
       | Studio will be an absolute powerhouse in the
       | price/performance/power market for quite some amount of time.
       | 
       | Normally I'd make some snarky remark about Apple Tax, but in this
       | case they look to have the PC hardware equivalent very well and
       | truly beat on cost. For now.
        
         | xemdetia wrote:
         | If anything this just reminds me how frustrating their product
         | line was pre-M1 for so many years. I'm still dealing with the
         | legacy of having to work with people with 16GB as the ceiling
         | and projects that simply do not fit in them.
        
         | traceroute66 wrote:
         | > As a comparsion a quick build on PCPartPicker: Xeon E5 22
         | core, Radeon RX 6900 XT, case, power supply, 64 gb of ram,
         | motherboard, 1TB SSD and CPU cooler. Comes in at just shy of
         | $5,000
         | 
         | And that's just the parts. Don't forget the M1 Ultra will use
         | less electrical power too.
        
         | ajconway wrote:
         | Don't forget that any of the M1-family chips are absolutely
         | crushing the competition in single-core performance.
        
       | flembat wrote:
       | Good to see the kind of computer we can all afford in ten years
       | or so.
        
         | rovr138 wrote:
         | This is not really geared towards 'all'. You can see that on
         | the presentation and who they had talking.
        
           | TheRealPomax wrote:
           | You missed the "ten years from now". I will happily pay
           | $300-#400 for this machine 10 years from now to use as a
           | random streaming box sat in a closet.
        
             | bogwog wrote:
             | I did that with a Mac Mini, but at some point it seems to
             | have entered a permanently throttled state for some reason.
             | Disk IO and CPU performance are atrocious, and idk why.
             | Even tried installing Linux on it, but it's still
             | incredibly slow. Maybe some sensor broke?
             | 
             | Whatever it is, I've become much less trusting of Apple
             | hardware that is that old.
        
               | brimble wrote:
               | I assume you cleaned the dust out? Otherwise I think your
               | guess of a faulty sensor is most likely.
               | 
               | [EDIT] Could be some thermal paste going bad, too, I
               | guess.
        
       | loudthing wrote:
       | Darn. I was really hoping for a new Macbook Air :/
        
       | youngtaff wrote:
       | Boy is that an ugly box... the proportions seem all wrong to me -
       | looks like they just stacked a bunch on Mac Mini's (which has
       | pretty nice proportions)
        
       | ksec wrote:
       | The M1 Ultra is likely using CoWoS from TSMC.
       | 
       | https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/tsmc/cowos
        
       | andrewmcwatters wrote:
       | The whole GPU thing is really funny. The M1 Ultra is supposedly
       | more powerful now than an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000, but I'm
       | guessing really truly only for professional work.
       | 
       | If you tried to play games on it or develop games for it, you're
       | gonna find that it's less powerful than the standard AMD
       | integrated GPU on a 5k iMac from 2015 until you come across
       | software or build software using Metal directly.
       | 
       | Both Wine and Parallels usage today provide poor graphics
       | performance.
        
       | thrusong wrote:
       | Where does this fit in the lineup of Macs?
       | 
       | The 27" iMac is gone and the Mac Studio looks like it's taking
       | the place of that or could even be the new Pro.
       | 
       | I don't want that thing on my desktop, I want a big all-in-one.
       | 
       | At least the Studio Display looks like it could be used to stuff
       | some kind of M chip in down the road for a "pro" all-in-one
       | option.
        
         | newaccount74 wrote:
         | Using the 27" iMac with lots of stuff plugged in is a bit
         | annoying. I occasionally have cables coming loose when I adjust
         | the display. And it's impossible to get additional displays
         | that match the iMacs look.
        
       | ushakov wrote:
       | The design looks like it was designed to be a fan, but they
       | accidentally added a computer chip
        
         | TheRealPomax wrote:
         | Cool
        
       | areoform wrote:
       | 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.
       | 
       | Bravo Apple. I'd love to see what they have in store for
       | designers and programmers next.
        
         | nouveaux wrote:
         | > they're doing it at a price point that's competitive compared
         | to all of the companies out there
         | 
         | I think they're blowing all their competitors out of the water
         | with the price point. It's not just a 10-20% difference in
         | price anymore.
        
           | throwaway894345 wrote:
           | And you can tell because they were marketing their products
           | in relation to older Apple products rather than other
           | manufacturers.
        
           | NorwegianDude wrote:
           | $8k for 128GB RAM, 8 TB solid state storage and 22 trillion
           | ops/sec isn't exactly a bargain.
           | 
           | I do however image that the performance per watt will be
           | really good.
        
             | efficax wrote:
             | Try and price out a PC with those specs, it will come in
             | around $6k minimum, but much more power intensive and very
             | very loud
        
               | gigatexal wrote:
               | Don't feed the "but I can build a pc for less" crowd.
               | They can't see the apples to oranges comparison they're
               | making: a Mac is not a PC. They have different use-cases
               | and run different software.
        
               | goosedragons wrote:
        
               | johnmaguire wrote:
               | This thread started with a comparison to PCs... I mean I
               | assume, since no competitor is putting out Macs...
               | 
               | > That's kinda crazy, and they're doing it at a price
               | point that's competitive compared to all of the companies
               | out there.
        
               | MisterTea wrote:
               | > They have different use-cases ...
               | 
               | Likely mostly running the same workloads such as web
               | browsing.
               | 
               | > ... and run different software.
               | 
               | Maybe if Apple wrote it. Otherwise you can run the same
               | Chrome/Firefox, Photoshop and Office on a Windows or even
               | Linux Machine. Most software is shared between platforms
               | nowadays with posix/windows being the lowest common
               | denominator in terms of "cross platform".
        
               | bee_rider wrote:
               | You definitely shouldn't buy a $4000 computer if your
               | only workload is web browsing.
        
             | cj wrote:
             | > $8k for 128GB RAM, 8 TB solid state storage
             | 
             | Maybe not, but 32GB RAM + 512GB SSD for $2k is a pretty
             | competitive price point.
        
               | adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
               | a 512 gb ssd is kinda inexcusable in a machine that costs
               | more than $1000 1tb of ssd is only around $100.
        
               | brailsafe wrote:
               | It's a bit miserly, to say the least
        
               | asiachick wrote:
               | it's there for framing, solely to push you to the next
               | tier
        
               | gigatexal wrote:
               | But ssd is not 100 usd gumstick from of the shelf it's
               | integrated and sports speeds of 7.4GB/s at the top end.
               | Shrug
        
               | brailsafe wrote:
               | No, it's a $200-400 gumstick that you can get off the
               | shelf
               | 
               | https://www.newegg.com/seagate-2tb-
               | firecuda-530/p/N82E168202...
        
               | yborg wrote:
               | The Apple upgrade cost to 1TB is also $200.
        
               | brailsafe wrote:
               | Right, but the link was for 2TB at the same speed, and
               | it's a $600 upgrade for 2TB from 512, which means
               | literally $800 for 2TB in total, plus tax! To be fair, it
               | is likely higher quality, more efficient maybe, but I
               | just think it's quite a reach to charge $800 USD for 2TB
               | of storage that's not uniquely fast or anything. If you
               | think that's a good value, it certainly might be
               | depending on your work, but it would be twice as good
               | value if it wasn't twice the price as off-the-shelf.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | A terabyte of dead-slow and flaky SSD costs a hundred
               | bucks, sure. But it doesn't matter much because, in the
               | kinds of professional workflows this machine is
               | targeting, local storage is more like swap space than
               | anything. It needs to be fast more than it needs to be
               | big.
        
               | goosedragons wrote:
               | A 1TB Samsung 980 Pro is $150 retail and arguably
               | overpriced. 512GB in a $2000 computer is a joke in 2022.
        
               | go_prodev wrote:
               | $600 extra for a 2tb drive. So they're just giving them
               | away now? /s
        
             | oneplane wrote:
             | Depends on what we're comparing, an average 20-core Dell
             | Precision workstation costs about $10k.
        
           | traceroute66 wrote:
           | > I think they're blowing all their competitors out of the
           | water with the price point.
           | 
           | Not only on price point but also performance per watt. The M1
           | laptops were a game changer on that front, and I expect the
           | M1 Ultra to be the same.
        
         | nextos wrote:
         | This is very interesting because PC workstations have been
         | stagnating for quite long! It'd be cool to be able to bring
         | medium-sized tasks back from clouds to personal computers.
         | 
         | The CPU performance is impressive but I wonder how well it'd
         | fare against say an AMD ThreadRipper or a dual socket system
         | with an equivalent price? It'd be also interesting to see a
         | deep learning benchmark against Nvidia. Branding and RAM limits
         | suggest this is geared towards video processing, but might also
         | be useful for some other domains.
        
           | rfoo wrote:
           | Depending on your use case. Assuming no video editing (since
           | this is HN), for equivalent performance I guess they can't
           | beat their rivals on price. Different story for power tho.
        
           | MisterTea wrote:
           | > This is very interesting because PC workstations have been
           | stagnating for quite long!
           | 
           | How have they stagnated?
        
             | twoWhlsGud wrote:
             | Look at
             | 
             | https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-
             | certif...
             | 
             | or the HP equivalent - they're still equipping them with
             | Xeon's from 2 1/2 years ago. So pretty stagnant.
        
           | kiratp wrote:
           | My workstation has a 3990x.
           | 
           | Our "world" build is slightly faster on my M1 Max.
           | 
           | https://twitter.com/kiratpandya/status/1457438725680480257
           | 
           | The 3990x runs a bit faster on the initial compile stage but
           | the linking is single threaded and the M1 Max catches up at
           | that point. I expect the M1 Ultra to crush the 3990x on
           | compile time.
        
             | amelius wrote:
             | Time for your linker vendor to parallelize their algorithm.
        
         | gaws wrote:
         | > It seems that they're targeting products to what their
         | professional customers actually want.
         | 
         | A $2,000 machine to handle editing, processing and posting
         | video ~content~ on YouTube.
        
         | skybrian wrote:
         | I don't know, "18 streams of 8k video" doesn't seem terribly
         | customer-oriented? Is it something anything anyone really needs
         | or understands other than "that's very fast?" How much video
         | can you watch at a time?
         | 
         | I also don't see how the size of a desktop computer matters,
         | other than as a fashion statement.
        
           | etchalon wrote:
           | ... it's not for consumers. It's for their customers. Which
           | are video editors.
        
           | kayoone wrote:
           | it's not a consumer product, video editors can utilize
           | multiple streams of video in many usecases. The iMac and the
           | Macbook Air are the consumer products with enough performance
           | for 99% of users.
        
           | rsynnott wrote:
           | This generally isn't aimed at consumers; the much cheaper Mac
           | Mini and iMac would be more appropriate there. It's for
           | creative professionals (and to some degree programmers,
           | though I really wish they'd make a similar-sized chip with
           | less silicon budget spent on GPUs and more on CPUs...)
        
         | WheelsAtLarge wrote:
         | I think over all the designers that focused on how the products
         | looked have lost the tight grip they had over them. For years,
         | look was more important than function. It was probably a good
         | thing since it helped make the company become what it is today.
         | But giving engineering a bit more control is givings us some
         | very functional products. Very cool.
        
         | lquist wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | spfzero wrote:
           | Apple's market share has always been a small slice of the
           | overall PC market. In a way, they never did "mass market".
           | While the prosumer market may be a small proportion of the
           | overall market, it could be very significant, for Apple,
           | relative to the market Apple addresses.
           | 
           | Plus, I think a lot of people who would not normally call
           | themselves a "prosumer" will want, and purchase these.
        
             | alwillis wrote:
             | _Apple 's market share has always been a small slice of the
             | overall PC market._
             | 
             |  _Small_ is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
             | 
             | Apple sold nearly $11 billion worth of Macs last quarter.
             | Once you get out of the HN echo chamber and enterprise IT
             | circles, Macs are quite popular.
             | 
             |  _In a way, they never did "mass market"._
             | 
             | Having an Apple Store within a 20 minute drive of 80% of
             | the American public counts as mass market [1]. Haven't been
             | lately because pandemic but my local Apple Stores were
             | always packed with people. And of course there's a Best
             | Buy, Micro Center and other regional retailers that sell
             | Macs in places with no Apple Stores.
             | 
             | It's not just prosumers; it's normies who just want a good
             | computer made by a company they've heard of and trust vs. a
             | cheap plastic 3rd tier PC from a manufacturer they're
             | vaguely familiar with. I've been involved in user groups
             | since the 80's; trust me, most Mac users are just regular
             | people--not music producers and cinematographers.
             | 
             | An M1 Mac mini, which certainly outperforms most PCs in
             | it's price class. The retail price starts at $699 but is
             | available for significantly less via 3rd parties like
             | Amazon.
             | 
             | If you think of the market segment as "non-plastic
             | computers that don't suck", Apple is doing quite well. And
             | now that Apple Silicon performance continues to outpace the
             | industry as a whole, this will continue.
             | 
             | The other segment is the "I like nice things" crowd. They
             | aren't price sensitive; they just like nice things and Macs
             | have that in spades compared to the vast majority of PCs.
             | 
             | [1]: https://www.apple.com/retail/storelist/
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | There is a big market of creatives/artists who basically own
           | an apple product as a decent chunk of their personality, for
           | good or bad. Ergo, they'll sell.
        
           | kube-system wrote:
           | More margin than ever now that they're just gluing ARM
           | processors together instead of buying Xeons from Intel?
        
           | phillco wrote:
           | Ecosystem.
        
           | raydev wrote:
           | What do you mean big enough? You don't think there's any
           | profits here?
        
           | jameshart wrote:
           | Are you saying this only targets prosumers because
           | professionals will wait for the M1 (M2?) Mac Pro?
        
           | madeofpalk wrote:
           | I would imagine:
           | 
           | - it's easy for them to make
           | 
           | - some of their customers need them
           | 
           | - prevents people switching to windows for high-even pro
           | machines, which would influence their other computer
           | purchases
        
             | btown wrote:
             | Yep, this is the requisite "hey Hollywood I know we haven't
             | thought about your studio needs in a while, here's a bone
             | that reminds you why Apple is the industry standard" play.
        
               | rsynnott wrote:
               | So, you'd think, and that's certainly what I was thinking
               | when watching the thing... but they teased a future Mac
               | Pro announcement at the end. This is a mid-level machine,
               | apparently (similar to the old iMac Pro, I suppose).
        
           | post-it wrote:
           | The indie professional market is more than big enough to
           | justify this. Small films have been able to roll some pretty
           | impressive vfx on desktop computers recently, and North
           | American creative types tend to love Macs.
        
         | newaccount2021 wrote:
        
         | aldanor wrote:
         | I really wish they focused on bigger displays too. For
         | music/video production having at least 2x27'' screen size is
         | crucial. But two is kind of weird because you can't centre any
         | app. And there is kind of too much...
        
         | yewenjie wrote:
         | Wait, how and why did Apple suddenly become cost-effective?
        
           | codyb wrote:
           | Apple's been fairly cost competitive for a while now. That's
           | an old trope, lots of their new stuff is similarly priced or
           | in some cases cheaper than their competitors.
           | 
           | Given the longevity and resale value, they make great
           | machines.
        
           | londons_explore wrote:
           | Apples stuff has been cost competitive since the M1 came
           | out... Although it's partly because there isn't much else in
           | the same performance envelope, so there isn't much to compare
           | to.
        
           | ggreg84 wrote:
           | When the M1 was released... a year ago...
           | 
           | You could buy a 900$ laptop with a better CPU than any laptop
           | out there. 20 hours battery life (almost 3x any other laptop
           | out there). Silent (no fans). With a great screen, a great
           | keyboard, lightweight, well built, etc.
           | 
           | Basically a machine that was more than 2x cheaper of
           | competing laptops at 2500 $ or more, yet had more than 2x of
           | everything.
        
             | newaccount74 wrote:
             | ... if you can live with machines that just come with the
             | bare minimum RAM and SSD. If you get the Macs with the same
             | amount of storage that the PCs come with, the $900 laptop
             | quickly becomes a $2000 laptop.
             | 
             | I wish I could get back all the time I've wasted helping
             | relatives deal with their Photos libraries and backups just
             | because they got the entry level machine with skimpy
             | storage...
        
               | mardifoufs wrote:
               | I've had an 8gb macbook Air m1, and it's honestly never
               | been an issue even for dev stuff since my workloads just
               | wouldn't run on my local machine anyway. It's much, much
               | less of an issue than on my Windows laptop with 8gb of
               | ram, too.
               | 
               | As for storage, yeah 240gb is probably not ideal for most
               | people but since I bought the air mostly as a lightweight
               | device I can carry anywhere instead of a workstation
               | (even though it's insanely powerful for what it is) it
               | does not really matter in my case.
               | 
               | (This is my first Mac so I was very worried of the pretty
               | limited ram since I had no idea how macOS deals with
               | memory, but if it's fine for me I'd say it's fine for
               | most normal/casual users)
        
               | newaccount74 wrote:
               | 8GB RAM is fine as long as you don't try running multiple
               | VMs or lots of docker containers. macOS is surprisingly
               | good at dealing with limited RAM thanks to memory
               | compression.
               | 
               | The small SSD is the bigger issue. If you use it as your
               | main machine you will fill it up quickly and people then
               | start doing stupid things like putting their Photos
               | library on a USB stick or on an SD card, and that's just
               | asking for trouble.
        
               | ghostly_s wrote:
               | How long did it take you to check the 'Optimize Storage'
               | box?
        
               | newaccount74 wrote:
               | That's a somewhat recent addition, and it does help
               | somewhat with the Photo library problem. It sucks if you
               | don't have a fast internet connection, though. It also
               | sucks if there's ever a problem with the photo library,
               | because then you don't have a backup anymore.
               | 
               | Maybe 240GB are enough for light usage if you store
               | photos in the cloud. I can only say that in my experience
               | 1TB is the bare minimum if I don't want to spend half my
               | time copying files around.
        
             | mhh__ wrote:
             | 2x of everything apart from storage, ram, available
             | software, ability to upgrade, ability to repair.
             | 
             | It was a fantastic product launch sure but it's not really
             | fair to say it was 2x better on all metrics at a given
             | price.
        
           | selimnairb wrote:
           | Apple has consistently been cost-competitive since at least
           | the Intel era, if you compare to mid- and high-end PC
           | hardware. Apple never has made entry-level systems. Also,
           | comparing to home-built doesn't really count because most IT
           | departments won't support custom PCs.
        
           | gtm1260 wrote:
           | Since M1 pretty much.
        
           | ohgodplsno wrote:
        
           | brimble wrote:
           | They have been off-and-on. They had a few notable price cuts
           | back in the twenty-teens that made them damned competitive.
           | At times they've been a rip-off but most of the "LOL look how
           | expensive Apple is" stuff achieves such large gaps by
           | comparing them to significantly worse hardware and calling it
           | "equivalent". Plus theirs is the only consumer phone and
           | computer hardware with a healthy used market, so you don't
           | take as big a hit on recoverable value as soon as you "drive
           | it off the lot".
        
         | MuffinFlavored wrote:
         | Not only that...
         | 
         | > 20-Core CPU
         | 
         | > 48-Core GPU
         | 
         | > 32-Core Neural Engine
         | 
         | for $3,999
         | 
         | is that kind of like... a bargain?
        
           | gowld wrote:
           | Maybe? "Core" is apple, and everyone else sells oranges, so
           | you need good benchmarks to compare.
        
           | dekhn wrote:
           | If you're an Intel/Windows gamer, or a Linux/Nvidia GPU
           | server user, no. But this is a tailored product aimed at a
           | distinct professional class, which spends heavily on the
           | latest hardware that boosts their productivity.
        
           | JohnTHaller wrote:
           | I have a 10-core CPU with a performance advantage of 23% over
           | an M1 Max in Cinebench R23 (AMD 5800x) and a 1,280 CUDA core
           | GPU (GTX 1060 6GB) that cost a little over $1,000 US total.
           | 
           | UPDATE - Sorry, I originally listed this as a 5900x by
           | accident. I need more sleep.
        
             | yborg wrote:
             | Your setup is also probably 5x larger and uses 100W more
             | power. It's a question of priorities.
        
             | neogodless wrote:
             | The 5800X is 8-core, while the 5900X is 12-core.
             | 
             | You may have misread the number of cores on the box when
             | you bought it!
             | 
             | If you go into task manager, how many logical threads are
             | there?
        
             | abakker wrote:
             | Which one?
        
             | e4e78a06 wrote:
             | Cinebench R23 is a worst case scenario for M1 because it
             | doesn't have high core utilization and sits in L2 cache. If
             | you look at a broader set of benchmarks (SPEC) then M1 Max
             | in laptop form is competitive anywhere from a 5800x to a
             | 5950x.
        
         | SZJX wrote:
         | > Bravo Apple. I'd love to see what they have in store for
         | designers and programmers next.
         | 
         | What would you say the programmers specifically need though. A
         | laptop instead of a workstation?
        
           | qbasic_forever wrote:
           | Beautiful high resolution and crisp text rendering. I want
           | looking at a dense page of code to look as beautiful and
           | comfortable as reading a magazine. A comfortable keyboard and
           | trackpad are a must too. Give me as much battery life as
           | possible--at least a day or more. Performance, memory, and
           | storage are less of a bottleneck these days and today's
           | higher end specs are generally good enough.
        
             | egypturnash wrote:
             | _I want looking at a dense page of code to look as
             | beautiful and comfortable as reading a magazine_
             | 
             | I am trying to imagine what a page of code laid out by a
             | professional designer would look like and I can hear a
             | million programmers screaming bloody murder in my head
             | about the thoughtful use of whitespace, proportional-width
             | fonts (even though they are ones chosen to clearly
             | differentiate between confusing characters like 1/I and
             | 0/O), and the occasional change in font size for... what
             | _is_ the source code equivalent of a subhead, anyway?
             | Comments?
        
               | AlanYx wrote:
               | >I am trying to imagine what a page of code laid out by a
               | professional designer would look like....
               | 
               | You'll probably love this paper:
               | https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.06030
               | 
               | Nicolas Rougier has also implemented a few of those ideas
               | in a series of packages for Emacs called "NANO Emacs";
               | the actual implementation goes beyond what's discussed in
               | the paper and is worth checking out.
        
               | alwillis wrote:
               | _I am trying to imagine what a page of code laid out by a
               | professional designer would look like and I can hear a
               | million programmers screaming bloody murder in my head
               | about the thoughtful use_
               | 
               | There are beautiful programmer fonts nowadays that look
               | amazing on Apple's high resolution screens.
               | 
               | There are several GUIs for Vim/Neovim that take advantage
               | of the GPU and the text rendering abilities of modern
               | computers in general and Macs in particular [1].
               | 
               | And once you get used to seeing your code this way, it's
               | hard to go back.
               | 
               | [1]: https://github.com/neovide/neovide
        
         | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
         | _> I 'd love to see what they have in store for designers and
         | programmers next._
         | 
         | We're not really their target audience. Back when they had a
         | rack server, they had something that looked good to us, but
         | we're not really the ones that will buy a maxxed-out Studio.
         | 
         | It's an interesting machine. It definitely is aimed at folks
         | that would get Pros, beforehand. With the hint dropped at the
         | end of the Studio presentation, I suspect that they may
         | announce some crazy Pro, in the coming months.
        
         | JohnWhigham wrote:
         | Jony Ive leaving was a massive improvement for Apple.
        
           | hughrr wrote:
           | This. So much this.
           | 
           | Getting what we need not what Jony says we needed.
        
             | kube-system wrote:
             | Jony contributed what he could. I think Apple is better off
             | for having had him for a period of time, but that time has
             | passed.
        
               | scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
               | This. He brought along the kind of design philosophy that
               | was very much needed in devices. But that philosophy
               | became the new normal, and pushing it to it's purest
               | level did not end up being what everyone wants.
               | 
               | Products and needs evolve and change. Saying bad things
               | about the man is nasty especially considering his gentle
               | nature. Especially that we really actually don't know who
               | is exactly responsible for what in that world.
        
         | drcode wrote:
         | "Creatives" don't want a stylus or touchscreen to do their
         | creative stuff?
        
           | wmf wrote:
           | Wacom
        
         | neor wrote:
         | They are doing a great job. 180 turnaround from the company
         | that wanted their products to look clean above usable.
         | 
         | Only downside to me is that in such relatively expensive
         | hardware they should have doubled all storage options. Starting
         | at 512GB for the entry spec and 1TB for the high end spec is
         | rather low.
        
         | whiteboardr wrote:
         | This.
         | 
         | I don't care if a laptop is a tad thicker, or the aesthetics
         | would allow the device to sit in a museum - Ive helped make
         | them desireable objects, the iPhone provided the scale and
         | momentum and Apple silicon in macs at last allows for focus on
         | actual usability. This set of kit will pave the way for a
         | revolution in how we think about computing.
         | 
         | Indeed, Bravo!
        
         | hughrr wrote:
         | Also the impressive things for me are it's actually really
         | cheap, as in bargain territory, and you don't have to piss
         | around with HP sales drones to actually get one like the Z
         | series.
        
         | rconti wrote:
         | It's insane how boldly (for Apple) they focused on ports and
         | cables. I can't remember a previous demo video that showed so
         | many ugly cables hanging out the back of the machine. They've
         | finally realized it's a selling point!
        
           | jollybean wrote:
           | On that kind of device it doesn't cost them much and those
           | features are more appreciated. It's not much of a war. On the
           | laptops it becomes a bit more of a design conundrum. I'd
           | imagine they have different leadership teams, and, Jobs + Ive
           | are both gone. So there's that.
        
           | ilamont wrote:
           | My jaw hit the floor when I saw USB A ports. If only it had
           | multiple HDMI ...
        
             | assttoasstmgr wrote:
             | And yet none on the front. So your shoebox full of thumb
             | drives are useless and you have to plug them in from
             | behind.
             | 
             | Just to be clear yes I know USB-C thumb drives exist but
             | they are next to useless because their whole purpose is to
             | shuttle files between devices. Devices that likely don't
             | have USB-C yet.
        
               | scns wrote:
               | I gifted a thumb drive with USB A on one side and USB C
               | on the other.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | just connect that USB-A hub you know you already have and
               | plug in all the USB-A thumb drives you can fit.
        
             | G3rn0ti wrote:
             | > My jaw hit the floor when I saw USB A ports.
             | 
             | Don't forget the headphone jack!
        
             | bowmessage wrote:
             | so brave!
        
             | runjake wrote:
             | They did better with the limited space they have -- they
             | included a bunch of multi-functional USB-C ports that can
             | be used with dongles for additional HDMI ports!
        
               | yupper32 wrote:
               | "With the limited space they have"? They chose how much
               | space they had to work with...
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | Because nobody outside hardcore computer nerds wants a
               | beige box tower with 14 drive bays sitting on their desk.
               | People want quite little boxes that gets work done
               | without having to have dedicated room for loud machines.
        
               | assttoasstmgr wrote:
               | Are you referring to the front panel which is about 3.5"
               | high x 7.7" wide and about 90% an empty blank face?
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | USB-C can also carry a DisplayPort link natively, and you
               | don't even need a dongle for that. Workstations don't
               | really care about HDMI, that's for TVs.
               | 
               | Not only that but with the Ultra variant, all of the
               | USB-C ports are thunderbolt 4 ports at 80gb/s, that's a
               | massive amount of IO.
               | 
               | (note that despite the number of ports - only 4 of them
               | can be running displays, plus the HDMI port gets its own
               | channel)
        
               | nicoburns wrote:
               | > Workstations don't really care about HDMI, that's for
               | TVs.
               | 
               | And people who only have HDMI cables! I was using display
               | port on my old MacBook, but I'm using HDMI on the new one
               | as I already had an HDMI cable, but not a USB-C to
               | DisplayPort one.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | brailsafe wrote:
             | What would you use multiple HDMI ports for? Do you
             | exclusively use HDMI only screens/tv?
        
               | scottkuo wrote:
               | Drive additional outputs to broadcast/production displays
        
               | ilamont wrote:
               | So I don't have to use a dongle for a second screen. They
               | break, come loose, and sometimes don't work with Apple
               | equipment.
        
               | johnmaguire wrote:
               | No need for a dongle. Thunderbolt/USBC-DisplayPort cables
               | exist.
        
               | runjake wrote:
               | I do this, and it supports 144 hz.
        
               | girvo wrote:
               | I do this, and sadly it won't do 4K at 144hz, at least
               | not with my Intel MacBook. Maybe the M1 can do it?
        
               | drorco wrote:
               | I haven't yet seen screens with USB-C support that have
               | refresh rates higher than 60hz, unfortunately.
        
               | johnmaguire wrote:
               | Why does the screen need USB-C support? I imagine you'd
               | use a Thunderbolt/USBC-DisplayPort cable or similar.
        
               | drorco wrote:
               | For cases when you have let's say a gaming PC and a
               | Macbook connected to the same screen. You want a USB-C
               | port so the Macbook will get everything from a single
               | USB-C port (power included), but you also want your
               | gaming PC to benefit from a high performance monitor with
               | high refresh rates on a DisplayPort/HDMI connection.
        
               | johnmaguire wrote:
               | Isn't this what a dock is for? Are you treating your
               | monitor itself as the dock? I still don't see why the
               | monitor itself needs USB-C support.
               | 
               | I use a Lenovo Thunderbolt dock for both my M1 16" MBP
               | and a Lenovo laptop running Linux. It runs 2 x
               | DisplayPort monitors, mouse, keyboard, and webcam.
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | yes, basically the idea is with a USB-C display the
               | monitor can be your dock
        
               | brailsafe wrote:
               | Ya agreed. I have a similar setup and would love an easy
               | was for both to use the same screen and peripherals
        
               | bni wrote:
               | USB-C to Displayport cable. I use a 144Hz gaming screen
               | with my Mac mini in this way
        
               | bonestamp2 wrote:
               | Which display are you using and does it wake up properly
               | when you wake your mac mini? I've had a problem with
               | displays that wake up normally with an intel based mac
               | but not with an M1 mac.
        
               | deagle50 wrote:
               | I'm also using a 144hz monitor (Samsung 28" G70A) with a
               | DP-USB-C cable. Wakes up normally and VRR works both with
               | my new MBP (M1 Pro) and with the previous MBA (M1).
        
               | nebula8804 wrote:
               | Is it an ASUS display? I have had multiple ASUS displays
               | exhibit this problem. I think I have replicated it with
               | other non-Apple machines as well.
        
               | brailsafe wrote:
               | Like others have mentioned, I've used displayport over
               | usb-c for high-refresh rate at high resolution. Atm I'm
               | using that for low-refresh rate 30" screen. Though I
               | believe LG and Dell screens do have USB-C directly.
        
               | cassianoleal wrote:
               | I have one of these [0]. Goes up to 144Hz, single cable
               | to hook up laptop to display and charge.
               | 
               | [0] https://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/lg-38WN95C-W
        
               | drorco wrote:
               | Cool. Does G-SYNC/FreeSync work with the USB-C port?
        
               | deagle50 wrote:
               | It does on my Samsung G70A with a DP-USB-C cable.
        
               | kjagiello wrote:
               | Check out Gigabyte M28U/M32U. 4k & 144 Hz. DisplayPort
               | over USB-C. Supports alt-mode.
        
         | caeril wrote:
         | > customers actually want
         | 
         | Almost. The hardware looks fantastic all-around. But the
         | hostility to running an actually-usable OS like Linux is a huge
         | stumbling block. Their users having to rely on the herculean
         | efforts of the Asahi project, et. al, is shameful for the
         | world's largest company.
        
           | thfuran wrote:
           | They're never going to try to make it easy to avoid their
           | ecosystem and that's not shameful for their company. If it's
           | shameful for anyone, it's the US regulators who have allowed
           | the largest companies in the world to continue vertically
           | integrating.
        
       | avar wrote:
       | The chassis seems to be around the right size for a DIY project
       | of combining it with an iMac G4 swivel display [1].
       | 
       | With a modern display it would make for a really nice 3rd party
       | accessory.
       | 
       | 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30576310
        
       | BonoboIO wrote:
       | The design of it looks a bit off to me. Like a cheap mac-ish
       | intel nuc designed by huawei with their matebooks.
       | 
       | https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17396818/huawei-matebook-...
        
         | neal_jones wrote:
         | Agreed
        
         | ghostly_s wrote:
         | I just don't get why they wouldn't turn those usb-c ports the
         | other way so they line up nicely with the sd slot....
        
           | the-golden-one wrote:
           | like this? https://twitter.com/thijsvlierop/status/1501295909
           | 275111425?...
        
         | brimble wrote:
         | It looks like they made a taller computer then cut it off 2/3
         | of the way down. Something about the proportions read as simply
         | _wrong_.
        
           | BonoboIO wrote:
           | But if it works, well its better than Jony Ive's ,,design is
           | everything, function is last" approach.
           | 
           | - Like the Mac Pro (2013) which was thermal limited even with
           | the launch configuration and could not be refreshed because
           | more power would mean less power through throttling
           | 
           | - Magic Mouse 2 which well u could not use while charging
           | 
           | - Macbook Pro Touchbar which is there because there was
           | nothing else to ,,inovate"
           | 
           | - MacBook Pro Keyboard which is so thin and lookin good that
           | the owner has to replace it every 6 month
        
             | brimble wrote:
             | I agree with some of this, but will note that actually
             | using a Magic Mouse 2 cured me of joking about the design
             | (I was entirely on the "LOL how dumb" train before that).
             | It wasn't an issue, in practice, and did keep me from just
             | using it plugged in all the time (which is what I tend to
             | do with other wireless things at my desk that have
             | integrated rechargeable batteries).
        
               | infinityio wrote:
               | I think the main issue with the magic mouse 2 is that
               | over time, as the batteries wear out, the effective life
               | of the mouse risks dropping so much that you may
               | eventually be unable to use it for a full work-day,
               | whereas the previous solution of AA batteries had
               | 'infinite' longevity - while it wouldn't be too much of
               | an issue when new, it harms the resale value
        
               | brimble wrote:
               | That makes sense as a legit problem. Reminds me of people
               | going "LOL WTF do you need 12 hours of battery life for?"
               | about the new M1 laptops. Well, for one, more battery
               | life is always nice, and for another, it'll be _really_
               | nice to still have 8 hours of battery life when the
               | laptop 's seen five heavy years of use without a battery
               | replacement. I could see a few-years-old Magic Mouse 2
               | getting to be kinda shitty, sure.
        
       | dmje wrote:
       | The clauses on those sentences don't scan.
       | 
       | Stunningly compact. Extensive connectivity. Outrageous
       | performance.
       | 
       | I mean, you've gotta either go
       | 
       | Stunning size. Extensive connectivity. Outrageous performance.
       | 
       | or
       | 
       | Stunningly compact Extensively connected. Outrageously
       | performant.
       | 
       | Anyway. Not sure anyone apart from me will care.
        
         | mkaic wrote:
         | Eh, reads fine to me. Helps break up the list so that people
         | don't just skim over it, I'd guess.
        
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