1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:14,200 With Apple transitioning their Mac lineup to run on their own homegrown silicon, what 2 00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:17,720 we've seen is a substantial miniaturization of their lineup. 3 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:23,240 Just look at the new iMac. It demonstrates just how far they are willing to slim things. 4 00:00:23,240 --> 00:00:27,040 It's a nice computer, but it calls into question the direction the company will take with 5 00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:32,640 their professional lineup. computers have been swirling, and they indicate that not even Apple's next hyper powerful 6 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:36,880 Mac Pro will be spared from the shrinking, and I think it's worth exploring what that 7 00:00:36,880 --> 00:00:43,160 could mean. 8 00:00:43,160 --> 00:00:47,320 The story of the two compact professional Macs from the company's history is relevant 9 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:51,920 to this discussion, because they weren't well received, and since the next Mac Pro 10 00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:55,720 will undoubtedly be smaller than the present one, it's possible that it could suffer the 11 00:00:55,720 --> 00:01:04,160 same pitfalls as those from the past. The two machines I'm speaking about are, of course, the G4 Cube and the 2013 Mac Pro. 12 00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:07,160 Remember those? Ugh. I do. 13 00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:11,800 They both had a lot in common, both introduced stunning visual designs unlike anything we 14 00:01:11,800 --> 00:01:17,880 expected from a computer before. And I'll never forget the retracting handle of the Cube, and just being mesmerized at 15 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:27,320 a cylindrical computer, these compact designs had to reimagine how a computer can be cooled. 16 00:01:27,320 --> 00:01:30,960 The G4 Cube was designed to be passively cooled by convection. 17 00:01:30,960 --> 00:01:35,160 This means the hot air captured by the heatsink would rise up, and cold air would rush in 18 00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:38,360 from the bottom to replace it. A clever design. 19 00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:42,600 But the more expensive Cube still didn't perform as well as the large and loud Power 20 00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:49,640 Mac. 2013's Trashcan Pro met a similar fate with its unified triangular heatsink and single 21 00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:56,080 fan. It proved to not be enough to cool a CPU and two GPUs, and eventually Apple put the Mac 22 00:01:56,080 --> 00:02:01,920 Pro into a service program. The other thing that graded professionals was that it offered little in the way of expansion, 23 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:05,560 unless you wanted to hang a cable octopus off the back. 24 00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:09,720 In a roundtable discussion with reporters in 2018, Apple explained that they recognized 25 00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:13,840 these past shortcomings, and a year later gave us this. 26 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:24,480 The 2019 Mac Pro. 27 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:29,560 Inverting back to the traditional tower form, it is a thermal beast and allows for a degree 28 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:33,800 of expansion and upgrade ability not seen in Apple since the 90s. 29 00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:40,360 There are 12 DDR4 slots for up to 1.5 terabytes of RAM, an optional 2-disk hard drive cage, 30 00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:45,600 easy to access Thunderbolt ports on top, and 8 PCIe slots that you can fill to your heart's 31 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:48,600 content. Want more NVMe storage? Slap that in there. 32 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:51,680 Need an HDX accelerator for Pro Tools? Just slide it in. 33 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:55,160 Need a capture card or playback card? Slap that in. 34 00:02:55,160 --> 00:03:03,000 The sky's the limit. Unfortunately, the sky has also been the limit for the power consumption of Intel's high 35 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:10,120 performance processors for the last several years. It's almost certain that the new desktop will use a larger, more powerful successor to the 36 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:14,720 M1 SoC that launched inside every new Mac since the end of last year. 37 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:20,040 Rumors suggest the upcoming Mac Pro's new chip will be called M1X and have up to 40 38 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:24,800 CPU cores. And with their current focus on performance per watt and energy efficiency, there's little 39 00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:28,560 doubt that the ARM Mac Pro will be smaller than the current one. 40 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:31,760 So what could that look like? 41 00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:36,960 Some unofficial renders show that it might channel the nostalgic feeling of the G4Cube, 42 00:03:36,960 --> 00:03:41,600 while others imagine it as a triple high Mac mini, which would be kind of boring. 43 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:46,240 Or it might even maintain the appearance of this beauty, though I hope that it has a single 44 00:03:46,240 --> 00:03:49,920 centrally placed handle at the top, like a suitcase. 45 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:54,200 None of these would be as interesting as if Apple were to give a completely new industrial 46 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:58,040 design heralding their new era of homegrown silicon. 47 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:02,520 Regardless, I worry that going with such a small form factor could limit the expansion 48 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:06,160 that has earned them so much praise from professional users. 49 00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:09,200 But maybe it can be shrunk without upsetting the community. 50 00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:16,320 Let's take a crack at it. To integrate any computer into the workflow, many pros need at least a couple of PCIe slots, 51 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:20,080 be it for a capture card, audio interface, or to add more storage. 52 00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:25,320 So in my opinion, the next Mac Pro still needs to have enough width and length to accommodate 53 00:04:25,320 --> 00:04:29,440 full size cards. We'll get more in depth on that in a minute. 54 00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:33,200 I also hope there remains easy access to the internals. 55 00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:38,400 Apple's Pro desktops have been always remarkably and ingeniously accessible, save for the now 56 00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:42,280 discontinued iMac Pro, which was a bit more of a nightmare. 57 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:46,800 So it should remain here. What about CPU upgradeability though? 58 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:51,160 Rumors point to a choice between a 20 core model or 40 core model. 59 00:04:51,160 --> 00:04:54,960 That sounds impressive today, but what about in another 6 years time? 60 00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:59,440 Back in the days of the early 2009 Mac Pro, it was not only possible to eBay a higher 61 00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:03,800 end chip later on down the road, but users found they could even flash the firmware, 62 00:05:03,800 --> 00:05:08,520 enabling support for the next generation of processors on their older machines. 63 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:13,600 So could Apple possibly offer SoC upgrades in the years to come? 64 00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:17,680 No, probably not. 65 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:23,080 On all M1 Macs, not only is the SoC soldered onto the logic board, but the system memory 66 00:05:23,080 --> 00:05:26,640 and even the storage are permanently installed in the same manner. 67 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:30,360 So it's more likely we'll see more of the same, making it a good strategy to purchase 68 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:35,280 the most powerful config you can afford so that your machine can keep pace with the ever-involving 69 00:05:35,280 --> 00:05:38,720 demands of your business for years to come. 70 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:41,720 The issue of RAM brings up a more interesting question mark. 71 00:05:41,720 --> 00:05:46,640 The new Unified RAM system in the current M1 Macs come in two possible configurations, 72 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:53,080 8 or 16GB. That's obviously not enough for many professional users, so the question is, how will Apple offer 73 00:05:53,080 --> 00:05:58,480 more? Or even crazier, whether there's space for a hybrid design with Unified RAM on the SoC 74 00:05:58,480 --> 00:06:04,760 and extra slots for DDR4 DIMMs. The integrated RAM is faster than anything you can plug in, but it's still nice to have 75 00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:08,120 the option to extend the lifespan of your machine. 76 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:12,680 The other big unknown is whether adding graphics cards will be supported, even if there is 77 00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:19,400 space to slot one in. Because right now, Apple Silicon can't even talk to external GPUs, and all of the graphics 78 00:06:19,400 --> 00:06:22,760 processing happens on cores integrated in the SoC. 79 00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:26,400 Apple has supported dual GPU setups before, either switching between them or using them 80 00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:31,080 in tandem for compatible workloads, but the latter has only been possible with two similar 81 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:36,120 cards, like an onboard Radeon GPU and a second one in a PCIe slot or Thunderbolt enclosure. 82 00:06:36,480 --> 00:06:40,320 Even if we assume it's going to have support for an adding graphics card, I'll eat my 83 00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:43,640 hat if it uses MPX. 84 00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:48,280 Of course, we also don't know whether we'll even need a graphics card. 85 00:06:48,280 --> 00:06:54,360 The rumors claim Apple is working on some huge integrated GPUs with 64 or even 128 cores 86 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:58,560 that could be multiple times faster than the current AMD cards that are available with 87 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:04,840 the 2019 Mac Pro. Still, I'd love to have the option to upgrade or supplement in the future, whether it's 88 00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:08,520 with a Radeon or some kind of Apple-designed accelerator. 89 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:14,520 Could look like something like the afterburner card. Which, like, who is it for? 90 00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:21,320 It just does ProRes decoding. I work at LMG and I can't even take advantage of it without really trying. 91 00:07:21,320 --> 00:07:25,200 Finally, let's talk about Apple's approach to I.O. 92 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:31,000 The current M1 line, particularly the iMac, has fewer ports and supports fewer external 93 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:34,040 displays compared to Apple's Intel-powered machines. 94 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:38,960 I hope their new Mac Pro gets at least the same ports from the 2017 iMac Pro. 95 00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:45,680 Four USB-C, four USB-A, one 10-gig Ethernet, one SD card reader, and support for more than 96 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:52,080 two monitors. Apple has demonstrated with this big boy that they do care about integrating into professionals 97 00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:58,840 workflows more flexibly. But by golly, this new ARM Silicon leaves so many questions open about how they plan 98 00:07:58,840 --> 00:08:07,520 on scaling the technology for those workloads. We still haven't even seen what a larger, more powerful MacBook Pro and iMac looks like. 99 00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:15,120 But those are pretty straightforward to imagine. With the Mac Pro, though, Apple's history of veering between two very opposite extremes 100 00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:21,720 makes me very interested to see if the company will be able to balance them. 101 00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:28,280 Thanks for tuning into this Mac Address. Now, I am aware there is a very fresh rumor that says that this Mac Pro is actually going 102 00:08:28,280 --> 00:08:31,120 to get a spec bump. Which is interesting. 103 00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:37,960 Imagine what we're going to actually see is kind of a transition period with a bit of overlap between the ARM Mac Pro and the Intel Mac Pro. 104 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:41,640 But I'm curious what you think. Make sure to like, subscribe, and comment below.