The 2023 Apple Mac Pro with Apple Silicon - Thoughts from a Pro

3.5 years ago I deployed Apple's 7,1 Mac Pro Rack. Here's my take on the new machine as a Television & Film Music Professional.

0:00 Hallo!
1:09 Pre-ramble
1:43 What I'm running now
2:35 Are you going to drop everything and get the new one?
3:52 The Techno-crossroad
4:44 Form factor
5:25 Memory
6:25 GPU
7:09 PCI Express 4 - does it matter for audio?
8:45 Who is this machine for??
9:19 Why is there even a tower version?
10:39 is Apple out of their minds!?!?
10:47 if you're a Composer, Singer/Songwriter, Post-Pro Editor and or Mixer - what do you choose?
11:26 Is this just a proof of concept machine?
11:46 What about the Rack in a Server environment?
12:06 Conclusion - oddball in 2023?
13:07 Conclusion - what will I do?

[sampetrov]

This video is exactly as expected and one of the best, most pithy reviews from an actual professional who can provide perspective into this product line in its current iteration. As a film professional who works on set (and does video!), I wish I could provide a parallel niche video review, but Neil is generous enough to share his time and do one that's 90% of exactly what I would say anyway—so thank you, Neil. I've thanked you before and I'm sure will do it again for taking the time to actually make quality things for Pro's like us—unlike, uh, Apple.

Other thoughts:

- Your Mac Studio argument is compelling and my thoughts exactly.
- Proof of concept is a great way to describe it. I just wish they'd released this unit a year earlier so they met their apparently informal two year transition timeline and at least attempted to retain their facade of "catering to Pro's" (not that it was intact then, but they just keep missing the boat in every little action or inaction with the Pro market). They continue to fail almost every time in appeasing us (no surprise, but still disappointing).
- Love that you made the 10 second "chapter" just to say Apple's crazy with their wheels. Thank you for taking the time do that. ;)

Even if Apple forgets about us, you certainly don't. Please continue making this content because you're IMO the only worthwhile person covering these products since "YouTubers" buying the Mac Pro and pretending to know about them never actually hit the mark because they're obviously not the target market. It's always just clickbait and a sad attempt to emulate what you're doing with your channel. Oh yeah, and you actually have a job in the industry that gives you the credibility and experience to share insight rather than just clicking a benchmark app button and talking numbers for 20 minutes.

This is still one of the only channels I've ever commented on using my YouTube account. I just want to say I'm also astounded that a period of three years has already passed since the first round of incredible Mac Pro coverage on this channel. That's how I found you, and you're STILL the only channel I've seen who ever actually made a set of videos from a working professional perspective that covers the most recent releases of the Mac Pro product line. Please don't stop. We need you!

[TessaBury]

Almost can't believe it's been that long. Wow. You still are the platonic ideal of a "Pro User" from so many hypotheticals...

[TheDoubleBee]

When I heard the announcement of the new M-based Mac Pro, I legitimately first thought of you since I first came to your channel through the Mac Pro unboxing video. I was wondering what your thoughts about the new one were and, here we are — I'm all ears.

[alvinburrell]

Ever since the Apple announcement I was waiting to here your opinion as a real audio professional who uses the Macpro as intended. Totally on point; I think this is a holding device until Apple release their intended system.

[StarskiYall]

I remember watching you put yours in the rack when you got it. Currently I’m running a M1 Max studio ultra in my professional recording studio and I’ve got to say it’s been a rough transition. Finally getting to the point where I can almost switch to native mode in pro tools, but I still need to update a couple plugins. Crazy your template is over 300 gigs! That orchestral stuff takes a lot of memory.

[PWingert]

I love your comment on not changing hardware till you must. I know an agency here in Toronto on Church Street near Wellesley called Progress Place that has a 1999 iMac G3 that is still in production use. Thier are a social agency and it's used for script writing and some audio composing for specific community-based program where the clients have little to no computer skills and are producing programs for a radio show they are producing and performing podcasts weekly an monthly.

[stalktheowls]

A thoughtful video indeed. I have the 2019 Mac Pro and it has been a champ for audio production. I was waiting to see what Apple was going to introduce with the final transition to their chip on the Mac Pro, and sure enough the announcement was a bit underwhelming. I agree with your sentiment: use what we have until it is absolutely obsolete. I would switch to a fully loaded Mac Studio, but I invested in PCIe cards and I do not want to spend money on external boxes for them. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[Victinfien]

It's so nice to have someone from the pro audio side of things explain what we need for audio to everyone else because wee don't care about how fast this machine can render in after effects or how many 8k pro res streams it can handle or even high refresh monitors, how much ram and how many tracks, THATS IT!

[ReimuTukishiro]

A fellow composer here, and I am now working on a 28 core / 384GB RAM 2019 Mac Pro here. I have some mixed feeling on the new Mac Pro. For me, the memory is definitely not enough for media composers. My template now using 250G+ RAM so the 192G max of the new Mac Pro is not nearly usable for me. But on the other hand, I have the fear that they (and a lot more music production software company) may stop supporting Intel base Macs soon, because supporting two different CPU architecture will definitely be more expensive than supporting only one.

[arkbill]

I love this guy... can listen to him talk about tech all day

[drbowater]

I was hoping you'd make this video. Thank you.

[Nov.]

It’s very difficult to find well informed takes about this stuff from a studio musician standpoint. This is exactly what I needed as I was trying to figure out if there would be any benefit whatsoever for me paying 2-4K more just for pcie slots.

[peterbondmusic]

I think you summarized the issues with this new Mac Pro perfectly. That's the big question - "who is this new Mac Pro for?" The rumour is that they were going to put two Ultra chips in it which would have been 384 GB of RAM and double the power of the Mac Studio but weren't able to do it yet. That would have been better of course but what Apple really needs to do is figure out a way for more RAM and GPU expansion, the biggest reasons for Pros to get this machine other than the built in PCI slots...

[tapefive]

ok fine, thanks! Then the big question is - is there a higher latency when using a mac studio with an external pci chassis? (in my case for pro tools hdx and UAD pci)

[JonRob]

Thank you for the video. Was planning to go for a macstudio, you just confirmed my thoughts !

[d_lydian]

Thanks for your insights, your channel is a gem! :) I bought a Mac Pro 2019 for 1k and upgraded it to the 16 Core and 192 GB RAM, I'm pretty happy with it :)

[RTJ_Music]

Completely on point @NeilParfittMusic I just had a chat with my IT person, and he said nearly the same thing. Spending the extra money on the Mac Pro vs. the Mac Studio for composers like you and I would be futile at this point. If you are using at thunderbolt 3/4 PCIe Chassis to hold any additional cards it will save you in the long run. I myself and running M.2 SSD's for library storage and a RME MADI Card w/ a Ferrofish Pulse 16....Im just transitioning into spatial sound capability. Yeah...for those who are wanting to upgrade to the new architecture....Save yourself the money.

[casperes]

Important notes on PCIe. PCIe4 x8 is basically the same as PCIe3 x16. But; It's important to note the difference between the slot's connection width and the. actual assigned lane count. On the Mac Pro, both Intel and Apple Silicon, PCIe switching is used, since neither have enough PCIe lanes to fully provide all the slots simultaneously. But Apple Silicon has fewer PCIe lanes on the chip than the Intel Mac Pro did, so more switching is done. The configuration is as follows:
M2 Ultra (2x M2 Max Ultra Fusion together, die0 and die1)
die0: 8x (Internal SATA, Internal USB, I/O) + 8x for slot 6
die1: All 16x lanes divided among slots 1-5

So. If you fully max out the PCIe connection speed on both slot 1 and slot 2 at the same time, the effective bandwidth is actually x8 on both. They are both connected with x16 potential, but it is a shared connection to die1's PCIe lanes.

[camblackofficial]

I also heard the PCIE slots have limited bandwidth because of what the chip supports.

[KaleyDuke]

dude you were the first person I thought of after this Mac Pro announcement! thanks algorithm for bringing me here :)