Macworld on Apple Silicon Mac Pro

Jason Snell at Macworld has an article, Forget Everything you know about the Mac Pro which is speculation on Apple Silicon.

Of course we know some, like a bigger version of the M1 Max with more cores and more graphics cores and more memory.

And of course that means a smaller box than the current Intel Mac Pro.

And of course less expansion, because it is unlikely to have PCI slots especially since it doesn’t need an afterburner since it is built into the processor now, and only thunderbolt for expansion.

So really we are not saying anything new here. And sure it is all speculation.

I personally hope for more storage options. It would be great to have at least 2 banks of raided SSD’s, as I am sure there won’t be any room for spinning hard disks (though I would love a bank of 4, but am sure that will need external needs).

Honestly the New MacPro will likely be pretty damn small, but with some fans to cool the processors down for better performance.

Larry Jordan did an Apple Motion Speed Test and it is slower on the new 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro than a 2017 Intel iMac

Larry Jordan did a speed test of Apple Motion on Intel Vs. Apple Silicon and Apple Motion got slaughtered.

Now I don’t think this has anything to do with the hardway, but more not been working on the code for Motion, instead focusing on Final Cut, but it is disturbing since it is pretty much as shared graphics engine between the two. And interestingly it gives more perspective on AVID being so slow on updating for M1, because you obviously need to really update the code to make it faster, and if even Apple is slow to update, then how can you expect 3rd parties to be fast (with the exception of Blackmagic who could not be faster on their updates).

Let’s hope Apple gets on this and updates the Motion codebase, as for me the best features of FCP are what Motion can do.

9to5Mac is saying Apple Silicon Mac Pro will be less upgradable than 2019 model, which only makes sense.

Ben Lovejoy over at 9to5Mac is reporting that they are hearing that the new Apple Silicon Mac Pro will be less upgradable than the current Intel version.

And this seems like a pretty big duh, of course.

The Apple Silicon MacPro will have to set itself apart with impressive CPU and GPU power as you are not going to be able to add either of these and I am even doubtful of PCI support. And I doubt there will ever be external GPU support through Thunderbolt on M1 Macs either, unless apple ever figures this out for their own hardware, but likely they would just like you to buy a new machine.

I am tending to doubt their will even be additional bays for RAM or Hard drives, though with a likely dual or quad M1 MAX, it will certainly be larger than a Mac Mini and need more cooling, but I doubt it will need to be too much bigger.

I would like to see more Thunderbolt ports though. The 4 Thunderbolt Ports on my iMac Pro are kind of a joke, and the MacPro has more and the video cards also add 4 additional ports, so 8 or more thunderbolt ports would be awesome (and 12 would be better, or at least 8 thunderbolt and 4 USB.

And maybe the ability to have 2 raided hard drives for video, but with the prices Apple charge for SSD hard drives, that would cost a fortune, but it would be great for video editing.

Any which way it will be the raw processing power of the chips and the included ProRES accelerators that really makes this machine rock and roll for video editors.

AVID updated for Monterey 12.1 and Apple Silicon M1, but not natively

Yes AVID has finally added Monterey Support 12.1 as well as M1 Support in AVID Media Composer. Of course M1 support is only through emulation, it is not a native app. Amazing how Black Magic Designs and Adobe have been able to release true M1 support so much more quickly. And getting rid of Dongle support on Mac doesn’t seem like a good idea either.

You would think it would be so much easier at this point, but AVID is still so slow to respond. I mean there won’t be Intel Macs at all soon. Come on AVID, get on the ball. I know they are always slow with updates, but come on. And yes I know that AVID has to have systems that work on so many systems to keep going, but if you get a new license you only get recent versions anyway.

Honestly even with all the recent updated whenever I get on AVID I feel like I have stepped into the past and not in a good way. Even getting footage from DaVinci Resolve is not as simple as it is with Premiere. I know backwards compatibility, but AVID users really need to try out Premiere Pro with Productions and a single compression format (like ProRES) and see how well Premiere runs.

Chance Miller at 9to5Mac is reporting that TSMC will begin pilot production of 3nm chips in 4th Quarter 2022

Chance Miller is saying that TSMC begins pilot program of 3nm chips, could be used in 2023 iPhones and Macs.

This will be huge for Macs if it happens, because this means more efficiency for the same power wattage and more efficiency, and though it won’t be till 2023, it could be major for the new Pro Macs with smaller chips making less heat, since the likely multiples of the M1 Max and M1 Pro will certainly create more heat.

MacRumors on Intel Alder Lake Chips faster than M1 Max, but more power hungry

MacRumors is reporting on the first geekbench reports of the 12th Generation Alder Lake Core i8-12900K 16 core chips, which score 18500 on geekbench vs 12500 for the M1 Pro and M1 Max, though at a much higher power draw.

So about 1.5 times as fast, which means a high Intel would whip the Apple Silicon on Multi-Core performance, though I doubt it’s built in GPU would be faster, though a discrete GPU certainly would.

Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac on MacBook Pro for video editing and everyday use

Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac has posted his “MacBook Pro Diary: M1 Max video editing is a breeze, but everyday use impresses me, too“

So far it does look like everyone is pretty blown away by the M1 Max performance, so I can’t wait for an iMac Pro and a MacPro based on Apple Silicon. I do still wish they would allow external GPU’s, but I doubt that is in the future.

Scott Simmons at ProVideoCoalition has posted part 2 of his 16 inch Apple MacBook Pro M1 Max review for Editors comparing it to an iMac Pro

Scott Simmons at ProVideoCoalition has posted part 2 of his M1 Max 16 inch MacBook Pro Review for Editors this time comparing it with an iMac Pro.

Very impressive results, especially since i have an iMac Pro, though I did get the Radeon Pro Vega 64X 16GB which might get a tiny tiny bit more performance.

My hope for the Apple Silicon MacPro keeps growning, though it will certainly be expensive, especially if it is basically 2 M1 Max chips tired together (i know it is more complicated than that).