A Bunch of Sites and Video Reviews of the Mac Studio and Studio Display and it is good


Stu Maschwitz has his post with speed tests. And Scott Simmons at the Pro Video Coalition has part 1 of Mac Studio for editing.

Scott Simmons has cables plugged in like Ido

9to5 Mac has a slew of reviews a swell as their own quick look by Chance Miller. And MacStories with it’s reviews roundup has a bunch more.

And I like the review from SixColors, because he has so many cables attached already which makes it seem much more real of a user, or at least one more like me.

So many of the early YouTube reviewers blow my mind, as their review space is so pretty. My office is not, most people would call it a pig sty (or maybe shar pei sty), but mine is used everyday and I have dogs. My wife would love to come in and clean, but I would never find anything. And it is especially messy now with me having a broken foot and all. Just blows my mind that their “work space” is so clean. I mean I have so many things connected to my mac it is a joke (2 thunderbolt 4 hubs and countless usb hubs). And just all the hard drives from work!

I so want a Mac Studio, but i also want to see what the MacPro is. I just don’t see how expandable it can be. Not chance of changeable RAM as it would be so much slower. Maybe it could have PCI, but not a graphics cards, so I doubt it.

And I have seen some people saying they can’t do the same thing with Ultra, so a 4×4 version would be seen as 2 processors, and then wouldn’t have double bandwidth and maybe not even double the ram, as it could only use the main bank, but lets hope that isn’t true.

I really hope that it has a dual Ultra, but I am not sure I could afford that anyway, so this could be my next machine.

PVC on Maxon Updating Red Giant Universe with M1 Support

PVC on the Maxon formerly Red Giant Universe Plug-ins having been updated to 5.1 with M1 Support and having replaced JavaScript with C++ for a more powerful and better Code Base.

I have used Red Giant Universe for years and think their whole suite is a must have. I use them literally on every project. I still wish Maxon still allowed you to have an installation on Laptop and Desktop, and even worse the Application Manager now signs out at least once a week, leaving renders with X’s in Premiere all the time. Honestly it was better when owned by Red Giant alone, but I still use the plug-ins all the time.

Apple released macOS 12.3 2 days ago and this article at MacStories talks about Universal Control

John Voorhees at MacStories had this excellent article on Universal Control.

Personally I am not sure I will ever use it, thought it sounds very cool. The thing is I currently run 2 27″ monitors, an iMac Pro and a second display, and for an possible Mac Studio I have been considering moving up to 2 Ben Q 32″ displays. As it is, I have no room to fit my iPad on my desk and will have less with bigger monitors, still would be nice if I was running just one monitor.

With the Mac Studio the iMac Pro is dead, and what is the MacPro?

So we all know Apple has announced the soon to be shipping Mac Studio and 27″ Studio Display. And they said there is only one more machine, the Mac Pro, so the iMac Pro is officially dead (though it would be pretty easy to use this new display to make one), but the nature of the Mac Studio makes me wonder what will the Mac Pro be.

The last Intel Mac Pro is machine that should be all about expansion, with so many pci slots and thunderbolt ports, but Apple never upgraded the processors or even much in the way of new video cards. It was made to be expandable but Apple was really using it as a stop gap, so they never did anything to expand it.

And now we have Apple Silicon, which has proved itself to go toe to toe with anything Intel or AMD can offer at lower power usage. And the Pro, Max and now Ultra also include hardware accelerated Prores built in (it was a pci expansion card for the Mac Pro) to make them video powerhouses.

So do we need PCI anymore? I would have said so while I still had my old Cheese Grater Mac Pro, but this basically a head unit, and you expand with Thunderbolt (6 on the one with the M1 Ultra). And since my cheese Grater died and I moved to an iMac Pro I have been mostly happy (sure it is currently unable to shutdown unless I force it to power off, but that isn’t too bad until I move to M1). Thunderbolt 3/4 has been pretty incredible, with my main complaint being a lack of pass-through on so many peripherals.

Honestly my only real complaint with the studio is only 2 standard USB 3.1 ports, and that is because I use a wired ergonomic keyboard and mouse and like them attached as close to my mac as possible, as I have many usb hubs further down my chain (after 2 Thunderbolt 4 hubs and a Thunderbolt 3 hub) and also a 4 drive JBOD usb 3 housing with my itunes library.

So will Apple make another expandable Mac Pro?

After seeing the Mac Studio, my answer is no.

Since we know the Mac Pro will be doing to the Ultra what the Ultra M1 is to the Max, and that is doubling it, so it will be 4 M1 Max’s with up to 256 GB of RAM, and 128 core GPU. And I would love that, but the price will be that much higher. At least $2000 more than the $3999 Ultra but maybe $4000, and probably $2000 more fore the upgrade to to 128 core GPU, so I would guess $8999 and up to $10999 with the top chip and GPU, though they could just make it $9999.

And I would bet it is twice as big as the Studio with that many more ports, at least 4 more thunderbolt and maybe 2 more USB A, and maybe even a second 10GB Ethernet port to match the old cheesegraters 2 Ethernet ports.

And that would also mean likely a 1600GB/s Memory Bandwidth, doubling the Ultra’s, which would be insane.

What I would love of that, is the 128 core GPU and 8 ProRES Encode Decode Engines! If only Apple didn’t charge so much for their SSD’s ($2200 for the 8 TB).

With the bigger enclosure they could add space for a spinning hard drive, but they won’t, that is what Thunderbolt is for.

I think with the Mac Pro we are seeing what the future of the Mac Pro will be, and I so want one, but am not sure I can afford one, but I could afford a Studio so is there a point to even waiting?