Apple Explains Why Its $6,999 Mac Pro Doesn’t Support Third-Party Graphics Cards

[Tsing]

Apple executives have offered an explanation as to why its new Mac Pro computer, which features seven PCIe expansion slots and Apple's new M2 Ultra SoC (system-on-a-chip) with 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine, doesn't include support for third-party graphics cards. "Fundamentally, we built our architecture around this shared memory model and that optimization," John Ternus, Apple SVP for hardware engineering, explained to Daring Fireball's John Gruber after the blogger asked whether there were technical barriers that led to the Mac Pro having slots that were aimed at compute rather than video. "And so, it’s not entirely clear to me how you bring in another GPU, and do so in a way that’s optimized for our systems," Ternus went on to say, pointing out that it simply wasn't a direction that Apple's engineers wanted to pursue. Apple's new Mac Pro, which is available beginning today alongside the new 15-inch MacBook Air and Mac Studio, starts at $6,999 but appears to cost over $12,000 when fully maxed out through its configurator.

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[Grimlakin]

Apple executives have offered an explanation as to why its new Mac Pro computer, which features seven PCIe expansion slots and Apple's new M2 Ultra SoC (system-on-a-chip) with 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine, doesn't include support for third-party graphics cards. "Fundamentally, we built our architecture around this shared memory model and that optimization," John Ternus, Apple SVP for hardware engineering, explained to Daring Fireball's John Gruber after the blogger asked whether there were technical barriers that led to the Mac Pro having slots that were aimed at compute rather than video. "And so, it’s not entirely clear to me how you bring in another GPU, and do so in a way that’s optimized for our systems," Ternus went on to say, pointing out that it simply wasn't a direction that Apple's engineers wanted to pursue. Apple's new Mac Pro, which is available beginning today alongside the new 15-inch MacBook Air and Mac Studio, starts at $6,999 but appears to cost over $12,000 when fully maxed out through its configurator.

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12k for a HEDT workstation isn't all that bad really. I've seen builds easily hit 40k.

But on the counter point not letting people have Expansion GPU's is a tuff pill to swallow. Especially considering what something like a 4090 brings to AI compute.

 

[Brian_B]

But on the counter point not letting people have Expansion GPU's is a tuff pill to swallow.

The SOC doesn't exactly have typical PCI ports / bridge chipset the same way x86 does. They did add a PCI interface to this one, but it's glued into the system as an afterthought and I can understand it not being aligned for graphics cards. I wouldn't be surprised if someone makes it work eventually just to see if they can, but it being glitchy/kludgey.

For a system that ~might~ sell 100k units total, I can understand not throwing the engineering at making stock x86 graphics cards work. I don't think you could officially upgrade the graphics cards in the trashcan edition of the Pro either, and even the Xeon cheese grater edition only supports GPUs that have driver support (i.e. the ones that have official USB-C/TB support)

That said, I bet USB-C/TB interface would drop in a graphics card just fine if you needed one. It has some obvious limitations, but it's officially supported:

Use an external graphics processor with your Mac - Apple Support

Learn how to access additional graphics performance by connecting to an external graphics processor.

support.apple.com

 

[Brian_B]

Also, this:

 

[LazyGamer]

stock x86 graphics cards

GPUs aren't dependent on the host system ISA; folks have gotten desktop GPUs to work with ARM SBCs, for example. I expect we'll see even more of this in the future, especially as there are multiple efforts beyond Apple looking to supply desktop-class ARM hardware.

 

[LazyGamer]

But on the counter point not letting people have Expansion GPU's is a tuff pill to swallow. Especially considering what something like a 4090 brings to AI compute.

Apple doesn't seem to be interested in pushing commercial workloads to Macs. I'll bet that what they're doing, which they'd expect their customers to be doing, is to run this stuff on a rack of Linux servers (if not a datacenter or three full).

 

[Grimlakin]

Apple doesn't seem to be interested in pushing commercial workloads to Macs. I'll bet that what they're doing, which they'd expect their customers to be doing, is to run this stuff on a rack of Linux servers (if not a datacenter or three full).

And that's great for enterprise applications, but early development is going to be based on locally ran.

 

[MadMummy76]

Why, because apple likes to take customers out behind to do unsavory things to them, and they are loving it. It is part of the apple experience, it's for their own good they will say. "We are F-ing you in the A, but it is for your protection!"

 

[Grimlakin]

Apple is making a intentional exit from desktop computing I think. This is just another step into that direction. Soon all compute from apple will be with some flavor of portable device running some flavor of a M series SOC.

 

[Dan_D]

Apple is one of the few companies I truly despise. Spending $12,000 on a system that won't allow you to replace the GPU is idiotic.