Apple Releases New M2 and M2 Pro Computers

[jim1960]

It strikes me as so odd that we've seen multiple updates to some computers in the Apple lineup but the Mac Pro is still sitting there with its Intel chip.

[kurth]

Originally Posted by jim1960

Just about every company does things like that. There's a current thread about the Izotope Spire Studio. Izotope is dropping the product and is going to drop support. The people who own one will either have to freeze themselves in place or add a paperweight to their collection. Does that mean Izotope is a bad company? I have old wps files that I can no longer open. Does that mean Microsoft should be avoided?

Tech moves fast, sometimes very fast. It's not always feasible to maintain compatibility with old tech. Perhaps compromises could be made to make it possible but old tech shouldn't be an anchor weighing down advancements and impeding the introduction of the best new tech possible.

I'm absolutely thrilled at the advancements in processing power Apple has made in recent years. This was no small leap forward. I rarely use the term "game-changer" but that's what these new Macs have been for a lot of people.

This isn't true imho. Most windows daws will even run on windows 7 as well as most nle's. Mixcraft can even be made to run on xp, as well as Ableton. And apple couldn've made an upgrade path for all ppc users , in fact they showed this with fcp 5.1. What they did was force alot of pros who were economically dependent on fcp, to buy new machines, or be forced to stay at 5. Imagine buying a ppc powermac for 3grand, and spending 2 grand on fcp and upgrades, a month before they announced a change to intel ? The only advantage osx has over windows is eyecandy, and they are slightly ahead of the power curve/pricepoint advantage. But intel/amd will catch up. However I will say at the pricepoint of a new mac mini basic at $6benjis, it would be a good investment for dual os studio. I even do that but with a gifted older macbookpro where I can run logic 9. Nearly all of my ppc macs sit in the closet or I use for mediaplayers. I do place the blame squarely on apple. However everybody has their own tolerance level.

[kurth]

Originally Posted by jim1960

Just about every company does things like that. There's a current thread about the Izotope Spire Studio. Izotope is dropping the product and is going to drop support. The people who own one will either have to freeze themselves in place or add a paperweight to their collection. Does that mean Izotope is a bad company? I have old wps files that I can no longer open. Does that mean Microsoft should be avoided?

Tech moves fast, sometimes very fast. It's not always feasible to maintain compatibility with old tech. Perhaps compromises could be made to make it possible but old tech shouldn't be an anchor weighing down advancements and impeding the introduction of the best new tech possible.

I'm absolutely thrilled at the advancements in processing power Apple has made in recent years. This was no small leap forward. I rarely use the term "game-changer" but that's what these new Macs have been for a lot of people.

This isn't true imho. Most windows daws will even run on windows 7 as well as most nle's. Mixcraft can even be made to run on xp, as well as Ableton. And apple could've made an upgrade path for all ppc users , in fact they showed this with fcp 5.1. What they did was force alot of pros who were economically dependent on fcp, to buy new machines, or be forced to stay at 5. Imagine buying a ppc powermac for 3grand, and spending 2 grand on fcp and upgrades, a month before they announced a change to intel ? The only advantage osx has over windows is eyecandy, and they are slightly ahead of the power curve/pricepoint advantage. But intel/amd will catch up. However I will say at the pricepoint of a new mac mini basic at $6benjis, it would be a good investment for dual os studio. I even do that but with a gifted older macbookpro where I can run logic 9. Nearly all of my ppc macs sit in the closet or I use for mediaplayers. I do place the blame squarely on apple. However everybody has their own tolerance level.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by jim1960

It strikes me as so odd that we've seen multiple updates to some computers in the Apple lineup but the Mac Pro is still sitting there with its Intel chip.

As of 4 days ago

https://talkingtechandaudio.com/blog...0David%20Lewis

Excerpt
The Mac Pro will be released in spring, and will be running macOS Ventura 13.3. Generally, version three of the macOS updates comes out around spring, so my guess is, the Mac Pro will be released with that update in mind.

But, as already mentioned, with this year’s resources, and attention very much being on the AR/VR headset, the Mac Pro, after all this wait, could feasibly come out via a press release. On the face of it, it seems little more than a chip swap, and nothing radically new at all.

[KevWind]

Mac world has an interesting bullet point
comparing the new M2 Mini pricing with the old M1 Mini pricing

WAS: M1 Chip with 8-Core CPU and 8-Core GPU, 256GB: $699/£699
NOW: M2 Chip with 8-Core CPU and 10-Core GPU, 256GB: $599/£649
WAS: M1 Chip with 8-Core CPU and 8-Core GPU, 512GB: $899/£899
NOW: M2 Chip with 8-Core CPU and 10-Core GPU, 512GB: $799/£849
WAS: 3.0GHz Intel Core i5 6-Core Processor with Intel UHD Graphics 630, 512GB: $1,099/£1,099
NOW: M2 Pro Chip with 10-Core CPU and 16-Core GPU, 512GB: $1,299/£1,399

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Yes and perhaps you know this but,,,, the Max Tech guys recommend upgrading the base model to the 512 gb SSD that they say is much faster and will last twice as long

Yes - when I said base model, I meant the base M2, not M2 Pro. I should have been more clear. I expect to add a couple upgrades like 1TB SSD & 16GB RAM to the system. I try to give them a little extra lifespan, otherwise they stop being useful to me too quickly.

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by kurth

This isn't true imho. Most windows daws will even run on windows 7 as well as most nle's. Mixcraft can even be made to run on xp, as well as Ableton. And apple could've made an upgrade path for all ppc users , in fact they showed this with fcp 5.1. What they did was force alot of pros who were economically dependent on fcp, to buy new machines, or be forced to stay at 5. Imagine buying a ppc powermac for 3grand, and spending 2 grand on fcp and upgrades, a month before they announced a change to intel ? The only advantage osx has over windows is eyecandy, and they are slightly ahead of the power curve/pricepoint advantage. But intel/amd will catch up. However I will say at the pricepoint of a new mac mini basic at $6benjis, it would be a good investment for dual os studio. I even do that but with a gifted older macbookpro where I can run logic 9. Nearly all of my ppc macs sit in the closet or I use for mediaplayers. I do place the blame squarely on apple. However everybody has their own tolerance level.

Well, let's be realistic. The reason Windows apps are more portable to older versions is because Windows machines are always x86 based machines. There's really little reason software shouldn't run (or at least crawl) on systems several generations older.

Apple has consistently chased better tech. They started with Motorola 68k, then when they saw those falling behind in power they made the move to PPC. Then they saw a brighter future with x86 & Intel, but Intel was unable to deliver on performance goals, so they moved it in house to their own SoC.

All that said, several major studios are still running Pro Tool 12 on cheese grater MacPros that are over 10 years old. So, there is no rule that says you have to upgrade. So many creative pros simply get a system setup so it works & is stable & then freeze it right there & just get work done for a decade or so before buying a new system. That's pretty good ROI.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

Yes - when I said base model, I meant the base M2, not M2 Pro. I should have been more clear. I expect to add a couple upgrades like 1TB SSD & 16GB RAM to the system. I try to give them a little extra lifespan, otherwise they stop being useful to me too quickly.

Yes I figured you meant the M2 which seems to be the real bargain
As as you mention above I used my 2010 Mac Pro right up until I got the iMac in Dec 2020 that I use now,, and could in reality definitely still be running it on Catalina without issue if I chose .... Actually I use the PCIe SSD drive's out of it for backup,, and have also use the HDD's (a 1TB and a 2TB) out of it, as back up for my back up and I agree blaming Apple for progressing is a bit unrealistic As Stevie Guitar Miller said "time keeps on ticking into the future" ---tic tock

[sdelsolray]

Some data:

Geekbench5 single core performance test:

M1 Max - 1727
M2 Pro - 1952

CPU Clockspeed:

M1 - 3.20 GHz
M2 - 3.48 GHz

[RPadTV]

Originally Posted by jim1960

Comparing similar Mac Mini and Mac Studio builds, you can get a Mac Mini with a 10‑core CPU, 16-core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine, 32gb ram, and 10gb ethernet port for $1799.

Nearly same specs on a Mac Studio Max (the difference being the 24-core GPU) would cost you $1999.

People doing video might still want the extra GPU cores but for anyone considering a Mac Studio Max for audio only, the Mini might be the better deal.

Memory bandwidth on the Mini is 200GB vs 400GB or 800GB in the Mac Studio. for certain types of work, that's a huge difference.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by RPadTV

Memory bandwidth on the Mini is 200GB vs 400GB or 800GB in the Mac Studio. for certain types of work, that's a huge difference.

It's only an important difference if you're doing things that will push the limits on the Mini. Most people won't come anywhere near the limit on the Mini. But yes, any purchaser has to look at their short and long term aspirations and decide how powerful they need/want their computer to be.

[RPadTV]

Originally Posted by jim1960

It's only an important difference if you're doing things that will push the limits on the Mini. Most people won't come anywhere near the limit on the Mini. But yes, any purchaser has to look at their short and long term aspirations and decide how powerful they need/want their computer to be.

yes, that's why i used the phrase "certain types of work." i don't know what anyone else in this forum does with or needs from a computer outside of music.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by RPadTV

yes, that's why i used the phrase "certain types of work." i don't know what anyone else in this forum does with or needs from a computer outside of music.

For the most part, it's either audio only or audio/video.

[keith.rogers]

My '17 iMac is more than enough for audio, heck the '12 Mini can do what I need in that realm. And the iMac works great for HD video, miles ahead of the (painfully slow) Mini in that area.

Given Apple's direction, I wouldn't buy Intel anything, great refurb price or not, now that their silicon is widely available and supported. It seems like almost any of the Mx chips are going to do audio well. Video is a whole 'nother ball of wax, though, and depending on your software and other resources, you can almost never have too many cores, and the faster the better. I'd be looking at the Studio Max for 4k and whatever is ahead, if that's important.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by keith.rogers

My '17 iMac is more than enough for audio, heck the '12 Mini can do what I need in that realm. And the iMac works great for HD video, miles ahead of the (painfully slow) Mini in that area.

Given Apple's direction, I wouldn't buy Intel anything, great refurb price or not, now that their silicon is widely available and supported. It seems like almost any of the Mx chips are going to do audio well. Video is a whole 'nother ball of wax, though, and depending on your software and other resources, you can almost never have too many cores, and the faster the better. I'd be looking at the Studio Max for 4k and whatever is ahead, if that's important.

I agree ... I do 4K video on my intel iMac but it does take some time to render, and the fans are noisy when doing so . (which is not a big for video but in fact after about 20 min. processing audio I can hear the fans ramp up )
That said I am guessing the the M2 Pro chip Mini would also be faster at 4k
What is curious to me is why even the new M2 MB Pros still have only a 1080 web came and not 4K given my old iPhone 10 s can do 30 fps 4K