Didn’t they announce d the two year transition to Silicon at WWDC 2020? We’re past that two year transition by that reckoning… and given the pandemic and all the other stuff goign on I think the 2 year transition is doing well to be as far along as it is…
I'm in the same boat and run a small motion graphics/3D animation studio and it's all about the GPU for me. Although we use render farms for final renders, it makes such a difference having powerful Nvidia GPUs to work with. I'm still impressed with what Apple has managed to do with their iGPUs but if they supported Nvidia GPUs it would be a game-changer.
I recall them saying "about" two years, as well. Spring 2023 would be easy to justify as "about" two years, especially if the only product that takes that long is their lowest volume Mac.
Also I think the longer the 'gap' between the announcement of the Intel Mac Pro in 2019 and the Silicon Mac Pro the better... I know a fair few folks who own Intel Mac Pros and aren't massively impressed that a MBP is now a more powerful machine and cost half the price...
Are there real consequences? Realistically no., but making the announcement means that Apple have technically kept to the 2-year transition commitment they set themselves, and an announcement along with a "shipping in 6 months" caveat lets interested users plan for the purchase.
Perhaps that’s what we’ll get in October… The Trashcan was so late to the party that the industry had moved on, but many people bought them just because they were better then their old Mac Pros… But the Trashcan Mac Pro really hurt the pro market and I know so many places and people that jumped over to PCs when the Trashcan was announced, just purely because of the lack of upgrade-ability. The 2019 Mac Pro addressed that with a return to that premise… but not the whole system on a chip hangs a massive question mark over what the 2023 Mac Pro will look like as far as being able to upgrade it… and I do wonder if it’s this side of things that has stopped it being released before now?
Yeah, I was just wondering about what that 2 year timeline means to Apple given that the Mac Pro is such a small piece of their business. I suppose it speaks to their commitment to the Mac platform in general, even for those who aren’t in the target market for the Mac Pro. (I also had forgotten that they had previously announced Mac Pros much further out than your typical Apple product.)
The M1 can drive 2, right? One via HDMI and one via Thunderbolt / USB-C? So Maybe an M2 Pro would possibly drive 3 (1 HDMI / 4k, 2 USB-C 5k or 6k), based on what the M1 Pro MBP can drive.
That's what I'm hoping. I know there are hacks to let an M1 drive many monitors, but the # of screens this thing can drive is what decides whether I can go with the hypothetical M2 Mac Mini Pro or have to pay the Mac Studio premium.
Yeah I'm in a similar boat. It's one of those deal-breakers on the current mini and iMac for me. I wouldn't mind a Studio, but yeah I might be able to save a few hundred bucks if I can get a 32gb Mx Pro Mac mini that can drive a couple of 5k displays at least.
