Also, I’m curious and in case anyone that knows reads this comment:
Apple say they can’t get the performance they want out of discreet GPUs.
Fair enough. But yet nVidia becomes the most valuable company in the world selling GPUs.
So…
Now I get that Apples use case is essentially sealed consumer devices built with power consumption and performance tradeoffs in mind.
But could Apple use its Apple Silicon tech to build a Mac Pro with its own expandable GPU options?
Or even other brand GPUs knowing they would be used for AI research etc…. If Apple ever make friends with nVidia again of course :-/
What we know of Tim Cooks Apple is that it doesn’t like to leave money on the table, and clearly they are right now!
Theoretically they could farm out the GPU to another company but it seems like they’re set on owning all of the hardware designs.
I guess there are other kinds of scientific simulation, very large dev work, and etc., but those things are quite a bit more niche.
I think Apple is done with expansion slots, etc.
You'll likely see M5 Mac Studios fairly soon.
I think the hold up here is whether TSMC can actually deliver the M5 Pro/Ultra and whether the MLX team can give them a usable platform.
