Marco Arment

Yeah, you can gang together a bunch of Mac studios, but basically local models will use every ounce of computation and memory you could possibly throw at them.

The Mac Studio is great, but it's a plus size Mac mini.

It's not that big.

with the new SOIC-MH chiplet architecture, where Apple can do separate dyes and put them into things, they're now able to make chips that are bigger than they used to when they would take the M-whatever-max, which was close to the reticle limit, close to the biggest chip that they could possibly make, and they would take two of those and combine them and call it an Ultra.

And it's like, well, there's no point.

If the Ultra fits in the studio, there's no point in ever having...

anything other than the studio because that's the biggest chip we can make but now with the cpu and gpu at least being separate the cpu can be as big as an m4 max or whatever the gpu can be as m4 max and you can combine two of those and now you've got a monster chip but guess what you cannot put that monster chip inside a max studio because it can't dissipate the heat so

Why does Apple still need something, whether it's a Mac Pro or whatever, something bigger than the Mac Studio?

Because they're leaving computation on the table.

They can make, it is possible with the current technology we've seen in the M5 Pro and Macs to make a chip that is too hot to fit in the Mac Studio.

Now, obviously, if they ship a chip in the Mac Studio, it's not going to be too hot to fit in the Mac Studio.

But they're also not going to plan and design and build the chip that would be too hot.

But they could.

You could make it bigger, faster, hotter.

Why would you make it bigger and hotter?

Because it will do more computation.

like it will be faster it will hot you could put more memory on it like you need a bigger case that can dissipate more heat just for the cpu gpu stuff in their current plans no slots no third-party gpus no expandable memory no none of that just basically something bigger than the mac studio and that is my argument maybe i'll write a post about it someday but probably not because i'm old and tired um

that you know the case for a true mac pro successor they did they made it the 2019 mac pro was amazing it fulfilled everything that it needed to fulfill but that was a different era in the current era there is still a place for a mac that is more powerful than the mac studio because the mac studio it's got its own little thermal corner and it has amazing capacity and it can cool basically the biggest chip apple could make with like the m3 ultra

But now I believe Apple has clearly the capability to make a chip that is more powerful but too hot to fit in the Mac Studio.

And where are they going to put that?