I am probably the minimal target market for the mac pro m2 ultra. I am an artist and I do a lot of 3D rendering. I think it's a great price and I would love to own one, but I wouldn't even consider it unless it had support for Nvidia GPUs. Good GPU-based 3D rendering engines need CUDA. Even with the ones that don't, GPU rendering on a 4090 is 4x-5x times more performant than on an M2 Max, and building my own PC allows me to have multiple of them. Also Octane, the rendering engine in their demo, is trash. Specifically, it's fine for fancy titles and cartoons but terrible for realistic renderings.
Also, I still have a chip on my shoulder about Apple failing to update Mac Pros for about a decade and then rubbing salt in the wound with their pathetic trash can. It would take A LOT to get me back after that BS. Moving to Windows was a horrible experience and they gave me no choice.
Lastly, VFX software is heartily embracing Linux these days and I'm loving it, but I did have to invest in a KVM switch system and 10Gbe network so I can comfortably run Photoshop and Substance on a separate Windows machine.
> I am probably the minimal target market for the mac pro m2 ultra. I am an artist and I do a lot of 3D rendering. I think it's a great price and I would love to own one, but I wouldn't even consider it unless it had support for Nvidia GPUs.
Please don't get me wrong, but when I said that Apple seemed to have narrowed their target audience to the point where I was confused who the target audience even was - I was taking stuff like your use case into account when I said that!
For my own personal use cases? Ehh. I don't need a $7000 Mac Pro. A $2000 Mac studio would suffice, but it doesn't do the one thing I wish any of these machines did - and that's accept a bunch of m.2 NVME SSD cards!
Honestly I always thought a "more pro" laptop would be one where you could open a door on the bottom and have a couple of m.2 slots.
Anyway, the last Mac Pro that I really would've fit in the target audience for was the original. Those were great. I have a trash can because I always loved that design and got an incredible deal on one. I'll probably pick up one of the last intel ones if/when I find a killer deal on one.
I ended up just switching to building my own PC desktops and using the Mac Pro for things that I prefer using a Mac for.
No idea if the operating system will support nvidia graphics cards on arm.
However, even if it does, the mac pro only has one 8 pin power connector and two 6 pin connectors.
The 4090 needs a 16 pin input, and I've only ever seen adapters that convert 2x8pin to 16. Maybe you could get one card running, but any more than that and you will need some kind of hacky external power supply setup.
I think it's ruled out by the fact that Nvidia would need to release macOS drivers, and there is no realistic chance of them doing so without Apple's support.
Also, I still have a chip on my shoulder about Apple failing to update Mac Pros for about a decade and then rubbing salt in the wound with their pathetic trash can. It would take A LOT to get me back after that BS. Moving to Windows was a horrible experience and they gave me no choice.
Lastly, VFX software is heartily embracing Linux these days and I'm loving it, but I did have to invest in a KVM switch system and 10Gbe network so I can comfortably run Photoshop and Substance on a separate Windows machine.