Apple announced the Mac Studio, and it fits in a similar spot as the modular MacPro. But it's a good thing the Mac Studio isn't following in those footsteps.
Apple announced a new desktop at its 2022 spring event: The Mac Studio. It’s the first time Apple has paid any mind to desktops targeted at creative pros in more than two years, and it highlights one of the biggest shortcomings of Apple’s last attempt, the Mac Pro.
It’s a great concept, but it hasn’t exactly held up. Apple seemed to abandon the idea by mid-2021 before introducing a range of new MPX modules for AMD’s latest Radeon Pro graphics cards. Users can always slot in their own PCIe cards, too, so you can use a graphics card you like or a PCIe expansion card . PCIe support certainly helps the Mac Pro, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a modular machine.
The flagship Radeon W6900X MPX module will run you $6,000. That’s that’s the same price as a Mac Studio with an M1 Max AND a Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra. A Radeon Pro Vega II MPX module costs more than a Mac Studio with the M1 Max, and that GPU is coming up on three years old. The benefit of a machine like the Mac Studio is that it doesn’t require all of the extra work, and it’s much cheaper as a result. You can spend tens of thousands of dollars on a Mac Pro for the opportunity to overpay for upgrades down the line, or you can save a lot of money and headaches by buying a machine that has everything already included. With Apple, at least, that closed box costs significantly less.
The idea of a modular PC has a fundamental flaw — everything needs to plug into something. That’s something we’ve seen time and again with machines like the Framework Laptop. You may be able to swap in a new GPU or PCIe expansion card, but you’re still limited by the motherboard and processor you pick in the Mac Pro.