Quinn NelsonI am the weirdo that spent $7,000 on Apple's new Mac Pro and after a month of testing it, I think lots of people are missing the point. Check out my full review on Apple's most capable computer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tucbrkWxmNA
YouTube
Stephen@snazzyq The bit about everyone using Thunderbolt was the most interesting part. Apple's years of neglect of the Mac Pro lead to Thunderbolt taking over. Now I wonder if Apple Silicon may spart a return of PCIe
Don Osborne@Avendor @snazzyq From the video, it seems like the speed of Thunderbolt has ALLOWED the externalization of these IO boxes/cards rather than forcing them into it. Additional connectivity to those external boxes is a feature and being able to connect them to a Macbook Pro I’m sure widens the market for them as well.
Daron@intastella @Avendor @snazzyq Yes, this is accurate. Many external audio processing units don't need an insane amount of bandwidth for very high fidelity recording. Some models are even sold as USB3 or Thunderbolt. Having more bandwidth really only lets you record more tracks at once, but at a certain point you will be limited by physical space in the room. It's not practical to record 100 mics at once in a 500sqft recording studio room.
Fair points! I know almost nothing about that industry so this is very good to know. I suppose they are all effectively one cable thunderbolt devices that sit in server racks.
If PCIe cards aren't helpful anymore then I suppose the only remaining benefit to the Mac Pro is that it's rack mountable? At that point Apple could just bring back a 1U or 2U chassis and be done.