In the mid 20th Century, Martin Gardner wrote a series of articles for Scientific American. His column was called "Mathematical Games"; the content was less math and more puzzles, riddles, and brain teasers. One such brain teaser went something like this:
"Assume that there are unstoppable cannon balls. These cannon balls are different from the normal variety in that once shot from a cannon, they do not stop. They push aside any object in their way. Also assume that there are immovable posts. These posts are different from the normal variety in that they do not move, for any reason. Now, what happens when an unstoppable cannon ball strikes an immovable post?"
Readers of Mr. Gardner's columns had to wait for answers, which appeared in the magazine's next issue. I won't make you, dear readers, wait that long. The answer to the riddle of the unstoppable cannon ball and the immovable post is simple: they cannot exist together. If one has an unstoppable cannon ball, then by definition the universe cannot have an immovable post. Or, if one has an immovable post, then again by definition one cannot have an unstoppable cannon ball.
While that answer may be disappointing, it has a certain wisdom. That wisdom may help Apple.
With the introduction of the M1 and M2 processor lines, Apple has entered into the realm of brain teasers. They don't have an unstoppable cannon ball or an immovable post, but they have built similar things in their product line.
The problem for Apple is the Mac Pro computer. The Mac Pro is Apple's premium computer; it sports the best processor, the fastest disks, the speediest memory, and -- of course -- the highest price tag. But it has one thing that other computers in Apple's product line no longer have: the ability to replace components. The Mac Pro is the only computer that let's the user replace memory, add disks, and add GPU cards. Apple computers (not phones, not tablets) in the past have allowed for upgrades. My vintage Apple Powerbook G4 allows one to replace memory, disk drives, and battery. The original Macbook allowed for the same.
Over the years, Apple changed their products and gradually removed the ability to change components. Today's Macbook laptops and non-Pro Mac computers are all fully encased; there is no way to open them and swap components. (At least not for the average user.)
The M1 and M2 system-on-chip processors make upgrades or changes impossible. Everything is on the chip: CPU, GPU, memory, storage, and more.
The benefit of the everything-on-one-chip design is performance. When components are housed in separate chips (such as CPU in one, memory in another, and GPU in yet another) then one must provide connecting wires. These wires (or traces on the system board) run from one component to the next. Driving the signals across these wires requires extra circuitry - dedicated transistors to raise the voltage of signals from the on-chip levels to the levels for the system board. Corresponding receiver circuits adapt the signals from board-level voltages to on-chip voltages. Each of those drivers and receivers slows the signal. (It's not much, but at the frequencies of today's computers, those small delays add to significant delays.)
The distance from one component to another also causes delays. Again, each delay is small, but over the billions of operations, they add up.
Which brings us back to the unstoppable cannon ball and the immovable post.
The older designs with discrete components are the immovable post. By itself, this is not a problem.
With the system-on-chip designs of M1 and M2, Apple has built, essentially, an unstoppable cannon ball. They have left the universe of swappable components and entered the universe of system-on-chip.
You cannot have both. You cannot have a computer that has all components on a single chip, and still allows for pieces to be upgraded.
Now, you can have some computers in your line with swappable components, and others with system-on-chip designs. In that sense, you can have both.
But you cannot have a single computer with both. A computer is either totally integrated or it has replaceable components. Keep in mind that the total integration design has the much better performance.
Apple wants its Mac Pro to have replaceable components and the best performance of the line. Apple wants the Mac Pro to be the top of its product line, with the best performance (and the priciest of price tags). I don't see a way to make this happen.
The performance of Apple's M2 Ultra processor is good. Really good. Better than the old, Intel-based, swappable component Mac Pro. A new, Intel-based, swappable component Mac Pro (using the latest processors and memory chips) could be faster than the old one, but not by much. It *may* be a little faster than the M2 Ultra, but it won't be *much* faster. It certainly won't be the flagship product that Apple wants.
Apple can build computers based on the M1 or M2 processor, and they will have top performance, but they won't have replaceable components. (The unstoppable cannon ball.) Apple can build computers with replaceable components (either Intel or AMD processors, or discrete processors based on the M1/M2 CPU) but they won't have the performance. (The immovable post.)
The idea of a top-tier computer system with replaceable parts is now a thing of the past. It probably has always been a thing of the past, as high performance computers have always integrated as much as possible. The notion of replaceable parts came from the hobbyist market and the original IBM PC, which wisely traded performance for flexibility. In the 1980s, when we had a poor understanding of what we wanted from computers, flexibility was the better choice.
Today, we have very definite ideas about our computers. We don't need to experiment with different video cards and memory configurations. We don't need to add network cards to some but not all computers. (Our manufacturers also have much better processes, and computer components are much more reliable. Computers run, and we have little need to replace a failed component.)
Apple could offer a Mac computer that has replaceable parts. It would be a low-end computer, not the high-end Mac Pro. I suspect that Apple will not make such a computer. It would be more expensive to produce, have a larger support effort (customers making mistakes and asking questions), and have limited appeal in the Apple fan base.
But Apple cannot build a high-end Mac Pro with replaceable components. It won't have the performance, and the Mac Pro is all about performance.
I think that Apple will build a Mac Pro, but with the "Extreme" variant of an M2 (or possibly M3) processor. The Mac Pro will be the only computer in Apple's line with the "Extreme" variant; other computers will use the plain, "Pro", "Max", or "Ultra" version of its processors. The new Mac Pro won't have replaceable parts, but it will have superior performance. People may be surprised, but I won't be one of them.
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