Abandoning the common slot/sodimm design also lets them play with the channel configuration, which they'd need to do to achieve the bandwidth they claim for the Pro and Max chips.

Building on the M1 Mac is probably starved for memory, linkers have an appetite for it especially on larger projects

It's become the norm on desktop boards over the last couple years or so, though switches and other kit are a bit slower catching up

I got the impression that this Mac Studio and their new 27" studio display form a replacement for the iMac and iMac Pro 27"

Overall I like the idea, because years after buying an iMac I still have a nice monitor, permanently attached to a (now) slow computer that I can't upgrade. With this approach I only need to replace the Mac itself as its age or my needs catch up with it.

We have the Future Fund but it's a joke compared to Norway's sovereign wealth fund.

There was plenty of tax money floating around back then but it was probably spent buying votes and posting budget surpluses so government could pat themselves on the back for being such good economic managers...

I'm kinda hoping for Thunderbolt PCIe cards that aren't tied to a specific brand or board. Would be nice to just throw an x4 or x8 card into an existing system to get one or two TB3 ports for stuff like external storage.

The Core i9 X-series chips are basically cut-down Skylake Xeons (the new "xeon gold" line, probably)

If my iMac purchased in 2012 is anything to go by, it'll still be great in 5 years and only the GPU will really feel its age.

But then if you're a pro user who buys the thing to make money with, it's probably more tax-effective to keep it 3 or so years then buy something new

Broadwell ones are. Apple are probably using the newer Skylake-based Xeon Gold line with higher price and much higher clock speeds.

Bloody game's finished and it's still buffering...