Before Apple Silicon, the performance ratio between a Mac Pro and the rest of their lineup was large. I think people were hoping the same ratio would somehow hold true today (i.e. rumors of a new M2 variant that was somehow two M2 Ultra stitched together, in the same way the Ultra is two Max, and the Max is two Pro...)
I'm sure someone out there is running a gigantic local storage setup with U.2 drives and the new Mac Pro, and is doing something that would require so many PCIe slots, but it does seem very niche.
Before Apple Silicon, the performance ratio between a Mac Pro and the rest of their lineup was large. I think people were hoping the same ratio would somehow hold true today (i.e. rumors of a new M2 variant that was somehow two M2 Ultra stitched together, in the same way the Ultra is two Max, and the Max is two Pro...)
I'm sure someone out there is running a gigantic local storage setup with U.2 drives and the new Mac Pro, and is doing something that would require so many PCIe slots, but it does seem very niche.