As we await the arrival of new M2 MacBook Pros and Mac minis, one more machine looms over the completion of the Apple silicon transition: the Mac Pro. We don’t know much about it, but a new report confirms one important thing about Apple’s upcoming workstation: It will have the most powerful Mac processor ever.
In his latest Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman details the Mac Pro’s M2 Ultra processor, which “will include chip options that are at least two or four times as powerful as the M2 Max.” He claims that configuration options will offer 24- and 48-core CPUs, 76- and 152-core GPUs, and up to 256GB of memory.
He says the machine isn’t quite as powerful in “active testing,” but it’s still a monster: 24 CPU cores (16 performance and 8 efficiency cores), 76 graphics cores, and 192 GB of memory. Compare that to the high-end Mac Studio – 20 CPU cores (16 performance and 4 efficiency cores), 48 graphics cores, 128 GB of memory – and you’re looking at a machine that will crush any task you throw at it.
Gurman doesn’t say when the new machine will arrive, but it runs on macOS Ventura 13.3; given that macOS 12.3 Monterey arrived in March, right around the time of Apple’s “Peek Performance” event, this suggests a spring release. During that keynote, John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, teased the launch of the Mac Pro for “another day.”
Now it looks like that day will fall outside the promised two-year completion of the Apple silicon transition. Apple only has a few weeks left to deliver silicon updates to Apple’s remaining Intel Macs — the Mac Pro and high-end Mac mini — and they’re unlikely to ship both. However, based on the leaked specs here, it’s worth the wait.
