Apple was preparing a new version of the Mac Pro, equipped with a high-end version of its M2 chip. Objective: to offer an overpowered fixed computer, exceeding everything on the market, for the most demanding applications.
October 2022. The entire Mac range is powered by Apple’s ARM chips. All ? No. An irreducible model still and always resists the invader: the Mac Pro. Essentially intended for professionals in digital creation (graphics, video, audio, 3D, etc.), this fixed computer – in tower format – is indeed the only one to be equipped with an Intel processor, with x86 architecture – in this case, a Xeon W integrating 8 to 28 cores. But not for long, if we are to believe the predictions of the essential Mark Gurman, the famous Bloomberg journalist. In his latest newsletter, power-onthis always well-informed Apple expert indicates that the Apple firm is preparing new versions of the Mac Pro doped with ARM, with high-performance versions of the M2 chips.
Mac Pro 2023: a fixed Mac boosted with M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme
According to the specialist, two new Soc (system on a chip, in French) would be in the running: an M2 Ultra and an M2 Extreme – names to be taken with care, of course, because nothing is official. The first would be an improved version of the M2 Max chip that should appear in future MacBook Pros that Apple will launch very soon – in early November 2022 or even late October according to some rumors. The second would take up the principle of the M1 Ultra already used in the high-end version of the Mac Studio, the compact Mac for creatives released in the spring of 2022, namely, a combination of M2 Max within the same chip. A clever – and very efficient – assembly process that increases processing capacities and pools hardware resources (RAM, cache memory, etc.) without having to design new circuits. According to Gurman, this new supercharged Soc could thus carry up to 48 processor cores (CPU) and 152 graphics cores (GPU), offering computing power between two and four times greater than the M2 Max. Clearly, the future Mac Pro would be, by far, the most powerful Mac in the range – and in the history – of Apple: a monster of power, capable of swallowing everything.
As always, Apple keeps an almost military silence on its projects and nothing official is known about this new Mac Pro. The Bloomberg reporter, however, points out that things are progressing well. A version equipped with an M2 with 24 CPU cores (16 high performance and 8 low power), 76 GPU cores and 192 GB of RAM would be in internal validation tests, all running with macOS 13.0 Ventura, the new version of the operating system for Mac which should be released on October 23rd. But we don’t know anything about the rest, and in particular about the format of the future Mac Pro. Admittedly, it will still be a desktop computer, but Apple could revise its design to make it more compact, abandoning the “radiator” style of the current model. Also, there’s no word on whether it will still be possible to integrate third-party graphics cards – the current Mac Pro, which dates from 2019, is equipped with AMD Radeon cards –, insofar as the FGPU section of the boosted M2 should already make sparks. Still, the Mac Pro M2 should not be released before the beginning of 2023. At a price that is easily very high, higher than the price of the Mac Studio, Apple is clearly following the inflationary trend of the moment as we have seen for iPhone 14 or iPad 10e generation… It must be said that the mac pro is not a consumer model: it is only sold on the Apple Store and at a few specialists, and not at all offered on classic online stores like Amazon, Fanc- Darty or Baker.