When Apple introduced its first M1 system-on-a-chip for PCs in mid-2020, it said it would move all Macs to Apple Silicon SoCs in about two years. By now, the company should have introduced Mac Pro workstations with their own processors. But that hasn’t happened, and it’s really unclear when this desktop will appear. bloomberg Report.
Originally, Apple planned to build the new Mac Pro around the M1 Ultra dual-chip processor, but that device would eventually become the most powerful Mac Studio desktop, and the company decided to redesign the Mac Pro with the M1 generation. Abandoned plans to produce. Ultimately, the company decided to use dual-chip M2 Ultra and quad-chip M2 Extreme processors for its top-end workstations.
The M2 Ultra is said to feature 24 general purpose cores and 76 graphics clusters, while the M2 Extreme is predicted to feature 48 general purpose CPU cores and 152 graphics clusters. Additionally, the M2 Ultra is reportedly designed to support at least 192 GB of memory, so the M2 Extreme version is expected to support up to 384 GB of DRAM.
However, citing complexity and cost, Apple appears to have scrapped production plans for the M2 Extreme processor. A Mac Pro based on the purported M2 Extreme processor will cost around $10,000 and could be a very niche product not justified by development costs, engineering resources and production bandwidth. bloomberg Say.
Still, the Mac Pro assumption It makes a very capable workstation for a relatively small niche market. The important thing to keep in mind about Apple’s Mac Pro is its audience. on the other hand, bloomberg The report vaguely mentions demanding users such as “photographers, editors and programmers,” but the Mac Pro is much more than just a powerful PC. Mac Pro systems are often used for film and video production, but such workloads are becoming increasingly demanding as resolutions and color depths increase. These systems also require not only performance but also the versatility and flexibility of a desktop PC, as various add-in cards, accelerators, advanced storage devices, etc. must be installed. Adding these boards requires advanced I/O on the new Mac Pro. This is somewhat a departure from Apple’s SoC ideology, which requires a very high level of integration.
One feature Apple’s Mac Pro has that other systems from the company lack is upgradeability. Previous Mac Pro users often bought a tower to install a new graphics card, add more memory, or add Apple’s Afterburner accelerator. It’s unclear if Apple Silicon-based desktops are upgradeable, but from what I’ve seen with Apple Studio machines, the company is reluctant to offer such features to professional customers.
In addition to switching the Mac Pro to its own Apple Silicon processor, it’s worth noting that the company is considering moving production and final assembly from China and the US to Vietnam. Given the price of the Mac Pro, it makes little difference for the end user, but it does save some money.
One thing Bloomberg’s report doesn’t say is when the new Mac Pro will hit the market. So far, Apple has only introduced his M2 SoC and has yet to roll out the M2 Pro and M2 Max SoCs. Meanwhile, the multi-chip M2 Ultra and potential M2 Extreme are typically introduced months after the single-chip SoCs. That means these processors won’t arrive until mid-2023 at the earliest.
Of course, Apple hasn’t commented on future plans, but with the current-generation machine launching in 2019, it’s time for the company to offer an upgraded version of the Mac Pro.
