It’s been two years since Apple announced its transition from Intel to its own Arm-based silicon will finishbut the high-end Mac Pro hasn’t left Intel yet.
Like David Gewirtz of ZDNet recently recorded, the 2019 Mac Pro desktop is now the last Intel-only machine in Apple’s lineup. It’s unknown how many people will buy it, but it’s also the only model that supports up to 1.5TB of RAM with expansion slots.
The new M1 Max or M1 Ultra Mac Studio 2022 offers up to 128GB of RAM, while the 2021 Mac Mini has up to 16GB of RAM — and neither has an expansion slot.
But now Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman report The Mac Pro has been held up by feature changes, and he suggests there’s a change in Apple’s plans for this high-end processor — the dual M2 Ultra and M2 Ultra, which he called M2 Extreme.
The M2 Ultra chip will have 24 CPU cores, 76 graphics cores and support up to 192 GB of RAM. Gurman reports Apple has likely removed the M2 Extreme, which would have come with 48 CPU cores and 152 graphics cores.
And he estimates the Mac Pro’s M2 Extreme version will likely start at as little as $10,000, making it an extremely niche product and one that isn’t worth the resources to build. . The current Intel-based Mac Pro starts at $5,999 before configuration.
“An M2 Extreme chip would double that to 48 CPU cores and 152 graphics cores. But here’s the bad news: The company may have scrapped that high-end configuration, which could disappoint those Apple’s most demanding users – photographers, editors and programmers who appreciate that kind of computing power,” Gurman said.
He thinks the Mac Pro will ship with the M2 Ultra chip and will retain the current model’s expandability to upgrade memory, storage, and other components.
