The Mac Pro is yet to switch to Apple Silicon. However, sales are not expected to start until next year. Mark Gurman from Bloomberg speculates about the right processors again in his weekly newsletter. New Apple silicon from the M2 generation is also planned for the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple wanted to complete the full switch to Apple Silicon by the end of 2022, according to the original plan. Shortly before the finish line, however, the company is still missing a processor for what is on paper the strongest Mac Pro, which Apple currently still has with Intel Xeon W aka Cascade Lake, up to 1.5 TB RAM, various AMD Radeon Pro and up to 8 TB in size offers SSDs. Although not better positioned in all disciplines, the Mac Studio with up to M1 Ultra should now be the fastest from Apple in the professional environment when buying a new one. A new Mac Pro is still to come, although the presentation could take place after this year, but according to Gurman the sale is not planned until next year.
M2 grows to 48 CPU cores
So far, what will serve as the drive for this high-end computer has been known in the press under the names M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme, although the designations are not yet official. Gurman expects Apple to offer the Mac Pro in configurations with 24 and 48 CPU cores. With the M2 Ultra, this would correspond to an expansion of 4 cores compared to the M1 Ultra, while the M2 Extreme will probably become a double M2 Ultra. For the M1 Ultra, Apple is already combining two M1 Max using “UltraFusion”.
GPU with up to 152 instead of 64 cores
< p class="p text-width">In the GPU area, the current maximum of 64 cores is to be increased to at least 76 cores in the M2 Ultra, while there are 152 GPU cores for the M2 Extreme. The shared working memory for the entire system and thus also the memory for the GPU should climb up to 256 GB after the previous limit was 128 GB.
Internally, Apple is said to be testing a configuration with 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores and 192 GB RAM that runs macOS Ventura 13.3. Version 13.0 of the new desktop operating system will be distributed by Apple starting today. The 24-core version of the M2 is said to run with 16 P and 8 E cores, which corresponds to a P cluster four times the size of the M2 and twice as many E cores.
M2 for MacBook Pro and Mac mini
The MacBook Pro and Mac mini are to be renewed even before the Mac Pro. After the presentation of the smallest M2 for the MacBook Air, the expansion stages M2 Pro and M2 Max for the 14 and 16 inch versions of the MacBook Pro are on the agenda. The M2 Max with a 12-core CPU is said to have 8 P and 4 E cores, with these having their origins in the A15 Bionic with “Avalanche” and “Blizzard”. The M2 Max should also come with 38 GPU cores and be configurable with up to 64 GB RAM.
The Mac mini, on the other hand, should be the already known expansion stage of the M2 from the MacBook Air received. However, a variant with a more powerful M2 Pro is also being tested internally. With the Mac mini, Apple also currently has a configuration with Intel in its range that is stronger in certain areas, which needs to be replaced.