The future of the Mac Pro has been in doubt for some time. We were on track for an M3-powered Mac Pro towards the end of this year or early next year. However, it would appear that Apple is no longer planning an M3 Mac Pro. Instead, it's skipping the third-gen Apple Silicon and going straight to an M4-equipped Mac Pro. In this article, we explore the reasons for this change and when we might expect the next Mac Pro model.
Some History
In 2003, we first saw the iconic cheesegrater style with the release of the Power Mac G5, but it wasn’t until 2006, when Apple moved to Intel processors, that we saw the name Mac Pro as Apple’s top-of-the-range Mac desktop computer. The Mac Pro was first released in 2006 as a replacement for Apple’s Power Mac range, which continues all the way back to 1994 when Mac computers used the PowerPC processor and offered six PCI-X expansion slots and seven internal drive bays. What is more, the story doesn’t stop there; the Power Mac range replaced the Quadra 900 and 950 models with the Quadra 900 powered by a 25MHz 68040 processor and five NuBus slots.
Apart from the blip with the Mac Pro trash can from 2013 to 2019, you can trace these two key features of being the most powerful and most expandable computers in the Mac range all the way back to the Quadra 900.
In 2013, Apple changed the ethos behind the Mac Pro and released the ‘trash-can’ Mac Pro. With the trash-can model, the Mac Pro remained the most powerful Mac computer, but Apple limited the degree of expandability by removing internal drive bays and PCIe card slots. However, the trash can Mac Pro did bring Thunderbolt and USB 3 connectivity to the Mac Pro model, something that the old cheesegrater models never got.
In 2019, Apple did a U-turn and dropped the trash can form factor and produced a new take on the cheesegrater form factor with the 2019 Mac Pro model. Still the most powerful Mac, the 2019 Mac Pro brought expandability back to the top of the list, supporting up to 1.5TB of RAM across 12 slots, 8 PCI Express slots, as well as a range of video, graphics and storage expansion options.
Even though Apple announced Apple Silicon at the WWDC 2020 keynote address, Apple also said the transition to Apple Silicon would take two years. However, with the passing of WWDC 2022 in June, it marked two years since Apple announced the transition from Intel to its own chips, with still no Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, in this PowerOn newsletter, said…
“When Apple first set out to build a replacement for the Intel Mac Pro, it planned a machine with a processor based on the original M1 chip. The approach called for two main configurations: one chip equal to the power of two M1 Max processors — the highest-end MacBook Pro chip — and another equal to four M1 Max components combined.”
During the Mac Studio launch event in March 2022, Apple senior vice president of Hardware Engineering John Ternus confirmed that a Mac Pro would be coming "another day" to clear up confusion about the future of the Mac Pro product line.
In June 2022, we learned that Apple has been testing a Mac Pro, codenamed J180. This machine was expected to include a successor to the M1 Ultra chip used in the Mac Studio computer.
In October 2022, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported this…
“Onto the Mac Pro. That new high-end machine will include chip options that are at least twice or four times as powerful as the M2 Max. Let’s call those chips the M2 Ultra and the M2 Extreme. My belief is that the Mac Pro will be offered with options for 24 and 48 CPU cores and 76 and 152 graphics cores—along with up to 256 gigabytes of memory.
In fact, I can share one configuration of the Mac Pro in active testing within Apple: 24 CPU cores (16 performance and 8 efficiency cores), 76 graphics cores and 192 gigabytes of memory. That particular machine is running macOS Ventura 13.3”.
But then, in December 2022, Mark Gurman dropped a bombshell when he reported…
“The company has likely scrapped that higher-end configuration, which may disappoint Apple’s most demanding users — the photographers, editors and programmers who prize that kind of computing power.
The company made the decision because of both the complexity and cost of producing a processor that is essentially four M2 Max chips fused together. It also will help Apple and partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. save chip-production resources for higher-volume machines. […]
Based on Apple’s current pricing structure, an M2 Extreme version of a Mac Pro would probably cost at least $10,000 — without any other upgrades — making it an extraordinarily niche product that likely isn’t worth the development costs, engineering resources and production bandwidth it would require.”
Finally, Apple announced the M2 Ultra Apple silicon-powered Mac Pro in June 2023 alongside new Mac Studio and MacBook Air models.
The Mac Pro’s claims of being ‘expandable’ took a serious dent with the Apple Silicon model. This latest variant does not support additional graphics cards at all, and the SoC architecture also means that the memory cannot be extended as it is an integral part of the SoC design.
“The Apple silicon Mac Pro is a far cry from the Intel model it replaces. It costs $1,000 more at the low end and $40,000 less at the high end. It doesn’t have user-upgradeable RAM. There aren’t any $2,400 graphics card options at checkout. And the Afterburner card that was a $2,000 upgrade is now standard—and Apple says the M2 Ultra’s media engine is equal to seven of those cards.
But the Mac Pro is still the Mac Pro—and now it’s all Apple inside and out. The Mac Pro is a bit like the cherry on top of a delicious ice cream sundae that is the Mac lineup. Most users who need the power that a Mac Pro provides can turn to the Mac Studio, which is available with the same M2 Ultra chip, memory, and storage. It comes down to PCI slots, which are limited to audio and video I/O, networking, and storage cards. More than ever, the Mac Pro seems like a superfluous vestige of old Apple.”
The range of SSD storage options is the one area that is still expandable. If this interests you, check out our article Upgradable SSD Is Back In A Mac!
Coming back to the PCIe slots, one area of good news, especially for those who want to use them for additional storage, is that six of the seven PCIe slots are 4th generation, which Apple claims provides…
“twice the bandwidth for audio and video I/O, networking, and storage cards”. Apple goes on to claim that “the latest PCIe gen 4 SSD cards, for example, are capable of a colossal 26GB/s”.
All in all, the future of the Mac Pro was by no means certain. Unfortunately, the SoC design has compromised most of the key features users wanted from the Mac Pro model.
Just two months after Apple announced the Apple silicon Mac Pro, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman dropped another bombshell in the 13th August 2023 edition of his Power On newsletter regarding which Mac computers would benefit from the M3 Ultra SoC. He said…
“Macs that will use the chip: Mac Studio and Mac Pro (if Apple continues making those).”
This concern may have a good foundation. For example, Apple Insider’s Malcolm Owen has said…
“There's a chance that Apple's fumbled Mac Pro update could lead to it giving up on the model for the moment.
With the introduction of the Apple Silicon model, some elements of the Mac Pro's utility became less impressive, in part due to the existence of the Mac Studio. With both the Mac Pro and Mac Studio able to use Apple Silicon, and with the Mac Studio being generally cheaper to purchase, it made the Mac Pro a hard purchase for anyone just wanting high levels of performance.”
At the beginning of 2024, we predicted that if Apple decided to release an M3-powered Mac Pro, we wouldn’t expect to see it until late 2024, and it may not even be until 2025.
All Change
However, two reasons have come to light that demonstrate Apple will not be releasing an M3 Ultra chip for the next Mac Pro model.
You may be aware that so far the Ultra chip is basically two Max chips put together, but for that to work, the Max chip design has to have something called an UltraFusion interconnect to allow two Max chips to function as an Ultra chip. It has come to light that the M3 Max chips do not have UltraFusion interconnect in their design, meaning it wouldn’t be possible to create an M3 Ultra chip from two M3 Max chips.
Last month, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple is already hard at work developing the fourth-generation Apple silicon SoCs. One reason for this accelerated development cycle is AI. It would appear that the M4 chips will have more AI capabilities, and Apple is pushing hard to play catch-up in the AI race. It is rumoured that the M4 design will include an updated Neural Engine with more cores to handle AI tasks.
As we reported in our article, Apple Accelerates M4 Processor Releases In Response To Dropping Sales, we understand that Apple is planning three variants of the M4 chips.
The base model codenamed Donan.
A higher-end model codenamed Brava intended to replace the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips.
A top-end model, codenamed ‘Hidra’, to replace the M2 Ultra.
This jump isn’t without precedent. For example, there was never an M1-powered Mac Pro, or an M2-powered iMac and now it looks we won’t see an M3 Ultra Mac Pro.
In his Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman outlined what he understands is Apple’s current plans for M4-powered Mac Pro desktop computer…
A Mac Pro with an M4 Ultra chip, due in the second half of 2025.
This would timetable the release of the next Mac Pro model yet again as the last in the queue and sometime after the M4-powered Mac Studio, which is predicted to be announced in June at WWDC 2025.
More Memory
Another element that has come to light that will take care of the concerns of some when looking at the Apple Silicon SoC designs is that, to date, the maximum amount of unified memory is 192GB, which is much less than was possible with Intel-powered Apple computers. We understand that the next generation of high-end Apple computers will support up to 500GB of unified memory, which will help those using a lot of virtual instruments and huge sessions.
Design Changes
The Mac Pro last saw a design change in 2019 when Apple dropped the trashcan design and went back to a more traditional tower design with PCIe slots. With the release of the Apple silicon model in 2023, there were no design changes, just a change in processing technology. It’s not clear at this stage whether Apple may take the opportunity to make some design changes to support the M4 chip changes. We will have to wait and see.
Release Date
Mark Gurman suggested that Apple release an M4-powered Mac Pro in the second half of 2025 following the release of the M4-powered Mac Studio.
If you are looking to get a new Mac Pro, based on current predictions, you will need to wait at least 18 months, which may not even happen if the release gets pushed back.
We advise that if you need a Mac Pro now, go for the current M2 model with as much unified memory as you can afford. As we showed in our article, Which to Buy - Apple Mac Studio or Mac Pro 2023? You need to be sure you need a Mac Pro as there is a significant price penalty for this model compared to getting a Mac Studio with the same chip.