Ever Trend Zone At this point, there’s little reason to buy a Mac Pro over a Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra chip. That’s because Apple has reportedly canceled plans for its M2 Extreme chip for top-of-the-line Macs.
A new report suggests that history may be about to repeat itself, and that the Extreme chips planned for future Mac Pro models may also now be in doubt. Worst case scenario, it might not be a truly new Mac Pro for years to come…
Current Mac Pros don’t have Extreme chips
It is believed that Apple originally planned to include the M2 Extreme chip in the current Mac Pro, effectively doubling the power of the M2 Ultra. bloomberg reported on this plan in 2022, but later reported that the chip was canceled due to complexity and cost concerns.
That left the current Mac Pro in the rather embarrassing position of having the exact same M2 Ultra chip as the high-end Mac Studio.
Granted, the Mac Pro’s chassis is much larger and has better ventilation, which could theoretically help reduce thermal throttling, but testing suggests this isn’t the case in real-world usage. I am. This makes the PCIe slot the only advantage of this more expensive machine, which only becomes cleaner if you add a Thunderbolt storage device.
Another Extreme chip canceled
in information Reporting on Apple and Broadcom’s partnership on new AI server chips, bold fireball I have cited some interesting elements.
Apple’s silicon design team in Israel is leading the development of the AI chip, two people familiar with the matter said. The team helped design the processors Apple introduced in 2020 to replace Intel chips in Macs.
This summer, Apple halted development of a high-performance chip for Macs (made of four smaller chips strung together) in order to hire some Israeli engineers to work on AI chips, one of the people said. said, highlighting the changes at the company. Priority.
In other words, Apple has canceled another M-something Extreme chip. But which one?
Some have suggested that this report means Apple has canceled the M4 Extreme chip for the 2025 Mac Pro, but as Gruber points out, that doesn’t make sense.
But if Apple’s effort on quad-interposed M-series chips was canceled only “this summer” and was for a chip generation that uses TSMC’s next-generation N3P process, it could have been planned for the M5 or M6 generations. means. Not M4.2. The M4 generation is manufactured using TSMC’s N3E process, with additional variants beyond the M4 Max planned for Mac Studio and Mac Pro updates next year. This was long ago this summer.
So yesterday’s report doesn’t say anything about whether the 2025 Mac Pro will feature the M4 Extreme chip. Either it’s already been developed and launched in new machines, or the reasons Apple decided not to go with the M2 Extreme chip still apply, or they don’t. In any case, that decision has already been made.
But what it does hint at is a future gap, namely the cancellation of the M5 Extreme.
However, the canceled development of future Extreme chips means there will be no M5 version, and probably no M6 version either.
worst case scenario
With the M4 Extreme chip already in development, things aren’t too bad for people looking to buy a new Mac Pro. You can upgrade to a 2025 Mac Pro with M4 Extreme, but the actual update won’t be there until 2025 and probably 2026.
This will already be a problem for the wealthiest buyers, such as movie studios, who upgrade every year regardless of the money. But for others, the Mac Pro is a machine they’ll use for years.
But if Apple already cancels the M4 Extreme for the same reason it discontinued the M2 Extreme, that means there won’t be an actual Mac Pro upgrade until potentially 2026 or 2027. very The waiting time is long.
Photo: Apple
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