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If you’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Apple’s silicon Mac Pro and dreaming of the fastest Mac ever, you may be in for a disappointment. A report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman last weekend claimed that Apple is having major problems with the production of the so-called M2 Extreme chip that is supposed to power the new car.
As a result, Gurman says the top-end Mac Pro will have a slightly faster M2 Ultra chip with 24 CPU cores and 76 GPU cores. Admittedly, it’s still a very fast chip, but for Mac Pro buyers who’ve been waiting for the next evolution of Apple’s silicon on the Mac, it’s likely to be a disappointment. The gap between the Mac Pro and the next fastest Mac should be wide, and the chip that Gurman describes won’t be.
But all is not lost. Even without the insanely fast chip, Apple can make the Mac Pro the centerpiece of its Mac lineup. Here are three ideas on how to solve this major problem.
Keep the Intel inside
The easiest way to overcome its chip problems would be to stick with Intel only. People buying a Mac Pro don’t really care which company makes the CPU as long as it’s fast, and Intel is making a lot of new Xeon W chips that could be used.
It’s not a crazy idea. Although Apple’s Mac chips are ridiculously fast, many Mac Pro buyers would rather just replace one existing Intel Mac with a faster one than worry about potential compatibility and expandability issues with a new Apple silicon machine.
Willis Lye / Foundry
Focus on expansion
The most interesting part of Gurman’s report was not the alleged cancellation of the Extreme chip, but his assertion that the new Mac Pro “will retain one of its defining characteristics: easy expansion for additional memory, storage and other components.” It’s a somewhat vague statement that’s open to some interpretation, but it seems to indicate that the Mac Pro’s processor will have a new architecture that doesn’t use unified memory.
That alone would be a powerful selling point for the Mac Pro. None of Apple’s other silicon-based Macs offer aftermarket upgrades, so if users can add memory and storage, that will definitely be a unique selling point. But what would make it even more unique is if Apple sells the components themselves. It would definitely be expensive, but if Apple sold more RAM, SSDs, and discrete GPUs, it would certainly cover up the fact that the Mac Pro isn’t as fast as everyone thought.
Release Mac Studio
If the Mac Pro is only marginally faster than the top Mac Studio configuration, Apple might not need to sell the Mac Studio anymore. It’s always felt like a stop-gap machine, kind of like the iMac Pro, a powerful niche Mac that filled the space between the Mac Pro models. If the Mac Studio is one finished machine, no one will be surprised or upset, especially if the updated M2 Pro/M2 Max Mac mini and the rumored iMac Pro revival arrive next year as well.
