New Mac Pro: M2 Extreme chip, design, release date, and latest rumors

Apple is readying a new Mac Pro. Its last iteration was unveiled during the WWDC 2019 keynote when Apple ditched the trashcan design for a grilled-cheese one. After three years, the company announced it was developing a new Mac Pro, and it would talk more about this product in the future. As 2022 is coming to an end, here’s when the company could unveil this product and what to expect from it so far.

Design

The design of the Mac Pro changed a lot during the years. According to Bloomberg, this new generation is “expected to look like a smaller version of the current design.”

Currently, this product looks a lot like a classic CPU with a stainless steel finish and a grilled-cheese-like front to help dissipate the heat. If what Bloomberg heard is right, Apple could make the new Mac Pro thinner while still being as powerful as ever.

New Mac Pro could feature the M2 Extreme processor

The new Mac Pro will likely feature some chips of the M2 family. Last May, Bloomberg reported that Apple was working on an all-new Mac Pro with 40 cores:

Codenamed Jade 2C-Die and Jade 4C-Die, a redesigned Mac Pro is planned to come in 20 or 40 computing core variations, made up of 16 high-performance or 32 high-performance cores and four or eight high-efficiency cores. The chips would also include either 64 core or 128 core options for graphics. The computing core counts top the 28 core maximum offered by today’s Intel Mac Pro chips, while the higher-end graphics chips would replace parts now made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

In an October report, MacWorld discusses what to expect from the M2 processors that Apple will still unveil. After the M2 chip was announced alongside a 13-inch MacBook Pro and 13-inch MacBook Air, which we reviewed here, the company could be readying a new M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra, and even M2 Extreme processors.

The publication uses the standard M2 chip by extrapolating “some possible specs for the rest of the M2-series,” which are “based on the same doubling up of components in the M1-series.” With that in mind, here’s what the M2 lineup could look like:

• M2: 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, up to 24GB RAM
• M2 Pro (predicted): up to 10-core CPU, up to 20-core GPU, up to 48GB RAM
• M2 Max (predicted): up to 10-core CPU, 40-core GPU, up to 96GB RAM
• M2 Ultra (predicted): 24-core CPU, 80-core GPU, up to 192GB RAM
• M2 Extreme (predicted): 48-core CPU, 160-core GPU cores, up to 384GB RAM

Release date: When Apple will unveil a new Mac Pro?

Just like the company did in 2019, Apple could unveil a new Mac Pro in the coming months and launch it in 2023. According to MacWorld, Apple will likely announce new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips this month.

As the Mac Pro will likely feature the M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme processors, the company might wait until a Spring event to unveil its most powerful Mac to date. It’s still unclear what will be the future of the Mac Studio once Apple releases this other product and upgrades the 2020 Mac mini.

Wrap up

This is everything we know so far about the new Mac Pro. Once we hear more from it, we’ll make sure to update this story.

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