Currently, there is little reason to buy a Mac Pro instead of a Mac Studio equipped with the M2 Ultra chip. That’s because Apple has reportedly scrapped plans for an M2 Extreme chip for the top-end Mac.

A new report suggests that history may be about to repeat itself and that a planned Extreme chip for a future Mac Pro model could also now be in question. Worst case scenario, this might not be a truly new Mac Pro for years to come…

The current Mac Pro does not have an Extreme chip

It is believed that Apple was originally supposed to have equipped the current Mac Pro with an M2 Extreme chip, practically doubling the performance of the M2 Ultra. Bloomberg reported this plan back in 2022, before later reporting that the chip had been canceled due to complexity and cost concerns.

This left the current Mac Pro in a pretty embarrassing position, as it had the exact same M2 Ultra chip as the high-end Mac Studio:

Yes, the Mac Pro has a far larger chassis with better ventilation, which could theoretically reduce thermal throttling, but testing suggests this isn’t the case in real-world use. That leaves PCIe slots as the only advantage of the much more expensive device, and that only really makes things more manageable if you want to add Thunderbolt storage devices.

Another Extreme chip has been canceled

In The information Reporting on a partnership between Apple and Broadcom for a new AI server chip, Daring fireball quoted an interesting element:

Apple’s silicon design team in Israel is leading the development of the AI ​​chip, according to two of the respondents. This team was instrumental in developing the processors Apple introduced in 2020 to replace Intel chips in Macs.

Apple stopped developing a high-performance chip for Macs — made up of four smaller chips joined together — last summer to free up some of its engineers in Israel to work on the AI ​​chip, one of the people said, citing the company’s changing priorities.

In other words: Apple has canceled another M-something Extreme chip. But which one?

Some say the report means Apple has dropped an M4 Extreme chip for a 2025 Mac Pro, but as Gruber notes, that doesn’t make sense.

But if Apple’s work on this four-intermediate M-series chip stopped just “last summer” and referred to a generation of chips using TSMC’s next-generation N3P process, that would mean it’s for the M5 – or M6 generation was planned. not the M4.2. The M4 generation is manufactured using TSMC’s N3E process, and all subsequent variants beyond the M4 Max, planned for updated Mac Studios and Mac Pros next year, were developed long before this past summer.

So yesterday’s report doesn’t tell us anything about whether a 2025 Mac Pro will get an M4 Extreme chip. Either that’s already developed and will be introduced in the new machine, or the reasons why Apple decided against an M2 Extreme chip still apply and that won’t be the case. In any case, this decision has already been made.

What it does suggest, however, is a future loophole – the cancellation of an M5 Extreme

However, the canceled development of a future Extreme chip means there will be no M5 version and possibly no M6 version either.

The worst case scenario

If the M4 Extreme chip is already in the works, then things aren’t so bad for those looking to buy a new Mac Pro. You can upgrade to a 2025 Mac Pro with the M4 Extreme, then there won’t be a real update in 2025, and maybe not 2026 either.

That would already be problematic for the wealthiest buyers – movie studios and the like who upgrade every year because money is no object. For others, a Mac Pro is a machine they keep for several years.

But if Apple has already discontinued the M4 Extreme for the same reasons it discontinued the M2 Extreme, that may mean there won’t be a true Mac Pro upgrade until 2026 or 2027. That would be a very wait a long time.

Photo: Apple