Four x M2 Max? Is an Apple Mac Pro with a new M2 Extreme chip coming this year?

[18:51 Tue,28.June 2022 by Thomas Richter]

The always well-informed Apple insider Mark Gurman has given a nice preview of Apple&s plans for this and next year. Apple will not only present the iPhone 14 in four variants and three new Watches, but also several new Macs with M2 and M3 SoC as well as Apple&s first mixed reality headset, new iPads and AirPods. Of course, the new Macs are particularly interesting for video editors.

New Macs with Apple M2, M2 Pro and M2 Max

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The basis of the new models will be the M2 chip, but there will also be an M2 Pro and M2 Max - analogous to the M1. The M2 has 18% faster CPU performance than the M1 and even 35% better graphics performance thanks to its 2 additional GPU cores. In addition, the M2 offers up to 24 GB of RAM, while the M1 is only available with 8 GB and 16 GB of RAM.

It is already known about the M2 Pro that it is supposed to have a significant performance leap compared to the M2 due to the first-time production in the 3 nanometer process (www.slashcam.de/news/single/Apple-M2-Pro-wird-nochmals-deutlich-leistungsstaerk-17263.html). It will have - at least in the version for the new Mac Mini - 8 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, so a total of 12 CPU cores (2 more than the current M1 Pro). The additional cores and especially the acceleration due to the smaller 3 nanometer chip structure should result in a significant performance increase of the M2 Pro. The M2 Max chip is said to have 12 CPU cores and 38 graphics cores (i.e. two CPU cores and two GPU cores more than the current model) and also more than 64 GB of RAM.

Thus, apart from the

MacBook Air and 13" MacBook Pro introduced at the beginning of June, other Macs with M2 (as well as M2 Pro and Max versions) are said to be in the pipeline, namely a Mac Mini with an M2 chip (with the same performance data as the M2 in the MacBook Air, i.e. 8 CPU and 10 GPU cores) and a Mac Mini with M2 Pro. In addition, 14"/16" MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max are to be developed. Gurman had already (predicted) these models in April www.slashcam.de/news/single/Apple--Neun-Macs-mit-neuem-M2-noch-in-diesem-Jahr--17172.html, so their release seems to actually come true.

M1 models - M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra.

Mac Pro with Apple M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme

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In addition, a new Mac Pro is said to be in development, which will be equipped with either an M2 Ultra or a new M2 Extreme chip, finally completing the big move and also Apple&s top model will then not run on an Intel CPU (and AMD GPU) but on Apple Silicon. Gurmann had already predicted the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra chip, but has now expanded his prediction to include a new top model with an M2 Extreme chip, which has no counterpart in the previous M1 lineup. Nothing is known for sure about this new chip yet, but there are speculations that Apple will once again use the possibilities of its UltraFusion technology to integrate several SoCs on one board and thus achieve more performance by doubling it further.

M1 Max vs M1 Ultra

In this case, Apple could combine two M2 Ultra Socs, which themselves already consist of two M2 Max chips, into one massive chip with four M2 Max Socs, which - should the aforementioned version of the M2 Max be used - would result in a system with 48 CPU and 152 GPU cores. While, as with the M1 Ultra, the performance would not scale linearly, meaning it would not simply be four times that of the M2 Max, it would definitely represent a big further leap in performance. In addition, a new Mac Pro will probably also be configurable with more hard drive storage (more than 8TB) and RAM (more than 128GB) to further differentiate itself from the

Mac Studio in addition to the M2 Ultra/M2 Extreme processor performance, of which an updated version with M2 Max and M2 Ultra can of course also be expected at some point.

M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme?

Apple M3 in development

In addition, Gurman is the first to report on the next generation of Apple&s M-SoC, the M3, which is expected to show up in various model updates as early as next year, namely a new 13" and 15" MacBook Air as well as a new iMac and possibly a 12" notebook. Like the M2 Pro, it would probably also benefit from the advantages of a 3 nanometer manufacturing process and thus show a significant increase in performance compared to the M2, but the performance leap compared to the M3 Pro would not be as significant as in the M2/M2 Pro. Apple would then have to distinguish the M3 Pro and Max versions from the standard model with a small increase in CPU/GPU cores or bandwidth.

Weitere Bilder zur Newsmeldung:

more infos at bei www.bloomberg.com

deutsche Version dieser Seite: Vierfacher M2 Max: Kommt dieses Jahr ein Apple Mac Pro mit neuem M2 Extreme Chip?