Apple last updated the Mac Pro in June 2023, adding an M2 Ultra chip and officially completing the transition away from Intel chips. The Mac Pro uses the same M2 Ultra chip that's in the Mac Studio, leading to criticism about its lack of power.
Apple has now gone back to the drawing board and is working on an updated version of the Mac Pro that's set to come out next year. This guide highlights everything we know about Apple's Mac Pro progress.
M4 Chip
The next Mac Pro will have a chip that's in the M4 family, as Apple is working to update its entire Mac lineup to the M4 series across 2024 and 2025.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes that Apple wants to establish a more regular Apple silicon chip upgrade cycle that would perhaps see Mac chips refreshed on an annual basis much like chips designed for the iPhone.
Gurman says that the Mac Pro will be equipped with the highest-end version of the M4 chip, which is codenamed "Hidra." Hidra is likely equivalent to an "Ultra" chip based on the way that Apple has differentiated its chips in the past. The Mac Pro is aimed at professional videographers, photographers, designers, and others who need significant processing power, and some pro users are said to have been unhappy with the M2 Ultra Mac Pro.
As a result, Apple is looking to make the M4 Mac Pro more powerful.
All of the M4 chips will be designed with a focus on artificial intelligence, with Apple aiming to highlight the AI processing capabilities of the chips and how they'll integrate into macOS. Apple is adding AI features that will run solely on device to the next operating system updates, so the M4 chips will need to have a lot of compute power.
Rumors suggest that the M4 chips will feature an upgraded Neural Engine with more cores to handle AI tasks.
Unified Memory
The Mac Pro could support up to 500GB Unified Memory, way up from the current 192GB maximum.
Will there be an M3 Mac Pro?
It doesn't sound like Apple is going to bother with an M3 Ultra chip for the Mac Pro, with the company instead focusing effort on the M4 update.
Design Updates
The Mac Pro saw a major design update in 2019, with Apple doing away with the cylindrical "trash can" look in favor of a more reserved aluminum computer tower. There were no design changes to the 2022 model when it was refreshed, and so far we've heard nothing about design changes to the upcoming M4 variant.
Launch is still more than a year away though, so it's possible Apple will make some design updates, at least internally to support M4 chip changes.
Launch Date
The Mac Pro is expected to be the last of Apple's Macs to get the M4 chip, and rumors suggest that it will come out in late 2025.
