Just a couple of weeks ago, Apple confirmed it is discontinuing the iconic Mac Pro line of desktop computers. Apple Silicon is efficient enough to deliver similar performance in a smaller chassis, such as the Mac Studio, which will likely become Apple's premier desktop solution going forward. However, that doesn't stop enthusiasts from hunting down bargain-bin deals on older Mac Pro models, and sometimes you get two for the price of one.

Garage Sale Find. They said something was sliding around in it. from r/macpro

Over on the r/macpro subreddit, u/blank_reg got their hands on an unusual 2010 Mac Pro at a garage sale. The owner told them something was rattling, or rather rolling around in there, only for the buyer to find a 2013 Mac Pro just sitting inside. The tower was gutted, with no internal components beyond a power supply and front-panel connectors, likely to make room for the trash-can Mac Pro.

OP didn't say how much he paid for this bundle package, or whether the other Mac Pro even works. From the looks of it, we can deduce that the owner was probably using the 2010 chassis as an enclosure for the 2013 Mac Pro, allowing them to easily mount expansion items that would be otherwise impossible inside that circular chassis. The tower is still empty, though, so perhaps they took them out before reselling it.

These Mac Pro models are legendary in their own ways; many would argue that the 2010 Mac Pro represented the peak of modularity in Apple's desktop ecosystem. It gave users the ability to upgrade pretty much everything: CPU, GPU, RAM, storage, and is even compatible with modern AMD cards with some tweaks. It was the complete opposite of the closed-off approach usually associated with Apple devices.

The 2013 Mac Pro that followed essentially reset everything and prioritized aesthetics over flexibility. It was small, quiet, and had excellent graphical performance for the time, but thermals were somewhat poor. Dual GPUs also fell out of style as software support for them ended on mainstream workstations. Apple didn't update this Mac Pro for the next 6 years, and when they finally released a new model in 2019, it just went back to the old cheese-grater design that worked.

In u/blank_reg's case, the 2010 Mac Pro has no internals but a case, while the 2013 Mac Pro it houses has internals but doesn't have a case. For anyone that doesn't know, the trash-can Mac Pro can't run without its case on... unless you hold a magnet near its power button. That trips up the chassis sensor, which might explain why this skinned Mac Pro is sitting inside a giant metal carcass of its predecessor.

Orico, a Chinese tech company specializing in storage solutions, has entered the mini PC market with its Omini line of desktop PCs. According to IT Home [Machine Translated], the company is launching two new models — the Omini Plus and the Omini Pro. The former closely resembles the Mac Mini, while the latter looks like a shrunken Mac Pro, but AMD Ryzen chips power both.

The Pro mini PC uses high-grade aluminum for its PC case and features a “cheese grater” design on the front for optimal airflow. On the other hand, the Plus model has a design similar to the Mac mini, with its components accessible via its removable foot. However, it also has a vent in the back above its ports, reminiscent of the larger Mac Studio.

The Omini Plus is available in a single configuration, powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 7535H (now renamed the Ryzen 5 150) paired with 16GB DDR5 memory and a 2TB SSD. It also features a plethora of ports, including two USB4 Type-C ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, two 2.5G Ethernet ports, one DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.1 port, and a 3.5mm jack. All this is supported by dual heat pipes and a large fan to keep everything cool, especially as its volume is only about 0.8L. This mini PC is priced at RMB 3,799 (around $535) at the current exchange rate, though it’s available for pre-order at RMB 3,399 ($478).

We also have the Omini Pro, which comes with more options. It starts with an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor with an integrated AMD Radeon 780M GPU. Although you can get this as a barebones unit, meaning you’ll have to supply your own memory and storage, it can also be had with a 32GB DDR5 SODIMM kit (upgradable up to 256GB) and a choice between a 1TB and a 2TB SSD. It also comes with two storage slots, with a total capacity of up to 8TB. Aside from the more powerful hardware, you get the same number of ports as above, which is already plentiful. The Omini Pro starts at RMB 3,099 (~$435) for the barebones version, although it’s on pre-order for just RMB 2,699 (around $380).

These devices aren’t designed for gamers specifically, but you can do some casual gaming on the side. Nevertheless, they’re largely good enough for most productivity applications, with the Omini Pro capable of onboard AI processing thanks to its built-in NPU. So, if you want a stylish mini PC that evokes Apple’s aesthetics but works with Windows 11 or Linux, these are great options to check out, provided they become available in your location.

Earlier today, watchful eyes spotted some key updates to the SteamDB listing for CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 which corresponded to a MacOS executable and depots being added to the game. The update is roughly in line with the "early 2025" timeframe given by CDPR on the MacOS Cyberpunk 2077 release [h/t Notebookcheck.net]. At the time of writing, we have yet to see any footage of the MacOS port running, but it has been promised to also support ray tracing on Mac models that actually support the functionality, namely Apple Silicon M4 Mac Minis and M3, M3 Pro, or M3 Max-based Macs.

So, how well should we expect Cyberpunk 2077 to perform on Mac? With hacky workaround methods, modern Macs can already run the game at a consistent-ish 40+ FPS, but not with ray tracing enabled. With the native port, which is already stated to provide ray tracing support, 60 FPS performance should be totally possible... but with RT enabled? Well, things start getting a little dubious there.

As an example, another recent game with Ray Tracing support, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, also got a native MacOS port with ray tracing functionality intact in the past year. Benchmarking that game with ray tracing enabled does show that playable AAA experiences with ray tracing are indeed possible on the Mac platform, but Rift Apart also isn't going to push ray tracing hardware nearly as hard as Cyberpunk 2077 can in its "RT Overdrive Mode".

Based on existing performance information on recent Macs, it would seem likely that the Cyberpunk 2077 MacOS port will perform perfectly fine without ray tracing enabled, likely be capped to 30-40 FPS with some ray tracing enabled, and most likely be overtly unplayable with current-gen hardware when RT Overdrive is enabled. It will likely take at least a few generations for Apple's own native silicon to be able to provide RT hardware that can actually push Cyberpunk 2077 to its upper limits of fidelity (consider how expensive such a feat remains even on PC, with the Best Gaming GPUs available to you), but even having the game playable on the platform in the interim should serve as a great benchmark for Mac gaming for quite some time to come.

Apple's Mac Mini with M4, starting at $599, is probably the best deal you can get on a Mac. The Mac Pro, the company's largest, most expandable Mac, is much more expensive — and much larger. But maker Jerrod Hofferth has modeled a 3D printed-shell for the Mac Mini so that you can have an adorable Mac Pro on your desk. He's dubbed it the Mac Mini Pro and is making the files available for free on Maker World.

Hofferth was inspired by a model of the PowerMac G5 on former Apple CEO Steve Jobs's home office desk.

Both the front and back ports are completely accessible through the Mac Pro-style case. But perhaps what's most impressive is that Hofferth has added power functionality with a pass-through button to turn the system on. Remember: without the case, you have to turn the Mac Mini over to turn it on.

The whole case doesn't print in one piece. The handles and legs need to be glued on. There are also optional wheel attachments, which you can use with some ball-bearing wheels to make it look like you're using Apple's $700 Mac Pro wheels kit. (The wheels that Hofferth recommends are just $8.69 on Amazon, as of this writing.)

Right now, the files are based on Apple's measurements, but Hofferth hopes to adjust the size based on the actual hardware as soon as tomorrow (when the Mac Mini releases).

If you want to follow along with Hofferth's efforts, he's posting updates on both Maker World and his Mastodon account. If you want to help Hofferth, he's asking that supporters use Maker World's "boost" feature as he develops more features for the case — perfecting its size, letting the case handle rotate, and getting a ready-to-print design prepared.

I hope Hofferth considers a second version that's just a tiny Mac Pro for your desk. Even if it doesn't do anything, it would still be a cool decoration. But this is a creative use of 3D printing that will let Mac Mini owners show their love of other Mac designs. Is it necessary? No. Is it funny and cute as hell?

Yes, yes it is.

Apple's M3-series system-on-chips is expected to get a major performance upgrade compared to predecessors since they are projected to be made on TSMC's N3 (3 nm-class) fabrication processor and use all-new CPU and GPU microarchitectures. Indeed, the highest-end M3 Ultra will feature 32 CPU cores and an 80-cluster GPU, but the entry-level M3 will retain eight cores, a Bloomberg report suggests.

M3: Up to Eight Cores

Apple's vanilla M1 and M2 SoCs are used for Mac Mini, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13, and iMac systems, which are quite popular. The company's upcoming M3 ix expected to retain eight general-purpose cores (four high-performance and four energy-efficient cores) and an integrated GPU with up to 10 clusters. The first systems on their base are expected to hit the market earlier this year. 

Apple's M3 will reportedly be the first SoCs from the company's third-generation PC processors and will also be the developers N3 chip designed for desktops and laptops. Apparently, the company decided not to increase core count in this SoC compared to M2, perhaps because it wanted to ensure the lowest possible power consumption or was sure that architectural advantages coupled with higher clocks will ensure a noticeable performance boost, or just wanted to maximize yields and keep costs down.

M3 Pro: Up to 14 Cores

The situation will get substantially better with M3 Pro that is projected to get 14 general-purpose cores (eight performance cores, six efficiency cores) in its top-end configuration, but its range-topping GPU will get 20 clusters, up from 19 clusters in M2 Pro. The M3 Pro in its maximum configuration will be more powerful than M2 Max in general-purpose workloads, but the latter will still have an edge in graphics applications.

Apple's M3 Pro and M3 Max-based machine will likely hit the market sometimes in 2024.

M3 Max: Up to 16 cores

When it comes to M3 Max SoC, it is rumored to get 16 general purpose cores (12 performance cores and four energy-efficient cores) as well as up to 40 GPU clusters. Getting four additional high-performance cores is a big deal and will certainly bring substantial benefits to demanding software that M3 Max is architected to run. These will likely end up in high end MacBook Pros, the Mac Studio and Mac Pro.

M3 Ultra Up to 32 Cores

Meanwhile, the M3 Ultra system-in-package consisting of two M3 Max chips will therefore get 32 CPU cores and up to 80 GPU clusters. While 32 cores sounds quite massive when we talk about desktops, workstation-grade processors from AMD and Intel already have 56 – 64 cores and it remains to be seen what they are going to offer when Apple's M3 Ultra-based Mac Studio or Mac Pro systems are available in the second half of 2024. 

While Bloomberg's Mark Gurman tends to be accurate with his reports about future Apple's products, he is still an unofficial source and information from him should be taken with a grain of salt.

The launch of Apple's Mac Pro based on its M2 Ultra processor formally marked the completion of the company's transition from Intel's CPUs to its own system-on-chips, which took about three years. The transition spurred users of Macs to upgrade and encouraged users of Windows to switch to Macs. Roughly half of Apple's PCs bought in Q2 were purchased by new users.

"This past quarter, we were pleased to complete the transition to Apple Silicon for the entire lineup," said Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, at the company's conference call with analysts and investors (via SeekingAlpha). "This transition has driven both strong upgrade activity and a high number of new customers. In fact, almost half of Mac buyers during the quarter were new to the product. We also saw reported customer satisfaction of 96% for Mac in the U.S."

Indeed, the transition to Apple Silicon helped Apple to boost sales of its Mac computers and gain market share. The company controlled 6.3% of the PC market, with 4.077 million Macs sold in Q2 2019. During Q2 2023, the company commanded 8.6% of the PC market, with 5.3 million units sold. Meanwhile, in Q1 2022, the firm owned 9.3% of the desktop and laptop market as it supplied 7.342 million PCs during the quarter, many of which were sold to first-time users, and many were upgrades.

Controlling the hardware and software enables Apple to integrate various special-purpose accelerators into its SoCs and maximize performance in select applications. In addition, it allows it to precisely tailor its software for these SoCs, which promises to reduce the number of glitches and offer decent performance. Finally, it allows the company to maximize its profit margins now that it does not have to pay for CPUs to Intel. Unfortunately, with the transition to its Apple Silicon, Apple no longer supports third-party GPUs with its Mac Pro PCs, which will frustrate users who need high-performance GPUs.

Since the PC market in Q2 2023 was down 13.4% year-over-year in terms of unit shipments, it is not surprising that Macs generated $6.8 billion in revenue for Apple during the quarter, down 7% year-over-year. It is also noteworthy that Apple sold more PC units than it did in Q2 2022, according to IDC. A reason why Apple's Mac revenue was down amid unit sales growth was probably because many first-time users bought inexpensive PCs. In contrast, in Q2 2022, the company finally ramped up sales of its premium M2 Pro and M2 Max-based MacBook Pros.

Also, it is evident that in Q2 2023, Apple's PC business performed better than the PC businesses of Lenovo, Dell, and Acer, at least regarding unit sales growth. Meanwhile, the company expects Mac and iPad revenue to decline in the ongoing quarter.

"We expect the revenue for both Mac and iPad to decline by double digits year-over-year due to difficult compares, particularly on the Mac," said Cook. "For both products, we experienced supply disruptions from factory shutdowns in the June quarter a year ago and were able to fulfill significant pent-up demand in the year-ago September quarter."

Apple announced the new Mac Pro powered by its M2 Ultra processor at WWDC23. It launched in stores this week, and there's already a bug in the wild. In a support document, Apple disclosed a software bug with the Mac Pro where internal SATA drives would be disconnected when the computer goes to sleep. Apple has a fix on the way, but it won't arrive until the next macOS update.

The 2023 Mac Pro starts with 1TB of solid-state storage on the $6,999 base model. However, they can spec the machine for up to 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB for an added premium when purchasing the Mac Pro from Apple's website, or they can purchase upgrade kits directly from Apple. They don't come cheap, though. The 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB kits retail for $1,000, $1,600, and $2,800, respectively. These are not off-the-shelf SSDs (they actually work more like NAND and connect to the controller on the M2 Ultra) and can be pricey. Luckily, the device provides two standard SATA III ports, opening the doors for mainstream secondary storage options. The Promise Pegasus J2i 8TB Internal Storage Enclosure, which sells for $400, allows consumers to use conventional SATA hard drives or SSDs that are more budget-friendly. That's precisely where Apple found the nasty bug.

When owners wake their Mac Pro from sleep, they may be greeted by a "disk not ejected properly" window as if the SATA drive is ejected like a flash drive. The reason for the prompt is that some hard drive models would automatically disconnect from the device when the Mac Pro goes to sleep. However, Apple didn't provide a list of the affected drive models, only listing that it happens to "certain models of internal SATA drives". The issue can occur whether the Mac Pro enters sleep mode automatically or when consumers manually put the device to sleep.

Apple's current stopgap solution is for users to restart their systems when the problem occurs. It is also recommending that Mac Pro owners disable sleep mode. The option is called "Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off," and is located in the advanced section of the Displays options under System Settings. In other words, you're better off never going to sleep, or shutting your Mac down entirely, to prevent the issue.

Fortunately, it's not a hardware issue. The problem resides on a software level, which Apple can mitigate through a macOS update. Apple will include the fix in the next macOS update for Ventura (probably macOS 13.4.1) but didn't provide a specific ETA. Until then, Mac Pro owners may want to avoid sleep mode if they have incorporated hard drives into the system.

This issue is particularly interesting because the new Mac Pro is the first time Apple is allowing user-added storage inside a system since Apple silicon released for Mac. (It's not available in the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, or Mac Studio). 

When you picture a workstation, it's often a tower PC, something bulky to accommodate the components and cooling you need to edit video, render 3D images or process thousands of photos. But the recently refreshed Mac Studio (starting at $1,999, $6,799.99 as tested), offers the power of a workstation in a tiny, quiet box that fits easily on your desk.

The Studio also happens to be the home of the M2 Ultra, Apple's most powerful chip (the lower-end configurations come with M2 Max). It's rare that we test pre-built workstations, but when we got the opportunity to test the Mac Studio we took it as a chance to get a sense of what the 24-core CPU and 76-core GPU can do.

The short take: If you're a Mac user that needs a lot of power, we think you're going to come away impressed. The M2 Ultra delivers some significant improvements over Apple's other chips. But if you need expansion, the Mac Studio may not fit your bill, as it's not upgradeable. Those users may want to consider the Mac Pro, which also comes equipped with the M2 Ultra, but in a bigger case that includes PCIe slots to add sound cards, storage cards, and more.

Design of the Mac Studio 2023

As far as workstation-class machines go, the Mac Studio is petite. It's a desktop that has no problem fitting on, well, a desktop, even under a monitor. It tucks in nicely under the Mac Studio display, and that should be similar under many other screens.

It's an aluminum block with rounded corners and a big shiny Mac logo on top, that measures 7.7 x 7.7 inches wide and deep and 3.7 inches tall. Our model, with an M2 Ultra, weighs 7.9 pounds thanks to a beefy copper thermal module (the M2 Max configurations are 2 pounds lighter with an aluminum cooler).

The ports will be important for many professionals. On the front of the Mac Studio, there are two  40GBps Thunderbolt 4 ports (these are USB Type-C ports up to 10GBps on the M2 Max model) and an SD card reader with UHS-II speeds.

On the back, there are another four Thunderbolt 4 ports, a pair of USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, an HDMI port, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. This is plenty of connectivity for external storage and peripherals.

The bottom of the desktop has a round base with "Mac Studio" engraved. That's surrounded by air intake holes, which suck cool air in and exhaust it out the holes in the back.

What you can't do is upgrade the Mac Studio. At all. If you want to add storage or RAM, you'll have to consider that at purchase. Those who want to make those types of upgrades or add PCIe cards will want to consider the much larger Mac Pro (though RAM, there, is also a permanent fixture of the SoC). 

Owners of the previous Mac Studio found that the storage module is technically replaceable, but these aren't the same as regular store-bought SSDs. These tie into the SoC as part of Apple's security and encryption protocols, don't have a controller (those are on the SoC) but do feature NAND. That is to say, just because you can take the storage out if you open it up doesn't mean it will help you. The Mac Studio may be for pros, but creatives will have to consider their long-term needs before buying.

Mac Studio (2023) Specifications

M2 Ultra Performance on the Mac Pro

Most people don't need the M2 Ultra. Are you a photographer or a videographer? Do you make 3D renders? Are you working on machine learning? Then maybe this is for you — but even then, only if you need a ton of horsepower.

The M2 Ultra is built on a 5 nm process and uses what Apple calls UltraFusion to connect the dies from two M2 Max SoCs (they appear as a single chip when it comes to apps). There are 134 billion transistors on what is easily Apple's largest and most powerful chip.

M2 Ultra has 24 CPU cores: 16 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. The SoC's GPU comes with either 60 or 70 GPU cores (we tested the latter), and every M2 Ultra has a 32-ore neural engine. Apple uses a separate media engine to accelerate video processing with dedicated hardware for H.256, HEVC, and ProRes encoding and decoding. The M2 Ultra also has 800 GBps of memory bandwidth.

Frankly, we don't test very many pre-built workstations, but I still ran some benchmarks to put the M2 Ultra through its paces. In some cases, we compared it to the M2 Max, which we last saw in the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

But we also tested against workstation chips. On the Intel side, there's the Intel Xeon w9-3495X, the latest Xeon we've tested (and the only current one we have on hand). On the one hand, this is admittedly a bit of an unfair comparison, as that chip has 56 CPU cores (all performance cores) and, at a recommended customer price of $5,889, costs almost as much as the entire Mac Studio computer we're reviewing!  It does, however, pit Intel's best (which Apple opted not to use in its switch to Apple Silicon) against Apple's best. 

On the Ryzen side, we looked at the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5975WX, a 32-core workstation CPU on a 7 nm process with an MSRP of $3,299, though during our testing the chip was selling for $2,699. We also have some numbers for the 64-core Threadripper PRO 5995WX, with an MSRP of $6,499 (only $300 less than the Mac Studio we tested!) though it's selling for $5,699.99 as of this writing.  Both the Intel and AMD systems also used 128GB of RAM, like our Mac Studio.

Keep in mind, Apple hasn't just built a chip. It built a system. But to see its place in the pro realm, we do need to test against others' chips.

On Geekbench 6.1's CPU test, the Mac Studio with M2 Ultra earned a single-core score of 2,819 and a whopper of a multi-core score of 21,802. Compare that to the M2 Max, with a similar single-core score (2,810) but a lower multi-core score at 14,851. This makes sense: the Max is effectively one-half of an M2 Ultra, and they're the same core, so the single-core scores should align. It is possible, however, that we'd see slightly better M2 Max performance in a desktop chassis (it's also available in the Mac Studio. See the configurations section below).

The Mac Studio's 4TB SSD blazed along on our file transfer test, transferring 25GB of files at a rate of 2,440.7 MBps.

On Handbrake, the Mac Studio transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 2 minutes and 45 seconds, which is a strong improvement over the M2 Max in the laptop chassis at 3:59. Both the Xeon and Threadriper 5975WX beat the Ultra, but by less than a minute.

On Macs, we use the Xcode benchmark to simulate compiling a large development project in Xcode. The Mac Studio took a commanding lead, finishing the task in 58 seconds. The 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max took 83 seconds.

Cinebench tests the CPU's ability in rendering. Again, the M2 Ultra and M2 Max didn't show extreme differences in single-core scores, which makes sense. (1,755 on the M2 Ultra versus 1,620 on the M2 Max using laptop cooling). In multi-core, the M2 Ultra's 27,095 was a substantial difference over the Max (14,797). The M2 Ultra's single-core scores also beat out the Xeon (just barely) and both Threadrippers, showing the strength of Apple's cores in certain tasks.

Of course, with so many more cores on the x86 chips, those dominated in multi-core realm. AMD’s chip was nearly 3 times better than the M2 Ultra on this test. But again, the Threadripper Pro 5995 WX costs close to $6,000 for the CPU alone.

We ran our Cinebench R23 stress test, which we often run on productivity laptops, and the Mac Studio chewed through it with consistent scores in the low 27,000s. Apple doesn't report clock speeds, but Cinebench estimated 3.7 GHz single-core and 3.3 GHz multi-core. Take that for what you will. I usually use TGPro to measure CPU temperatures, though it didn't seem to work on the M2 Ultra just yet. It did, however, report a system temperature of 44.62 degrees Celsius (112.32 degrees Fahrenheit).

We put the M2 Ultra through its paces in Blender for 3D modelling and visual effects, using both the CPU and GPU test. The result here? Use the M2 Ultra's powerful GPU, which was far faster every time, completing Monster at 1,723.61 samples per second, Junkshop at 915.17 samples per second, and Classroom at 707.11 samples per second.

On the CPU Blender tests, the M2 Ultra was beaten out by the Xeon. On Monster, it notched 236.15, while the Xeon reached 347.26. Those kinds of leads continued in Junkshop (141.92 for the M2 Ultra, 225.86 for the Xeon) and Classroom (101.1 for the Ultra, 158.97 for the Xeon). The 5975WX was slightly ahead of the Xeon. Again though, the M2 Ultra’s GPU just destroyed any CPU-based result here.

For graphics, we went back to Geekbench 6's GPU benchmark, where the M2 Ultra notched a score of 223,549 on Metal and 126,945 on OpenCL. As you see in the chart above, having twice as many graphics cores does a lot over the M2 Max.

To get a more practical sense of what all this means in the real world, I took some sample 8K footage and imported a project in Final Cut Pro. The M2 Ultra played back the footage with a plugin for .R3D files from Red cameras without any stuttering at all. I was able to add music and visual effects without any issues. Granted, my project was pretty small, especially compared to professional projects. But considering how much headroom was left when I looked in Activity Monitor, I'm not terribly worried.

For more scientific FCP testing, I used the BruceX Final Cut Pro benchmark. It's a short timeline at 5120 x 2700 resolution and 23.975 frames per second. There are a bunch of transitions, titles, and a ton of layers, which requires a lot of RAM. The Mac Studio with M2 Ultra completed the test in 7.87 seconds.

To test the M2 Ultra's gaming acumen, I fired up Resident Evil Village. While the game looked gorgeous in 4K on the Mac Studio Display with HDR mode on, that limited the game to 60 fps. Instead, I turned off HDR, cranked the settings preset to the max, and added MetalFX upscaling. The game typically ran between 70 and 100 frames per second, depending on how much detail was in a scene. When I bumped it down one preset to "prioritize graphics" performance was in a similar place, though it did break 100 fps more often when not in combat.

The Mac Studio is overkill for my daily work. It had no issues with editing photos in Pixelmator Pro, and considering how much memory this thing has, running tons of apps and doing lots of research in browser tabs was no issue.

Perhaps what impressed me most was how the Mac Studio was effectively silent to my ears unless I put my head right up against it. Whether playing an intense game or editing 8K video, the Mac Studio was extremely quiet.

Software and Warranty on the Mac Studio

The Mac Studio comes with macOS Ventura (version 13. This is the same version we saw on the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro earlier this year, which introduced features like editable iMessages, Stage Manager, Continuity Camera, and more. This device will be eligible for macOS Sonoma when it releases this fall.

Unlike PCs running Windows 11, macOS is streamlined in comparison with very little bloat. The software includes Mail, Messages (great for syncing with your iPhone or iPad), Notes, Maps, FaceTime, and Safari. There are also dedicated apps for subscription services like Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple News and Podcasts. Productivity apps like Numbers, Pages, and Keynote are also free.

An increasingly large number of apps are native to Apple Silicon (or use universal binaries). For those that aren't, Rosetta 2 can translate Intel x86 software. A small group of games, like Resident Evil Village, Disco Elysium, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Minecraft all have native Apple Silicon support and run using Apple's Metal API.

Apple sells the Mac Studio with a 1-year warranty. AppleCare+ costs $169.00 for three years of coverage or $60 per year of annual coverage until you choose to cancel it.

Mac Studio Configurations

We tested the Mac Studio in a $6,799 configuration with the top-end variant of the M2 Ultra, with a 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU, and 32-core neural engine, along with 128GB of unified memory and 4TB of SSD storage.

Another version of the M2 Ultra, which cuts the GPU to 60 cores, shaves $1,000 off the cost. With M2 Ultra, RAM starts at 64GB and goes up to 192GB — we tested the middle option. Each step up in RAM costs an additional $800. Yikes.

Storage starts at 1TB. Increasing storage is also expensive: 2TB adds $400 from the base model, 4TB is a $1,000 increase, and 8TB adds an eye-watering $2,200. Considering fast 4TB M.2 SSDs can be had for $299 or even less these days, getting one of those and installing it in an external Thunderbolt enclosure is well worth considering if you want to save some money.

The most expensive configuration, with the M2 Ultra in our review unit, 192GB of RAM, and 8TB of storage, is $8,799.

There are cheaper options. The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 with M2 Max (12-core Core-CPU, 30-core GPU, 16-core neural engine), 32GB of unified memory and 512GB of SSD storage. Where the M2 Ultra version has Thunderbolt 4 ports on the back and front, the M2 Max only has them on the back, while it puts slower USB-C ports on the front. If you were considering a jacked-up version of the Mac Mini with M2 Pro and 32GB of RAM, which is also $1,999, you might as well get the entry-level Max for the extra connectivity and GPU cores. 

The M2 Max also comes in a flavor with a 38-core GPU, a $200 upgrade over the base model. Max models top out at 96GB of unified memory (with the 38-core GPU chip) and still offers up to 8TB of storage.

All of the configurations come with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, which are improvements to the M1 Max and M1 Ultra versions, which used Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.

None of these configurations include peripherals. I mostly used the Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad that Apple included with our loaner unit. I would imagine most Mac users dedicated enough to get the Mac Pro have some peripherals ready.

Bottom Line

If you want the most powerful chip that Apple offers in a surprisingly small form factor, the Mac Studio is for you. While most people don't need that much performance muscle (many people would be served just fine by the Mac Mini with M2 or M2 Pro, or even a 24-inch iMac with M1), those who do creative work professionally and need all the power they can get for machine learning, rendering, video and photo editing, or music production will love the power Apple offers in such a tiny box.

The Mac Studio is quiet and compact despite all of that power. And while its mix of ports allows for plenty of expandability with peripherals and external storage, the one place it may fall short for pros is when it comes to upgradeability; the Mac Studio is stuck as you buy it. Those who want internal expandability may want to consider the new Mac Pro. Apple finally moved the Pro to its own silicon, and while it is far larger than the Studio, it has room for six full-length PCIe Gen 4 slots, with two x16 slots and four x8 slots.

Intel and AMD do make CPUs with more cores and, in some cases, more powerful cores. People who prefer PCs may want to consider systems with those chips, though the overall cost will be higher. Apple isn't only selling a chip — it's selling a small system that fits on a desk. Those Threadripper and Xeon processors require far more cooling. Also, those chips are extremely expensive, coming close to matching the price of our entire Apple review unit. Some people may prefer getting the storage and memory included there.

If space is a concern and you still want the most power Apple can currently offer, our benchmarks show that the M2 Ultra is a remarkably capable chip for the Mac. If you're a creative professional who does your work on macOS and you need nothing short of the best, M2 Ultra shines.

Benchmarks of the Apple M2 Ultra's GPU appear to have leaked online. Today, we spotted various social media posts sharing Geekbench GPU compute scores and GFXBench Aztec Ruins scores. On the surface, these results seem to show that the GPU in the new M2 Ultra is highly formidable, offering GPU compute performance somewhere between a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080. But we need to step back a bit and explain precisely what it is we're looking at.

We reported upon the new Apple M2 Ultra SoC reveal during the firm's annual WWDC earlier in the week. The chip will arrive in updated Mac Studio and Mac Pro designs, which are scheduled to ship next week. However, someone appears to be testing these new Mac computers/processors before consumers can get hold of them, as a raft of benchmarks has appeared online recently.

Yesterday, we picked through a selection of Apple M2 Ultra benchmarks, focusing on the SoC's CPU core performance. Today, we will look more closely at the potential compute capabilities of the M2 Ultra's GPU, thanks to the Geekbench and GFXbench leaks mentioned in the intro.

M2 Ultra Geekbench 6 Compute Benchmarks

It looks like several pre-release M2 Ultra Apple Mac system users have run Geekbench 6's Metal and OpenCL GPU benchmarks. Apple's Metal API is a proprietary graphics API developed by the firm for fast 'direct to the metal' hardware addressing, like an Apple optimized parallel to Microsoft's DirectX.

While these are very interesting synthetic compute benchmarks, we look forward to some thorough real-world testing of the new Apple Macs with M2 Ultra processors, shortly, particularly in gaming, which has been a pain point for Apple's chips.

Note that GPU compute tends to scale far better with multi-chip approaches than GPU graphics — think about Ethereum mining back in the day, where you could connect eight (or more) GPUs to a single modest CPU via PCIe x1 connections and they would all mine at basically 100% of their maximum performance. Not all compute workloads scale that well, but it's still very different than the scaling traditionally seen with real-time graphics used in games.

The new M2 Ultra chip's GPU, featuring up to 76 integrated graphics cores, looks impressive compared to the previous gen M1 Ultra with its maximum 64 graphics cores. In a direct comparison using Geekbench 6, the new-gen M2 Ultra scores about 220,000 or thereabouts, compared to about 155,000 on average for the M1 Ultra.

By this metric, M2 Ultra is over 40% faster than its predecessor in GPU compute tasks. It only has around 10% more graphics cores, so Apple has done well to achieve this scale of uplift.

Turning to a different comparison, the new Apple M2 Ultra's 220,000 Geekbench 6 Compute scores (Metal) sit between the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (208,340 OpenCL) and RTX 4080 (245,706 OpenCL). For a direct Geekbench 6 OpenCL comparison, the Apple M2 Ultra Open CL scores of about 155,000 are much closer to PC GPUs like the Nvidia RTX A5000 and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Again, we need to note that Geekbench 6 OpenCL compute performance does not usually translate well to actual gaming workloads. Synthetic Geekbench 6 performance is very different from real-world graphics.

M2 Ultra GFXBench Benchmarks

Another user has put their M2 Ultra-powered Apple Mac through the GFXBench test suite. In the 4K Aztec Ruins offscreen tests, the new Apple SoC is over 55% faster than its predecessor. This seems to be an even better result than the Geekbench 6 GPU compute comparison. Theoretically, it should also give a better indication of 3D accelerations / gaming performance uplifts, since this is a graphics workload rather than compute.

However, GFXBench is not an ideal desktop GPU comparison tool as it doesn't usually scale well with the highest-end graphics hardware. The Aztec Ruins benchmark is more appropriate to smartphone SoCs than to GPUs like RTX 4070 Ti. Furthermore, we need to focus on the GFXBench "offscreen" tests, which assesses the rendering power of the GPU without worrying about the display resolution in use. Considering the entire benchmark suite weighs in at less than 1GB, it's a safe bet that it's not very representative of modern games that can total more than 100GB.

The screenshot above shows that the Apple M2 Ultra can achieve nearly 315 FPS in the 4K Aztec Ruins high-tier offscreen test (Metal API). Above, we mentioned that this score is over 55% faster than the M1 Ultra. A comparable score on the PC platform would again be something between the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080 (DX12 API).

Big spoonfuls of salt are required here. Ideally, we need to see performance in games and other graphics and compute applications rather than these synthetic workloads that may not be representative of anything truly useful. We look forward to seeing some thorough real-world testing of the new Apple Macs with M2 Ultra processors, which should be available next week.

Apple's M2 Ultra is a mighty processor with 24 general-purpose cores and up to 76 integrated GPU cores. It is also probably faster than Intel's 28-core Xeon W found in the 2019 Mac Pro, so new Mac Pro workstation owners will feel a significant performance uplift. But according to a purported benchmark, this CPU cannot beat competitors from AMD and Intel in Geekbench 5 (via @VadimYuryev) as they boast very high clocks or feature a formidable core count.

Heavy-duty workstation-grade processors are different from desktop and server CPUs in that they should deliver both very responsive performance (like all client processors) and consistently high performance under heavy workloads. This means that they must feature high instruction-per-clock performance, high clocks, high core count, support for loads of memory, and feature loads of PCIe lanes. AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro W5995X and Intel's Xeon W9-3495X comply with these requirements with their 64 and 56 cores, respectively. In a nutshell, they use server silicon configured to offer extremely high clocks when needed. 

When it comes to Apple's M2 Ultra, it consists of two M2 Max system-on-chips that were designed primarily for MacBook Pro and Mac Studio machines. Those workstations have moderate power consumption and do not support expandability. M2 Max was not exactly architected for high clocks or for expandability, as you can only install so much memory and so much storage in a compact PC. Instead of boosting clocks to extremes when a computationally heavy workload emerges, M2 uses built-in special-purpose accelerators. It was also not designed for an extreme core count because of power and cooling limitations. While two M2 Maxes look formidable on paper, they cannot boast clocks of Intel's Core i9-13900K or the core count of AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro W5995WX. 

This is why the benchmark result shows Apple's M2 Ultra cannot beat Intel's Core i9-13900K in single-thread workloads and even fall behind in multi-core workloads in Geekbench 5. Intel's desktop offering supports simultaneous multi-threading and can process up to 32 threads instantly. Compared to its actual rivals — AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro W5995X and Intel's Xeon W9-3495X — it easily beats them in single-thread workloads but is dramatically slower when more cores are needed.

Some may argue that Geekbench 5 is a synthetic benchmark that does not reflect performance in real-world applications, which is a fair argument. But it gives a sense of what to expect from CPUs regarding their compute capabilities without any special-purpose accelerators. And this brings us to the fact that Apple's M2 SoCs have plenty of accelerators inside. Therefore, it may not need to have high clocks or extreme core count to offer great performance in many workstation-grade workloads. 

Then again, with so much compute horsepower under the hood, AMD's and Intel's workstation processors are designed to handle even the most demanding workloads. That said, it remains to be seen whether Apple's Mac Pro can actually beat workstations based on AMD's and Intel's CPUs in workstation applications.

Earlier this week at WWDC, Apple made several hardware announcements related to its Mac platform. The company launched the all-new 15-inch MacBook Air along with a Mac Studio and Mac Pro powered by M2 Ultra processors. However, the product that overshadowed the entire keynote was undoubtedly the Vision Pro extended reality headset.

We learned a lot about the headset, including its impressive dual Micro-OLED displays featuring a collective 23 million pixels. Each eye has access to over 4K resolution, resulting in a crystal-clear picture with no hint of pixels in view, according to people that had hands-on time with the headset. Now, a developer session from Apple's developer conference reveals that the Vision Pro's displays have a refresh rate of "usually 90 frames per second."

For reference, non-pro MacBooks, iPhones and iPads have a refresh rate of 60 Hz, while the Pro variants of each feature a 120 Hz refresh rate. The 90 Hz refresh rate of the Vision Pro puts it right in the middle. The Vision Pro doesn't meet the 120 Hz threshold, so it doesn't carry the ProMotion label attached to devices such as the iPhone 14 Pro, iPad Pro, and 16-inch MacBook Pro.

In the developer session entitled "Deliver video content for spatial experiences," the presenter also revealed that the 90 Hz refresh rate is not static. Apple says a maximum refresh rate of 96 Hz "may be used automatically" while playing 24 fps video content.

In addition to the high-tech displays, the Vision Pro is powered by a 5nm M2 processor in conjunction with an R1 co-processor tasked with wrangling the data from a dozen cameras, six microphones and five sensors.

Apple's Vision Pro is expected to launch in 2024 with a price tag of $3,499. That price puts it out of reach for most consumers, but many are hopeful that subsequent generations can hit more palatable price points, allowing for broader adoption. As my colleague Andrew E. Freedman wrote, "I firmly see this announcement as a first step in building the future, with Apple's dedicated third-party developers making experiences that will germinate here, but become invaluable down the line."

In 2020, as Apple introduced the M1 system on a chip, the company said it would switch away from Intel over two years. Here in 2023, it took a bit longer than Apple forecasted, but with the new Mac Pro with M2 Ultra, Apple has every single one of its computers on its own SoCs. I'm not sure I've ever seen the company this confident about the Mac.

The Mac Pro is an odd duck. Of Apple's computers, it's far from the most popular among consumers, but it's extremely important to creatives who need lots of power and are willing to spend the money for it. As the most powerful, flexible system in Apple's stack, it sets a tone for the rest of the line. Without Intel, it feels as if Apple can now act without restraint.

At WWDC in Cupertino, Apple has the Mac Pro out in its hands-on area with no cooler. That's right — Apple had a chip shot ready for anyone with a camera. M2 Ultra, its most powerful chip ever, was getting a bit of a flex. (Let us not forget, the more attainable Mac Studio also has M2 Ultra. There are two shapes in which to get Apple's most powerful processor).

The lineup is now as follows:

M1 Macs

• 13-inch MacBook Air (entry level)
• iMac (24-inch)

M2 Macs

• Mac Mini (M2, M2 Pro)
• 13-inch MacBook Air
• 15-inch MacBook Air
• 13-inch MacBook Pro
• 14-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, M2 Max)
• 16-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Max)
• Mac Pro (M2 Max, M2 Ultra)

Intel Macs

• Nothing to see here!

When will Apple upgrade the M1 models? Whenever it damn well pleases. That's kind of the point. Apple now controls not just the system, but the chip. Apple may sell systems, but it builds chips to power them. The two are intertwined, whether it's a laptop or a desktop.

And that's before considering the other places the M-series chips have popped up, including the iPad Air with M1 and iPad Pro with M2. Apple's Vision Pro will be powered by an M2 chip in combination with its new R1.

But we're on the Mac. Apple could update any of these systems whenever it wants. It can also hold one on an older process node as long as it needs, whether because that's what it thinks its customers want, or because that's what the supply chain allows. It makes that decision for itself.

Everyone I spoke to at Apple seemed thrilled to be over the hump. But now, it has to truly beat Intel, AMD, Qualcomm and others at the game. And if those companies outdo Apple, it has no one else to point the finger at.

Apple is trying its best here. The company can claim that you can game on its machines. I've tried it. Resident Evil Village runs great. Stray and No Man's Sky are here. Hideo Kojima showed up in the WWDC livestream to announce that Death Stranding: Director's Cut is coming to Mac. Apple is doing some heavy lifting to get games on its platform.

And Apple is also interweaving the Mac with the iPhone and iPad more than ever before with macOS Sonoma. Sure, I had widgets when I had a Mac running Mac OS X Leopard, but sharing between these devices is an acknowledgment that the Mac is an integral part of workflows that also include iPhones. And that's a level of interoperability other ecosystems can't match, though I appreciate Intel and Microsoft trying to get iPhone support in, they can't match Apple on making your phone and PC workspaces that are tied together.

Heck, using the Mac is a showcase feature of the Vision Pro. Want the most power? Use your Mac on an AR/VR headset. Who said the traditional computer is going away?

And with the Mac Pro, we see Apple can still be flexible, allowing for PCIe Gen 4 cards for I/O, storage, audio and more, even if graphics are no longer supported.

WWDC, as a developer conference, pushed hard on the Macs for Pros, like the Studio and the Pro, the company's two most expensive and most powerful machines. But the 15-inch MacBook Air is a version of Apple's best-selling notebooks. In fact, it's an addition to the MacBook line, which has way more sizes and models than Apple has offered in recent memory.

Some Apple fans may be upset to see that the 24-inch iMac is still on M1, or that a 27-inch model never came back. I feel that. But that's also the type of decision that Apple has more power to make now, more than ever. Short of fabbing its own chips, Apple has all of the power of what goes into a system, and when. And that means it can design a system around any chip in its arsenal.

For many years, I wondered if the Mac was a second thought, sitting in line behind the iPhone and the iPad. From WWDC, it's extensively clear that's not the case. With Apple using its own silicon across platforms, with interoperability on the hardware and software level, the Mac feels like a key player at Apple again.

Today at WWDC, Apple announced the latest update to its desktop/laptop operating system, and it’s called macOS Sonoma. The update brings features introduced with iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, including an upgraded Messages app and new predictive autocorrect functionality. But perhaps the biggest announcement relates to gaming.

Apple says that Apple Silicon made it possible to bring new gaming experiences to the Mac platform. With macOS Sonoma, there’s a new Game Mode that prioritizes CPU and GPU usage for your games to provide more consistent frame rates. The Bluetooth sampling rate has been doubled to help improve support for PlayStation and Xbox controllers. 

A new Gaming Porting Toolkit for developer is designed to help significantly reduce the amount of time required to port games from the PC to Mac. More specifically, a “simpler conversion process” is included for shaders and graphics code in the Metal API. 

To put this new gaming focus into perspective, Metal Gear Solid auteur Hideo Kojima announced on the stream that hs is bringing Death Stranding: Director’s Cut to macOS later this year. The developer is also actively working to bring future titles to macOS. 

Apple is focusing on infusing macOS Sonoma with tools to improve your productivity. Stage Manager has been given a makeover to improve upon its somewhat shaky start in previous macOS versions by making it easier and faster to move between apps (and windows). Video overlay allows you to add AR effects to video, like when sharing your screen. These features are available in all conferencing apps, like Zoom, Teams, etc. You can now share passwords and passkeys to a person or a group from your iCloud keychain. Apple says that this feature is end-to-end encrypted for security.

Safari gains a new Profiles feature that allows you to have different profiles with separate favorites, cookies and extensions (among other settings).

Widgets were previously only available in the Notification Center. Now, you can break them out and place them on your desktop where you wish. (In a way, it is reminiscent of OS X from the early 2000's). For example, you could have Weather and Stocks permanently set on your desktop at all times; they then fade slightly from view when you focus on a new app window. 

MacOS Sonoma arrives this fall, when it will leverage all of the hardware capabilities of the new 15-inch MacBook Air, M2 Ultra Mac Studio and M2 Ultra Mac Pro.

Apple is finally finishing its move away from Intel with a new Mac Pro using M2 Ultra. It is configurable with up to 192GB of memory, will start at $6,299, and be available starting next week.

Every Mac Pro will use M2 Ultra, with 24 CPU cores and up to a 76-core GPU. The chassis shares its physical design with the last Intel Xeon Mac Pro, and vertical and rack-mounted options will be available.

Rather than using AfterBurner for ProRes video as an optional card, Apple says the new PC will have the power of seven AfterBurner cards. It can ingest 22 camera feeds direct to Pro Res.

There are 8 Thunderbolt ports, as well as dual Gigabit Ethernet. PCIe Gen 4 expansion cards are an option now, with five slots for video, networking, audio and video IO cards. However, there is no word yet on third-party graphics.

Apple initially said that its transition away from Intel chips would take two years. That was in 2020. While the Mac Pro pushed that into three-year territory, it seems the transition is now complete. Apple has finally moved its entire product line away from Intel.

Apple has added its newest — and most powerful — member to the M2 family of Apple Silicon chips here at WWDC. The new system on a chip, the M2 Ultra, will power an updated Mac Studio, alongside a configuration with M2 Max, as well as a new Mac Pro. This completes the company's transition away from Intel's CPUs.

M2 Ultra connects two M2 Max dies together, and Apple says it's the most powerful chip for a personal computer -- which is a hefty claim.

The M2 Ultra chip will have 24 CPU cores (16 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores) for 20% faster performance than the M1 Ultra, with options for up to 76 GPU cores. RAM will go up to 192GB. These are all increases over the M1 Ultra, which offered 20 CPU cores and was configurable up to a 64-core GPU, a 32-core Neural Engine and 800 GB/s memory bandwidth. The new Studio can handle six Pro Display XDR monitors.

The Mac Studio looks the same as the previous system, but the new chips should provide tangible benefits, especially in multi-core workloads. The M2 Max, which will be in the starting configurations of the Mac Studio, is already available in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.

Apple says that the Mac Studio will start at the same $1,999 price as its predecessor, or $1,799 for education customers.

Asus is working on a concept design for GeForce RTX 40-series (Ada Lovelace) graphics cards that don’t require any power connectors for external power. Instead, the vendor has designed a proprietary slot that delivers up to 600W of power on a custom Z790 motherboard with back-facing connections. We saw the demo at an Asus briefing this week 

The 16-pin power connector (12VHPWR) made many headlines last year because the power adapter melted on a few GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards. Unfortunately, the issue is ongoing, as new cases of the 16-pin meltdowns surfaced a week ago. Nvidia attributed the problem to user error because the 16-pin power connector wasn’t correctly installed in some scenarios. 

Asus’ design doesn’t completely remove the user factor from the equation. Still, it does help minimize the possibility of occurrence since the 16-pin power connector isn’t on the graphics card anymore but on the motherboard, where there is more liberty to maneuver the power cable.

The GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon is the first prototype to feature a connector-less design. However, the branding isn’t final yet so the retail product may have another name. At first glance, the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon looks like a regular 2.3-slot graphics card. 

However, upon closer inspection, you’ll notice that there aren’t any PCIe power connectors. In their place, Asus implemented a proprietary connector that resembles a PCIe x1 connector. However, it has the same power delivery as the 16-pin power connector, up to 600W. Asus has baptized the connector as “GC_HPWR” for now, but the company said it’d have an official name at launch.

Asus isn't the first vendor to slap a custom connector on the graphics card to provide power. For example, AMD has produced some Radeon Pro graphics cards for Apple that use the latter’s MPX (Mac Pro eXpansion) form factor. However, Asus’ custom power connector, which doesn’t have an official name yet, isn’t as long as Apple’s implementation.

Asus demonstrated the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon alongside a TUF Gaming Z790 BTF, a motherboard with connectors on the back. It's a design based on the DIY-APE standard. The GC_HPWR connector on the motherboard essentially acts as a pass-through for the 16-pin power connector because the power has to come from somewhere.

However, Asus also went the extra mile and added three 8-pin PCIe power connectors to the mix. Therefore, consumers may choose the three-cable solution or the single 16-pin alternative. Even though the motherboard has the special GC_HPWR connector, it doesn't limit its usage. Consumers can use regular graphics cards on Asus' motherboard.

Asus' BTF motherboards were previously restricted to the Chinese market. However, the company said that the TUF Gaming Z790 BTF and the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon would hit the global markets. Pricing is unknown, but Asus confirmed that they would carry a slight premium since there's the added cost of moving the connectors to the back of the motherboard. Not to mention that consumers will also have to shell out more money for a case designed for Asus' BTF motherboards.

In the meantime, the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon is kept inside Asus' ecosystem. Unfortunately, the brand didn't state whether it'll open the proprietary design to other motherboard vendors. But more importantly, will other manufacturers be willing to jump on the new design since it'll involve additional cost and human resources to redesign existing motherboards and graphics cards to meet the standard? Then there's the existent risk that the design doesn't take off.

For every gaming PC with a massive case or a spaceship-inspired design, there's something a bit more subtle. In some ways the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i ($3,349.99) follows the lead of office mid-towers with a gray, boxy design. But it also emulates some of the best gaming PCs with bog standard parts and plenty of options for upgradeability.

Powering the Tower, in the only configuration as of this writing, is an Intel Core i9-13900KF and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, which proved to be a powerful combination at both 1080p and 4K in our gaming tests.

The Legion is worthy of consideration for anyone willing to drop $3,000 on a pre-built PC.  here are some issues with RAM speed to address, though they didn't seem to affect gaming performance too much in our experience.

Design of the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8)

The Legion Tower 7i is a bit of a mashup between an office desktop, a gaming rig and maybe even the Mac Pro. The most striking feature, for better or worse, is a large, cheese grater-style design, but with squares rather than circles. If you like that on the Mac Pro, maybe you'll like it here, but it's less polished here. The front also has an RGB Legion logo, turned vertically.

Lenovo's 34-liter chassis is largely a gray (sorry, "storm" gray) box. I'm OK with that — PC gamers are used to utilitarian chassis that are largely designed to house their parts. I do think that Lenovo could zhuzh it up a bit, though. While some of it is metal, large amounts of it are plastic, and that doesn't look or feel premium.

The top of the box has a cutout to allow airflow in or out of the chassis (Lenovo has two exhaust fans up there). I wish that there was a dust filter built into that top part, or even just a cheap reusable one. The dust filters at the front and the top should have some tighter tolerances.

There's a glass side panel on the left side of the Legion, letting you see your parts and any RGB effects you've got going. On our unit, the GPU, water cooler pump and fans all lit up, and there's a white light strip above the glass door to provide some brightness. I liked turning the light strip off, which brought out more of the colors. 

You can change the settings in Lenovo Vantage (though I had to wait for the software to update the first time around), but it doesn't yet control the RGB on the GPU, which is stuck in a rainbow pattern (this messed up the all-green look I was going for). Lenovo says more lighting effects will be available when its Legion Spectrum software releases later in 2023. (There are also lighting options in the BIOS, but that also doesn't feature GPU effects as of this writing.)

At 19.37 x 18.27 x 8.31 inches, I imagine the Legion Tower 7i is just big enough that most people will keep it on the floor under a desk. It's not quite as big as other recent RTX 40-series desktops we've reviewed, like the Alienware Aurora R15 (20.8 x 20.1 x 8.86 inches) and the MSI Infinite RS 13th (23.03 x 10.12 x 21.14 inches).

Specifications on the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8)

Ports and Upgradeability on the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i 

Lenovo has four USB ports on the top of the Legion Tower: two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, and two newer USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports. Personally, I would have liked to see a Type-C port as well, but four is more than I see on many prebuilt. There are also separate ports for headphones and a microphone.

On the back of Lenovo's motherboard, there are two USB 2.0 Type-A ports. four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port and USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port. That's a decent amount of connectivity. There's also an Ethernet jack and audio ports, including SPDIF.

If you want to add or replace parts, getting into the Legion is pretty easy. The left panel is held on by two thumb screws that are captive in the glass door, and the right back panel comes off in a similar fashion.

From here, the world is your oyster. Sure, you can get to the RAM, the cooling and the three-slot-thick Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 (maybe Lenovo should include a support for it). But it also appears that Lenovo is using a standard ATX motherboard here, suggesting it could be replaced and that you could continue to use this case down the line. Everything here seems to be industry standard, and some of Lenovo's rivals (looking at you, Dell) could learn from this.

The motherboard has four m.2 slots. In ours, two were taken up: one with the Wi-Fi card and one with a 1TB SSD. The other two are yours to add to later.

Cable management is decent, considering Lenovo is dealing with Nvidia's 12VHPWR adapter. There may have been some cases where I would have tried to jam more cases through the back of the system, though Lenovo has pushed the grommets in the system to their limit here. One's rubber coating was slipping off out of the box. But whoever built this system took full advantage of the case's mounting points for cable ties. The PSU is covered by a shroud, so you can only see all of the extra cables there from the back.

The back of the case also offers more room for storage upgrades, including a hard drive caddy and a pair of mounting points for 2.5-inch SATA SSDs or HDDs.

On the rear of the system, there are two vertical PCIe slots covers, suggesting that someone with a modding hobby (or at least a PCIe extension cable) could mount a two-slot GPU vertically in this case.

Gaming and Graphics on the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8)

Configured with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 and an Intel Core i9-13900KF, the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i can power through many games at their highest settings and at 4K resolution. At 1080p, which uses the CPU more, it sometimes ends up on par with systems with the more powerful RTX 4090.

The Tower 7i can handle Control (which continues to be a punishing game after all these years)  at its best, albeit not at 60 fps. At 4K on the high graphics preset and high ray-tracing settings, the game ran at around 50 frames per second while fighting to cleanse an object of power, and at a near constant 80 fps in the Astral Plane (but these sections are short, few and have all-white backgrounds) and at as low as 40 fps in intense combat sequences with tons of effects (which are far more common).

On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (highest preset), the Legion achieved 236 fps at 1080p and 93 fps at 4K. That's less than the RTX 4090-toting Alienware and MSI, but the difference was far larger at 4K. The Lenovo also showed off strong generational improvements over the iBuypower Revolt 3, which we tested with an RTX 3080.

Grand Theft Auto V's benchmark produced interesting results. At very high settings and 1080p resolution, the Legion, MSI Infinite and Alienware Aurora all hit the same 186 fps, even though the latter competitors have a more powerful RTX 4090. That's partially because Grand Theft Auto V has always been notoriously CPU bound, and that's almost always the case at lower resolutions. It might also suggest that today's top-end cards are hitting some sort of limit for the game. At 4K, the Legion hit 57 fps, falling behind the 4090 desktops, and only a single frame ahead of the iBuypower.

We saw a similar pattern on Far Cry 6's benchmark at ultra presets. At 1080p, the Legion tied the Alienware at 127 fps (which had slightly surpassed the MSI) at 4K, but fell behind in 4K, at 92 fps. (We weren't running this benchmark when we tested the iBuypower, so it's excluded from the chart.)

The RTX 4090-based systems took a clear lead in Red Dead Redemption 2. While the Lenovo Legion hit a respectable 166 fps at 1080p and 57 fps at 4K on medium settings, the MSI and Alienware surpassed it by more than 20 fps in each resolution.

On the Borderlands 3 benchmark's "badass" preset, the Legion Tower achieved 228 fps at 1080p and 92 fps at 4K, falling behind the MSI (258 fps at 1080p /129 fps at 4K) and Aurora (263  fps at 1080p/128 fps at 4K)

We stress systems by running Metro Exodus at its RTX preset for 15 runs, which lasts roughly half an hour. The Tower 7i hit an average of 119.12 fps and was fairly constant from run to run. The Core i9-13900KF's performance cores ran at an average of 5.3 GHz and the efficiency cores ran at an average of 4.3 GHz. The CPU measured an average of 58.24 degrees Celsius. The GPU ran at an average of 2,529.89 MHz and measured 54.25 degrees Celsius.

Productivity Performance on the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8)

When you're not gaming on your PC, the Legion Tower 7i should be plenty competent as a workhorse thanks to its Intel Core i7-13900KF and 32GB of RAM, as well as a 1TB SSD. Lenovo states that the Legion Tower 7i has DDR5-5600 RAM, and yes, there are two 16GB DIMMS that meet that specification. 

But in our review unit, those DIMMs didn't run at those speeds, but rather at 4,400 MHz. Lenovo claims that "there are limitations that the chipset inherently has depending on the number of modules [that] are installed. Essentially, the clock speeds are automatically restricted to lower values when leveraging dual and quad channel memory setups."  That's not an issue we've seen with other systems running two DIMMs, but Lenovo did recreate it on their end.

On Geekbench 5, the Legion Tower 7i was within a point or two of the MSI infinite RS and the Alienware Aurora R15 on the single-core test at 2,178. The Legion achieved a multi-core score of 22,275, ever so slightly behind the Aurora 15 and trailing the Alienware.

The Legion we tested came with a 1TB Samsung PM9A1 PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD, which transferred 25GB of files at a rate of 1,152.26 MBps. That's slower than both the MSI and Alienware, though it's far better than the iBuypower from last year.

The Legion took the top rank in Handbrake, converting a 4K video to 1080p in 2 minutes and 18 seconds, faster than anything else in the field.

Keyboard and Mouse with the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8)

If you don't already own a keyboard and mouse, the pack-ins that come with the Legion Tower should get you started. Once you're started, you should invest in a different keyboard and mouse.

The pack-ins are office-grade plastic, not suitable for gaming. The membrane keyboard is soft and squishy, and the wired mouse, while fine for general browsing, isn't comfortable enough for long gaming sessions. It's one thing if these come with a cheap system, which will let someone on a tight budget get by while they save up for their next splurge, but even the cheapest gaming gear you can find would be an improvement, especially when you're spending over $3,000 on the rig itself. Check out our lists of the best gaming keyboards and best gaming mice.

Software and Warranty on the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8)

Lenovo has been expanding its software footprint on all of its devices, including Legion, for better or worse. Lenovo Vantage is still the primary app, showing CPU and GPU usage, overclocking options and letting you change your lighting. Now a separate piece of software, called Arena, acts as a library to store all of your games from across different launchers. There's also Lenovo Welcome, which tries to sell you upgraded support services, download partner apps and add a desktop shortcut to Lenovo's own Legion Game Shop, which overall feels like more of an ad than a useful piece of software.

Steelseries' Nahimic is the on-bpoard software to adjust audio, which is useful. The only other piece of third-party software is a trial of McAfee LiveSafe.

Unfortunately, Lenovo has put some bookmarks in the Edge browser (a growing practice from a number of manufacturers these days) with links to Lenovo's website, its support site, and McAfee.

Windows 11, of course, still has links to some bloat, which will download apps like WhatsApp, TikTok, Spotify, ESPN or Instagram if you click them in the Start menu.

Lenovo sells the Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8) with a one-year warranty that can be upgraded for an additional cost. Lenovo bundles its "ultimate support" for Legion with this desktop, including 24/7 availability through phone, chat and email, next business day support onsite and support for hardware, software and accessories.

Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8) Configurations

We tested the Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8) with an Intel Core i9-13900KF, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 and a 1TB PCIe SSD. At the moment, this is the only configuration that Lenovo offers, with a $3,349.99 price tag.

As of this writing, many other retailers are still selling older generation Legion Towers with older Intel CPUs, though some have the latest Nvidia graphics.

Bottom Line

The Lenovo Legion Tower 7i is a capable gaming machine with plenty of upgrade possibilities down the line. The RTX 4080 is capable of playing games at 4K, and the motherboard's swatch of m.2 slots mean there's a ton of room to add storage.

As of this writing, the Core i9-13900KF/RTX 4080 is the only configuration of the machine that Lenovo is selling. Those who need the power of the RTX 4090 (and willing to pay the price for it) in a prebuilt will need to go to other vendors, like Alienware or MSI.

While Lenovo is leaning harder on preinstalled software than it used to, I'm happy to see a standard case with standard parts here. There's plenty of options to make this PC your own for years to come.

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It's a pity that the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo didn't make it outside Apple's ecosystem. Given its latest performance show, the dual Navi 21-based offering from AMD would rival the best graphics cards on the market.

The Radeon Pro W6800X Duo features not one but two Navi 21 (Sienna Cichlid) dies. They communicate with each other via AMD's Infinity Fabric interconnect. Unfortunately, AMD didn't let the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo leverage the full Navi 21 silicon. Instead, the chipmaker disabled 20 CUs (compute units) from each Navi 21, leaving the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo with just 60 CUs or 3,840 SPs (stream processors). Each Navi 21 dies also arrives with 32GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit memory interface and 128MB of Infinity Cache.

AMD produced the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo specifically for the Mac Pro; therefore, the graphics card adopts Apple's proprietary MPX (Mac Pro eXpansion) form factor. The expansion module has no external power connectors, so Apple combines a standard PCIe x16 connector and a custom connector for added power delivery. The Radeon Pro W6800X Duo has a 400W, so a single PCIe x16 expansion slot isn't enough to provide the graphics card with enough juice.

Distinguished extreme overclock Roman "der8auer" Hartung got the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo to work on a standard motherboard with some clever modifications. First, he connected the graphics card to the PCIe expansion slot using a regular PCIe x16 riser cable and subsequently soldered two 12V and two ground wires from his  12VHPWR cable to the Apple connector.

Radeon Pro W6800X Duo Benchmarks

Hartung tested the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo on his latest Z790 platform with the Core i9-13900K and 32GB (2x16GB) of DDR5-6000 C30 memory. He specifically used 3DMark's Time Spy Extreme GT1 benchmark for comparison. Surprisingly, the regular Adrenalin drivers refused to install, implying that the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo isn't intended to work on a non-Apple device. However, Hartung found success with the Apple Boot Camp driver.

The Radeon Pro W6800X Duo delivered 4% higher performance than the Asus Strix GeForce RTX 4080. The RDNA 2 graphics card also outperformed AMD's latest Radeon RX 7900 XTX by 8%. Only the GeForce RTX 4090 could beat the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo. The Ada Lovelace flagship beat the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo by a significant 27% margin.

Radeon Pro W6800X Duo is a graphics card for professional users, but it's always cool to see how the hardware performs in gaming. Apple sells the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo MPX Module for $5,000, so it's not a toy that everyone can acquire to play with. Although Hartung paid slightly less for his Radeon Pro W6800X Duo, kudos to him for buying one to show us how it fares against modern graphics cards, even if it's just a generic gaming benchmark.

Nearly all of Apple’s Macs have transitioned to homegrown Apple Silicon, erasing the company’s dependence on Intel processors. However, there is still one holdout left: the Mac Pro. The current generation Mac Pro was launched in 2019 and hasn’t seen any meaningful updates since then. However, a new version is on the way that will finally make the transition to Apple Silicon. 

Earlier this month, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggested that the new Mac Pro would support modular graphics courtesy of an expansion port on the motherboard. However, Gurman reversed that claim yesterday, suggesting that the Mac Pros “may lack user upgradeable GPUs.” Apple’s current Mac Pro is powered by Intel Xeon processors and AMD Radeon Pro W6000X Series RDNA2 graphics cards. No explanation was given for this pullback from his initial reporting, but that’s not the only bad news.

Gurman further states that the new Mac Pro won’t support external GPUs. If this reporting is accurate, customers should think carefully about their future graphics needs at the time of purchase. In this case, the new Mac Pro’s GPU will allegedly be available in up to a 76-core configuration or double what’s available with the maxed-out M2 Max SoC available on the new 2023 MacBook Pros.

We already knew that the Mac Pro would lack user-replaceable RAM, so adding the GPU to the mix will be a bitter pill to swallow for Apple enthusiasts. However, Mac Pro customers will still have the option to upgrade their SSD storage via two internal slots or external Thunderbolt 4 ports.

The limited upgrade options for the Mac Pro will make for an interesting comparison with the similarly upgrade-averse Mac Studio. The Mac Studio is currently available with M1 Max and M1 Ultra SoCs, and will likely soon receive upgrades to M2 Max and M2 Ultra SoCs. It’s possible that Apple could reserve the high-end 76-core versions of the M2 Ultra for the Mac Pro.   

The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 with a M1 Max SoC ($3,999 with a M1 Ultra), while the Mac Pro starts at $5,999. The Mac Pro costs nearly $54,000 fully decked out with a 28-core Xeon W processor, 1.5B of DDR4 memory, dual Radeon Pro W690X GPUs, an Afterburner card and an 8TB SSD.

A ghost from the past emerged on a Reddit thread the other day. A user has managed to get his hands on a Radeon Pro prototype that leverages the entire Vega 20 die.

AMD has produced many graphics cards and accelerators based on the Vega 20 silicon. But only the more exclusive and niche models came with the fully-enabled Vega 20 die, which houses 64 CUs, equivalent to 4,096 shading units. The small list includes the 2018-era Radeon Instinct MI60, which targets the AI and deep learning market, plus the Radeon Pro Vega II and Radeon Pro Vega II Duo, which wound up in select Mac Pro machines. Sadly, the retail market got to reap the full benefits of what Vega 20 had to offer.

The mysterious Radeon Pro from the Reddit thread sports the same aesthetics as the Radeon Pro V420, a professional-grade graphics card that also never made it to the market. Photographs of the PCB reveal the big Vega 20 silicon, which measures 331 mm², with four stacks of high-speed HBM2 memory. In addition, the prototype features one 8-pin PCIe power connector and a 6-pin PCIe power connector, a suitable configuration for up to 300W.

Since it's unreleased hardware, GPU-Z had difficulty figuring out the Radeon Pro graphics card. However, according to the software, it has the same device ID as the Radeon Instinct MI60. In addition, the utility reports SK hynix as the manufacturer of the HBM2 memory, but in reality it's Samsung.

According to the owner, the Radeon Pro graphics card comes with two different sets of firmware. The primary firmware has a higher power limit with 32GB of 1,600 Mbps memory, whereas the second firmware features a more modest power limit with a memory quota of 31.984GB. In addition, the graphics card sports the typical blower-style cooler, which looks pretty good and even has a bit of RGB lighting to it. The Redditor reported temperatures less than 80 degrees Celsius
under load, with the cooling fan hitting speeds of 3,800 RPM. For reference, the cooling fan has a maximum rotational speed of 5,000 RPM.

The Radeon Pro prototype hits 1,700 MHz, so it's well within the range of the other Vega 20-powered SKUs. The Radeon Pro Vega II tops out at 1,720 MHz, and only the Radeon Instinct MI60 flaunts a 1,800 MHz boost clock speed.

Performance could be better, in part because it's a prototype and needs proper software-level support. As a result, the Radeon Pro graphics card doesn't perform 100% during real-world tests. Nonetheless, it delivered a double-precision performance of up to 6.4 TFLOPs, around 14% slower than the Radeon Instinct MI60.

It remains a mystery why AMD backpedaled and didn't launch the Radeon Pro V420. It would have been a very competitive professional graphics card at the time.

Apple has one more computer to convert to Apple Silicon: the Mac Pro. And it sounds like it will be more familiar than we expected. According to Mark Gurman's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, an upcoming refresh will appear identical to the 2019 version.

To some, that's a bit of a shame, as many of Apple's designs featuring its own silicon have been evolving. But more interesting to us here at Tom's Hardware is what's going on inside. Previous Bloomberg reports suggested that a high-end Mac Pro with 48 CPU cores and 152 graphics clusters was languishing, and now Gurman says it has been canceled. Instead, he writes that Apple will release the Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra, an evolution of the M1 Ultra found in the Mac Studio.

Apple Silicon chips have all had RAM onboard, and that makes for an odd setup for the Mac Pro. Gurman's newsletter suggests that unlike the Intel Xeon-based model from 2019, the upcoming Mac Pro won't have upgradeable RAM. That being said, he reports that there will be two SSD storage slots and room for "graphics, media and networking cards."

It's extremely interesting to see the suggestion that graphics cards will be modular here, as Apple has been relying on its own integrated graphics on all Apple Silicon devices. (Apple claimed the Mac Studio with M1 Ultra rivals the RTX 3090, though independent testing suggested that wasn't the case, especially in gaming.) I suppose it's possible that somewhere, Apple is writing drivers for AMD or Nvidia's cards. Or it could be using something like the Apple Afterburner card, which it introduced with the 2019 Mac Pro for Video editing in the ProRes and ProRes RAW codecs. The existing Mac Pros are based on Intel Xeon chips and work with AMD Radeon Pro graphics (the most recent are W6000X cards designed exclusively for Apple's tower, bringing AMD's RDNA 2 graphics in 2021).

When Apple released the Mac Studio, it said in its announcement video that the beefed-up Mac Mini wasn't replacing the Mac Pro. There will be a question, however, of which to get if upgradeability is limited anyway, especially if the Mac Studio gets a bump to M2 Ultra. But it's likely that the Mac Pro will cost far more than the Studio currently does.

In other Mac news, Gurman reports that the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, some of the best ultrabooks, will get spec bumps with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips in the first half of the year, and that there's still a planned 15-inch MacBook Air sometime in 2023.

The iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods are likely to see small bumps, with no news for Apple TV hardware. Some of this is due to Apple's focus on announcing a mixed-reality headset, possibly called Reality Pro, ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, reportedly to launch in the fall.

When Apple introduced its first M1 system-on-chip for PCs in mid-2020, it said that it would transition all of its Macs to its Apple Silicon SoCs in about two years. By now, the company should have introduced its Mac Pro workstation featuring its own processor. But that hasn't happened, and it is actually unclear when this desktop will emerge, according to a Bloomberg report. 

At first, Apple planned to build its new Mac Pro around its M1 Ultra dual-chip processor, but that device ended up in the most powerful Mac Studio desktop, and the company scrapped plans to produce a Mac Pro on its M1 generation. Eventually, the company decided to use its dual-chip M2 Ultra and quad-chip M2 Extreme processors for its top-of-the-range workstation.  

The M2 Ultra is said to feature 24 general-purpose cores and 76 graphics clusters, whereas the M2 Extreme is projected to feature 48 general-purpose CPU cores as well as 152 graphics clusters. Furthermore, the M2 Ultra is reportedly designed to support at least 192 GB of memory, so expect the M2 Extreme version to support up to 384 GB of DRAM. 

But it looks like Apple has scrapped plans to produce M2 Extreme processor because of complexity and costs. A Mac Pro based on the alleged M2 Extreme processor would cost around $10,000 and would be an extremely niche product that may not be worth development costs, engineering resources, and production bandwidth, Bloomberg says. 

Yet, the Mac Pro is supposed to be an extremely capable workstation for a relatively small niche market. A key thing that should be kept in mind about Apple's Mac Pro is its audience. While the Bloomberg report vaguely mentions demanding users like "photographers, editors, and programmers," Mac Pro is much more than a powerful PC. Mac Pro systems are often used for cinema and video production, and such workloads are getting more demanding as resolutions and color depths increase. And such systems not only need performance, but the also versatility and flexibility of a desktop PC, as they need to install a variety of add-in-cards, accelerators, advanced storage devices, and so on. To add these boards, a new Mac Pro would need advanced I/O, which is somewhat of a departure from Apple's SoC ideology that entails a very high level of integration.  

One of the features that Apple's Mac Pro has — and something that the company's other systems lack — is upgradeability. A user of previous Mac Pros would often buy the tower, then install a new graphics card, add more memory, or Apple's Afterburner accelerator. It is unclear whether an Apple Silicon-based desktop would be upgradeable, but from what we see with the Apple Studio machine, the company is reluctant to offer such capability even to its professional customers.  

It is noteworthy that in addition to switching its Mac Pro to its own Apple Silicon processors the company is mulling transferring its production and final assembly from China and the U.S. to Vietnam. This will somewhat lower its costs, though given the price of Mac Pro, this will hardly have any difference for end users. 

One of the things that the Bloomberg report does not touch upon is when the new Mac Pro is set to hit the market. So far, Apple has only introduced its M2 SoC, and it yet has to roll out its M2 Pro and M2 Max SoCs. Meanwhile, multi-chip M2 Ultra and potential M2 Extreme are typically introduced months after single-chip SoCs, which means these processors probably won't arrive until mid-2023 at the earliest.

Apple of course does not comment on its future plans, though it is about time for the company to offer an upgraded version of its Mac Pro, as the current-generation machine was launched in 2019.

Benchmarks for Apple’s unannounced but almost certainly real M2 Max have appeared in Geekbench results, which shows a 12-core processor running at 3.54GHz and backed by 96GB of RAM. The rumored chip, which would be used in forthcoming MacBook Pro and Mac Studio models, offers a slight increase in performance over the existing M1 Max if the Geekbench run is accurate.

The Geekbench 5 results are for a 'Mac14,6' computer running on unreleased macOS 13.2 software. It manages a single-core score of 1,853 and a multi-core score of 13,855. If accurate, this is a little disappointing, as an eight-core M2 MacBook Pro hits 1,899 in the same single-core benchmark. However, the greater number of cores in the M2 Max machine sees it pull ahead in the multi-core ranking, with the M1 scoring 8,737 (5,000 points behind). However, all the M-class Macs trounce an Intel iMac from 2020, with that machine's Core i7-10700K at 3.8GHz scoring 1,250 in the single-core test and 8,157 in the multi-core.

A report from Taiwan's DigiTimes claims Apple will move from the M2's current 5nm TMSC process to a 3nm node for the M2 Pro. Of course, Apple hasn't announced this development, but manufacturing capacity at TSMC was reportedly booked by Apple back in the summer. 

The previous generation M1 chips were eventually available in four guises: vanilla, Pro, Max and Ultra, with the upper-level chips having more cores and beefier GPUs. While the Mac mini, iMac, MacBook Air, a few MacBook Pros and the iPad Pro got basic chips, most MacBook Pros come with a choice of M1 Pro or M1 Max, with the new Mac Studio able to be specced with an M1 Ultra, which is two M1 Pro chips stuck together. While the M1 has eight or 10 CPU cores, the differences between the chips are mainly expressed in the number of GPU cores and the amount of RAM in the package.

It's not unreasonable to expect M2 to go the same route, and while so far we've only seen M2 in the 2022 MacBook Air and a single MacBook Pro model (as well as an iPad Pro), we expect the processor to make its way through the entire Mac computer range, even perhaps infiltrating the Mac Pro, which is still an Intel-only zone.

Apple’s upcoming Mac Pro refresh could feature a new processor which offers up to 48 CPU cores and 152 GPU cores, according to an email newsletter by Bloomberg’s Marc Gurman. In his weekly bulletin ‘Apple insider’ Gurman dubs the unannounced new processor the M2 Extreme, but there will be Mac Pro machines with M2 Ultra processor options too, he says.

Here in late 2022 the professional and content creator segment targeted by Apple Mac Pro computers may be feeling a little left behind. While lower-rung desktop Macs, MacBooks and even iPads have been reinvigorated with Apple Silicon, Mac Pros are still Intel architecture-bound (max 24 CPU cores). However, Apple has a mammoth step lined up for the Mac Pro, if Gurman’s reporting turns out to be accurate.

Describing the new Apple Mac Pro with M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme options, the Bloomberg contributor said that the high-end machine “will include chip options that are at least twice or four times as powerful as the M2 Max.” The M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme will offer 24 and 48 CPU cores and 76 and 152 graphics cores, respectively. Buyers will also be able to configure systems with up to 256GB of RAM, it is alleged.

Adding some seasoning to his report, Gurman says he has seen evidence of the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra in active testing at Apple. The particular configuration which was tested had a processor with 24 CPU cores, split between 16 performance cores and eight efficiency cores. It also boasted 16 GPU cores and 192GB of system RAM. This Mac Pro was claimed to be running MacOS Ventura 13.3, which is based on a mainstream release that has only just become available.

The first Apple M2 processor was released this summer, offering up to 8% more performance in multi-threaded CPU-focused tasks, and up to 35% more performance in graphics workloads, compared with the Apple M1. Apple developed the M1 family with the release of the M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra chips, and it is expected to build up the 5nm M2 range similarly, and further.

The pinnacle of the Apple M1 range, the M1 Ultra, came packing a 20-core CPU, and 64-core GPU. Perhaps Apple didn’t think that was enough for a Mac Pro refresh. Now, thanks to Gurman’s report, we have solid indications about how the new M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme will make the new Mac Pro an appealing upgrade for creative pros.

Popular online electronics retailer B&H photo has set up a placeholder product page for a new Apple Mac computer featuring an Apple Silicon M2 processor. Apple will host its WWDC keynote on Monday, and the Apple press is keen to get early scoops. Still, sites like 9to5 Mac admit that the B&H listing may be an attention-grabbing prank or hoax, as Apple doesn't pass on any information to resellers ahead of product announcements.

The first of B&H Photo's 'accidental' early product page leaks is a new Mac Mini with an M2 processor. According to the retailer page, this mini computer comes in an 8GB RAM and 256GB storage configuration (possibly others). Adding a bit of sauce to its listing, the retailer says, "checkout will be available at 9:45 pm ET Monday night." WWDC22 runs from Monday, June 6, to Friday, June 10, with the keynote on the first day at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET. Apple traditionally opens sales, or at least pre-orders, of products shortly after their announcement.

Nearly all readers will be familiar with the iconic Mac Mini. Therefore tomorrow, the most significant interest will be in what is inside – with this listing teasing the arrival of the new M2 processor. Perhaps B&H read our story from early March when we discussed the rumors of M2 Mac Minis by mid-2022. That report suggested the more contemporary architecture M2 processors leverage a mix of Avalanche performance cores and Blizzard efficiency cores. Moreover, the GPU core counts are likely to be increased, and the TSMC process node will move from N5 to N5P. Looking further ahead, rumors say that the Apple M3 SoCs will use TSMC's next-generation N3 node.

Of course, no one knows what kind of performance uplift the new M2 SoCs will deliver to Apple's Mac refreshes. Even after the keynote and the presentation slides at hand, we won't have the most straightforward idea either, as a cloud of marketing will add to the technical information shared. Therefore, we must look forward to third-party testing and comparisons to get an authentic feel for what M2 delivers.

Another listing spotted at the US electronics retailer was one for an Apple Mac Mini Tower. As a more premium design, it is odd that this would come with an M1 Pro SoC and the same 8GB RAM and 256GB storage configuration as the Mac Mini. 9to5 Mac reckons to list the tower design as a probable sign that the product page is fake for the fun of someone at B&H. In other words, take these two listings with a hefty pinch of salt.

Apple mentioned a new Mac Pro on the way at the end of its March event, so if there is any 'tower' being prepared for launch tomorrow, this is what we expect. The last Mac Pro, AKA the cheese grater, launched with up to a 28-core Intel Xeon processor in late 2019.

Other Macs that could be in line for an update tomorrow include the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13. Outside of the laptop/desktop computer arena, tomorrow's most exciting hardware launch could be Apple's first AR/VR headset. As a developer conference, most of the week will be concerned with software; MacOS 13, iPadOS 16, iOS 16, TVOS 16, and WatchOS 9 are all expected to arrive during WWDC22 and new and improved apps.

Apple has begun testing new notebooks and desktops running its next-generation M2 system-on-chips (SoCs), according to developer logs. The company began testing some of these systems quite some time ago, but it is still unclear whether Apple plans to announce them at its upcoming WWDC conference in June and when exactly they are set to be launched. 

Apple is testing at least nine new Macs based on M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, and M2 Ultra SoCs, according to a Bloomberg report. Previous leaks indicated that the M2 family is largely based on Apple's A15 Bionic architectures, so the new report largely confirms this information and sheds some additional light on the specifications of the new processors. 

As it turns out, the new M2 will not get any increase in terms of core count, but will get a GPU with more clusters. The M2 Pro will gain two more energy-efficient cores, whereas the M2 Max will get more energy-efficient cores and a better GPU (see the table below for details). 

Comparison of Apple's SoCs (official and unofficial information)

Since the new SoCs will be made using TSMC's N5P fabrication technology, Apple could not tangibly increase CPU core and GPU cluster counts, so expect moderate performance uplifts from architectural improvements, some performance surges from the increased core/cluster counts, and some additional oomph from higher clocks. 

The list of M2-based systems that Apple is testing includes its new MacBook Air, entry-level MacBook Pro, 14-inch MacBook Pro, 16-inch MacBook Pro, and an all-new Mac Pro. Surprisingly, the list does not include any iMacs. Meanwhile, all these systems have their own launch schedules and windows and therefore will not likely be introduced at the same time.

Apple's rumored M2-based systems

For example, a revamped MacBook Air and probably Mac Mini are expected at WWDC in early June. The MacBook Air is expected to feature an all-new design, so showing it off at the upcoming conference will certainly attract a lot of attention to the event given how popular that model is. Meanwhile, the next-generation Mac Mini has already been listed in Apple Studio Display's firmware as MacMini 10.1 (the current is 9.1), which is a clear indicator that a new model is incoming, reports 9to5Mac. 

Since it takes some time for Apple to adopt its latest microarchitectures to Pro and Max SoCs, do not expect an M2 Pro or M2 Max-based MacBook Pro or Mac Mini to emerge for a while. A reasonable guess would be by the end of the year, but that's pure speculation. Assuming that M2 Max SoC is months off, the M2 Ultra will probably arrive at even later date, so do not expect the new Mac Pro to arrive any time soon.

Like most other companies, Apple does not comment on unreleased products, so we cannot verify whether the unofficial information is correct. But, WWDC is looming and this might be the conference where the company will share the first details about its M2-based PCs.

When Apple first announced its new M1 Ultra last week, the company was full of bluster, boasting about the chip's performance credentials. The company claimed that the M1 Ultra could offer greater performance than the Intel Core i9-12900K while consuming 100 fewer watts at load. But the most outrageous claim was likely the assertion that the M1 Ultra's 64-core GPU offered better performance than the flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 while undercutting it by 200 watts in power consumption.

Those parts rank among the best CPUs and best graphics cards, and many people were rightfully skeptical about these claims, especially after Apple's GPU performance projections for the M1 Pro and M1 Max didn't quite mesh with real-world performance. To test Apple's claims, the folks at the Verge got their hands on a maxed-out Mac Studio configured with the most potent M1 Ultra SoC (20-core CPU, 64-core GPU) paired with 128GB of unified memory.

The most problematic aspects of Apple's benchmarks from last week were that it provided no frame of reference for its figures, didn't properly label them, and didn't even tell us which apps were being tested. This is typical Apple behavior, so it shouldn't be too surprising. However, the Verge's testing showed that its test rig with a Core i9-10900 and 64GB of RAM put up a Geekbench 5 Compute score of 215,034 compared to 83,121 for the Mac Studio with M1 Ultra (102,156 when using Metal).

Not everyone puts a lot of stock in synthetic benchmarks like Geekbench, so the Verge also fired up Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and the RTX 3090 easily mopped the floor with the M1 Ultra, delivering 142 fps at 1440p and 114 fps at 4K. Unfortunately, the Mac Studio could only muster 108 fps and 96 fps, respectively. Those aren't horrible numbers, but we expected more from an alleged RTX 3090 killer.

Perhaps more important is that the publication's $6,199 Mac Studio provided nearly as much grunt as its previous generation $14,000 Mac Pro test system in a much smaller package. Arguably, that's a more impressive feat for Apple than picking a fight with dedicated graphics cards like the RTX 3090.

Why does Apple even bother with these fanciful benchmark graphs to tout superiority over processors and GPUs from the PC sphere? Even with its 5nm process node, Apple can only push the 64-core M1 Ultra GPU so far in a 60-watt envelope. On the other hand, the RTX 3090 can take full advantage of its 350-watt TDP to deliver blazing fast and consistent performance in a wide variety of scenarios. Sure, there might be a few specific benchmarks where the M1 Ultra's GPU might come out ahead on the performance-per-watt scale, but if we're talking all-out performance, we have to side with the RTX 3090.

Are the M1 Ultra's 20 CPU cores and 64 GPU cores impressive? Yes, most definitely. However, should Nvidia GPU and Intel CPU engineers be hanging their heads in shame over the mere arrival of the M1 Ultra? Absolutely not.

Apple has announced its first Mac with its M1 Ultra, the Mac Studio. It's a small desktop that has design cues from the Mac Mini, but is taller and with more power. The M1 Max version will start at $1,999, while the M1 Ultra version will start at $3,999. Both will launch on March 18.

It has a 7.7-inch base and is 3.7 inches tall, allowing the new Mac to fit on your desk. The cooler has a double-sided blower and intakes air through a perforated aluminum base, over the parts and out of a rear exhaust.

"The sound is so minimal" that you'll "barely even hear it," an Apple spokesperson said during the announcement event.

On the rear, there are four Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 10GB Ethernet jack, a pair of USB Type-A ports, an HDMI output, and a pro audio jack for high impedance headphones. The front has an SD card reader and two more ports: USB Type-C ports when configured with an M1 Max, or more Thunderbolt 4 ports with M1 Ultra.

With M1 Max, you'll get up to 64GB of unified memory, while M1 Ultra configurations will get up to 128GB of memory, which Apple says should supercharge graphics performance. You get up to 8TB of SSD storage, though that will cost you.

Apple claims the M1 Studio can play 18 streams 8K ProRes 422 video, and the company says it's the only computer that can do so.

The Mac Studio can support up four of Apple's Pro Display XDR and a 4K TV, amounting to nearly 90 million pixels.

Apple claims that the Mac Studio with M1 Ultra is 90% faster than a Mac Pro with a 16-core Intel Xeon processor and 60% faster than with a 28-core Xeon. With an M1 Max, Apple suggests it is 50% faster than the 16-core Xeon and 2.5 times faster than a iMac with an Intel Core i9, but notably didn't compare to the more powerful Mac Pro.

On the graphics side, Apple suggests the Mac Studio with M1 Ultra is 4.5 times faster than a 27-inch iMac with an AMD Radeon RX 5700XT and 80% faster than a Mac Pro with Radeon Pro W6900X. The M1 Max version, the company says, is 3.5 times fater than the Radeon RX5700XT.

These performance numbers, while impressive, do need to be taken with a grain of salt, as the new desktops are being compared to very specific Apple products and not to the greater market.

Despite rumors of a new Mac Mini and a new Mac Laptop, neither were announced today, leaving this new desktop to soak all of the glory. It was announced alongside a new 27-inch, 5K Studio Display.

Giving an old system new life by installing more memory or a new storage device is one thing. But plugging a modern solid-state drive into an archaic 20-year-old Power Mac G4 requires a lot of hardware and software hacking, with the end result being questionably useful at best. Because clearly, a modern PCIe NVMe SSD that delivers gigabytes of throughput per second isn't going to deliver its best while running over a PCI bus with 133 MBps of bandwidth.  

Apple originally released its PowerMac G4 in 1999 and then launched its upgraded iterations till 2002. In other words, this desktop is outdated, to put it mildly. In addition to the ancient CPU and GPU, it lacks almost all modern interfaces. So it's nearly impossible to use any modern component with it without complications. But that didn't deter Pierre Dandumont from Journaldulapin.com. 

So what does Apple's early 2000s Power Mac G4 have to work with in terms of an interface? PCI. Not PCI Express, mind you, but a PCI slot that can be used to install various add-in-cards, such as graphics boards (yes, since the system is based on a Power processor, it lacks AGP as well). Meanwhile, there are PCI-to-PCIe adapter boards that let you install PCIe hardware into PCI slots, though with some caveats. 

Just plugging things in is not enough to make PCIe hardware work with a Power Mac G4. That system for obvious reasons does not support the NVMe protocol used by modern speedy SSDs. But it appears to support the AHCI protocol used by modern hard drives, some PCIe SSDs, and all SATA SSDs. The Power Mac G4 shipped with SCSI or Parallel ATA HDDs, and it looks like Apple used PATA controllers that support AHCI, but we are speculating here. This AHCI support enables the use of PCIe SSDs that use this protocol, such as Samsung's SM951. 

Yet even picking up the right SSD is not enough to make a relatively new drive work in a Power Mac G4 PC that's roughly 20 years old. In a bid to make the drive bootable, a different BIOS (or Open Firmware in this case) is needed and an appropriate version of Mac OS X is required, which Journaldulapin.com explains how to install. 

After all that, there will still be performance limitations, such as the 133 MB/s bandwidth supported by a 32-bit 33 MHz PCI bus (keep in mind that we are talking about a half-duplex interface here), but this is to be expected. 

A legitimate question about installing a new SSD into a system with such a performance-capping interface is whether it would be far easier and faster to just plug in an external SSD using a USB connection. And it is certainly easier to plug in a USB drive, but Apple's Power Mac G4 only features two USB 1.1 ports, which means a 12 Mb/s data rate (1.5 MB/s), an order of magnitude slower compared to what a 32-bit 33 MHz PCI interface provides.

Of course, using a FireWire 400 (around 50 MB/s) connection would have been faster, but connecting a modern SSD over a FireWire interface to a 20-year-old PC would probably have been even trickier than using a PCI slot. 

Then again much, like many of the best Raspberry Pi projects, installing a new component in an outdated Power Mac G4 is a lot less about convenience or improved performance as it is about fun and figuring out what's possible. From that perspective, this endeavor was clearly a success. 

OWC today announced the Accelsior 8M2, which it claims is the densest, fastest commercial SSD ever to grace Earth's shores. Is it one of the best SSDs? Perhaps not, as the 8M2 features a PCIe add-in card design with an x16 connection and is geared toward Mac Pro desktops.

Most NVMe solutions make do with an x4 PCIe interface, via an M.2 or U.2 connector. The Accelsior 8M2 PCIe add-in card features a total of eight individual NVMe M.2 SSD slots, all running at their full x4 lanes of data throughput. The company announced drive compatibility with macOS 11 Big Sur, M1 Macbooks, Windows 10, and Linux systems.

But with great power comes an even greater price-tag: the densest, 64 TB configuration (8x 8TB SSDs) will set users back a cool $12,999. That's actually the cheapest price per GB of the bunch, at 'only' $0.20 per GB. The 2TB model featuring eight 240GB drives is actually the highest cost for the available storage at $0.68 per GB.

The PCIe add-in card has a thin, light, and relatively long design. It has an integrated heatsink and active fan, no doubt a requirement for a product that pairs eight separate NVMe drives under the same heatsink. OWC opted for a no-frills aesthetic, with dashes of blue in both the PCB and I/O plate. An additional 6-pin PEG power connector supplements the PCIe slot's power delivery, yielding a potential 150W of combined power.

OWC is quick to point out the performance fluidity one can expect from the absolutely gargantuan throughput. The company says that the Accelsior 8M2 is able both edit and playback 16 simultaneous streams of 8K ProRes444 content "without a glitch." The extreme performance should reduce the time to completion on any storage-dependant workload, bringing about increased productivity, efficiency, and even power savings.

OWC says the Accelsior 8M2 features support for RAID 0/1/4/5/1+0 (10) with Macs, as well as RAID 0/1 for Windows machines via SoftRAID. A plethora of software and firmware solutions were designed to work in tandem to guarantee the Accelsior performs volume validation, error correction, and disk checks.

The OWC Accelsior 8M2 SSD is available now in capacities ranging from 0TB (where you add your own drives) starting at $799. Different storage densities have been announced at 2TB, 4TB, 8TB, 16TB, 32TB and 64TB, with prices starting at $1,299 for the 2TB model and reaching the aforementioned $12,999 for the 64TB model, but you might get them for less with an OWC promo code. OWC appears to use its own Aura P12 Pro M.2 drives on the various capacities it offers. Included with any purchase is a free, one-year license to Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office software suite. The Accelsior 8M2 SSD is covered by a five-years limited warranty.

Apple's aggressive Mac system-on-chips (SoCs) development plan reportedly now includes three 3nm chips — codenamed Ibiza, Lobos, and Palma — that will arrive in 2023 and will offer up to 40 general-purpose CPU cores.

With its M1-series SoCs, Apple has managed to build quite a formidable family of highly-integrated processors that can compete against the vast majority of the best CPUs from AMD and Intel. The only processors that are untouchable for Apple's M1 Max are high-end desktop/workstation offerings like AMD's Ryzen Threadripper and Intel's Xeon W. But Apple now supposedly has a hard-hitting SoC roadmap that includes a 40-core CPU due to be released in about two years from now.

Next year, Apple plans to introduce its 2nd generation M-series SoCs (M2-series?) for Mac computers, reports The Information. These processors will be made using an enhanced version of TSMC's N5 node, which is currently used to make Apple's M1-series SoCs (think N5P, N4, N4P). So, it's probably best not to expect significant improvements as far as performance and transistor count is concerned. But in an interesting twist, Apple is reportedly planning to build a multi-chip-module processor to get higher performance for demanding systems like the MacBook Pro 16. 

But tangible improvements will come to Apple's 3rd generation M-series SoCs as they will be made using TSMC's N3 (3 nm-class) fabrication process. The new technology will enable the company to pack in significantly more transistors and increase clocks without increasing power consumption compared to M1-series offerings. 

The alleged "M3"-series reportedly includes processors codenamed Ibiza, Lobos, and Palma. Each will target different Mac systems based on their performance requirements. The top-of-the-range offerings are rumored to offer up to 40 CPU cores over four dies, which could be good enough for workstations like the Mac Pro.

The report claims that Apple's first M3 chips will emerge in 2023, which is when TSMC starts to deliver products made using its N3 technology. Keeping in mind that Apple is usually the first company to adopt all-new nodes, it is reasonable to expect it to roll-out the first systems based on its M3 SoCs in the first half of the year (as always, though, take these kind of predictions with a grain of salt). 

Apple updates its A-series SoCs for smartphones and tablets every year. The cadence is enabled both by Apple's huge hardware development team that works like clockwork as well as TSMC's regular introduction of new process technologies. With Macs, Apple is looking at steady, but not so regular SoC updates, as it is hard to develop and produce large chips for Macs. Furthermore, not all of TSMC's new nodes bring in capabilities required for PC SoCs.

The Swedish design firm Teenage Engineering has entered the world of PC cases. Its first entry, the computer-1, sold out almost immediately upon announcement.

Teenage Engineering, known for the Playdate and various synthesizers and pocket operators, did not go entry-level. The computer-1 case is a $195 mini-ITX chassis. It comes disassembled in a flat pack, so you'll have to build it yourself. It comes with instructions (see the PDF here) reminding you to "think twice, bend once!" as you bend the tabs and screw the sides together. You'll have to screw some of the sides to the components, adding even more building to putting together your own PC.

The case is made from powder-coated, 1mm aluminum, and yeah, it's orange. Of course, that's bound to make others take a second look at your desk, and that's without any RGB.

Teenage Engineering's design is a bit unorthodox. Perhaps the biggest question is the fact that the GPU goes at the top of the case with the fan facing the top (since this is a mini ITX case, only so many GPUs will fit at all). We have to imagine Teenage Engineering tested the thermals here, but we'll see as it ships to customers. This case can accommodate a dual-slot GPU up to 180 mm in length.

Additionally, the computer-1 can fit an SFX power supply (not a full-sized ATX) and a CPU cooler up to 120 mm from the motherboard. It's 322 x 190 x 170 mm (including the handles), while the internal measurements are 275.5 x 189 x 164 mm.

In some ways, the design mirrors Apple's Mac Pro, which also has aluminum handles sticking out of the top for portability. But, despite that, it's certainly unique, and with the orange color and the bold design, it will certainly make a conversation piece in your home office.

On its product page, the company claims that it designed this case because it couldn't find one up to its standards for its own builds. It is already stating it will further iterate on the design and is unusually humble about it, writing that "it's not a  ground-breaking pc case, but we like it[.]"

For those looking to buy one, you'll have to wait for a restock. You can go here and click "notify me" to sign up for notifications. 

Apple is hosting an event this Monday, October 18, following months of rumors regarding updates to its Mac computers.

Apple senior vice president of marketing Greg Joswiak said that the event, called "Unleashed," will cause the next six days to "speed by," suggesting we may see some new, faster processors.

Rumors have persisted regarding 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros, possibly with a new "M1X" chip, succeeding Apple's existing M1. The scuttlebutt surrounding the new systems also includes a new industrial design that matches the more blocky iPhone 13, the elimination of the touch bar, and more ports, including HDMI and an SD card slot. MagSafe has made a comeback on the iPhone, and many expect it to return to the MacBook as well. There have been reports that Apple may be considering mini LED displays, though supply chain issues may have nixed that.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro, which uses Intel processors, hasn't been updated since its launch two years ago. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman points out that its hard to track down and is unavailable at many Apple stores.

The same chip is expected to show up in a refreshed Mac Mini. Both the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini still use Intel for high-end models, so this would be  way for Apple to further its progress in eliminating Intel's processors from its computers altogether. 

There have, however, been a handful of other Apple rumors circulating lately. The biggest are third-gen AirPods, which were mysteriously absent from Apple's September iPhone and iPad event.

Apple still has a handful of other Intel-based devices, including its Mac Pro desktops and the 27-inch iMac, but the hearsay regarding them has been thin of late. We'll see what happens at 10 a.m. PT on October 18.

According to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, the Mac Mini could be getting a major upgrade this year, with rumors floating around that Apple's new M1X chip will be headed to a high end version of the Mac Mini later this year. Giving the Mac Mini some much needed firepower for more demanding applications beyond video streaming and browsing the web.

A upgraded Mac Mini will be a welcome sight for many users, since the current M1 Mini uses the same chip in the current MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, but with better cooling. This new unit is believed to have double the amount of Thunderbolt ports from the current M1 mini (from two to four), and have significantly more RAM capacity, possibly up to 64GB.

Apple still sells an Intel-based Mac Mini with a six-core Intel Core i5 or Core i7, up to 64GB of RAM, up to 2TB SSD storage, four Thunderbolt 3 ports, Ethernet, HDMI 2.0 and two USB-A ports. It is likely that the M1X processor would allow Apple to remove this Intel product from its lineup. Apple previously announced it would remove Intel processors from its product within two years.

Gurman reports that this new Mac Mini will be powered off of the highly rumored M1X processor. We don't know much about this new chip, but it is believed to have a 10-core configuration with eight high performance cores and two efficiency cores. If true, this would be a much higher performing configuration compared to the current M1's 4+4 configuration.

However, the biggest improvements seems to be on the graphics side of things, with a 16-core and 32-core configuration rumored to be in the works. This would double and triple the current M1's graphics horsepower.

These upgrades will give the Mac mini a serious performance and connectivity enhancement, and according to Gurman, allow the upgraded M1 Mac Mini to fully replace Intel-equipped versions of the device.

Apple is preparing several new product launches later this fall, including the iPhone 13 and the newly re-designed MacBook Pro. Presumably, we should see Apple announce the new M1X Mac Mini around this time. 

The M1X, if announced, would be Apple's second piece of custom silicon for its desktops and laptops. The M1 can currently be found in the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, 24-inch iMac and iPad Pro. (Previously, Apple had used A-series chips in the iPad Pro.)

The only big Apple computers that haven't yet seen any refreshes with the company's own silicon are the Mac Pro tower, which is rumored to both use Intel's Xeon W-3300 and an alternative Apple chip, the 27-inch iMac and the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which is also rumored for replacement. Some 13-inch MacBook Pros still use Intel chips as well, which again may be waiting for a more powerful processor from Apple.

AMD announced three new workstation GPUs called the W6000X series that will be designed exclusively for Apple's Mac Pro. As such, these won't be among the best graphics cards, unless perhaps we're talking about the best GPUs for Apple. The lineup consists of the W6900X, W6800X, and the W6800X Duo featuring AMD's latest RDNA 2 architecture and memory configurations of up to 64GB and 128GB for the Duo.

These new GPUs will give the Mac Pro a serious graphical upgrade compared to its current W5000X offerings, with double to nearly quadruple the performance of the current Radeon Pro RX W5700X. To put in perspective how much faster these new GPUs are, the lowest teir card, the W6800X, has nearly double the performance of the W5700X, with 32 Teraflops of performance compared to just 18.9 on the previous flagship W5700X.

The W6800X will be the entry-level card in the W6000X lineup, with specs that look very similar to the Radeon RX 6800 desktop equivalent — it's also basically the same as the Radeon Pro W6800, except with slightly lower clocks to go with the Apple-centric theme. The W6800X features 60CUs making up a total of 3840 Stream Processors with a peak clock speed of 2087MHz. The card will operate on a 256-bit wide memory bus with 32GB of GDDR6 memory and 128MB of Infinity Cache.

The W6900X is the mid-level GPU option with 80CUs and 5120 Stream Processors, similar to that of the RX 6900 XT. Memory remains the same with 32GB of GDDR6 running on a 256-bit wide bus and 128MB of Infinity Cache.

Finally, AMD's highest tier option is the W6800X Duo, the most exotic card in the lineup with a dual GPU configuration operating on a single daughterboard. The W6800X Duo, as the name implies, features two W6800X GPUs linked together with AMD's Infinity Fabric interconnect. As a result of this, stream processor counts and memory are doubled to 120CUs, 7680 Stream Processors, and 64GB of GDDR6 memory. But due to the complexities of running two GPUs on one board, and the lower 400W (versus 300W) TDP, clock speeds have been slightly reduced to a peak clock of 1979MHz.

Because AMD's W6000X GPUs are exclusive to the Mac Pro, these 'graphics cards' will come in an MPX Module. These modules are designed to fit in the Mac Pro's chassis and come with extra connectors on the PCB to allow for multi-GPU configurations and power for the several Thunderbolt 3 ports equipped on each W6000X series GPU.

Speaking of multi-GPU configs, the Mac Pro allows for a maximum of two W6000X MPX modules to be inserted into its chassis. This includes the W6800X Duo as well, meaning you can have a Quad-GPU setup in your Mac Pro.

The cooling solution for each workstation GPU is also custom-designed for the Mac Pro with each MPX module packing a matte black passive heatsink that utilizes the Mac Pro's chassis fans for cooling.

But pricing will be quite steep, as is usual with Apple's offerings. Building the Mac Pro out with a W6800X will charge you an additional $2400 over the baseline Radeon Pro 580X, $5600 for the W6900X, and $4600 for the W6800X Duo. This is not to mention the dual GPU setups which more than double those prices.

YuuKi_AnS (via MacRumors), a hardware blogger with access to rare and unreleased server hardware as well as a good track record, has indicated that Apple may use Intel's Xeon W-3300-series 'Ice Lake-SP' CPUs for its next-generation Apple Mac Pro. He is not alone with this information.  

It turns out that we now have claims from three sources indicating that Apple's upcoming high-end desktop workstation will use Intel's Xeon 'Ice Lake-SP' instead of its own SoC or SoCs. These are still unofficial sources, so take the information with a grain of salt.

Apple has introduced a line-up of impressive entry-level desktop and notebook computers based on its M1 system-on-chip for PCs. Higher-end machines powered by Apple Silicon SoCs are expected to hit the marker later this year. Yet, it looks like the company is not yet ready with its own SoC to power its top-of-the-range Mac Pro workstation and the next-generation system is rumored to use Intel's Xeon W-3300-series 'Ice Lake-SP' CPU. 

Apple Eyes Ice Lake for Mac Pro

Intel yet has to formally introduce its Xeon W-3300-series CPUs, but from unofficial reports we expect the top-of-the-range model to feature up to 38 cores running at up to 4.0 GHz with around 57MB of cache. Performance wise, these processors will offer tangible benefits when compared to Xeon W CPUs based on the Cascade Lake microarchitecture that power Apple's existing Mac Pro machines launched in 2019. 

But performance and core count alone might not be the only reason why Apple opted to use Intel's Xeon W-3300-series processors instead of its own SoCs. Intel's architecture offers performance, scalability, and flexibility, a combination particularly important for workstations. For example, Apple customers requiring acceleration of ProRes and ProRes RAW processing can get the company's Afterburner FPGA-based accelerator. By contrast, those who need acceleration of 3D graphics can get a high-end custom AMD Radeon Pro with up to two GPUs. There are also easy and cost-effective ways to increase memory capacity (all the way to terabytes per socket in case of Ice Lake-SP) and storage capacity of Intel-based Mac Pros to address unique needs of certain customers.  

While Apple's SoC approach enables great performance at low power, it is unclear how good it is for workstations and how scalable, flexible (and cost-effective), and expandable the platform is.

Not Everything Is Clear

Very early this year Bloomberg reported that Apple would update its Mac Pro with another Intel chip, but did not elaborate. The report also said that Apple was working on a smaller version of its Mac Pro running its own silicon, though it was unclear whether the 'big' and the 'small' versions will co-exist, or the latter will replace the former somewhere along the line.  

Back in early June a software developer discovered that Apple's Xcode 13 beta (the company's integrated development environment for macOS and other platforms) contained support for Intel's Ice Lake-SP processors. Hardware support in the Xcode means that Apple is strongly considering using it and has appropriate devices in its lab. It is not a guarantee that Apple will indeed proceed with a commercial product though. 

At this point it is hard to tell anything about Apple's plans concerning its desktop workstations. Intel's architecture has loads of advantages for workstations that are hard to ignore. At the same time, replacing entry-level Mac Pros with a homegrown SoC is a good way to cut costs and see how well Apple Silicon-based systems work in professional workflows. 

Apple has extended an olive branch to Windows-using Mac owners. The company recently updated its Boot Camp utility to support the Windows Precision Touchpad feature on certain devices, as spotted this morning by Reddit user “ar25nan." 

Windows Precision touchpad drivers offer a variety of gestures you can use to switch between windows, access the action center and open Cortana, among other things. It also enables basic functionality, such as two-finger scrolling and pinch-to-zoom. Most of those features have a macOS equivalent, many of which use the same gesture.

Yet, until now Mac owners running Windows 10 via the Boot Camp utility were unable to take advantage of Windows Precision Touchpad. That’s always been a notable omission, especially since Apple places such emphasis on touch-based interactions with its devices. Even the company’s basic mouse was designed with gestures in mind.

That situation has finally been rectified…for some people.

Macs That Support Windows Precision Gestures 

Apple said in a support document that Windows Precision gestures support is limited to Boot Camp users running macOS Big Sur on an Intel-based Mac that features its T2 Security Chip. Anyone using an older version of macOS or an M1-equipped Mac is out of luck.

The list of Macs that meet these criteria is pretty short:

• iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)
• iMac Pro
• Mac Pro (2019)
• Mac Pro (Rack, 2019)
• Mac mini (2018)
• MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2020)
• MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2019)
• MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2019)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)

That might seem like a fair number of devices, but that’s only because of the way Apple is counting them. The actual list is just “Macs that were released between 2018 and early 2020.” Every other device—and versions of macOS released prior to Big Sur—will be stuck with the limited tracked options available before this update.

Here’s the good news: The limitation to Intel-based Macs almost certainly stems from the fact that Boot Camp doesn’t even support Apple’s custom silicon yet. Apple has said that it’s up to Microsoft to make sure Windows 10 on Arm runs on its new chips. Hopefully, support for Windows Precision touchpads will be there to greet it.

Either way, this should be a welcome change for the subset of Mac owners it affects, and it shows that Apple hasn’t completely abandoned its Intel-based Macs just yet.

Rummage around in beta software, and you’ll often pull out something interesting that you weren’t meant to find. That’s exactly what Twitter user Brendan Shanks has been doing, as spotted by MacRumors, to discover it contains mention of Ice Lake SP Xeon processors, and Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman was able to confirm there will be one last Intel Mac Pro before the cheesegrater-esque tower succumbs to the charms of Apple Silicon, but didn’t reveal his source. For now take the news with a pinch of salt.

Bloomberg has previously reported that there are two versions of the Mac Pro in development, one with Intel chips, and another, half the size, using Apple Silicon. Ice Lake SP is Intel’s third generation Xeon Scalable Processor, and offers an average 1.46x performance improvement over the previous generation, with up to 28 cores per socket, PCIE 4.0, and support for up to 6TB of RAM per socket. Apple has a history of using multiple sockets in its top-end machines, though this hasn’t been seen since mid-2012 and the dual Westmere EP Xeon option.

We’re reminded of when Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system contained support for Atom chips, which definitely meant Apple netbooks were coming, only for it to be patched out in a point release. It’s entirely possible there will be another Intel Mac Pro, especially as the new case design hasn’t been out for long, but with M1 giving an i9 a hard time in Geekbench scores, and rumors of M1X or M2 swirling, it does seem a touch odd and will need a clear target market. Apple always keeps its thoughts to itself, however, so we’ll have to wait for an announcement, maybe at the September 2021 iPhone event, or maybe sooner.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple is preparing its next generation of MacBook Pros with more powerful in-house chips and is eyeing a replacement for its most powerful tower, the Mac Pro.

The MacBook Pros will come in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes with MagSafe charging, more ports, and, as previously rumored, the return of HDMI and an SD card slot, the report claims. That's a serious step up from two Thunderbolt ports on the existing Pros.

The laptops will have two different processors, code-named Jade C-Chop and Jade-C Die, each 10-core processors (eight high-performance and two efficiency) but with two graphics options: 16 and 32-core. A Mac Mini revamp is expected to use the same chip. It's unclear what these will be called, though there have been rumors of an M2.

These new chips should allow for up to 64GB of RAM and utilize more Thunderbolt ports to connect to external devices, which is a limitation on the existing M1 machines.

The same Bloomberg report claims that there are two new Mac Pro chips on the way, codenamed Jade 2C-Die, with a 20-core chip (16 high-performance and four efficiency cores) and Jade 4C-Die with 40 cores (32 high-performance and eight high-efficiency cores). The graphics, the report claims, would use either 64 or 128-core options. These would replace both CPUs from Intel and graphics from AMD. The Mac Pro itself is likely to be a smaller version of the existing design.

Besides these professional-grade chips, Apple is planning an heir apparent to the M1 for a new version of the MacBook Air. The chip, codenamed Staten, will have the same number of compute cores but increase the number of graphics cores. The base 13-inch MacBook Pro may also see an update with that chip.

During the announcement of the M1 processor for MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac Mini, vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus said that the transition away from Intel would occur in the next "couple of years." If the timelines in this report stay true, Intel could be gone from Apple's product line as soon as next year.

Apple recently moved M1 to the iMac, a colorful lineup of desktop computers, and also added it to the iPad Pro. Apple's in-house chips have been reinvigorating its product line, so we're curious to see where things go from here.

Apple is on track to transit most of its new PCs to system-on-chips (SoCs) with its own graphics processing units (GPUs) in the coming months, but before this happens, it appears that the company will use AMD's latest RDNA2-based high-end graphics cards with Macs. Recently Apple added support for the Radeon RX 6800/6900 graphics cards to MacOS. 

Apple lists compatibility with AMD's Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT, and Radeon RX 6900 XT among the MacOS Big Sur 11.4 Beta features. Meanwhile, the documents don't say which Macs now support AMD's latest graphics boards.

Being a notebook-centric PC maker, Apple offers only one PC that can accommodate a standalone graphics card, the Mac Pro. Right now, these workstations come equipped with Intel's Xeon W 'Cascade Lake' CPUs with up to 28 cores as well as AMD's Radeon Pro graphics cards based on the GCN 4.0/Polaris, GCN 5.1/Vega, and RDNA architectures. Apple uses are proprietary MPX modules with Mac Pro, and not the typical add-in-boards we're used to. The system can still house an off-the-shelf graphics card, though. 

It is unclear whether Apple plans to change its policy and begin equipping its Mac Pro with non-professional graphics cards in a standard FHHL form-factor, or if the company just added RDNA2 support to allow users to upgrade the Mac graphics subsystem to play games. After all, it is possible to equip a modern MacBook Pro notebook with a graphics card using an eGFX box with a Thunderbolt 3 interface. 

It is unlikely that Apple will equip its workstation with a graphics card that is not certified by the developers of professional applications, so RDNA2 support is likely aimed at gamers. Meanwhile, the depicted card is not necessarily a Radeon RX, but rather a yet-unannounced Radeon Pro powered by the RDNA2 architecture. 

In any case, Apple's upcoming macOS Big Sur 11.4 will support AMD's latest Radeon RX 6800/6900 graphics cards, which is good news for gamers.

Apple has officially sent out invitations to the company's next event called Spring Reloaded. The event will be held online on Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Considering the plethora of rumors surrounding Apple's products due to be announced this year, it is close to impossible to guess what the company plans to unveil next week. 

The official invitation flyer has a wavy Apple logo along with Spring Loaded tagline, which gives little food for imagination. The official video has Apple Park inner yard with more squiggly lines that form Apple's logo, which also implies almost nothing (except, perhaps, a new Apple Pencil). 

Typically, Apple refreshes its tablet lineups in the spring, but since it introduced new iPads and iPad Airs last September, it's more likely that the company will release new iPad Pros along with a series of accessories. Speaking of accessories, rumor has it that Apple will finally introduce its AirTag devices at the event. (These are supposed to help in finding lost items.)

Meanwhile, Apple now has plethora of various non-compute devices, including Apple TV set-top-box and smart speakers. The current 5th Generation Apple TV (based on the ancient A10X Fusion) was released in 2017, so it's past time for it to be replaced by something new. 

Over the past few months, we reported on Apple's plans to introduce brand-new Mac Pro, iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air PCs running its own processors this year. All of these systems will likely be powered by successors of the Apple M1, so we'd suspect refreshed versions of MBP 13 and MBA to launch later this year. Meanwhile, Apple typically launches new MBP and iMac systems in June and MacBook Pro PCs in Q4, so, chances that next week the company will reveal revamped PCs are low. 

Apple is also rumored to be working on a Mini LED display. While Apple is evaluating the Mini LED technology, like any other display supplier, it is unclear whether the company is willing to replace its Pro Display XDR a little less two years after it was introduced and less than 1.5 years after it was launched. To that end, it is not likely that Apple will introduce a new ultra-high-end monitor next week.

Apple could release an iMac featuring its own chip sooner rather than later. MacRumors reported that several configurations of the all-in-one computer have been removed from the company’s website, which suggests that they have been discontinued.

MacRumors said the 512GB and 1TB SSD options have disappeared from the 21.5-inch iMac’s page on the Apple website. Those options were previously greyed out, so there was a fair chance they would return, but now they seem to be gone for good.

These aren’t the first iMac models to be discontinued—Apple said earlier this month that it would no longer offer the iMac Pro after it sold through its current inventory. Now it seems the company’s making its way through the rest of the iMac lineup.

Why? Probably because Apple said when it introduced the M1 chip in November 2020 that it expected to equip all of its Macs with custom silicon in about two years. So far it’s updated the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini product lines.

The iMac would be the logical next step. The all-in-ones already sit in between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro when it comes to cost and performance. It would make sense for Apple to put its own chips in the iMac before moving on to the Mac Pro.

The company also hasn’t given the iMac a meaningful update in years. They’ve had a few spec bumps, sure, but for the most part, it reserved the big new features for the iMac Pro. (And even that only received modest upgrades after its 2017 debut.)

Bloomberg reported in January that Apple plans to change that by announcing redesigned iMacs featuring its own silicon later this year. Discontinuing the iMac Pro and these two models of the 21.5-inch iMac could help the company make that shift.

That doesn’t mean the current iMac‘s already gone: Apple still lists several configurations of the 21.5- and 27-inch models on its website. Just don’t be surprised if more of them disappear in the weeks leading up to the company’s next event.

Apple is about to discontinue its iMac Pro all-in-one workstation. The system is currently only available in the default configuration while supplies last, and no replacement is planned, at least for now. 

Apple confirmed that it is discontinuing the iMac Pro in an interview with MacRumours. The company said that no replacement for the iMac Pro was planned because for the vast majority of iMac Pro users the latest iMac 27-inch in its high-end configuration is the preferred choice, whereas customers who need serious performance and expandability could opt for the Mac Pro.  

The main idea behind the iMac Pro was to put in an Intel Xeon W processor with up to 18 cores along with a discrete AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X graphics processor and up to 256GB of DDR4-2666 ECC memory into an all-in-one PC with a 27-inch 5K display. Apple launched the system in late 2017. Since Apple did not have a competitive desktop workstation in its fleet, it made a lot of sense for performance-demanding users who could plug in a larger monitor or two if they needed more screen real estate.

After Apple released its Mac Pro workstation in late 2019, the appeal of the iMac Pro somewhat dropped as the full-blown desktop offers more performance with its Xeon W CPU with up to 28 cores, up to 1.5TB of DDR4-2933 memory, and up to two AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo MPX modules (4 GPUs in total). The Mac Pro also provides more expandability, as it can be equipped with the Apple Afterburner ProRes and ProRes RAW accelerator card or any other add-in-board supported by Apple's MacOS. 

Then Apple launched its latest iMac in mid-2020. The high-end version of the current iMac comes with a 27-inch 5K display, Intel's Core i7 processor with eight cores, up to 128GB of DDR4-2666 memory, and an up to Radeon Pro 5700 XT graphics processor. This system immediately made Apple discontinue the eight-core version of the iMac Pro. Still, even the 10-core iMac Pro model does not look too attractive at $4999 compared to a similarly configured iMac that costs over $1000 less.  

Right now, Apple is working on its next-generation iMac based on its own Apple Silicon SoC that is expected to beat the current iMac in terms of performance. Whether or not Apple will return to a concept of an all-in-one workstation is something that remains to be seen. 

Longhorm (@never_released) a well-known leaker with a fairly good track record has published what is claimed to be a list of Apple's upcoming system-on-chips. If the information is correct, then the company is working on at least four SoCs for various upcoming devices. Since the information comes from one unofficial source and cannot be verified, it should be taken with a grain of salt. 

Apple is working on two other families of its SoCs, including the T600x as well as the T811x, according to Longhorm. The T600x family reportedly includes the T6000 and T6001 chips, whereas the T811x comprises of the T8110 and T8112 SoCs.  

The source does not reveal what these processors are for. Meanwhile, Apple's smartphone and tablet SoCs in the recent years carried internal quad-digit 8000-series model numbers (and 7000-series before that), which might mean that the T8110 and 8112 SoCs are designed for future iPhones, iPads, and smaller Mac computers.  

Since nothing is known about Apple's T6000-series SoCs, it is possible that these chips will be used for the company's more advanced machines, such as higher-end iMacs, MacBook Pros, or the rumored Mac Pro Mini. Last December it was reported that Apple was working on variety of SoCs packing up to 20 general-purpose CPU cores for its higher-end iMacs as well as MacBook Pros, so it is possible that the T6000 family is indeed designed for these kind of applications.  

What is noteworthy is that Apple uses different model numbers for its future SoC lineups, which may mean nothing too special, or may indicate that these processor families will be considerably different. Perhaps, they may even use different microarchitectures, different iterations of the same microarchitecture, or certain completely different architectural features, such as a multi-level hybrid memory subsystem. 

Longhorn was reportedly the first to disclose Apple's internal names for the A14 Bionic (T8101) and the M1 (T8103, which was initially referred to as the A14X) in September 2019. Eventually, the model numbers were confirmed by other sources. 

Apple's next-generation MacBook Air is going to be thinner and lighter than the current model, but will retain a 13.3-inch display, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The new notebooks will also reportedly go back to using MagSafe chargers.

Apple's MacBook Air has undergone three major iterations since its introduction in 2008 that made the laptop significantly sleeker. The latest generation MacBook Air running Apple's M1 system-on-chip inherited design from its Intel-based predecessor launched in late 2018 retaining its dimensions and weight. But the new version of MacBook Air featuring the company's upcoming SoC will finally get a highly-anticipated new design.

The next-generation Apple MacBook Air will preserve a 13.3-inch screen size, but will feature narrower borders around the display, which will make the laptop smaller. The machine is also said to be thinner and lighter, the report says citing two sources with knowledge of the matter. 

Another innovation the new MacBook Air is going to have is a new MagSafe-like magnetic charging connector, the same one that is expected to be used with the upcoming revamped MacBook Pro notebooks. Apple previously used the MagSafe name for magnetic chargers prior to moving to USB Type-C for power.

The next-generation Apple MacBook Air is projected to be launched in the second half of 2021 or even in 2022, about a year after the company released its first MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13 laptops powered by its own M1 SoC. 

It is noteworthy that Bloomberg's sources claim that the new MacBook Air will sit above the current model, which will remain in Apple's fleet as an entry-level machine. Meanwhile, it is unclear whether Apple plans to slash price of the current M1 MacBook Air once it launches the all-new version, or will just price the new one higher. Default configurations of Apple's current MacBook Airs cost $999 or $1,249. By contrast, Apple's existing pre-configured M1-based MacBook Pro 13 are priced at $1,299 and $1,499.  

Apple is reportedly preparing to completely reinvent its PCs this year. Along with all-new MacBook Air, the company is said to be working on revamped 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops, redesigned iMac all-in-one desktops, and a smaller version of its Mac Pro workstation powered by an in-house developed SoC.

Detailed die shots of Apple's A14 Bionic and M1 system-on-chips published by TechInsights might reveal some additional information about SoCs from one of the most secretive industry giants. 

The Big Transition Incoming

Without a doubt, Apple's launch of its own system-on-chips (SoCs) for Macs and its intention to transition its PCs to the Arm architecture is among the most important tech events of 2020. The company plans to completely stop using Intel processors inside its PCs in the coming years and is working on a series of Arm-based SoCs that will address everything from entry-level notebooks all the way to high-end Mac Pros desktops. The move not only means decoupling Apple from Intel (and to a large degree the rest of the industry that still relies on x86 and will continue to for at least a decade), but it will also demonstrate (or not) the company's ability to develop SoCs that are competitive with Intel's CPUs, as well as GPUs from companies like AMD and Nvidia. 

Apple traditionally doesn't disclose many details about its hardware, so it isn't always easy to analyze its innovations and draw conclusions about where things are going. Fortunately, SoC floorplans expose some general ideas, and recently, advanced technical analysis and reverse engineering firms have released die shots of Apple's A14 Bionic and M1 SoCs, revealing some additional details about these processors. TechInsights seems to have the most detailed die shots available today, though other consulting firms have also published images of the die shots.

So Close Yet So Far

It's no secret that Apple's A14 Bionic and M1 have a lot in common. Apple makes them with the same TSMC N5 process technology, and they are very similar from an architectural standpoint (e.g., they are SoCs, they use a unified memory architecture) with the same Firestorm and Icestorm general-purpose CPU cores, the same NPU (neural processing unit) engine, and presumably the same GPU architecture. 

Being aimed at notebooks and compact desktops, Apple's M1 processor is designed to be faster than the A14 across the board. Yet, the M1 — which is 37% larger — is not exactly an A14 on steroids. 

The M1 packs more CPU cores than the M14: it comes with four high-performance Firestorm cores running at up to 3.20 GHz with enlarged caches to maximize single-thread performance by speeding up instruction and data access as well as reducing latency. The SoC also has four energy-efficient Icestorm cores with up to a ~2.0 GHz frequency. Apple doubled the number of Firestorm cores yet left the number of Icestorm cores intact, perhaps because the latter are less important in the PC space, and four is an optimal number. It is unclear from the floorplan whether Apple used any optimizations to make CPU cores run faster (e.g., use high-performance transistors instead of low-power ones for certain blocks). Still, there are arguments for implementing them and for not implementing them. 

The M1's GPU is twice as large as the GPU on the A14, which demonstrates Apple's priorities to some degree, at least as far as PCs are concerned. The company likes graphics even though not all programs on Macs use GPGPU extensively. Apple has always been one of a few PC makers to use Intel's CPUs with beefy GPUs, so nothing changes with the transition to its own processors. 

To feed the more powerful CPU and GPU subsystems with enough data, the M1 uses a 128-bit eight-channel LPDDR4X-4266 memory subsystem (up from a quad-channel 64-bit memory subsystem in the A14). Apple also shrunk the system level cache by 25%, which is logical given that the memory subsystem became more powerful. It's noteworthy that Apple decided to continue using LPDDR4X memory and not transition to LPDDR5 to further boost memory bandwidth. Perhaps re-using the controller and PHY IP originally designed for smartphones is a cost-saving measure that reduces R&D expenses.   

As far as the neural processing unit (the NPU) is concerned, the M1 and the A14 have identical 16-core units, which is not particularly surprising as modern AI workloads are projected to be generally similar both for smartphones and laptops.  

TechInsights and other analysts cannot identify all of the M1's blocks. Still, it is generally believed that Apple's latest A14 and M1 SoCs feature numerous special-purpose accelerators to handle tasks specific to MacOS or various demanding workloads, such as media encoding/decoding. Considering that at least one-third of M1's floorplan cannot be identified, it is likely that Apple built a lot of custom blocks into the chip, including its famous T2 chip. Meanwhile, the M1 also features PC-specific interfaces, such as DisplayPort and Thunderbolt/USB 4.           

Summary

Apple's M1 system-on-chip is an evolution of the A14 Bionic, a smartphone SoC, but with numerous optimizations designed specifically for smaller notebooks as well as compact desktops.  

Overall, Apple's M1 promises at least twice the general-purpose performance, at least twice the graphics performance, and twice the memory bandwidth compared to the A14. All of this comes at the cost of a 37% larger die size. Keeping in mind that the M1 does not have to be as energy-efficient as the A14, its actual performance improvement could be tangibly higher, given its higher clocks and other possible optimizations. Furthermore, assuming that the M1 has numerous Apple-specific accelerators, we can expect it to be tangibly faster than Intel processors in some applications (for example, Apple ProRes RAW encoding/decoding). 

Apple clearly designed its M1 for a particular set of products, notably the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13, and Mac Mini. These systems are hardly ever used for tasks that require truly high performance, which is perhaps why the company did not go beyond four high-performance cores in the design. Input/output capabilities of M1 are also moderate: the SoC has two display engines, it lacks native HDMI support, and it apparently only supports two USB 4/Thunderbolt ports.  

In general, with its M1, Apple has designed an SoC that promises significantly higher performance than the M14 Bionic, but it only took 37% more die area to get there. The company optimized many elements of the design (e.g., added caches, higher clocks, a wider memory interface, PC-specific interfaces) to hit its PC performance targets, but left many other things intact (e.g., 16-core NPU, LPDDR4X memory support), which demonstrates a very rational approach to design and manufacturing costs.

A report from Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources with direct knowledge of the matter, claims that Apple's next step to bringing ARM chips to the masses will consist of new CPUs that span up to 32 cores to supplant Intel's Xeon processors in the company's Mac Pro desktops. That move follows Apple's decision to stop using Intel processors in its future products. Apple is also reportedly developing two GPUs with 64 and 128 dedicated cores, a move obviously designed to replace AMD's discrete GPUs in both its mobile and desktop PCs.

Apple's inaugural ARM-powered M1 chips come with four high-performance and four lower-performance efficiency cores, which allowed the company to replace Intel processors in its MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini lineups. With a stated plan to switch its entire lineup to its own silicon, Apple still has the task of replacing the Intel Xeon W processors it currently uses in its higher-end MacPro desktops. Bloomberg reports that Apple is developing a new 32-core model with high-performance cores for just that task, but it is unclear if those cores will be accompanied by efficiency cores as well. These chips could roll out later in 2021.

Apple is also said to be developing next-gen chips with 16 high-performance cores paired with four efficiency cores (20 total cores). Additionally, the company is developing CPUs with either 8 or 12 high-performance cores accompanied by four efficiency cores, signalling that the company plans for a full product stack of ARM processors with multiple options. These processors could begin rolling out as soon as spring 2021 for the MacBook Pro and iMac.

The new 32-core high-end chips will replace Intel's (up to) 28-core Xeon W chips that currently power Apple's workstations, but will still far short of AMD's beastly 64-core Threadripper models. Although Apple hasn't used AMD's Threadripper chips in its workstations, Apple may still trail AMD in performance while matching or exceeding Intel's current crop of chips. 

Apple's M1 chips also heralded the arrival of the company's own seven- and eight-core GPUs, but it is also reportedly developing 16- and 32-core GPUs for its high-end laptops and mid-range desktops. 

Additionally, Apple is also developing 64- and 128-core GPU models for its highest-end PCs. These new GPUs are said to be several times faster than the AMD GPUs Apple uses in its current products, portending a severing of ties with AMD for future Apple PCs. 

The new 64- and 128-core graphics chips are expected to debut "later in 2021 or potentially 2022."

We expected Apple’s Macintosh computers running the company’s own system-on-chips (SoCs) to be considerably different compared to systems powered by Intel processors due to all-new hardware and a revamped software stack. It appears that one of the changes for the Apple M1-based Macs unveiled this week is that the company dropped external GPU support (at least for now). 

When Apple announced its latest Apple Silicon-based Macs several months ago, the company officially revealed to software developers that they would only support its own ‘Apple family GPUs.’  More recently, the firm removed the Blackmagic eGPU chassis from the list of accessories compatible with the latest M1-based Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. AppleInsider now claims that the new systems will rely solely on integrated Apple GPUs and will not support any external graphics cards. 

The website doesn't reveal whether the information comes directly from Apple or sources close to the company. It also doesn't disclose whether Apple will drop support for external GPUs or all third-party GPUs in general, which might have some important ramifications.  

On a high level, eGFX technology allows you to connect a graphics card to a PC using a Thunderbolt 3 interface and a special chassis. Still, there are very specific hardware and software requirements to support an external GPU. First up, the system needs a Thunderbolt 3 or a Thunderbolt 4 port with a firmware version that can handle eGFX. Secondly, the system has to support external graphics by its UEFI (i.e., plug-n-play or similar technology and switchable graphics protocols). Thirdly, the GPU drivers have to support eGFX as well as a particular operating system. If one of these components is missing, eGFX simply won't work. 

It is unclear what exactly Apple’s new PCs are missing and whether this lack of support is temporary, or if there are no plans to support eGFX technologies on the latest 13.3-inch notebooks and the entry-level desktop in general.  

Supporting eGFX on certain systems may be complicated because of SoC limitations and other reasons. Meanwhile, Apple started to support external GPUs in general later than competing PC makers from the Windows camp anyway, meaning that it doesn't consider this technology a priority. Perhaps Apple’s more advanced desktops and laptops will regain eGFX support. 

It remains to be seen if the company will support third-party GPUs on its Arm-powered Macs at large or will rely solely on its own graphics solutions. Industry-standard GPUs are important to many professionals with iMac, iMac Pro, and Mac Pro desktops, so dropping support might be a bad idea.   

Apple today released Apple Afterburner, an accelerator card that debuted alongside the new Mac Pro in 2019, as a standalone product on its online store.

The company said in a support document that the card "accelerates decoding and playback of multiple streams of ProRes and Pro Res RAW video files." It's only compatible with macOS, and third-party apps have to be updated to support it.

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Those aren't the only compatibility restrictions that will limit the standalone Apple Afterburner's appeal. Apple said in the support document that the card doesn't support Thunderbolt expansion chassis; it can only be used in the new Mac Pro.

So why release the standalone Apple Afterburner? Either the company is planning to release additional products that support the card, is hoping that Mac Pro owners will upgrade their systems or is sick of people forgetting to buy the card in the first place.

We'd rank those possibilities in order from "sensible" to "nonsensical." (Who's going to forget to buy the Apple Afterburner when configuring their Mac Pro?) But hey, now at least Mac Pro owners don't have to commit to buying the accelerator card right away.

Apple is selling Apple Afterburner for $2,000 via its online store; it costs the same amount when selected as a configuration option for the new Mac Pro.

Apple's latest $5999 Mac Pro's optional $400 wheels, sadly don't come with brakes. Although almost all heavy wheeled furniture do, comes with their own set of brakes to lock it into position, Apple seems to have had a different idea with its latest Mac Pro professional desktop system.

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Whichever way you look at it this can't be a good thing. Perhaps the brakes would have ruined the clean aesthetic of the Mac Pro, but as Marques Brownlee pointed out, you can't keep the Mac Pro on your desk if you have the wheels on it. Once on the floor, you better hope the floor is level too, or you'll end up needing wedges to keep it from trying to escape, as twitter user @JonyIveParody kindly pointed out.

What makes matters worse is that you can't simply swap the wheels out for the feet because the frame of the Mac itself is actually entirely different once that options is selected (which goes some way to justify the cost). So our advice is, save yourself the $400 and just get the variant with feet if you're in the market for a Mac Pro. It comes with great carrying handles at the top anyway for if you do need to move it from place-to-place.