Apple Silicon Mac Pro Reportedly Lacks Upgradeable GPU, RAM

News
By Brandon Hill
published

SSD storage and networking could still remain modular for the Mac Pro.

Mac Pro
(Image credit: Apple)

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.

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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.

Brandon Hill
Brandon Hill

Brandon Hill is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware. He has written about PC and Mac tech since the late 1990s with bylines at AnandTech, DailyTech, and Hot Hardware. When he is not consuming copious amounts of tech news, he can be found enjoying the NC mountains or the beach with his wife and two sons.

14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Heat_Fan89
    That is NO surprise as Apple is just squeezing as much as they can from its user base. The Apple Silicon Mac mini's no longer allow for user upgrades. The last Mini's to support any upgrades was the 2018 Mac mini and that was the final Intel Mini.
    Reply
  • PlaneInTheSky
    Apple uses a custom unified memory architecture, so it's pretty normal you can't just upgrade it.

    PC will have to go to a unified memory architecture too soon, because data being split between 2 pools of volatile memory is a major bottleneck on PC. This bottleneck does not exist on consoles or on Apple platforms.
    Reply
  • cyrusfox
    PlaneInTheSky said:
    Apple uses a custom unified memory architecture, so it's pretty normal you can't just upgrade it.
    That only provides valid excuse for DRAM lack of upgradeability. GPU and storage being locked down is ridiculous. Storage is easy enough to side step and use an external solution (TB4 m.2 SSD array). GPU is the big handicap.

    Are we stuck with only Apple GPU only forever? Are they going to partner with other accelerators for the mac pro line?
    Reply
  • vanderbeam
    cyrusfox said:
    That only provides valid excuse for DRAM lack of upgradeability. GPU and storage being locked down is ridiculous. Storage is easy enough to side step and use an external solution (TB4 m.2 SSD array). GPU is the big handicap.

    Are we stuck with only Apple GPU only forever? Are they going to partner with other accelerators for the mac pro line?
    The GPU falls under similar reasoning too. The GPU cores are built into the M1/M2 chips and share the on-die memory with the CPU. I'm sure they're smart enough to figure out a way to make that memory work with a standard PCIe GPU as well, if they wanted to.

    Their architecture of CPU+GPU+RAM on the same chip also means every Mac Pro would include a full set of Apple GPU cores whose price wouldn't be subtracted if you wanted to purchase a Mac Pro with a 3rd party GPU.
    Reply
  • micksh
    cyrusfox said:
    That only provides valid excuse for DRAM lack of upgradeability. GPU and storage being locked down is ridiculous.

    GPU is not upgradeable for the same reason. If Apple allows discrete GPU their memory architecture will no longer be unified, as discrete GPU has its own memory.
    I suppose at the very least it will require major software changes. CUDA and OpenCL have API to transfer data between CPU and GPU, which is not needed with unified memory.

    PlaneInTheSky said:
    PC will have to go to a unified memory architecture too soon

    PCs have had unified memory for a long time. Intel introduced integrated graphics in 2010, then soon AMD released their APUs. The memory is unified with integrated GPU. Apparently, powerful GPU has to be a discrete card. AFAIK, Apple has no answer to GPU like RTX 3070 Ti and above.
    Reply
  • PlaneInTheSky
    PCs have had unified memory for a long time. Intel introduced integrated graphics in 2010, then soon AMD released their APUs.

    no, that's shared system memory, connected with chips through wires

    unified memory is part of the chip design, connected with interposers like Apple uses, they're TSV
    Reply
  • knight_of_baawa
    Heat_Fan89 said:
    That is NO surprise as Apple is just squeezing as much as they can from its user base. The Apple Silicon Mac mini's no longer allow for user upgrades. The last Mini's to support any upgrades was the 2018 Mac mini and that was the final Intel Mini.
    Yes, the article's headline should read "To no one's surprise, the Mac Pro's GPU and RAM reportedly can't be upgraded".
    Reply
  • magbarn
    PlaneInTheSky said:
    Apple uses a custom unified memory architecture, so it's pretty normal you can't just upgrade it.

    PC will have to go to a unified memory architecture too soon, because data being split between 2 pools of volatile memory is a major bottleneck on PC. This bottleneck does not exist on consoles or on Apple platforms.
    Apple did it to lower power consumption/costs and maximize profit. None of the current Apple Silicon chips come even close to 4090 memory bandwidth and won't be there for some time. Moving PCs to this model will create a GPU bottleneck and I sure as heck would not appreciate soldered ram and SSDs on my Windows desktops.
    Reply
  • lazyabum
    If Apple made it's GPU discrete, it would be twice as powerful or more.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Heat_Fan89 said:
    That is NO surprise as Apple is just squeezing as much as they can from its user base.
    Really? Because the lack of add-ons seems like it's really going to hurt them on the upper-end of the range. As the article mentioned, a maxed-out 2019 Mac Pro is priced at $54k. It's hard to see how they can do the same with the new model, and still have an almost-affordable base price.

    I guess whatever add-ons there are will just be that much more expensive. Maybe the wheel kit will cost $800 instead of only $400, this time.
    Reply