Apple WWDC 2023: Apple refreshes the Mac Pro with its new M2 Ultra chip

Apple confirmed at its WWDC conference today that its largest and most powerful desktop will be receiving a few upgrades, including the M2 Ultra chip. While it's been through several aesthetic variations over the years, including the maligned "trashcan" model, the new Mac Pro will look identical to its cheese grater-like predecessor from 2019.

Other lines of Mac products have moved away from using third-party silicon, and now the hulking Mac Pro joins them. Its former Intel Xeon W setup has been replaced with the aforementioned M2 Ultra. Apple claims its in-house chip can operate up to three times faster than the prior Intel models. As was rumored though, the decision to develop a specialized M2 Extreme chip was shelved due to cost and technical difficulty. The Mac Pro will now come stocked with a 24-core CPU and up to a 76-core GPU. It support up to 192GB of memory, and seven Afterburner cards. That combined power, the company claims, can play back 22 8K ProRes video files or ingest up to 24 4K camera feeds "and encode them to ProRes in real time."

Additionally, the new Mac Pro will come with seven PCIe expansion slots, eight Thunderbolt 4 ports, support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, two 10Gb ethernet ports, three USB-A ports and two HDMI ports that will be able to output 8k resolution at up to 240Hz. There's a headphone jack too, just for good measure.

Once again though, the Mac Pro will cost a small fortune: $6,999 to start, while the upper bounds of a fully decked-out Pro remain unknown. That is an unfathomable and likely prohibitive sum for most customers, but considering the prior model was just $1,000 cheaper and nearly everything else on earth seems to cost a lot more since 2019, it could be worse.

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The Mac Pro can be ordered today, and will become available starting on June 13.

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