Visually, nothing changes on the Mac Pro or Mac Studio. But under the hood, there’s a lot more power for Apple’s desktop solutions.
The cheese grater is alive! With the Mac Pro, the last computer from Cupertino has finally made the step to Apple Silicon – RIP iMac. The Mac Pro retains the large design, but an almost gigantic M2 Ultra chip is now at work inside.
The special thing about the Mac Pro is its four PCIe Gen 4 slots. This can be used, for example, to install additional graphics cards or other extensions. The field of “artificial intelligence” (AI) in particular should be interested in this. With four graphics cards, 24 camera feeds (each in 4K) can also be edited in ProRes in real-time.
Since Apple Silicon is now also used in the Mac Pro, RAM and SSD should also be chosen wisely in advance, as they can no longer be exchanged afterward. The maximum memory is 192GB. That should be enough for most workstation applications, but it’s only a fraction of what the Intel Mac Pro was able to use.
A total of eight Thunderbolt ports are available to users (six on the back and two on the front). There are also two USB-A ports, two HDMI ports, and two 10 Gbit Ethernet ports. That’s a lot for a Mac.
The price of the new Mac Pro starts at €8,300. As a rack version from €8,999. The maximum version with the large M2-Ultra (76 GPU cores vs. 60 cores in the small M2-Ultra), 192GB of RAM, 8TB SSD, Magic Mouse & Trackpad, and of course the €500 rolls (€850 if you buy later ) costs €14,478. As a rack mount (without wheels) at €14,678.
The Mac Studio lives on and gets more Apple Silicon Power
The Mac Studio has also received an update to the M2-Ultra. There will also be a version with M2-Max. No version with an M2 Pro chip will be offered. This is only in the Mac mini. In terms of connections, the Studio has four Thunderbolt ports on the back. There are also two Type-A, a 10GBit Ethernet port, and an HDMI port. Two more Thunderbolt ports and an SD card reader are installed on the front.
The new Mac Studio can also be configured with up to 192GB of RAM. Otherwise, the updates are marginal compared to the M1 predecessor – Bluetooth and WiFi have been updated to the latest versions.
A few weeks ago, the Mac Studio was traded as a “one-and-done” candidate. The press has debated at length whether Apple will drop the Mac Studio after the first release when the Mac Pro is ready for Apple Silicon. The danger does not seem to be confirmed and to be quite honest: it never existed.
Apple has had its eye on the creative side for decades – photography, video stepping, 3D modeling, etc. The Mac Studio is intended for, and perfect for, the user base of this group. Mac mini is for the mere mortals and Mac Pro is for the people who know they need PCIe cards. You don’t know what that is and what they do? Then you don’t need them either. Very easily.
Both the new Mac Pro and the Mac Studio will be available from June 13th. available. In addition to the two desktop updates, Apple also released a 15-inch MacBook Air at WWDC and gave a first glimpse of its AR/VR headset, which will be launched in early 2024.