M4 Ultra Mac Pro: Everything you need to know

Macworld

Apple last updated the Mac Pro in 2023 when it was the last Mac to be outfitted with an M-series chip–three years after Apple started to use its own silicon in Macs. The Mac Pro may be on a longer update cycle than the other Macs because it’s an expensive machine with features that address the needs of a niche audience.

But if you’re part of that audience, you’ll want to know when the next model will arrive, so we’ll be tracking the news and rumors about the Mac Pro. This article includes information about the potential updates to the Mac Pro, as well as offers perspective on what those rumored updates mean to Apple’s Mac lineup.

Mac Pro M4: Release date

With no new Mac Pro appearing in 2024, despite the arrival of the M4 Max, it looks like we will be stuck with the M2 Ultra Mac Pro until 2025.

The lengthy wait isn’t a surprise. In a report in April 2024 by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman about Apple’s plans for its AI-enhanced M4 chip, he suggested that Apple would not update the Mac Pro until 2025.

In June 2024, Gurman again reported that the Mac released schedule had not changed. The M4 Mac Pro is not expected until the second half of 2025. In August, Gurman reiterated that the M4 Mac Pro will be released in 2025.

Mac Pro M4: Processor

With the long wait, you may be thinking we might get an M5 Ultra Mac Pro, but it looks like it will be the M4 Ultra we will see in June 2025: in October 2024, Gurman reported that Apple “continues to work on an M4 version of the Mac Pro.”

In his April 2024 report, Gurman stated that the Mac Pro will be part of Apple’s AI focus and will be upgraded with an M4 with enhanced AI capabilities. Gurman did not offer any details on how those AI enhancements will be implemented or any other specifications about the M4.

Since that report, Apple has unveiled the M4 chip, first in the iPad Pro, then in the iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro. In our Geekbench 6 tests of the M4 Max chip that arrived in October 2024 we found it to be faster than the M2 Ultra. Read: How Apple’s M4 chips dispelled all my fears about buying a new Mac.

While this is bad news for the M2 Ultra Mac Pro it should mean great things for the M4 Ultra, which is what will go in the Mac Pro. We also know that it has an improved Neural Engine for AI features.

Presumably, this will be an M4 Ultra-type chip. Apple’s M1 Ultra and M2 Ultra chips are essentially two Max chips that work together, but there have been reports that Apple will be changing the processor’s architecture, so we could see higher performance than in previous Ultra chips.

The Information reported in December 2024 that in the summer Apple had canceled a “high-performance chip for Macs” to focus on the development of an AI server chip. As John Gruber pointed out, the timing of that Mac chip project suggests that the canceled chip was likely one that is dubbed an “Extreme” chip that would be faster than an Ultra. Based on this report, the Mac Pro will get Ultra chips for the foreseeable future.

Mac Pro M4: Design and specs

Gurman also reported that Apple wants to dramatically increase the maximum amount of unified memory in the high-end desktop M4 Macs to 512GB. The current limit on the M2 Ultra Mac Pro is 192GB. So, the M4 Ultra Mac Pro could support more than twice the memory as the current M2 Ultra Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro will be equipped with Thunderbolt 5. When Apple released the M4 Pro/Mac MacBook Pro, it upgraded to Thunderbolt 5, so the Mac Pro will follow suit. Learn more about Thunderbolt 5.

No other reports have been made about the inner workings of the upcoming Mac Pro. Because Apple wants to focus on AI, the Mac Pro could be marketed as an AI development workstation, so Apple could upgrade other components to accommodate these needs.

The Mac mini had a redesign in 2024, resulting in a much smaller device. Mac Pro has had its design for 11 years, but no reports have been made about the design, and if Apple changes anything it is very unlikely to make the Mac Pro smaller as this didn’t work out well last time.




The next Mac Pro upgrade is expected to keep the same design, but the internal components will likely change, with the key one being an M4 Ultra upgrade.Foundry

Mac Pro M4: Price

Here are the prices for the current standard base configurations of the M2 Ultra Mac Pro for reference.

Apple expects customers to customer configure their orders, so prices will vary from these base specifications.

$6,999/£7,199/CA$8,999/AU$11,999 Mac Pro Tower: M2 Ultra, 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, 64GB Unified Memory, 1TB SSD

$7,499/£7,699/CA$9,599/AU$12,999 Mac Pro Rack: M2 Ultra, 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, 64GB Unified Memory, 1TB SSD

Pricing for the new Mac Pro has not been reported, though we expect pricing to remain the same in the U.S. The price may be adapted to more recent exchange rates elsewhere. We predict that in the U.K. the price will be in line with the U.S. for example: £6,999 rather than £7,199.