APPLE CORE Special report
The new expansive Mac Pro
Cupertino completes Apple silicon switch
The MacBook Air wasn’t the only Mac to get a makeover at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), so too did the Mac Studio (see bottom right of page) and the Mac Pro – the last holdout of the Intel era. Interestingly, Apple hasn’t seen fit to give its most expensive Mac a complete makeover. Instead it retains almost of the features beloved by pros in the previous generation, but then adds several delicious new ones to the mix.
The new M2 Ultra
Now available in the new Mac Pro and Mac Studio, the Apple silicon M2 Ultra is the logical next-step for Apple’s ‘pro’ machines. Like the M1 Ultra before it, the M2 Ultra uses Apple’s combines UltraFusion technology to marry two M2 Max chips together, giving it a total of 134 billion transistors – that’s 20 billion more than in the M1 Ultra found in the first-gen Mac Studio. While the M2 Ultra is built using a 5nm process, even more powerful and efficient chips could be on the cards, with Apple switching to 4nm and then 3nm in the near future.