Apple's Last M4 Mac: What's Rumored for the Mac Pro

Across 2024 and the early months of 2025, Apple refreshed all of its Macs with next-generation M4 chips, with the exception of the Mac Pro. The ‌Mac Pro‌ is still waiting for an update, but it is supposed to get an overhaul later this year.

Mac Pro Feature Teal

M-Series Chip

The current version of the ‌Mac Pro‌ can be purchased with Apple's M2 Ultra chip, which came out in June 2023. It might seem logical for the ‌Mac Pro‌ to get the equivalent M4 chip, the M4 Ultra, but it turns out Apple might not have an M4 Ultra in the works.

When the Mac Studio was updated earlier this month, Apple announced a version with the M4 Max chip, and a version with an M3 Ultra chip, with no M4 Ultra unveiled. Apple told Mac Studio reviewers that not every generation of M-series chips will include a higher-end "Ultra" tier, so there may simply be no M4 Ultra that exists for the ‌Mac Pro‌.

There's now a question over what chip Apple will use in the ‌Mac Pro‌, and there are a few possibilities.

  1. Apple does have an M4 Ultra chip coming, and it's not ready yet.
  2. There's some version of a high-end M4 chip that is not technically an "Ultra" chip and is instead called something else like "M4 Extreme."
  3. The ‌Mac Pro‌ will use the M3 Ultra chip.
  4. The ‌Mac Pro‌ will get an M5 Ultra chip.

The M1 Ultra, ‌M2‌ Ultra, and M3 Ultra chips that Apple has released have essentially been two Max chips linked together through an "UltraFusion" connector. The M4 Max does not have the UltraFusion connector available, so the first possibility seems unlikely.

Apple could be making an M4 Ultra or Extreme chip that is standalone and not a doubled up variant of the M4 Max, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman recently claimed that Apple doesn't want to create an M4 Ultra chip from scratch because of costs, production challenges, and low sales of high-end and expensive machines.

Apple could refresh the ‌Mac Pro‌ with the same M3 Ultra chip that it put in the ‌Mac Studio‌, but if that's Apple's plan, it's likely the company would have just refreshed the ‌Mac Pro‌ alongside the ‌Mac Studio‌. The ‌Mac Pro‌ could be held back for other development reasons, but there aren't really rumors of notable new features coming.

We might be getting the first Macs with M5 chips later this year, but there's also a chance M5 Macs won't come until early 2026. Even if Macs with M5 chips do launch in late 2025, there's no guarantee that an Ultra version of the chip will be ready to go.

As of right now, there's no clear indication of what's in store for the 2025 ‌Mac Pro‌'s Apple silicon chip.

Design

There aren't rumors of design updates for the next ‌Mac Pro‌, so it's not likely that Apple has anything planned.

Ports

Apple added Thunderbolt 5 to the ‌Mac Studio‌ and MacBook Pro, so the ‌Mac Pro‌ will likely get Thunderbolt 5 ports too. Thunderbolt 5 will allow for more high-resolution displays to be connected to the ‌Mac Pro‌.

RAM and SSD

The M3 Ultra chip supports up to 512GB RAM, so if the ‌Mac Pro‌ gets the M3 Ultra or something similar, it will support a lot more RAM. The current model is limited to 192GB.

Storage maximums will also double, as the M3 Ultra supports up to a 16TB SSD, while the ‌Mac Pro‌ is limited to 8TB.

Launch Date

Bloomberg's ‌Mark Gurman‌ said last year that the ‌Mac Pro‌ will see a refresh toward the end of 2025, but given the chip uncertainty, Apple could be planning to hold it until 2026.

Related Roundup: Mac Pro
Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Neutral)
Related Forum: Mac Pro

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Top Rated Comments

Acidsplat Avatar
4 weeks ago

Why should the pro even exist anymore? It seems hard to justify.
As long as Hollywood and video/music production studios exist, there's a market for the Mac Pro.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nutmac Avatar
4 weeks ago
Mac Pro should support GPU cards and a direct support for standard NVMe SSD (without having to purchase M.2 NVMe PCIe card).
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Veinticinco Avatar
4 weeks ago
Chip
Design
Ports
RAM
Launch
...

But no mention of the most crucial update? The whee...err I mean Mobility System. Personally I'm psyched for a $2000 caterpillar track to roll this puppy round my 10sqm home office.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dzankizakon Avatar
4 weeks ago
They should offer a path to replace just the "main board" on this computer without replacing the case, power supply, ports, fans and everything else that didn't change one bit.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bryo Avatar
4 weeks ago
Why should the pro even exist anymore? It seems hard to justify.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
smckenzie Avatar
4 weeks ago
I'm one of those few people who have a 2019 Mac Pro with maxed out MPX modules and just recently a base 2025 Studio M3 Ultra. I've was using the Mac Pro for 3D rendering and whilst I have a PC with a couple of Nvidia cards and it's quicker than both of the Macs, I just prefer using Mac OS.

The fact is those, this studio runs rings around the MacPro for straight performance. It also generates way less heat and is silent, noting my PC can claim. Yeah there are still some speciality audio cards but the majority of audio interfaces are still USB-C, there are only a few Thunderbolt interfaces. PCIe audio are pretty scarce.

Blow are my results. Unless they come out with some M4/M5 Ultra/Extreme chip with PCIe slots I can't see the point of it as much I hate to say it.

2019 MacPro with 2x 6800XT Duo's
Self Build PC with 1914900KF + 4070 Ti Super + A4000
Mac Studio M3 Ultra Base 28cpu/60gpu

Redshift Benchmark:
MacPro: 2:30
Studio: 2:03
PC: 1:37

Cinebench Multicore CPU
MacPro : 1169
Studio: 2666
PC: 2016

Rendering an actual scene in Cinema 4D and Redshift. The scene has a lot of translucent objects, think trees, grass etc so not the easiest thing to render. Output was at 3000px X 3000px.

Mac Studio 19:12 RTX ON
Mac Pro 2019 41:48
Windows 11 + 4070 Ti Super 14:58
Windows 11 + 4070 Ti Super + A4000 10:21
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)