Apple Discontinued More Than Just the Mac Pro This Month - MacRumors
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Apple Discontinued More Than Just the Mac Pro This Month

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While it felt inevitable, it was still big news last week when Apple announced that the Mac Pro was discontinued after a nearly 20-year run.

Mac Pro Feature Teal
Apple discontinued a lot more than just the Mac Pro this month, though, as outlined below.

Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM

Apple no longer allows customers to configure the Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM, with the maximum amount of unified memory now limited to 256GB.

Mac Studio Feature
Apple has not publicly commented on removing the 512GB of RAM option, but it was likely because of the ongoing memory chip shortage, which has resulted in the price of RAM chips skyrocketing. It is possible that Apple could allow the Mac Studio to be configured with 512GB of RAM again one day, once supply catches up to demand.

14-inch MacBook Pro with 512GB of Storage

The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips start with at least 1TB of storage, and Apple also decided to bump the minimum storage for the lower-end 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip to 1TB.

14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard
This means the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip and 512GB of storage was discontinued.

Keep in mind that the 14-inch MacBook Pro now starts at $1,699, whereas a configuration with 512GB of storage previously started at $1,599.

Pro Display XDR

Apple discontinued the Pro Display XDR this month after releasing the Studio Display XDR, which effectively replaces it.

Pro Display XDR Black
Released alongside the 2019 Mac Pro, the Pro Display XDR featured a 32-inch screen with LED backlighting, 6K resolution, a 60Hz refresh rate, P3 wide color, up to 1,600 nits of brightness, one Thunderbolt 3 port, and three USB-C ports. In the U.S., the monitor started at $4,999, but the optional Pro Stand cost $999 extra.

The Studio Display XDR has a lot of superior features compared to the Pro Display XDR, including mini-LED backlighting, a 120Hz refresh rate, up to twice as much display brightness, speakers, a camera, Thunderbolt 5 support, and a lower $3,299 starting price that includes a stand. However, it has a smaller 27-inch screen.

More

Of course, Apple also discontinued previous-generation versions of the iPad Air, MacBook Air, and many other products this month, as we already listed.

Related Roundups: Studio Display, Mac Studio, MacBook Pro
Buyer's Guide: Displays (Buy Now), Mac Studio (Caution), MacBook Pro (Buy Now), Mac Pro (Don't Buy)
Related Forums: Mac Accessories, Mac Studio, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro

Top Rated Comments

Black_Mage Avatar
Black_Mage
7 hours ago at 10:07 am
The Mac Studio should have been called Mac Pro Mini. Lost opportunity.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
-BigMac- Avatar
-BigMac-
4 hours ago at 12:25 pm

Apple discontinued the Pro Display XDR ('https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/03/apple-discontinues-pro-display-xdr/') this month after releasing the Studio Display XDR ('https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/03/apple-introduces-studio-display-xdr/'), which effectively replaces it.
Yea no, the two are completely different
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S
Siliconguy
6 hours ago at 11:01 am

They're definitely, and understandably, playing two games here: 1) an optics game with the surging chip pricing and 2) being smart about their current RAM inventory. For the former, the optics of $16,000 Mac Studios is prob not ideal. For the later, they can now spread more [precious] chips across more devices.

And while I'm here: 512 is a LOT of GD RAM! 😳
I remember being really happy with a 1 MB RamFactor card. ;)

1 GB was in 2002 in the Dual Processor Quicksilver G4.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jnc Avatar
jnc
6 hours ago at 10:35 am

The Mac Studio should have been called Mac Pro Mini. Lost opportunity.
Not really, if their intent was for it to replace the Mac Pro. Now they’d be stuck as to why it’s called a Mac Pro mini when no other Mac Pro exists
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
V
vantelimus
5 hours ago at 11:17 am

They're definitely, and understandably, playing two games here: 1) an optics game with the surging chip pricing and 2) being smart about their current RAM inventory. For the former, the optics of $16,000 Mac Studios is prob not ideal. For the later, they can now spread more [precious] chips across more devices.

And while I'm here: 512 is a LOT of GD RAM! 😳
I've got a 512Gb M3 Ultra. Yes, it is a lot of RAM. It is way more than anyone needs who isn't working with large AI models. For the average user 32GB is probably more than they need. 64GB would be comfortable overkill. However, if you are running large LLMs locally, you can run out of memory without really trying. You can't run Deepseek unless you resort to a 5-bit quantization (6-bit is just a tad too large, forget 8 or larger).

It makes sense for Apple to no longer manufacture M3-Ultras with 512GB seeing that the M5-Ultras are due out. My bet would be the high-memory systems will be in big demand. The Mac Studio Ultras have proven themselves to be nice work stations for AI engineers. Being able to run large models locally is more convenient than renting GPUs in the cloud.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CharlesShaw Avatar
CharlesShaw
6 hours ago at 10:54 am
🎶 Time keeps on slipping
into the future
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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