Mac17,1 = Mac Pro M5 Ultra
Mac17,2 = Mac Pro M5 Extreme
Mac17,2 = Mac Pro M5 Extreme
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M4+ Chip Generation - Speculation Megathread [MERGED]
- Thread starter GoetzPhil
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I’m not sure that Hidra is Mac17,1-2. It would be unprecedented to lead with the most complex silicon, but maybe. There’s no technical reason why not, but it still seems like a long shot.
I’m now more in the iMac Pro camp. The same 6K panel that LG introduced at CES. M5 Pro as the base Mac17,1 and M5 Max as Mac17,2.
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If they want to try and keep the mac Pro alive, what you said is what they are gonna have to do. And they’ve positioned themselves well now. The Studio just got an M4 Max and M3 Ultra and it was official M4 Ultra would not come.
That means a mac Pro with M5 Max and M5 Ultra will be about a year ahead of an M5 Max Studio, if there will ever be one. Probably not. And instant ahead of the current M4 Studio. And ahead of MBPs with M5, which will not come with Ultra, and the Pro/Max comes this autumn.
Then if this mac Pro flops, too, they’ll kill it for good.
But what do you know, maybe it will be Ultra and Extreme!
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I forgot to mention iMac Plus (instead of iMac Pro) — again with the new LG 6K panel, but Mac17,1 with M5, and Mac17,2 with M5 Pro.
Along with a new/refreshed Studio Display, with Thunderbolt 5, in two sizes: 5K 27" (Studio Display) and 6K 32" (Studio Display Plus, priced at about $500 more than whatever LG charges for the 32U990A).
No M5 Max until October, but I think an announcement about Mac Pro, Pro Display, and internal Private Cloud Compute silicon could come as soon as next month, with availability in late 2025 or early 2026.
Very keen on WWDC in a couple of weeks. Are there no more rumors concerning the M5 family? Was lovely last year when Apple released the iPad Pro and M4 so early. Also great that QCOMM is giving Apple some heat, hopefully. If I get an M5 I will hold onto it for many years. The updated Pro chassis in 2026 might make me wait though...
I’m definitely waiting on the 2026 (M6?) MBPs. I have an M1 Pro myself so I’m not really looking for another miniLED. If they really have tandem OLED screens as the rumours suggest then those are the ones to wait for.
I’m clinging to the hope that the ocean of AI gossip has drowned out other topics, and there will be hardware/product news.
I think the supply-chain rumors have been pretty normal, SoIC-in-M5-Pro being the big one. They are good for knowing that something is coming, but bad at knowing exactly when, or what the products are. It’s the gossip mongers like Gurman and Mickle who are stymied — they both seem too busy with AI to pay attention to anything else.
Not sure whether there will be M5 announcement at WWDC. However there were some rumors earlier this year regarding M5 entering mass production.
Also I see that some iPad Pro models (512 GB and above) are not available for in-store pickup immediately but they are available for delivery. However all rumors point to M5 announcement/iPad Pro refresh happening only by October/end of the year at the earliest.
Waiting to see whether Apple will announce any hardware at WWDC.
Mac Pro pre-announcement
I’m eager to see M5 but also very hyped about the M6, the first SoC made in 2nm using the all new gate all around transistor technology.
I’m actually waiting for the M5 Macs, refused to buy the M4 because I could wait one more time, but I’m not sure I could wait further for the M6 so… maybe I should have bought the M4 Mac. But being almost in June, I think it is worth waiting a few more months.
One of the things I’ve thought, is that, despite this being just a third gen 3nm processor, and a first gen ARM V.9 architecture, not only it will have an improved performance, but also the chance of some small issues present on the M4 being ironed out on the M5.
The M5 will be the chip where the new, redesigned macOS 16, will be launched. The new operating system will be carefully tuned for this new M5 chip or, at least, the M5 itself will be built to power the new era of macOS. And, if the new GPU (just as an example) is optimized for all the new glassy textures or transparencies, then I guess it would be worth waiting for the M5 Apple Silicon family.
Then, there’s the thing about Rosetta: do you think Apple will ditch Rosetta 2 with the new macOS 16? Because that would mean the M5 would be the first Mac Apple Silicon chip to not support Intel apps.
I don’t think Rosetta is going away but I do see Intel Macs left behind this year.
Support for F16C and BMI instructions. Update primarily motivated by game porting toolkit but could also have uses in HPC/scientific computing.
F16C is for dealing with small float conversions and BMI is the bit manipulation instruction set extension
I would say so, yeah.
It's also worth noting that we're in quite a different situation with Rosetta 2 compared to Rosetta 1.
Rosetta 1 went from PPC -> Intel; From a niche platform to the dominant PC platform. Rosetta was important to keep software written for Macs prior to the transition operating smoothly, but the transition to Intel itself increased compatibility with the wider software world at a binary ISA level. Going from Intel -> Apple Silicon is the opposite. If Rosetta goes away, fantastic support for existing Linux and Windows software written for x86_64 also goes away and will need to operate under much slower emulation. That's not to say that Rosetta 2 will live forever, but there's more reasons to keep it around longer.
Yeah Rosetta 2 is almost certainly here for the long haul. Another key difference is that Apple had to pay licensing for Rosetta 1, while Rosetta 2 is in-house. Forever is indeed a long time, but there is little reason for Apple to get rid of it and for the foreseeable future Rosetta 2 is a pretty integral part of their strategy for both virtualization and especially game development. In short: as things stand now, the only circumstance where I could see Apple dropping Rosetta 2 entirely is because they switch ISAs again and need Rosetta 3
(and even then Rosetta 2 would stick around until ARM-Macs lost support entirely).
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Not going to lie here, I would be disappointed if they don’t show what their plan with the Mac Pro is. They would have added the M3 Ultra already if they just wanted to extend it on minimal life support. So I’m hoping that there will be something to the Hydra rumors and we will see something more ambiguous than what could might as well have been put into a Mac Studio. Something more powerful and more modular. Announcement at WWDC and shipping around December this year.Mac Pro pre-announcement
I’m braced for disappointment in that respect in the short term. The idea is just so far out there — introducing M5 with a Mac Pro-only SoIC that isn’t suitable for Mac Studio.
But it’s also true that everything else in the rumor that included Hidra has proven to be absolutely accurate, down to the M3 Ultra in the Mac Studio. So I don’t know, maybe it’s M3 or M4, not M5, and it’s an outgrowth of the Private Cloud Compute project, something not suitable for Mac Studio.
Plans to have an even more powerful (high wattage Hidra) SoIC that is Mac Pro only do not, IMHO, prevent an SoIC within the thermal limits of the Mac Studio (M5 Ultra) from become available for the Mac Studio when it first appears in the Mac Pro.
Apple just needs to find the right price for the Mac Studio.
If the M5 Ultra was dependent on ironing out the advanced packaging issues in 2025 Q4 - perhaps they will offer to the Mac Studio with a price that is $2,500 more than the M3 Ultra ... and simultaneously offer in Mac Pro setup that is $5,000 more than the M3 Ultra Mac Studio?
Apple just needs to find the right price for the Mac Studio.
If the M5 Ultra was dependent on ironing out the advanced packaging issues in 2025 Q4 - perhaps they will offer to the Mac Studio with a price that is $2,500 more than the M3 Ultra ... and simultaneously offer in Mac Pro setup that is $5,000 more than the M3 Ultra Mac Studio?
Yes, I didn’t mean to imply Hidra (if it’s not M5 Ultra) means no M5 Ultra. I think it’s very likely there will be an M5 Ultra Mac Studio by March 2026.
FYI, I recently came across a clarification (from TSMC sources) with regard to the TSMC roadmap that I was not aware of. A16 is “basically” N2P with Super Power Rail (SPR, back side power delivery, which has thermal issues that must be mitigated, “there is no free lunch”), so I think we can be fairly sure Apple will use N2P for M7 in 2027. So the roadmap thru 2028 may be set in terms of process nodes (barring international cataclysms):
2025: N3P = M5
2026: N2 = M6
2027: N2P = M7
2028: A14 = M8
A14P in 2029 will be the first mainstream node with SPR.
2025: N3P = M5
2026: N2 = M6
2027: N2P = M7
2028: A14 = M8
A14P in 2029 will be the first mainstream node with SPR.