New Mac Pro and an 'Extreme' Chip: Here's What the Latest Rumors Say

[Unregistered 4U]

Sounds like:
+) M4 Ultra is not cancelled : Still due out 2025_June on N3E.
+) M4 Extreme never existed
+) M5 Extreme has been cancelled (was being designed on N2P)
+) The High bandwidth face-to-face chiplet architecture that Broadcom specialises in and licensing out to Google will now be leveraged by Apple in a new DataCentre only AI chip (to allow huge scale out with minimal DataCentre power requirements)

I speculate this will result in the next MacPro moving from an 2025_Oct release to a 2025_June release with an M4_Ultra (based on 2 x M4 Maxes) and will no longer be M5 based.

I don’t think any Extreme ever made sense. Was likely information that they leaked to employees to determine who felt being a leaker was more important than being an Apple employee. Then, Apple immediately assisted them with starting that journey.

I also think the next Ultra will just be a higher performance option like Max is over Pro. I’m likely wrong, but Apple’s already testing their chops(chips) by making variant processors that aren’t “the high end with dead units” but instead intentionally making chips with a unique set of all “live” cores.

Nothing says that any “Ultra” solution MUST be twice as performant as the Max solution. It just has to be the fastest Mac. And, merely by existing, it will be that.

 

[Timpetus]

And that makes sense seeing Mac Pro sales are probably a fraction of 1% of total Mac sales. I'm glad Apple feels that's enough to keep it going. The rack mount version is a beast. I especially like the 1.2 kilowatt power supply. And of course the slots.

It's certainly a powerful machine, but I personally have no use for its capabilities. My MBP is more than enough for my needs. I remember when a Power Mac was our family's home computer. A lot of people seem to think the current MP is supposed to be the same thing, when it's not. Apple has brought the low end of their computers far closer in speed to the top end, which has been great for them and for the 99% plus of us who only need to buy a relatively cheap Mac to get the job done.

 

[Boil]

The high-end desktop/workstation/server markets is where multi-die packaging can shine; and Apple using their own silicon in their Apple Intelligence servers is where the R&D can be done to also allow these high-end packages into the Mac Studio/Mac Pro line-up of desktop/workstation products...

Which is why Apple would never waste the money to produce them. Apple’s bread & butter is the Air’s and MacBook Pro’s. EVERY other Mac they release is just some iteration of what they focused on improving for the baseline, Pro and Max chips. That allows them to spread the R&D over the entire line. The VERY tiny unit sales of the Mac Pro means it’s not worth the effort to create a unique infrastructure just for 100,000 a year. Making a return on that investment would be really challenging.

So just gonna gloss over the part where I say R&D costs on the Apple Intelligence server chips can also absorb R&D costs on the high-end desktop/workstation chips...?

 

[yyzguy]

Why does the mac pro still even exist?

In order to support those who need $700 wheels, duh. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX572ZM/A/apple-mac-pro-wheels-kit

 

[BillyJoeJimBob]

Something that I consider: I don't want to have to build a machine room or resort to an equipent closet. In my project studio all of the equipment including the computer must be quiet enough to be in the same room as an open mic. I have yet to see demonstrated that anything outside the MP7,1 form factor will let me run everything at once in the control room on one machine (VEP7, Pro Tools, Logic, Valhalla DSP stuff, etc.) and do it quietly without melting the system.

 

[tenthousandthings]

[…]

Where did you find that slide?

“InFO-SoW in production” is an odd thing to say in that context, especially given how they frame CoW-SoW immediately below it.

The slide is about CoWoS evolution. InFO is a component of CoWoS, but it also exists on its own. Apple used it on its own, for UltraFusion, a few years before CoWoS incorporated it.

So it’s possible to read that slide as saying somebody has data center InFO-SoW silicon in production now. It could be Apple. To be clear, that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with M4/M5 Ultra and the Mac Pro. But Ultra would presumably benefit from a successful effort in the data center, just as this hypothetical Apple data center silicon would have benefited from their experience with InFO-oS in M1/M2 Ultra.