The new 2022 Mac Pro didn’t get as much hype as the new 2022 MacBook Air and the alleged Apple M2 chip, but as far as Apple rumors and speculation go, we can at least say that a powerful new Apple workstation is on the way. way, possibly on June 6, 2022, at WWDC 2022.
This comes, miraculously, from Apple’s own notoriously shut down, with Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus teasing the new workstation at the end of the Apple Peek Performance event in March.
Speaking of Mac Studio and Studio Display, Ternus says (opens in new tab): “And they join the rest of our amazing Apple Silicone Mac lineup, making our transition almost complete, with just one more product: Mac Pro, but that’s for another day.”
That other day may finally be here, so let’s dive into everything we know about the new Mac Pro 2022.
Mac Pro 2022: Get straight to the point
- What is it? Apple’s next-generation workstation computer for production and industrial-level users
- How much will it cost? We don’t know, but it will certainly be much more expensive than the Mac Studio, which starts at $3,999 / £3,999 / AU$7,599 and maxes out at $7,999 / £7,999 / AU$12,099.
- When do you leave? We expect an announcement on June 6, 2022, at WWDC 2022, but it could be several weeks or months before the workstation itself ships, possibly as late as September 2022.
Mac Pro 2022: release date
We can’t say when the Apple Mac Pro 2022 will be released, but we expect there will be an announcement of the new workstation-class desktop at WWDC 2022 and a pre-order period to begin shortly thereafter. When the 2022 Mac Pro will actually be released is another question, though Majin Bu, a noted Apple researcher, says certain Supply chain sources indicate a September 2022 ship date (opens in new tab).
This would be in line with what we saw with the Mac Pro 2019, which was announced at WWDC 2019 in June but didn’t release until December 2019.
We know he’s coming, though. Apple’s Ternus confirmed this during the Apple Peek Performance event, though he didn’t give a time frame for a release beyond “another day”. Will that day be Monday, June 6, 2022? We certainly hope so.
Mac Pro 2022: price
We don’t know where Apple will price the new 2022 Mac Pro, but we definitely expect it to start somewhere in the $6,000 / £6,000 / AU$9,000 range and increase from there as you increase the amount of RAM, storage, with a (most likely) option to increase the GPU core count.
Part of the difficulty with the Mac Pro’s pricing is that, unlike most other Apple devices, the Mac Pro is much more modular than your typical Mac. Most consumer and business Mac devices have multiple configuration options, but they are mostly limited to a choice of processor step (Apple M1 Pro vs M1 Max on 14-inch MacBook Pro (2021) and 16-inch MacBook Pro ( 2021), for example, with different options for GPU core counts in some cases), the amount of RAM and the amount of storage.
Meanwhile, the Mac Pro 2019 had a much more extensive list of configuration options, from an 8-core Intel Xeon processor to an Intel 24-core processor, from 32GB to an impressive 1.5TB of DDR4 ECC memory and ten options. different for AMD Radeon graphics cards, ranging from one Radeon Pro W5500X with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM to two Radeon Pro W6900X graphics cards with 32GB of GDDR6 VRAM each.
The six storage options range from a 512GB SSD to an 8TB SSD. You also have the option to install an Apple Afterburner card for faster decoding of ProRes and ProRes RAW video codecs in supported applications like Final Cut X, adding $2,000/£2,000/AU$3,000.
All of which means that the cheapest Mac Pro 2019 model will cost $5,999 / £5,499 / AU$9,999, while the most expensive configuration will cost $53,799 / £53,299 / AU$81,699. No matter how much VC funds your startup or studio, that’s a lot of money. And that’s without considering the additional monitors and peripherals required to use the workstation.
The big mystery about a 2022 Mac Pro is that Apple is looking to move away from third-party silicon altogether, specifically Intel Xeon CPUs and AMD Radeon GPUs. How configurable the new Mac Pro 2022 will be in light of this remains to be seen.
Mac Pro 2022: specs and performance
Mac Pro 2022: specs and performance
The new Apple Mac Pro 2022 is likely to be a workstation powerhouse, courtesy of the M1 Ultra. And given the interconnect technology Apple used to produce the M1 Ultra, it’s entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that the 2022 Mac Pro (at least for high-end configurations) will be powered by two M1 Ultra chips running unified, in rather than in parallel or tandem like many other multiprocessor systems.
Based on what my resource reports, here is some official information about the new Mac Pro 2022 This is the bridge that connects 2 M1 Ultra together and will be found in the new Mac Pro 2022. Processor Name: “Redfern” Coming with new Macs Pro this September #Apple #AppleInternal pic.twitter.com/afj0dSmQvkMarch 12, 2022
This can make for a massively powerful workstation, but how does it compare to the Mac Pro 2019? This remains to be seen. The Intel Xeon W processor in this workstation was capable of supporting up to 1,536GB of DDR4 RAM, which is vital when handling creative content workflows.
If the rumor that the Mac Pro will come with two M1 Ultras joined together, similar to the way the M1 Ultra is two M1 Max chips connected via an interconnect bridge, is true, then the Mac Pro (2022) might only hit 256 GB of unified memory.
Only? Did we just say “only 256GB”? We must be getting spoiled.
Still, if the Mac Pro comes with two M1 Ultras joined together, the memory bandwidth for the Mac Pro 2022 can more than make up for the lower physical memory compared to its predecessor.
Digging deeper, assuming we’ll have the option to get a 2×48-core and 2×64-core GPU on the Mac Pro’s Ultra dual processor, you’re looking at a 40-core CPU, a 96- to 128-core GPU, and a 64 cores in the new Mac Pro 2022.
Honestly, we’re still not sure how to quantify that kind of potential, but it makes us more excited than ever to see what Apple has in store for us.