Apple Silicon Is the Mac Pro Upgrade You’ve Been Waiting For – CNET [CNET]

June 6, 2023 Lori Grunin technology

The company’s power pro desktop finally gets the update we’ve all been waiting for.

Lori Grunin Senior Editor / Advice

I’ve been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handed out buying advice for what seems like forever; I’m currently absorbed by computers and gaming hardware, but previously spent many years concentrating on cameras. I’ve also volunteered with a cat rescue for over 15 years doing adoptions, designing marketing materials, managing volunteers and, of course, photographing cats.

Expertise Photography, PCs and laptops, gaming and gaming accessories

Apple’s serious modular pro desktop gets its first real update since 2019, incorporating the new M2 Ultra chip announced at WWDC 2023.

You can follow the event on our live blog.

The Ultra is a pair of M2 Max chips strung together, delivering a 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU and 32-core neural engine. It also means two HDMI 2.1 ports — first arriving for Apple in the MacBook 16 — and dual 10Gb Ethernet connections. It can support up to 192GB of unified memory and has eight Thunderbolt 4 ports on the front.

In practice, that’s a lot more performance over the antiquated Xeon in the old version, which means support for more high-res displays. It also means support for more modern standards, like PCI Gen 4, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. Pricing for the upgraded Mac Pro will start at $6,999.