by The new 2022 Mac Pro hasn’t garnered nearly as much attention as the new 2022 MacBook Air and the rumored Apple M2 chip, but as far as Apple’s rumors and speculation go, at least we can say that a powerful new Apple workstation is on the way , possibly as early as June 6, 2022, at WWDC 2022.
This comes miraculously from the notoriously reticent Apple itself, as Apple’s senior vice president of hardware development, John Ternus, teased the new workstation towards the end of March’s Apple Peek performance event.
Speaking of Mac Studio and Studio Display, says Ternus (opens in new tab): “And they join the rest of our incredible line of Macs powered by Apple chips, almost completing our transition with just one more product: Mac Pro, but that’s for another day.”
That new day might finally be here, so let’s dive into everything we know about the new 2022 Mac Pro.
Mac Pro 2022: In a nutshell
- What is it? Apple’s next-generation workstation computer for production and industrial users
- How much will it cost? We don’t know, but it will certainly be a lot more expensive than the Mac Studio, which starts at $3,999 / £3,999 / AU$7,599 and finishes at $7,999 / £7,999 / AU$12,099.
- when is it out We expect an announcement as early as June 6, 2022 at WWDC 2022, but it could take a few weeks or months after that for the workstation itself to ship, 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 will begin soon after. When the Mac Pro will actually ship in 2022 is another matter, although Majin Bu, a well-known Apple researcher, says that for sure Supply chain sources indicate a September 2022 shipping date (opens in new tab).
This would match what we saw with the 2019 Mac Pro, which was announced at WWDC 2019 in June but didn’t ship until December 2019.
But we know it’s coming. Apple’s Ternus confirmed this during the Apple Peek performance event, although he didn’t give a timeframe for a release beyond “one more day”. Will that day be Monday June 6th, 2022? Of course we 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 scale from there as you increase the amount of RAM , Memory, with an increase option (most likely) to increase the number of GPU cores.
Part of the difficulty with pricing the Mac Pro is that, unlike most other Apple devices, the Mac Pro is much more modular than a typical Mac. Most consumer and corporate Mac devices have multiple configuration options, but these are mostly limited to a choice of processor steps (Apple M1 Pro vs. M1 Max in the MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021) and MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021), for example with different options for the number of GPU cores in some cases), the amount of RAM and the amount of storage.
The 2019 Mac Pro, on the other hand, had a far more extensive list of configuration options, ranging from an 8-core Intel Xeon to a 24-core Intel processor, from 32GB to a staggering 1.5TB of DDR4 ECC memory, and ten different options for AMD Radeon graphics cards ranging from a Radeon Pro W5500X with 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM to two Radeon Pro W6900X graphics cards with 32 GB 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 such as Final Cut X for an additional $2,000/£2,000/AU$3,000.
All of this means that the cheapest Mac Pro 2019 model costs $5,999 / £5,499 / AU$9,999, while the most expensive configuration will set you back a staggering $53,799 / £53,299 / AU$81,699. It doesn’t matter how much VC funding your startup or studio has, that’s a lot of money. And that’s not even counting the displays and additional peripherals needed to use the workstation.
The big secret surrounding a 2022 Mac Pro is that Apple is trying to move away from third-party silicon entirely, 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: Specifications and Performance
Mac Pro 2022: Specifications and Performance
The new 2022 Apple Mac Pro will most likely be a powerhouse of a workstation, courtesy of the M1 Ultra. And given the interconnect technology Apple used to make the M1 Ultra, it’s entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the 2022 Mac Pro (at least for high-end configurations) will be powered by two M1 Ultra chips running in unison . instead of in parallel or in tandem as in many other multiprocessor systems.
Based on 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”. September #Apple #AppleInternal pic.twitter.com/afj0dSmQvkMarch 12, 2022
This could make for an enormously powerful workstation, but how will it hold up against the 2019 Mac Pro? That remains to be seen. The Intel Xeon W processor in this workstation could support up to 1,536GB of DDR4 RAM, which is crucial for creative content workflows.
If the rumor that the Mac Pro comes with two M1 Ultras connected together is true, much like the M1 Ultra consists of two M1 Max chips connected via a connecting bridge, then the Mac Pro (2022) might just go with 256 GB reach the top of the unified memory.
Only? Did we just say 256GB only? We need to be spoiled.
However, if the Mac Pro is equipped with two M1 Ultras connected together, the memory bandwidth for the 2022 Mac Pro could more than make up for the lower physical memory compared to its predecessor.
If we dig deeper and assume we have the option of getting a 2×48-core and a 2×64-core GPU on the Mac Pro’s dual Ultra processor, then look at a 40-core CPU, a 96- to 128-core GPU on , and a 64-core neural engine in the new Mac Pro 2022.
To be honest, we’re not even sure how to quantify that potential, but we’re more excited than ever to see what Apple has in store for us.
