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Oct 21, 2023

Inside the Apple Mac Pro 2023: M2 Ultra Lands in the Biggest Apple

Apple's WWDC 2023 keynote kicked off the company's week-long developers

Apple's WWDC 2023 keynote kicked off the company's week-long developers conference with several major product announcements, including news of the first Apple-Silicon-powered Mac Pro desktop.

Built around the new M2 Ultra chip and starting at $6,999, this should prove to be an absolute powerhouse of a machine, putting past Mac Pro desktop models to shame and delivering the first Apple Silicon Mac that can actually be customized and upgraded after purchase. Gone are the separate, installable AMD Radeon Pro graphics modules, with the graphics capabilities now integrated into the M2 chip, and the Intel Xeon CPUs have been replaced by the Apple M2 Ultra worked straight into the mainboard. Plus, this Mac Pro's top-end configuration ($11,799) is actually far cheaper than the highest-end configuration of the 2019 Mac Pro was back then.

Here are my first impressions of Apple's first Mac Pro using one of its own processors, along with all the glamor and detail shots I could grab of the machine during my brief session with it at Apple Park.

First, an overall look at the chassis...

Same cheese-grater, heavy-aluminum sex appeal as before, and look at those feet...

The Mac Pro has always been built for power. This entire system is now built around Apple's latest mega chip, the M2 Ultra. Consisting of dual M2 Max processors on a single die, facilitated by a speedy interconnect between the two, it's the beefiest processor Apple has made yet.

With 134 billion transistors, it's a modern wonder of a 24-core CPU that can be configured with a 60- or- 76-core GPU. That's more than enough horsepower for most professionals, able to handle up to 22 simultaneous streams of uncompressed 8K video or multitasking between apps that would normally require rendering on separate machines.

The thermal gear has clearly been removed from the M2 Ultra die here, for a better view of the case interior. The three oversize pizza-pie fans up front will handle the overall interior air intake, but the M2 Ultra will have a copper-base air cooler that is roughly similar to that used in the Mac Studio. It wasn't exhibited in our briefing session, though.

The M2 Ultra chip is paired with up to 192GB of unified memory and up to 8TB of solid-state storage. Unlike other Mac desktops (such as the newest Mac Studio) the storage can be upgraded after purchase, thanks to a collection of SSD slots on the back side of the motherboard.

Now, Apple would not allow us to take images of the reverse side of the Mac Pro mainboard in our time at Apple Park, else we'd have some here. But we did get to see it. The SSDs have a closer-to-square shape than the typical M.2 SSDs that prevail these days in desktops, and the connector was similar, but not exactly the same. It's a proprietary storage format; no off-the-shelf SSDs for this bad boy. Since the drive functionality will be tied into the SOC encryption, it won't be compatible with anything third party, just like on the Mac Studio. (Apple will be selling upgrade kits alongside the Mac Pro this year, so there's that, at least.)

Storage is not your only upgrade option. The Mac Pro has six full-length PCI Express 4 expansion slots available, made for use with everything from professional audio recording cards (think Avid HDX) to studio-grade video gear, like the Blackmagic Deck Link. This is all about giving professionals the flexibility they need for specialized hardware, whether it's for media work or an engineering workstation.

And, if you really need more expansion than that, the standard I/O card that comes with the Mac Pro can actually be removed to free up a seventh half-length PCIe expansion slot.

As for the rest of the I/O provided by the Mac Pro, we'll start with the fact that it can support the same amount of eight 4K displays refreshing at 60Hz as before, and as many as three 8K panels at the same refresh rate. In addition, many of the available ports are enhanced, like eight Thunderbolt 4 connections replacing just four Thunderbolt 3 ports from before.

Six of those eight are on the rear I/O plate, and the other two can be configured either on top of or on the front of the case. You can see them up top in this closeup...

You also get two more USB Type-A ports (5Gbps), two HDMI ports, two 10Gbps Ethernet ports, and one 3.5mm headphone jack.

Internally, Apple also added another USB-A port along with what look like two SATA ports (which Apple's spec sheet specifies are 6Gbps). It was not made clear what these internal connectors are meant for, or how they could be used. For example, it was unclear if the SATAs could be used for hooking up internal storage, and if so, where you would mount the drives or how you would power them. (No SATA power connector are in evidence, though we see what looks like an 8-pin PSU connector to the right of them.) But the fact that the 6Gbps speed was cited suggests internal storage use.

Naturally, Apple also upgraded the Mac Pro to Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, giving it the absolute latest in wireless connectivity. Finally, just like last time, the Mac Pro comes with an Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse in the box.

All this new hardware goes into the Mac Pro case, which externally is unchanged from the previous Intel model from 2019. As noted up top, the chassis features the distinctive "cheese grater" lattice across the front, complete with the slide-off case that gives you full access to the internals.

Inside the metal case is Apple's open-air frame, which is built to provide maximum flexibility for adding whatever hardware you need.

In addition to the tower, Apple will also offer the option for the Mac Pro in a server rackmount setup. And if you need your Mac to move, ironically you can replace the chrome feet; it can also be set up with wheels if you fancy making the desktop more portable around an office. This extra feature costs an additional $400, but it might still have some problems with unwanted rolling. We'll have to see whether Apple has fixed that(Opens in a new window) with the new models.

Perhaps the most significant change to the Mac Pro is the price tag, which has gotten smaller by tens of thousands of dollars.

Starting at $6,999, the base model is a lot more expensive than the similarly equipped 2023 Mac Studio that debuted alongside it, which is $3,999 with the M2 Ultra chip, 60-core GPU, and 64GB of memory. What you get for the extra money is all of the potential expansion discussed above.

The top Mac Pro configuration, with the 76-core GPU, maximum of 192GB of memory, and 8TB of storage, comes out to $11,799. While still exorbitant for the average user (much less an organization), that is more than $41,000 less than the top-most Intel Xeon Mac Pro model from 2019, which rang up at more than $53,000.

Given the rarified nature of the Mac Pro and its specialized application, we don't know if we'll get a chance to actually review this power tower. But we'll be crossing our fingers to get the new powerhouse Mac on our test bench when it comes out later this month.

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