New Mac Pro (2023) release date, design and spec rumors

As part of Apple’s transition to Apple Silicon, the company is hard at work on a new Mac Pro behind closed doors at Apple Park – and rumors suggest it will be blazingly fast.

Although it hasn’t been revealed by the end of 2022 as expected, whispers suggest we don’t have much time to wait for the reveal of the new ultimate desktop Mac. Here’s everything there is to know about the new Mac Pro (2023) right now, including release date rumors and leaked specs.

When will the new Mac Pro be released?

Apple is tight-lipped on the release date of the new Mac Pro, but we know the Mac Pro has fallen behind Apple’s original plan to move its entire Mac lineup to Apple Silicon by the end of 2022.

It makes it even more surprising that Apple took the surprising step of teasing the release of the Mac Pro at its March 2022 event. Speaking of the transition to Apple Silicon, Tim Cook teased that the new Studio “will join[s] the rest of our Mac lineup, making the transition almost complete, with just one more product, Mac Pro. But that’s for another day.

While it looked like a WWDC launch might be possible, thanks in large part to tweets from concept artist Ian Zelbothat didn’t happen – although the 2022 MacBook Air with M2 did.

It was a similar story at Apple’s September event which saw the announcement of the iPhone 14 lineup alongside various Apple Watch and AirPods Pro 2 models.

So when exactly will the Mac Pro make its appearance? It’s 2023 now, after all.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, we don’t have much to look forward to. Take from Twitter in mid-January 2023, the reporter suggests that Apple is currently testing a new Mac Pro running macOS 13.3. Given that macOS 11.3 was released in April 2021 and macOS 12.3 followed in March 2022, it’s likely that macOS 13.3 will be released in March or April.

This could coincide with the reveal of the new Mac Pro, with software and high-end hardcore releasing at the same time. That’s what Apple tends to do with iPhones and iOS, and Apple Watch and watchOS, so it’s not a foreign idea.

That said, we’ll likely see the announcement and subsequent reveal of the new Mac Pro in spring 2023.

How much will the new Mac Pro cost?

The Mac Pro is the most expensive Mac made by Apple, with the current base model starting at £5,499/$5,999 and going up to £47,079/$52,199 for the top model.

Of course, this is not a mainstream Mac. It’s designed for movie studios, animation studios, and other big-budget creative ventures, which makes the price a little more understandable.

Those hoping for a price drop with the Mac Pro (2023) will likely be disappointed; while the other Apple Silicon upgrades aren’t more expensive than their Intel counterparts, they aren’t cheaper either. This means the new Mac Pro will likely launch for around the same £5,499 / $5,999 price as the current model, but we’ll update this section if we hear differently.

What to expect from the Mac Pro (2023)

While we’re still a long way from the potential release of the new Mac Pro, the rumor mill is already spinning, giving us an idea of ​​what to expect from the next-gen kit.

Apple Silicon chipset

The biggest driver of the next Mac Pro update is the transition to Apple Silicon, so it’s safe to say that the new Mac Pro will sport an Apple-made chipset – and rumors suggest it will far exceed the capabilities of the M1 Pro and M1 Max chipsets in the revamped MacBook Pro line.

While Bloomberg claimed that Apple was initially working on a dedicated high-end “M2 Extreme” chipset with 48 CPU cores and 152 GPU cores, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggested in January 2023 that Apple had abandoned plans for the extreme M2 among “complexity and cost issues”. .

Instead, according to the reporter, the new Mac Pro will sport a new M2 Ultra chipset, along with a design that allows users to upgrade components such as RAM and storage at a later date – essentially a throwback to the OG Mac Pro concept.

The M2 Ultra is said to support up to 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores and 192GB of unified RAM – although the latter is quite less compared to the 1.5TB of RAM supported by the current model. GPU performance is also a concern given that the current model can accommodate up to four internal graphics cards.

There’s no word yet on RAM and SSD options, but that will likely come as we get closer and closer to its release.

A revisited design

Apple’s current Mac Pro was released to the public in 2019, with many internet memes comparing the high-end Mac to a cheese grater. With that still relatively fresh in our minds, surely Apple would like to redesign the design into something a little less… cheese grater this time around.

While early rumors indicated that might be the case – random leaker Jon Prosser claimed Apple was working on a Mac Mini-esque design – later rumors suggest we’ll see a much more familiar design with the next one. Mac Pro.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the new Mac Pro will retain a similar design as it offers “easy expandability for additional memory, storage and other components”, although Apple Silicon’s adoption suggests it could be slightly smaller than its predecessor.

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