Contrary to rumors, the upcoming Apple silicon Mac Pro might disappoint many in the design department. A new report suggests the forthcoming Mac Pro refresh will have the same design as the 2019 Intel-based model.
The Apple silicon Mac Pro is widely expected to launch later this year. It would stand out in the Mac lineup by offering a certain degree of user upgradability but come with non-upgradeable system memory.
No user-upgradable RAM in Apple silicon Mac Pro
Rumors indicated the upcoming Mac Pro refresh would sport a compact new design. This would have been made possible by the superior power efficiency of Apple’s custom chips and its approach of soldering everything on the motherboard. But in his latest Power On newsletter edition, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that’s not going to happen.
The report claims the new Mac Pro will look similar to the 2019 model. Worse, it will miss out on a key aspect found on the Intel variant: user-upgradeable RAM. This is because Apple will directly solder the memory to the M2’s motherboard. So, there’s no possibility of upgrading the system memory down the line. However, there will be ports for upgrading the SSD, graphics, and networking ports.
Without user-upgradeable RAM, many users might prefer the cheaper Mac Studio, especially if they don’t want the additional ports.
Gurman also reaffirmed that Apple has canceled the M2 Extreme Mac Pro launch packing 48 CPU cores and 152 GPU cores. Instead, it will top out at M2 Ultra, which consists of two M2 Pro chips glued together.
Based on this latest report, the Apple silicon Mac Pro is not shaping up to be as impressive as rumors initially suggested.
iMac refresh won’t arrive anytime soon
Don’t get your hopes high for an Intel iMac Pro replacement. Gurman says a new iMac Pro has been on and off Apple’s roadmap, and the company does not intend to launch an Apple silicon model in 2023.
He further says that the next 24-inch iMac refresh will only arrive when the M3 chip is ready. This is not unlikely to happen until late 2023 or early 2024.
