Apple announces Mac Pro with M2 Ultra, starting at $6,999

The first Mac Pro with Apple’s M2 Ultra processor has eight Thunderbolt ports and six PCI expansion slots.

It’s finally happening. Apple is bringing back the Mac Pro with new chips designed for 2023. It’s the first big update to the Mac Pro in four years, and it completes Apple’s transition to its own Arm-powered Silicon. The new Mac Pro model will be available starting June 13th for $6,999.

The new Mac Pro looks the same as the old Intel version with the cheese grater metal front, but there are some major changes on the inside. The Mac Pro will come with Apple’s M2 Ultra chip, as well as six open PCIe Gen 4 slots for expansion, and offer eight built-in Thunderbolt ports. It can be configured with up to a 76-core GPU and 192GB of memory. With a fully specced model, Apple says it can be up to 3x faster than the old Intel version.

Alongside the refreshed Mac Studio, the new Mac Pro introduces the new M2 Ultra chip. It’s two M2 Max dies connected with Apple’s UltraFusion technology, with a 24-core CPU and up to a 76-core GPU that’s 30 percent faster than the M1 Ultra. The chip is built on a 5nm process; it doubles the memory bandwidth of the M2 Max, up to 800GB/s, and supports 50 percent more memory than the M1 Ultra. The CPU is supposed to be up to 20 percent faster than the M1 Ultra.

The six PCIe expansion slots are based on Gen 4, which isn’t the latest, but it’s still incredibly fast and will happily support the majority of cards, monitors, and expansion that professional creatives use right now.

The Mac Pro will also get eight built-in Thunderbolt 4 ports. There are six at the rear and two on top, twice the amount available before. Like the Mac Studio, this new Mac Pro will support up to six Pro Display XDRs and also includes Wi-Fi 6E connectivity and Bluetooth 5.3 support for the latest accessories. Mac Pro also has three USB-A ports, two “higher-bandwidth” HDMI ports (that support up to 8K resolution and up to 240Hz frame rates) and two 10Gb ethernet ports. Thankfully, Apple has kept a headphone jack around, too.

Apple first started transitioning to its own M series of chips in November 2020. The initial M1 chip was shipped in the MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro before the M2 appeared last year and shipped initially in the MacBook Air.