Throughout 2024 and the early months of 2025, Apple refreshed all of its Macs with next-generation M4 chips, aside from the M4 Professional. The M4 Professional continues to be ready for an replace, however it’s imagined to get an overhaul later this 12 months.
M-Collection Chip
The present model of the Mac Professional may be bought with Apple’s M2 Extremely chip, which got here out in June 2023. It may appear logical for the Mac Professional to get the equal M4 chip, the M4 Extremely, but it surely seems Apple may not have an M4 Extremely within the works.
When the Mac Studio was up to date earlier this month, Apple introduced a model with the M4 Max chip, and a model with an M3 Extremely chip, with no M4 Extremely unveiled. Apple informed Mac Studio reviewers that not each era of M-series chips will embrace a higher-end “Extremely” tier, so there might merely be no M4 Extremely that exists for the Mac Professional.
There’s now a query over what chip Apple will use within the Mac Professional, and there are a number of prospects.
- Apple does have an M4 Extremely chip coming, and it isn’t prepared but.
- There’s some model of a high-end M4 chip that isn’t technically an “Extremely” chip and is as an alternative referred to as one thing else like “M4 Excessive.”
- The Mac Professional will use the M3 Extremely chip.
- The Mac Professional will get an M5 Extremely chip.
The M1 Extremely, M2 Extremely, and M3 Extremely chips that Apple has launched have basically been two Max chips linked collectively by means of an “UltraFusion” connector. The M4 Max doesn’t have the UltraFusion connector accessible, so the primary risk appears unlikely.
Apple may very well be making an M4 Extremely or Excessive chip that’s standalone and never a doubled up variant of the M4 Max, however Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman not too long ago claimed that Apple would not wish to create an M4 Extremely chip from scratch due to prices, manufacturing challenges, and low gross sales of high-end and costly machines.
Apple might refresh the Mac Professional with the identical M3 Extremely chip that it put within the Mac Studio, but when that is Apple’s plan, it is seemingly the corporate would have simply refreshed the Mac Professional alongside the Mac Studio. The Mac Professional may very well be held again for different growth causes, however there aren’t actually rumors of notable new options coming.
We may be getting the primary Macs with M5 chips later this 12 months, however there’s additionally an opportunity M5 Macs will not come till early 2026. Even when Macs with M5 chips do launch in late 2025, there isn’t any assure that an Extremely model of the chip shall be able to go.
As of proper now, there isn’t any clear indication of what is in retailer for the 2025 Mac Professional’s Apple silicon chip.
Design
There aren’t rumors of design updates for the subsequent Mac Professional, so it is not going that Apple has something deliberate.
Ports
Apple added Thunderbolt 5 to the Mac Studio and MacBook Professional, so the Mac Professional will seemingly get Thunderbolt 5 ports too. Thunderbolt 5 will permit for extra high-resolution shows to be linked to the Mac Professional.
RAM and SSD
The M3 Extremely chip helps as much as 512GB RAM, so if the Mac Professional will get the M3 Extremely or one thing related, it’s going to assist much more RAM. The present mannequin is proscribed to 192GB.
Storage maximums may even double, because the M3 Extremely helps as much as a 16TB SSD, whereas the Mac Professional is proscribed to 8TB.
Launch Date
Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman stated final 12 months that the Mac Professional will see a refresh towards the tip of 2025, however given the chip uncertainty, Apple may very well be planning to carry it till 2026.