Can Apple make its best Mac matter again?

Macworld

With the release of the Mac Studio in March, Apple also released its fastest processor ever. However, that chip, the M3 Ultra, is only available in the Mac Studio–it’s not available in the higher-end Mac Pro. Apple’s flagship Mac, once dubbed “the world’s fastest personal computer,” still runs the M2 Ultra chip that was released in 2022.

That leaves the Mac Pro as a glaring oddball in its Mac lineup. It’s an expensive tower computer starting at $6,999 with an out-of-date chip. Does this mean the tower Mac has come to an end? Perhaps, but there is a glimmer of hope, if you want to believe.

Mac Pro’s history in limbo

Apple has a history of leaving the Mac Pro in limbo. When the Mac Studio was first released in 2022, the Mac Pro didn’t get an update and eventually became the last Mac with Intel CPUs. At that time, it was still possible to get an Intel Mac Pro that was technically faster than the M1 Ultra Mac Studio, but you had to pay a premium for Xeon CPUs and graphics card upgrades that were clearly on the way out.

The Mac Pro’s Apple silicon update finally came in 2023 when it got an M2 Ultra chip alongside the Mac Studio. Apple didn’t change much about the Mac Pro other than its chip, though it took away the ability to add aftermarket RAM and graphics. The 2023 Mac Pro is essentially a machine for users who need PCIe expansion cards–a specialized market, but one that positions the Mac as a top-tier creative workstation.




Apple introduced the first M-series Mac Pro in 2023 at WWDC.Foundry

But since the M2 Ultra offered the same performance in the tiny Mac Studio and the tower of the Mac Pro, the questions about the Mac Pro’s viability persisted. Its very existence doesn’t make sense, especially for a company that prides itself on maintaining profit margins and managing production costs. Apple doesn’t release data on individual units sold, but it seems hard to believe that the Mac Pro, which starts at a price tag that’s $3,000 more than the Mac Studio, sells in high enough quantity to justify its place in the lineup.

But the Mac Pro has come back from the dead before. The current design with Intel chips was released in 2019, six years after the ill-received cylindrical Mac Pro. That long gap was disrupted in 2017, when Apple announced that the Mac Pro would get the modular design it still uses today. So, a languishing Mac Pro isn’t new, and its history feeds into speculation about its viability.

Mac Studio in the spotlight

What’s different this time is the introduction of the Mac Studio in 2021. Its launch suggested that the Mac Pro was on the way out, and with updates in 2023 and 2025, Apple has established the Mac Studio as a smaller Mac Pro with the fastest M-series chip. In fact, if speed is your top priority, the fastest Mac you can buy isn’t even the Mac Pro right now—it’s M3 Ultra Mac Studio.

Granted, the Mac Pro is the only option for a Mac user who needs expansion slots, but at least with its prior iterations, you were guaranteed to get the fastest chip, too. With the launch of the M3 Ultra, expansion is the only justification to get the Mac Pro, making its specialized status even more specialized.