New Mac Pro: What we know about the overdue M4 Ultra (or M5 Ultra) update

Macworld

New Mac Pro: In summary

The M2 Ultra Mac Pro was released in 2023. Previous reports have said an M4 Ultra Mac Pro will be released before the end of 2025.

A report states that the M5 Ultra chip is on Apple’s schedule, but there have been no mentions of whether it will be made available for the Mac Pro, or when.

No reports of a Mac Pro design change have been made.

Apple last updated the Mac Pro in June 2023 when it was the last Mac to be outfitted with an M-series chip–three years after Apple started to use its own silicon in Macs. At that point, the Mac Pro gained an M2 Max or M2 Ultra chip option.

Apple is now three generations on from the M2 chip. The M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, arrived at the end of 2023, followed by the M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max at the end of 2024. It took until 2025 for Apple to introduce an M3 Ultra, which arrived as an option for the Mac Studio. The first of the M5 series launched in October 2025. But the wait continues for the Mac Pro update and the chip upgrades destined for the new Mac Pro remain a mystery.

In the meantime, we are stuck with the M2 Ultra Mac Pro. But, hopefully, not for much longer. Read on for all the latest leaks, rumors and predictions about when the Mac Pro will launch, the reasons for the delays, and what to expect when the new Mac Pro does finally arrive.

New Mac Pro: Release date

The Mac Pro update was reported to have a late 2025 release

The Mac Pro tends to have a longer update cycle than the other Macs because it’s an expensive machine with features that address the needs of a niche audience. However, it has now been more than two years since the M-series Mac Pro was launched, and in the meantime, the Mac Studio, with its M3 Ultra and M4 Max options, has usurped its position as the fastest and most powerful Mac.

What is going on? Why was the M4 Ultra delayed? Why didn’t Apple add an M3 Ultra to the Mac Pro? As the M4 Ultra will combine two M4 Max chips it may be that the power requirements and generated heat are just too high. There have been reports that Apple is changing the processor’s architecture, so we could see higher performance than in previous Ultra chips.

The lengthy wait was anticipated: in an April 2024 report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman about Apple’s plans for its AI-enhanced M4 chip, he suggested that Apple would not update the Mac Pro until 2025.

In June 2024, Gurman again reported that the Mac release schedule had not changed. The M4 Mac Pro is not expected until the second half of 2025.

On July 3, 2025, AppleInsider reported that a new Mac Pro is in development has has been assigned the code name J704.

On November 4, Gurman reported that Apple is working on M5 Max and M5 Ultra Mac Studio updates, but made no mention of the Mac Pro. No updated reports have been made of the Mac Pro being released before the end of 2025.



New Mac Pro: Will it use an M4 Ultra or M5 Ultra processor?

Previous reports stated that the Mac Pro could be upgraded with an M4 Ultra with “enhanced AI capabilities”

A more recent report stated that Apple has the M5 Max and Ultra in development

In the two years since the launch of the M2 Ultra Mac Pro, it has lost its position as the most powerful Mac. In our Geekbench 6 tests of the M4 Max chip, we found it to be faster than the M2 Ultra in the Mac Pro. Read: How Apple’s M4 chips dispelled all my fears about buying a new Mac.

Even faster than the M4 Max is the M3 Ultra, which arrived in the Mac Studio in March 2025. The Mac Studio with M3 Ultra is currently the fastest Mac in Apple’s lineup. Why hasn’t Apple updated the Mac Pro with an M3 Ultra? If Apple wanted to use the M3 Ultra in the Mac Pro, it would’ve updated that Mac by now. Apple must have something much more powerful planned.

In an April 2024 report, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman stated that the Mac Pro is part of Apple’s AI focus and will be upgraded with an M4 with enhanced AI capabilities. The M4 Ultra, which is what has been reported as the chip for the Mac Pro, is expected to have an improved Neural Engine for AI features. The M3 Ultra combines two M3 Max chips, so it follows that the M4 Ultra would do the same. There have been reports that Apple will be changing the processor’s architecture, so we could see higher performance than in previous Ultra chips.

The Information reported in December 2024 that in the previous summer, Apple had canceled a “high-performance chip for Macs” to focus on the development of an AI server chip. As John Gruber pointed out, the timing of that Mac chip project suggests that the canceled chip was likely one that is dubbed an “Extreme” chip that would be faster than an Ultra.

On August 14, 2025, Macworld reported that it had seen internal code published by Apple that confirms that the company is still experimenting with a new, high-end Mac Pro powered by an unreleased M4 Ultra chip.




In November, a report stated that the Mac Studio will be upgraded with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips in 2026. Could those chips make their way into the Mac Pro?Foundry

On November 4, 2025, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple has an M5 Max and M5 Ultra Mac Studio on its release schedule for 2026. He did not mention the Mac Pro. It’s still possible that Apple could release an M4 Ultra Mac Pro before the 2026 Mac Studio, making it the fastest Mac. But that title would be short-lived if the M5 Ultra Mac Studio is released less than a year later.

It seems possible that Apple could forgo an M4 Ultra Mac Pro update and release an M5 Ultra Mac Pro at the same time as the M5 Ultra Mac Studio. However, this is mere speculation; no reports have been made regarding this.



New Mac Pro: Specs

512GB memory max

Thunderbolt 5

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple wants to dramatically increase the maximum amount of unified memory in the high-end desktop M4 Macs to 512GB. The current limit on the M2 Ultra Mac Pro is 192GB. So, a M4 Ultra Mac Pro could support more than twice the memory as the current M2 Ultra Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro will be equipped with Thunderbolt 5. When Apple released the M4 Pro/Mac MacBook Pro, it upgraded to Thunderbolt 5, so the Mac Pro will follow suit. Learn more about Thunderbolt 5.

No other reports have been made about the inner workings of the upcoming Mac Pro. Because Apple wants to focus on AI, the Mac Pro could be marketed as an AI development workstation, so Apple could upgrade other components to accommodate these needs.



New Mac Pro: Design




The next Mac Pro upgrade is expected to keep the same design, but the internal components will likely change.Foundry

The Mac Pro has had its design since 2019, following Apple’s admission that it had designed itself into a thermal corner with the so-called ‘trash can Mac Pro’, which had the form of a black cylinder and proved impossible to upgrade due to problems with cooling. Having learned that lesson, it is unlikely that Apple would change the Mac Pro design in such a way as to reduce cooling and other elements. If Apple changes anything, it is very unlikely to make the Mac Pro smaller as this didn’t work out well last time.



New Mac Pro: Price

Here are the prices for the current standard base configurations of the M2 Ultra Mac Pro for reference. Apple expects customers to configure their orders, so prices will vary from these base specifications.

$6,999/£7,199/CA$8,999/AU$11,999 Mac Pro Tower: M2 Ultra, 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, 64GB Unified Memory, 1TB SSD

$7,499/£7,699/CA$9,599/AU$12,999 Mac Pro Rack: M2 Ultra, 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, 64GB Unified Memory, 1TB SSD

Pricing for the new Mac Pro has not been reported, though pricing could possibly go up because of the U.S. tariffs situation–the components are made overseas. The price may be adapted to more recent exchange rates elsewhere. We predict that in the U.K., the price will be in line with the U.S., for example, £6,999 rather than £7,199.