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.
