We’re going to be breaking down everything we know about the Apple M2 Ultra chipset in the run-up to its potential release.
We’re going to be taking a closer look at all the rumours and news surrounding the upcoming M2 Ultra Apple Silicon chipset. Make sure you read on to find out more.
What is the Apple M2 Ultra?
The Apple M2 Ultra is a yet to be released (or even confirmed) chip touted to use the second generation of Apple Silicon.
The existing Apple M1 Ultra is currently the most powerful Apple-made processor in the Mac range, available inside the high-end configuration of the Mac Studio.
We expect a succeeding Apple M2 Ultra chip to release this year, providing an even faster performance due to the improvements made to the architecture. Such a chip could feature inside an updated version of the Mac Studio, and potentially power an upgraded Mac Pro too.
Release date and price
We don’t have any concrete news on when the M2 Ultra chip will launch, but we do have a few rumours we can speculate on. In his recent Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman claims that the M2 Ultra could launch in 2023 a new Mac Pro and is currently in active testing.
Macworld has claimed that the M2 Ultra will also be available within the latest Mac Studio, and should launch sometime after or during the WWDC presentation in June of this year.
Since Apple has not confirmed these rumours, we can’t be sure that the M2 Ultra will launch this year. However, if the company does release a new Mac Pro or Mac Studio, it’s likely that Apple will kit those desktops out with a new and improved M2 chipset.
The price of the M2 Ultra will also be dependent on which product it is released in. We imagine that the M2 Ultra configuration will be more expensive than the M2 Pro or M2 Max.
Specs
In the same vein as the release date, we can’t make any definitive comments on the specs of the latest M2 Ultra chip. Back in October of 2022, Gurman claimed that the M2 Ultra could come in two flavours, either with a 24-core CPU and 76-core GPU, or with a 48-core CPU and 152-core GPU. It’s also touted to use up to 256GB of memory.
This claim was partially backed up by Macworld, who claimed that the M2 Ultra would see the same high number of CPU and GPU cores but only up to 192GB of memory.
Some have suggested that Apple will move over to a new 3nm node process since the current M2 lineup is built on a 5nm process. However, it seems more likely that the next-generation M3 chips will build on a 3nm process, with Digitimes claiming in December 2021 that TSMC – the company that builds the chips for Apple – had to postpone its 3nm plan due to various issues.
This suggests that the M2 Ultra will be built on the same architecture as the rest of the M2 series.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.