100%
Highly Likely
The current-generation Mac Pro didn’t get treated to the M3 Ultra this year, unlike the Mac Studio, as Apple’s tower workstation is still limited to the older M2 Ultra. If the writing on the wall was not obvious already, a new report states that the Cupertino firm is internally viewing the Mac Studio as the new Mac Pro, hinting that the latter might not feature the same hardware. To be fair, ever since we entered into the Apple Silicon era in 2020 with the M1, the bigger machine has become redundant and too expensive to entertain.
The Mac Pro is just a bigger Mac Studio that takes up valuable space and offers expansion slots, both of which will hardly matter to customers
When the Mac Pro was first announced with an Intel Xeon processor, its massive chassis made perfect sense, as it could accommodate a large cooler, along with a thoroughly impressive heat dissipation solution that was both effective in cooling the power-hungry CPU and silent at the same time. Additionally, with an Intel Mac Pro, you could take advantage of the multiple PCIe expansion slots and outfit the workstation with AMD GPUs, or upgrade the RAM by inserting physical modules.
With the Apple Silicon transition, physically upgrading that memory is now out of the question, thanks to the unified RAM architecture, and about the only thing those expansion slots are good for is increasing storage or adding capture cards. Given that the Mac Pro is already an expensive machine, purchasing those add-ons will only stress the massive bill, making the Mac Studio a ‘no-brainer’ purchase.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, in this latest ‘Power On’ newsletter, he writes that Apple has ‘largely written off’ the Mac Pro, with the Mac Studio being viewed as its worthy successor, and will represent the company’s future of powerful computing. Earlier this month, we reported that an M5 Ultra is being prepared for the Mac Studio, but there was no mention of the Mac Pro. The high-end silicon is slated to arrive in H1 2026, with the possibility that its larger brother slowly gets phased out.
The M3 Ultra’s impressive efficiency is why Apple can afford to use it in the Mac Studio, as a previous comparison revealed that it consumed 55 percent less power in Handbrake compared to other x86-based processors. The Mac Pro’s absurdly large size, weight, and ridiculously high starting price of $6,999 at this time will hardly get the ball rolling in terms of sales. In short, it was only a matter of time before Apple pulled the plug on this product, and we believe that is exactly what will happen in 2026.
News Source: Bloomberg
About the author: Omar Sohail is a reporter and analyst for Wccftech's mobile section, specializing in the technology and business of the mobile industry. His expertise lies in the intricate hardware supply chain, covering developments in semiconductor manufacturing, chip lithography, and camera sensor technology.
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