Smaller Mac Pro with Apple Silicon to join Mac mini refresh in 2022
An Apple Silicon version of the Mac Pro is on the way, a report predicts, with Apple also expected to release an updated Mac mini in 2022.

Apple is pushing to release Apple Silicon hardware to replace Intel-based Macs as part of an aggressive two-year transition schedule. It seems that 2022 will see Apple complete the shift, with it finally offering a high-end Mac aimed at enterprise users.
According to predictions made in Mark Gurman's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg on Sunday, a new Mac Pro running Apple Silicon will launch in the year. Gurman reckons that the model will be a smaller counterpart to the existing Mac Pro design, while also packing considerable performance gains from using Apple's own chip design.
Gurman says the Mac Pro version of Apple Silicon will include a chip with up to 40 cores in the CPU, along with a 128-core GPU. Previously, Bloomberg claimed the Apple Silicon Mac Pro would use 20-core or 40-core CPUs, as well as 64-core and 128-core GPU options.
It was also claimed by Gurman in August 2021 that Apple will "barely hit its two-year timeline" for the Apple Silicon transition.
Early leaks put the size of the updated Mac Pro as being smaller than a G4 Cube, with the compute unit on the bottom and a heat sink on the top. However, there have been few other claims about its design other than its size.
Alongside the new Mac Pro, Gurman also believes a new Mac mini is on the way. Previous rumors have pointed to a radical design update to the model, including a thinner frame, with a "plexiglass-like" top panel, and color options.
Port options are thought to include a mix of USB 4 and USB-A, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, and a magnetic circular power connector. An upgrade of chip from the M1 is also anticipated, to either an M1 variant like the M1 Pro or M1 Max, or to a new generation such as the "M2."
Read on AppleInsider

Apple is pushing to release Apple Silicon hardware to replace Intel-based Macs as part of an aggressive two-year transition schedule. It seems that 2022 will see Apple complete the shift, with it finally offering a high-end Mac aimed at enterprise users.
According to predictions made in Mark Gurman's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg on Sunday, a new Mac Pro running Apple Silicon will launch in the year. Gurman reckons that the model will be a smaller counterpart to the existing Mac Pro design, while also packing considerable performance gains from using Apple's own chip design.
Gurman says the Mac Pro version of Apple Silicon will include a chip with up to 40 cores in the CPU, along with a 128-core GPU. Previously, Bloomberg claimed the Apple Silicon Mac Pro would use 20-core or 40-core CPUs, as well as 64-core and 128-core GPU options.
It was also claimed by Gurman in August 2021 that Apple will "barely hit its two-year timeline" for the Apple Silicon transition.
Early leaks put the size of the updated Mac Pro as being smaller than a G4 Cube, with the compute unit on the bottom and a heat sink on the top. However, there have been few other claims about its design other than its size.
Alongside the new Mac Pro, Gurman also believes a new Mac mini is on the way. Previous rumors have pointed to a radical design update to the model, including a thinner frame, with a "plexiglass-like" top panel, and color options.
Port options are thought to include a mix of USB 4 and USB-A, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, and a magnetic circular power connector. An upgrade of chip from the M1 is also anticipated, to either an M1 variant like the M1 Pro or M1 Max, or to a new generation such as the "M2."
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Agreed, on a GPU of this scale (128 Apple GPU cores * 128 ALUs per core = 16384 unified shaders) I'd really like to see their take on a hardware accelerated ray tracing solution. And maybe something like DLSS, that second on-die Neural Engine that isn't userspace available maybe?
More likely is multiple M1 Max dies for this year's Pro desktop machines.
[1] Each generation of Macintosh Silicon will appear first in the MacBook Air and the Mac Mini. Both will be silent masterpieces of technology with minuscule failure rates, with no fan, utterly reliable.
[2] Next come the iMac and the MacBook, with the colors and the same silicon as the Air and Mini. These are consumer Macs, with lower prices and higher failure rates.
[3] Then the MacBook Pro gets its refresh with the new Pro and Max configurations.
[4] Finally, the iMac Pro and the Mac Pro complete the cycle, with multiple dies and GPU advances. Depending on what they do with the Mac Pro, this stage could be split into two phases.
All of this takes place over a cycle of about 18 months, with some flexibility built into it. Apple Silicon will not make promises it can't keep. It won't be like clockwork, and it won't be an annual cycle. macOS, however, will stay on an annual cycle, because it has to keep up with more than just changes in the M series, but that doesn't mean the hardware will.
I suspect the timeline for the first generation was disrupted a bit by COVID. The fact that it's over a year since the M1 was introduced and we still likely haven't seen the full lineup (waiting now for the multi-die Pro desktop version) is hopefully going to be an anomaly. Hopefully the 'normal' pattern will be that the full lineup is refreshed in less than 12 months.
In terms of time between generation (eg, M2 to M3) I'm guessing about 18 months.
4-die seems to be the limit, 6-die will be ridiculously large, there's no point for that. depending on the silicon, I assume 4-die will top out at 48+16.
There’s a place for the Mini between the Air and the iMac. Not so much when it comes to the higher end.
The Mac mini (with M1X) rumor and renders show a thinner Mac mini case with plexiglass top and without any vents. The 4 lozenge shaped vertical holes are presumed to be TB4 ports but they look too close to each other to be ports. They actually look like vent holes. If they are vent holes though, it means this leaked Mac mini shell won't have TB4 ports. So, something weird is going with the rumor.
Then the Mac Pro rumor has varied from about half the size of the 2019 Mac Pro to something less than the size of the G4 cube, which would be about 1/5th the Mac Pro. A lot of unknown here other than smaller.