M3 Ultra Mac Studio rumored to debut in mid-2024 -- without a Mac Pro
Supply chain reports suggest Apple will continue to increase its use of TSMC's 3 nanometer wafers through 2024 with the M3 Ultra said to debut in a Mac Studio around the 2024 WWDC timeframe -- but perhaps without a refreshed Mac Pro.
Apple M3 is built on the 3nm process
Apple shifted to the 3 nanometer process with M3 and A17 Pro in 2023. The process is almost exclusively owned by TSMC and may continue to be the case through 2024.
According to Trendforce, based on data from The Elec and a report from ICsmart, TSMC customers that include Apple will increase orders for second generation 3nm process wafers up to 80% utilization by the end of 2024. Apple will introduce new chips using the process later in 2024 like the M3 Ultra and A18 Pro.
The M3 Ultra is expected to be launched with an updated Mac Studio in the middle of the year.
The report doesn't make any specific mention of a Mac Pro using the chipset, however. It's not clear if this is an accidental omission, or an intentional statement.
This information appears to originate from the supply chain. It matches up with Apple's release pattern, and previous reports on the matter. The continued use of the 3nm process for the next year or so is probable -- but we're less certain about no Mac Pro update in conjunction with a Mac Studio.
Apple surprised the world by introducing three M-series processors at once, and ahead of expected cadence during its "Scary Fast" event. The M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max were all revealed in late October 2023.
More Macs will likely be introduced with those processors before M3 Ultra is revealed. Given Apple's previous patterns, M3 Ultra will likely be announced during WWDC in June.
Rumor Score: Possible
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Comments
Not so sure this applies to the M3 Ultra; the next generation 3nm process is not compatible with the first generation, which is why so many other companies have opted to pass on it and wait.
The A18 will make the switch as will the M4.
N3E? Yeah, that might arrive in time for the A18 and M4 family of chips. Apple could be using four generations of TSMC 3nm fabs: N3B, N3E, N3P and N3X. Won't see TSMC 2nm chips until late 2026 at the earliest.
Still, if they put in an extreme chip the design suddenly has a reason to exist and justify its price cost.
A $3000 mark up for those PCI slots is worth Apple’s time regardless how many sell.
https://creativestrategies.com/apple-silicon-and-the-mac-in-the-age-of-ai/
https://anakin.ai/blog/mlx-apple-m1-m2/
Maybe at one point, early on in the development of Mac silicon, Apple thought an Extreme, quad M-series variant for Mac Pro only would make sense. The original "Jade" leak, which was otherwise 100% correct, suggests that. But that is ancient history now. It dates to before the Mac Studio and, more importantly, to before the A17/M3 graphics architecture. Apple has been driving toward this since at least the A12X in 2018. That October 30 presentation in Brooklyn ("More in the Making") for the iPad Pro is important, and with the benefit of hindsight we can see it is the first major event that foreshadows the transition to A14/M1 -- the executives on stage, which include Anand Shimpi (for the first time, I think, I could be wrong), know there is no turning back. It's a very different feel from 2017, in retrospect.
If they abandoned the M1/M2 Extreme in favor of a different approach, a change in direction that may have been hinted at by Anand Shimpi less than a year ago (February 2023), then Apple has displayed an ability to adapt that is heartening. The whole trajectory from 2017 to the present looks really good in that respect.
I think there's no rush. They need PCIe 5 (let alone 6) and Thunderbolt 5/DisplayPort 2.1 to build this structure, and the industry shift to these standards will progress slowly. But I think it's pretty clear that Apple knows what it is doing. There are signs. For example, there were people all up in arms about how Apple uses PCIe lanes in the 2023 Mac Pro, but those criticisms were all predicated on expectations for PCIe 3 lanes, not PCIe 4. The whole thing was just unbelievably stupid.
Rumor had it they were we're working on one. That would definitely be the differentiator for the costs between HW options along with PCIe slots.