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Apple Discontinued More Than Just the Mac Pro This Month

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While it felt inevitable, it was still big news last week when Apple announced that the Mac Pro was discontinued after a nearly 20-year run.

Mac-Pro-Feature-Teal.jpg

Apple discontinued a lot more than just the Mac Pro this month, though, as outlined below.

Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM

Apple no longer allows customers to configure the Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM, with the maximum amount of unified memory now limited to 256GB.

Mac-Studio-Feature.jpg

Apple has not publicly commented on removing the 512GB of RAM option, but it was likely because of the ongoing memory chip shortage, which has resulted in the price of RAM chips skyrocketing. It is possible that Apple could allow the Mac Studio to be configured with 512GB of RAM again one day, once supply catches up to demand.

14-inch MacBook Pro with 512GB of Storage

The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips start with at least 1TB of storage, and Apple also decided to bump the minimum storage for the lower-end 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip to 1TB.

14-inch-MacBook-Pro-Keyboard.jpg

This means the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip and 512GB of storage was discontinued.

Keep in mind that the 14-inch MacBook Pro now starts at $1,699, whereas a configuration with 512GB of storage previously started at $1,599.

Pro Display XDR

Apple discontinued the Pro Display XDR this month after releasing the Studio Display XDR, which effectively replaces it.

Pro-Display-XDR-Black.jpg

Released alongside the 2019 Mac Pro, the Pro Display XDR featured a 32-inch screen with LED backlighting, 6K resolution, a 60Hz refresh rate, P3 wide color, up to 1,600 nits of brightness, one Thunderbolt 3 port, and three USB-C ports. In the U.S., the monitor started at $4,999, but the optional Pro Stand cost $999 extra.

The Studio Display XDR has a lot of superior features compared to the Pro Display XDR, including mini-LED backlighting, a 120Hz refresh rate, up to twice as much display brightness, speakers, a camera, Thunderbolt 5 support, and a lower $3,299 starting price that includes a stand. However, it has a smaller 27-inch screen.

More

Of course, Apple also discontinued previous-generation versions of the iPad Air, MacBook Air, and many other products this month, as we already listed.

Article Link: Apple Discontinued More Than Just the Mac Pro This Month
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/30/apple-discontinued-more-than-mac-pro/
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They're definitely, and understandably, playing two games here: 1) an optics game with the surging chip pricing and 2) being smart about their current RAM inventory. For the former, the optics of $16,000 Mac Studios is prob not ideal. For the later, they can now spread more [precious] chips across more devices.

And while I'm here: 512 is a LOT of GD RAM! 😳
 
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I am thinking they may be saving the RAM for the M5 Ultra. If that releases without 512GB no one is going to be able to cluster them over RDMA with Kimi K2 lol. Would be another Mac Pro situation of the older gen supporting 1.5 TB RAM and then dropping to a way lower number. If the new one releases with only 256GB that would be a weird optic.
 
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and the Mac Pro wheels!! Fortunately I got an order in via Apple on Amazon before they were pulled 😋

MacBook Pro base 1TB is amazing work. About time.
 
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an aside, I think the word optics replacing appearance is a debasement of language. but then again 512 GB of memory, to what purpose, unless you can't determine a method of sequentially processing data in smaller segments
 
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lazyrighteye said:
They're definitely, and understandably, playing two games here: 1) an optics game with the surging chip pricing and 2) being smart about their current RAM inventory. For the former, the optics of $16,000 Mac Studios is prob not ideal. For the later, they can now spread more [precious] chips across more devices.

And while I'm here: 512 is a LOT of GD RAM! 😳
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I remember being really happy with a 1 MB RamFactor card. 😉

1 GB was in 2002 in the Dual Processor Quicksilver G4.
 
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This is what I don't understand. All those new Neo owners who switched from Windows would have bought Mac Pros eventually but now they are stuck with their Neos.
 
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1 GB was in 2002 in the Dual Processor Quicksilver G4.

1 GB is (not was) in my "Antimony", TiBook. Still have it, and it still works with OS 9.2.2
 
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lazyrighteye said:
They're definitely, and understandably, playing two games here: 1) an optics game with the surging chip pricing and 2) being smart about their current RAM inventory. For the former, the optics of $16,000 Mac Studios is prob not ideal. For the later, they can now spread more [precious] chips across more devices.

And while I'm here: 512 is a LOT of GD RAM! 😳
Click to expand...

I've got a 512Gb M3 Ultra. Yes, it is a lot of RAM. It is way more than anyone needs who isn't working with large AI models. For the average user 32GB is probably more than they need. 64GB would be comfortable overkill. However, if you are running large LLMs locally, you can run out of memory without really trying. You can't run Deepseek unless you resort to a 5-bit quantization (6-bit is just a tad too large, forget 8 or larger).

It makes sense for Apple to no longer manufacture M3-Ultras with 512GB seeing that the M5-Ultras are due out. My bet would be the high-memory systems will be in big demand. The Mac Studio Ultras have proven themselves to be nice work stations for AI engineers. Being able to run large models locally is more convenient than renting GPUs in the cloud.
 
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up to twice as much display brightness
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This is inaccurate: The Pro Display XDR has 1000 sustained brightness and 1600 peak note.

The smaller Studio Display XDR has 1000 sustained brightness and 2000 peak nits.

Some non-owners oddly began to claim 500 sustained nits for the Pro Display XDR
 
Sad to see the MacPro gone. That machine from the original grater cheese to the last was incredible pieces of art and amazing expandability for pros. But what breaks my heart is the Pro XDR display being discontinued. The 27" options are just too small. I'm hopeful there is a V2 coming when Apple updates the Studio computers.
 
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vantelimus said:
I've got a 512Gb M3 Ultra. Yes, it is a lot of RAM. It is way more than anyone needs who isn't working with large AI models.
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There are other applications that require that much RAM, such as very large molecular dynamics simulations.

And multi-node weather forecasting systems typically have 256 GB to > 1 TB RAM per node, to handle atmospheric datasets.

But large AI models are probably the most common usage.
 
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Good to know about this. The 14" MacBook Pro with M5 and 512GB storage was short lived. Would have liked to see the 1 TB version at same price but considering SSD and RAM prices, cannot complain much.
 
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Corefile said:
This is what I don't understand. All those new Neo owners who switched from Windows would have bought Mac Pros eventually but now they are stuck with their Neos.
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I hope you're being sarcastic. 🙂

No one interested in that level of performance will settle for something that can not run the latest Nvidia hotness, or even AMD hotness.

And I do mean hotness, as is space heater mode. Nvidia 5090 is 600 watts. AMD RX 9070 XT is about 325 Watts. keep in mind it takes only 1500 watts to keep my bedroom warm when it's -10 F outside and that heater isn't running all the time.

There is a point to be made though. the MacBook line has the Neo, the Air, and the Pro. The desktop line is now short an entry. A Mac Nano (based on an A19?), the Mini, and the Studio would fill out the matrix. The issue is desktops need ports, lots of ports. I'm not sure an A19 can handle a half-dozen USB ports. The target market wouldn't have Thunderbolt anyway, the lower end PCs have USB 3 with maybe a USB 4 port really intended for a monitor and often a legacy USB 2 port for the keyboard.
 
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