Apple Unveils M2 Ultra Chip as Most Powerful Apple Silicon Chip Yet

[MacRumors]

Apple today unveiled the M2 Ultra chip alongside the new Mac Studio and Mac Pro, the most powerful Apple silicon chip to date.

The M2 Ultra is based on the M2 Max chip that debuted in the refreshed 14- and 16-inch MacBook Air earlier this year. It is built using two M2 Max chips connected via "UltraFusion," Apple's custom-built packaging technology.

The M2 Ultra chip has a 24-core CPU that consists of 16 high-performance cores and eight high-efficiency cores. This nets the chip 20 percent faster performance than the M1 Ultra. Users can configure the GPU with 60 or 76 next-generation cores, which is up to 12 more cores compared to the GPU of the M1 Ultra.

The M2 Ultra features a 32-core Neural Engine that is 40 percent faster than the M1 Ultra, and it has improved video processing that can play back up to 22 streams of 8K ProRes video simultaneously.

Every Mac Pro now contains the M2 Ultra chip, supporting up to 192 GB of unified memory – 50% more than M1 Ultra. Apple also noted that with M2 Ultra in the Mac Pro, the transition to Apple silicon is complete across the Mac desktop and laptop lineups.

Article Link: Apple Unveils M2 Ultra Chip as Most Powerful Apple Silicon Chip Yet

 

[_Spinn_]

Looks like a fantastic chip!

 

[Adreitz]

Not bad, but nothing new. Just a predictable spec bump. Why did it take so long to be released?

 

[2016]

It would be very concerning if it wasn't the fastest apple silicon chip yet.

 

[MacHeritage]

Well, they said this is the last M2 chip. So Ultra it is.

 

[Eidorian]

You can really see the limitations of the existing SoC and the interior design of the Mac Pro. The expansion slots are the motherboard with the physical and electrical connections for the PCIe lanes. The SoC lives on a daughterboard.

 

[jonnysods]

I was wondering if the would sell processor expansion cards so you can upgrade down the line by buying M2 Ultra cards. Looks like I was wrong.

 

[HiRez]

I'll wait until they put 8 Ultra chips in there so I can use Chrome.

 

[rick3000]

There is an MK Ultra joke here somewhere.

 

[klasma]

Well, they said this is the last M2 chip. So Ultra it is.

Would have been fun to have had M2 Penultimate and now M2 Ultimate.

 

[cjamescook]

Where does the "134 billion transistors" figure come from?

 

[t0rqx]

most powerful chip created, in the meantime there is a M3 running behind closed doors which we are more interested about...

 

[james734]

It would be very concerning if it wasn't the fastest apple silicon chip yet.

I always laugh at this. Of course it's the fastest chip yet. I wouldn't expect them to announce "The slowest chip to ever be produced". Just announce it as a new M2 Ultra. It's safe to assume it's going to be faster then it's predecessor.

 

[FelixDerKater]

I'm glad they didn't just jump to M3 naming.

 

[redrumredrum]

While this was expected, it's still deeply disappointing. M2 Ultra is 20% faster than the *M1-Ultra*, not the M2, in single thread. That puts it at exactly the same single thread level as the plain M2, which is 11% slower than the 6 month old ST king, the Intel i7-13700KS. Sure, the M2* has superior efficiency and does (presumably) fine on multitheaded workloads, but my workloads are inherently single threaded.

 

[Nicky G]

You can really see the limitations of the existing SoC and the interior design of the Mac Pro. The expansion slots are the motherboard with the physical and electrical connections for the PCIe lanes. The SoC lives on a daughterboard.

Not really? It's more like the PCIe interface is the daughter card to the SoC.

What limitations are you referring to? Expecting memory expansion was never realistic with the unified memory architecture. I don't get the sense external GPUs are supported, this is a liitation, but it also makes sense, architecturally.

What you're calling a limitation is sort of the central design premise.

 

[jgleigh]

Where does the "134 billion transistors" figure come from?

The M2 Max is 67 billion transistors. The M2 Ultra is effectively two M2 Max chips connected together.

 

[Mr Dobey]

Who else was looking forward to an M2 Extreme?

 

[DeepIn2U]

Looks like a fantastic chip!

Yeah but why is the memory bandwidth the SAME as last years M1 chips respectively?! Hmmm

 

[name99]

Yeah but why is the memory bandwidth the SAME as last years M1 chips respectively?! Hmmm

Uh, because both of them have 8 memory controller, hooked up to the exact same bandwidth LPDDR5? So...

Next question.

 

[ignatius345]

Apple also noted that with M2 Ultra in the Mac Pro, the transition to Apple silicon is complete across the Mac desktop and laptop lineups.

I read this as "no big-screen iMac." Kind of a shame!

 

[svish]

Good to see the new updated most powerful chip from Apple.

 

[R2FX]

I read this as "no big-screen iMac." Kind of a shame!

iMac Pro forever!

 

[HiRez]

most powerful chip created, in the meantime there is a M3 running behind closed doors which we are more interested about...

There’s always gonna be a more powerful chip around the corner but the M2 is pretty damn good, especially compared to the awful later Intel years.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Not bad, but nothing new. Just a predictable spec bump. Why did it take so long to be released?

Because interconnects are hard and they had to get the yields up. A lot of people wondered how they would even make this. That’s why they gave the interconnect a proper noun, they are proud of it. Reminds me of HyperTransport back in the first heyday of AMD.