Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What to Expect From Apple's M4 Ultra Chip Next Year
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The M4 Ultra will presumably have a max of hundreds of gigabytes of VRAM available though
For whichever task that would require that...There was that expectation by some that thought Apple might release the M4 Ultra machines first, then trickle down. It didn't play out but it makes sense to me. People who want a machine now would have to buy a higher end, higher profit margin machine. While the lowest profit margin machines would come in last.
I'm sure Apple's marketing knows what they're doing though (or maybe it actually does just take longer to have the M4 Ultra ready than the lower spec chips).
Out of curiosity, what are you referring to, about the two Mac 17.x? Were there Mac model IDs spotted in developer logs or something?
Not in software. It will play less than 1% of AAA games a RTX 4090 can play. And it won't have CUDA as well.
-TSMC(who makes the SOCs) does not have enough production lines to support newer N3E process to satisfy the demand from Apple
-Since TSMC is at max capacity Apple is going to order SOCs for the products that make the most revenue. These are the A series(iPhone) and lower end M series which is used in iPad, Macbooks, Mac Minis, iMacs.
Mac Studio and Mac Pro are niche low volume products. They make a faction of the money compared to Macbooks or iPads in total revenue. Thats why Macbooks are updated far more often. Desktop Macs in general account for little of Mac users. Back in 2017 Apple said 20% of users were desktop and 80% notebook. Probably lower now which would make sense as Mac Desktops revenue started shrinking back around 1999 and really got small after the mid 2000's.
I had high hopes of Apple offering GPU upgrades via PCI-E on the Apple Silicon Mac Pro's.
right now the only benefit of a Mac Pro is that it's a large pci-e expansion enclosure with the exception of GPU's.
Like you could buy a current gen version of a Mac Pro, and have a slot that would accept at least a couple next generation newer GPU's, or multiple GPU's, for your specific workflows.
I would not use the term inferior in this comparison, but yes the 32 GPU core M1 Max has higher performance than the 10 core M4 GPU.
The M1 Max 32 core GPU is a beast with Geekbench Metal score of 78,300 GFLOPS.
The M4 10 core GPU has ~1/3 the cores but has ~ 1/2 the power with a reported score of 42,600 GFLOPS.
The M4 Pro 20 core config GPU (lowest count is 16 .. max is 20) has ~2/3 the cores with a reported score of 95,000 (~20% better).
The M4 cores are clearly superior to the M1 cores and the GPU includes ray tracing and additional features, but the M1 Max 32 core GPU config has lots of cores to make up for its relative inefficiency.
The 32 GPU core M1 Max is a beast and I love the performance. It’s just very heavy and bulky to me so I’m hoping for a thinner and lighter Mac with comparable power. I think that device is 6 months away.
Last edited:
Prepare yourself, the screen on the Air really, really sucks. I got one thinking it would make a good coding machine and it was the worst Mac screen I've used in a decade. It's usable but it is a huge downgrade from even the 2019 MBP.
I was going to go hybrid light laptop / powerful desktop and returned it after testing for about 10 days.
If Apple put a Mini LED in the 15" Air I'd pay $2500 for it tomorrow.
Re: M4 Ultra, I'm somewhat flummoxed because Gurman also has said the "Hidra" desktop focused CPU is coming in 2025. Which is it, it can't be both.
Last edited:
For desktop computers why not use a wired connection.
I really think at least Mac Pro series should get upgradable and expandable design within Apple Silicon design as either Ultra and Extreme wont be enough as a workstation computer. This way, Apple can expand their markets to 3D graphic, AI, research, and more.
Besides, it will aid Apple for their own server as well in a large scale since Nvidia is the only choice and they are dominating the market.
But due to the SoC design, that would be impossible and too expensive unless they completely change the design such as 3D fabric.
Besides, it will aid Apple for their own server as well in a large scale since Nvidia is the only choice and they are dominating the market.
But due to the SoC design, that would be impossible and too expensive unless they completely change the design such as 3D fabric.
Given that the M4 introduction was unconventional (iPad first) and Gurman has stated that M5 development is almost complete I'm wondering if the Studio/Pro might be released with the high end M5 ....
All true, although not making a 27 inch or bigger iMac makes it a self fulfilling prophecy. But I suppose the margins on a bigger iMac suck compared with a combination of studio display and a Mac Studio
When the M4 Max is available to the public someone needs to take a look and see if there is an interconnect on the chip. That’ll tell us if Apple plans to simply glue two M4 Max chips together or whether it’ll be a unique chip of its own. When the M3 Max didn’t have one, people did jump to conclusions that Apple would make a unique M3 Ultra, but they never intended to make one. An interconnect on the M4 Max will tip off their intentions.
Yes to some degree though Apple not making the bigger iMac is probably a reaction to the market along with the margins. If only 20% of users were Desktop in 2017 when the 27" iMac was well and alive and the same year the iMac Pro debuted then that would tell us even if the 27" iMac was around it's the same story best case. With Apple Silicon notebooks are far more on par with desktops than the Intel days.
Apple’s use of various superlatives (Pro, Studio, Max, Ultra, Extreme) gets a little confusing at times. The hierarchy of which is better than the others isn’t always clear.
By dictionary definition, both “Max” and “Ultra” refer to something that’s at the absolute top end, which would make “Extreme” a step below them.
JUST SAYING
By dictionary definition, both “Max” and “Ultra” refer to something that’s at the absolute top end, which would make “Extreme” a step below them.
JUST SAYING
The GPU cores in the Ultra scale pretty well compared to the CPU cores, so I would imagine so. The M4 Ultra should have RTX4090 performance without needing a water cooler and taking up a 6 blocks worth of electricity.