Apple has dropped the Mac Pro entirely, but for a time it was planning to keep it at the top of the range, giving it twice the processing power of the company's Ultra chips — and maybe even one last Intel model.
The once beloved Mac Pro went out with a whimper in March 2026 as Apple discontinued it. But according to Bloomberg, there had originally been big plans for its future.
What eventually caused the end of the Mac Pro was how powerful the much more cost-effective Mac Studio was. From early on in the development of Apple Silicon, though, the plan was reportedly that the Mac Studio could get Apple's Ultra processors, but the Mac Pro would get more.
It's not known what Apple would have called these processors, but in 2022 there were reports of an M2 Extreme being planned for a Mac Pro. The new report says that the intention was that this processor would offer twice as many processing cores and graphics cores as the Ultra from the same period.
Reportedly both M2 and M3 versions of this processor were developed. Apple ultimately cancelled the processors, though, because of their cost and concerns over whether there would be demand for them.
Mac Pro hardware
As well as the processors, the new report says that there were intended to be two new models of Mac Pro. Significantly, one of them was going to be an Intel-based Mac, even though Apple was already making Apple Silicon ones.
It's said that this Intel Mac was intended to address specific use cases. While there is no further detail, that would probably be because Apple Silicon does not support PCI-E graphics cards, which could have added more power for users needing that particular expansion.
That Intel model was codenamed J170, but there was also a J190 that was to be Apple Silicon based. This wasn't going to have the extreme processor, but it would have been an M3 Ultra Mac Pro that was intended to launch alongside the M3 Ultra Mac Studio in 2025.
Separately, recent reports have claimed that an M5 Ultra version of the Mac Studio will launch before the end of 2026. An M7 Ultra Mac Studio is said to be planned for 2028.
