Apple M2 Ultra announced, premiering in the new Mac Studio and Mac Pro

The Mac lineup got a big overhaul with the latest addition to the M-series chipsets – Apple M2 Ultra. Following the M1 Ultra chip from last year, M2 Ultra combines two Apple M2 Max chips via Apple UltraFusion architecture with up to 2.5TB/s of bandwidth. The new top-end Apple chip is fabbed on a second-generation 5nm process.

Apple claims 20% faster CPU performance compared to M1 Ultra and the new 76-core GPU inside M2 Ultra is 30% faster. The 32-core Neural Engine (NPU) offers a 40% boost compared to M1 Ultra. M2 Ultra is configurable with up to 192GB unified memory (50% more than M1 Ultra) and 800GB/s bandwidth which is double the bandwidth of the M2 Max.

In terms of real-world performance, Apple claims 50% faster video processing with the ability to playback up to 22 streams of 8K ProRes video. You can hook up to 6 Pro Display Pro XDR displays.

The new M2 Ultra chip will be available in two new Macs – the M2 Ultra Mac Studio and the updated Mac Pro tower. Apple has now completed its transition to Mac silicon.

Mac Studio is now available with either M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips and up to 192GB unified memory but also updated connectivity via HDMI with support for 8K monitors and a 240Hz refresh rate. Mac Studio also gains Wi-Fi 6E connectivity and Bluetooth 5.3.

Moving to the new Mac Pro – it’s available in both tower and rack-mounted enclosures with the iconic aluminum chassis and the brand-new M2 Ultra chip. It benefits from PCIe expansion with the ability to add and swap video cards. You get six open PCIe gen 4 slots. Pro users can also add digital signal processing (DSP) cards, serial digital interface (SDI) I/O cards or additional network and storage depending on the workflow.

Mac Pro is available in Tower and Rack enclosures

Mac Pro with M2 Ultra can handle up to 24 4K camera feeds with the ability to encode to ProRes. It can be connected to six Pro Display XDRs and also gains Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. The I/O also includes 2x USB-A ports, 2x HDMI 2.1 ports and 2x 10GB Ethernet ports as well as a headphone jack.

Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra chipset starts at $1,999.

Mac Pro in its Tower enclosure starts at $6,999, while the Rack enclosure model will start at $7,499.

Both new Macs are up for pre-order today and will be available in the US from next week.