Apple was supposed to release two Mac Pros in 2025, one even with an Intel processor
Amid critiques of the latest project and disappointment following its market withdrawal, the Mac Pro has been a benchmark for professionals for decades. Before its definitive goodbye, Apple's idea was to maintain this philosophy and even expand customers' choices, but history ended quite differently.
New, unprecedented details about the Mac Pro have emerged from Mark Gurman's Power On podcast on Bloomberg, revealing that Apple had been working on two Mac Pros that never hit the market. One of these, interestingly, would have been powered by an Intel processor, ensuring continuity for all professionals accustomed to the x86 platform.
We are indeed talking about a relatively recent period when Apple had already transitioned to proprietary processors. According to the reports, the two models were identified internally with the codes J170 and J190, with the first powered by an Intel CPU, while the second would have been driven by an Apple Silicon M3. As we know, these two solutions were never realized.
The J170 project concerned a Mac Pro developed when Apple had already completed its transition to Apple Silicon. The choice seems unusual, given that the company had abandoned the x86 architecture in favor of proprietary chips. Gurman does not specify what the expected professional uses were, but the existence of the project suggests that Apple had considered the possibility of maintaining an Intel solution for very specific workflows.
The second project, J190, envisioned a Mac Pro with an M3 Ultra chip. According to rumors, it was supposed to debut alongside the Mac Studio M3 Ultra at the beginning of 2025. The computer would have shared the same processor as the Mac Studio but would have maintained the PCIe expansion slots, a feature that has always distinguished the Mac Pro from other Apple workstations.
Neither model was commercialized. Apple indeed discontinued the Mac Pro line this year, closing a path that began over twenty years ago. The last available Mac Pro featured the M2 Ultra chip, introduced in 2023, while the Mac Studio is currently the only updated option available for the professional sector.
The Mac Pro was also significantly more expensive than the Mac Studio: for the same configuration, the price was about double, while offering very similar performance. The only real advantage would have been the PCIe slots, useful for professional expansion cards.
Apple had also developed the so-called Extreme chips, processors with a number of CPU and GPU cores double that of the Ultra chips. These projects were also abandoned, according to Gurman, due to high costs and limited demand.
At the moment, there seems to be no hope for a possible return of the Mac Pro in the short term. In fact, it is likely that a Mac Pro will never return and that Apple will continue to focus on its platform that integrates CPU and GPU, excluding discrete solutions for graphics. For now, therefore, the only option left to remain within the Apple ecosystem is the Mac Studio, which is expected to receive an update with the new M5 series processor.