Apple’s M3 Ultra chip could still be far off, even if the company immediately launched a package of fresh silicon this time.
This says Mark Gurman, who posts some information about the future Apple SoC in his newsletter Bloomberg (as noted by 9to5Mac).
As you’ve probably seen, Apple launched the standard M3 alongside M3 Pro and M3 Max processors, with the latter two being a surprise (normally there would be a gap between the release of the base model and these turbo spins on the SoC ).
Gurman notes that the reason for this triple launch was that Apple needed the Pro and Max variants for use in the high-end MacBook Pros that the company launched at its recent “Scary Fast” event.
The well-known ‘leaker’ further explains that Apple can only use a certain amount of 3nm silicon, most of which goes to the in-demand iPhone, so the company needed lower volume products for the new M3 chips – expensive MacBooks, in other words.
Gurman then notes that the Mac Studio and Mac Pro are even slower-selling products, but they would require a successor to the M2 Ultra – and this hasn’t been included in ‘broad testing’ yet, we’re told.
Analysis: So an ultra-long waiting time?
In other words, Apple is still a long way from releasing an M3 Ultra, and even if we get the M3 Pro and Max immediately, it will likely be a long wait before we see an Ultra version of the new silicon.
When the M3 Ultra arrives and Apple sticks to its current ways of doing things, the chip will likely be very impressive, as it will presumably be a pair of M3 Max SoCs bolted together (as is the case with the M2 Ultra) . And that current top offering, the M3 Max, is already quite snappy, while the M3 Pro isn’t that much of an improvement over the M2 Pro, so Apple would prefer to widen the gap between its mediocre and high-quality silicon. it seems.
A new Mac Studio is in the works at Apple, Gurman says, but the next M3 products – arriving in 2024 – should be MacBook Air models (13-inch, 15-inch) and a refreshed Mac mini. Interestingly, the leaker doesn’t even say a Mac Pro is in the works, so that could be even further away than any Mac Studio.