Mac Pro 2024 (Apple silicon M2 Ultra): technical sheet, price and reviews

During the Worldwide Developer Conference 2024, Apple revealed for the first time the complete technical sheet of its new Mac Pro. The device finally switches to proprietary chips, thanks to the M2 Ultra processor, but the RAM remains less than the maximum level of the Intel model. Is this new tower still worth it? Here is our opinion, supporting images and prices.

Quick data sheet

Performance

The Apple silicon Mac Pro is powered, as its name suggests, by a homemade motherboard. This is the M2 Ultra chip. Here are the technical characteristics of its basic configuration:

• CPU
  • sixteen cores for performance
  • eight hearts “high energy efficiency“
• Graphics card: sixty or seventy-six cores (your choice, the second option costs 1,150 euros more)
• Artificial Intelligence Engine: Thirty-two-core Neural Engine
• Memory bandwidth: up to eight hundred gigabytes per second

Connections

Wired

The Mac Pro has numerous connectors for connecting accessories, such as external displays. With this device, you will benefit from:

• six Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports on the back of the case (for the tower)
• two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports at the top of the case (for the tower)
• two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports on the front of the case (for the rack)
• a USB-A port (internal, up to 5 Gbps)
• two Serial ATA ports (internal, up to 6 Gbit per second)
• two USB-A ports (up to 5 Gbps)
• two HDMI ports (support for multi-channel audio output)
• two RJ-45 Ethernet ports (up to 10 Gbps)
• a 3.5 millimeter jack for headphones (with or without high impedance), speakers or earphones
• six full-length fourth-generation PCI Express slots (including two x16 slots and four x8 slots)
• one half-length third-generation PCI Express x4 slot

Note that the Thunderbolt 4 outputs offer a throughput of no less than 40 Gbit per second, supporting not only DisplayPort but also USB 4 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbit per second).

Wireless

The Mac Pro 2024 comes with:

• and Wi-Fi 6E modem
• le Bluetooth 5.3
• AirPlay
• AirDrop

Operating system: macOS Sonoma

Asall desktop computers at AppleRight now, the Mac Pro is powered by macOS Sonoma. It is a proprietary platform, which allows you to download third-party software mainly via the App Store. However, many native services remain available and do the job quite well. These are particularly renowned for their speed of execution.

For example, you can use the Safari browser to access the web, listen to your playlists with Apple Music or even send emails with the Mail inbox. Since the settings, Apple has also placed emphasis on confidentiality, for example with the possibility of blocking access to geolocation for certain developers.

Design of the new Mac Pro

The Apple silicon Mac Pro takes line for line the design codes introduced with itspredecessor. We will especially notice here the price of the stainless steel chassis with casters for the tower model. Allow five hundred euros to offer it when ordering, or more than eight hundred euros afterwards. It is therefore better to think about it at the time of purchase…

In terms of pure dimensions, know that the Mac Pro of 2024 is 52.9 cm high (without wheels) for a width of 21.8 cm and a depth of 45 cm. It is therefore a very imposing central unit, the largest at Apple in fact. Allow nearly seventeen kilograms for the mass, moreover.

Mac Pro 2024 compatibility with monitors

The Mac Pro supports up to eight external displays, at 4K and 60 Hz. For 6K, however, the number of supported monitors drops to six, compared to three for 8K – still at the same frequency.

You can connect displays to the Mac Pro via USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 or HDMI connectors, as desired. Knowing that this last sheet can display 4K at 240 Hz, which will most likely delight fans of very greedy video games.

Price and availability of the Mac Pro Apple silicon

The Mac Pro is already available from retailers (see the price comparison table below). The price depends not only on the configuration of the motherboard, but also on the amount of RAM desired and internal storage.

• base price (rack): 8,999 euros
• base price (tower): 8,299 euros

The Mac Pro comes standard with 64 GB of unified RAM. The other options are paid:

• 128 Go : 920 euros
• 192 Go : 1 840 euros

Finally, here is the internal SSD storage (basic version supplied with 1 TB):

• 2 To : 460 euros
• 4 To : 1 150 euros
• 8 To : 2 530 euros

Obviously, at this price, it is much more interesting to rely on external hard drives or USB keys for more memory. We will only regret here the notable absence of an SD card reader. But adapters exist to remedy this.

Note: accessories (mouse, power supply and keyboard) are provided at no additional cost in the Mac Pro box.

Conclusion: our opinion

Clearly, the 2024 Mac Pro is a performance monster. Its chip is the most powerful ever released by Apple. Now the main question is whether the Mac Studio won't already do the job very well? This model is also entitled to the same processor, but it is almost twice as affordable.

The real difference will therefore mainly come down to connectivity, because the Mac Pro is the king of USB plugs at Apple.