Apple has added its newest — and most powerful — member to the M2 family of Apple Silicon chips here at WWDC. The new system on a chip, the M2 Ultra, will power an updated Mac Studio, alongside a configuration with M2 Max, as well as a new Mac Pro. This completes the company's transition away from Intel's CPUs.
M2 Ultra connects two M2 Max dies together, and Apple says it's the most powerful chip for a personal computer -- which is a hefty claim.
The M2 Ultra chip will have 24 CPU cores (16 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores) for 20% faster performance than the M1 Ultra, with options for up to 76 GPU cores. RAM will go up to 192GB. These are all increases over the M1 Ultra, which offered 20 CPU cores and was configurable up to a 64-core GPU, a 32-core Neural Engine and 800 GB/s memory bandwidth. The new Studio can handle six Pro Display XDR monitors.
The Mac Studio looks the same as the previous system, but the new chips should provide tangible benefits, especially in multi-core workloads. The M2 Max, which will be in the starting configurations of the Mac Studio, is already available in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.
Apple says that the Mac Studio will start at the same $1,999 price as its predecessor, or $1,799 for education customers.
