Apple announces M3 Ultra—and says not every generation will see an “Ultra” chip
Apple's first Mac Studio refresh in nearly two years is a welcome update, injecting fresh life into two computers that were still getting by with M2 chips. But the company took a bit of a strange approach to the update, giving an M4-series Max chip to the lower-end Studio but an M3 Ultra chip to the high-end model.
These processors are both performance upgrades from the M2 Max and M2 Ultra, and the M3 Ultra is so huge that it should have no trouble outrunning the M4 Max despite its slightly older CPU and GPU architecture. But it's still a departure from past practice, where Apple would keep the Studio's chip generation in lockstep.
| CPU P/E-cores | GPU cores | RAM options | Memory bandwidth | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple M3 Ultra (low) | 20/8 | 60 | 96/256GB | 819.2GB/s |
| Apple M3 Ultra (high) | 24/8 | 80 | 128GB/256GB/512GB | 819.2GB/s |
| Apple M2 Ultra (high) | 16/8 | 76 | Up to 192GB | 819.2GB/s |
| Apple M1 Ultra (high) | 16/4 | 32 | Up to 128GB | 819.2GB/s |
When asked why the high-end Mac Studio was getting an M3 Ultra chip instead of an M4 Ultra, Apple told us that not every chip generation will get an Ultra" tier. This is, as far as I can recall, the first time that Apple has said anything like this in public.