Apple ended the Mac Pro line earlier this year after a 20-year history as the flagship desktop model. The company had explored more ambitious designs for the machine before shifting focus to the Mac Studio as its top offering.

Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman states that Apple created an M3 Extreme chip offering double the CPU and GPU cores of the M3 Ultra. This processor was meant to sit above the Ultra tier and deliver the performance edge the Mac Pro required. The project was dropped after concerns about manufacturing expenses and narrow appeal for such a costly system.

Extreme chip development spanned multiple years

Speculation about an Extreme Apple silicon variant surfaced in 2022 when Gurman noted work on an M2 Extreme for the initial Apple silicon Mac Pro. That design was projected to reach 48 CPU cores and 152 GPU cores, twice the rumored M2 Ultra specs. Manufacturing such a chip would have been very expensive, with Gurman projecting a base Mac Pro price of at least $10,000 before any upgrades.

Technical hurdles added to the difficulties. Apple concluded that the combined development and production expenses could not be supported by the expected low sales volume. The latest information indicates a similar M3 Extreme effort was later started and then halted for the same reasons.

The processor might have justified the Mac Pro existence

The first Apple silicon Mac Pro arrived in 2023 using the M2 Ultra chip also found in the Mac Studio. It included PCIe expansion slots yet carried twice the price for nearly the same CPU and GPU performance. An M3 Extreme would have altered this balance. Gurman notes the chip was planned with twice the cores of the M3 Ultra, which reaches a maximum of 32 CPU cores and 80 GPU cores.

Apple is also said to have prepared an M3 Ultra version of the Mac Pro that never launched. The machine stayed on the 2023 chip until it was discontinued in March and is not anticipated to return in the near term.