Apple discontinues its Mac Pro lineup with no planned replacement

The Apple Mac Pro is dead, the Mac Studio is now king

Apple has officially discontinued its Mac Pro lineup, removing the product from its webstore entirely. The product has not been updated since 2023, and that model has been removed from sale. This version of the Mac Pro had a starting price of $6,999 (US).

The newest Mac Pro featured Apple’s M2 Ultra processor. Since then, Apple has released its M3 Ultra chip, which is available in the Mac Studio. Apple’s Mac Studio devices are also available with their newer M4 Max CPUs, and will reportedly soon receive newer M5 variants.

The end of “Pro” flexibility

When Apple created its modern Mac Pro line in 2019, it benefited from PCIe expansion. Add-on cards for the Mac Pro were created to deliver hardware acceleration for specific tasks and additional GPU performance. With the 2023 model, the Mac Pro lost much of its flexibility with the addition of Apple Silicon. This model lacked support for discrete GPUs, and only Apple’s proprietary SSD storage modules could be added to the system. Furthermore, Apple Silicon’s unified memory made memory upgrades impossible.

Apple Mac Pro is dead, Long live Apple Mac Studio

The death of the Mac Pro has been coming for a while. The lack of M3 Ultra and newer Apple Silicon options for the system signalled its demise years ago. The Apple Mac Studio arrived with a new, smaller form factor, newer chips, and faster Thunderbolt 5 connectivity. It was only a matter of time before the Pro met its end.

Apple’s focus is now on smaller systems that rely on external Thunderbolt add-ons instead of internal upgrades. Even with its limited size, the Mac Studio can feature up to 256GB of unified memory and up to 16TB of storage. For now, Apple has no reason to build larger Macs.

You can join the discussion on the demise of the modern Mac Pro on the OC3D Forums.