The first Geekbench 6 benchmark result for the new Mac Pro surfaced today, providing a closer look at the M2 Ultra chip's CPU performance in the desktop tower.
The result lists a single-core score of 2,794 and a multi-core score of 21,453, compared to 1,378 and 10,390 for the highest-end Intel-based Mac Pro with a 28-core Xeon W processor, a configuration that started at $12,999. This means the new Mac Pro is over twice as fast as the fastest Intel-based model, and given that all configurations include the M2 Ultra chip, this performance can be had for a much lower $6,999.
Mac14,8 = 2023 Mac Pro
Unsurprisingly, these scores are virtually identical to those that surfaced for the Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra chip a few days ago. The new Mac Pro is aimed at customers who need PCI Express expansion, but anyone else should consider the Mac Studio for their desktop computer needs, as it can be configured with the M2 Ultra chip for $3,999.
The new Mac Pro has the same overall design as the 2019 model, but it no longer supports graphics cards and does not have user-upgradeable RAM due to Apple silicon's unified memory. The computer launched today following pre-orders last week.
Thursday January 16, 2025 6:45 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today adjusted estimated trade-in values for select iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models in the U.S., according to its website.
Some values increased, while others decreased. The changes were not too significant, with most values rising or dropping by $5 to $50.
We have outlined some examples below:
Device
New Value
Old Value
iPhone 15 Pro Max
Up to $630
U ...
Wednesday January 15, 2025 7:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
While the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" is not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the "ultra-thin" device.
Overall, the "iPhone 17 Air" is shaping up to be a mixed bag. Due to its thinness, the device is expected to have some limited specifications compared to the iPhone 17 Pro models, including only a single rear camera, only a single speaker, no SIM...
Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features.
Notification Summary Changes
Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines.
For...
Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app.
Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
Thursday January 16, 2025 8:18 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple is in talks with Barclays and Synchrony about becoming its new financial partner for the Apple Card, according to Reuters sources.
The report today added that Apple has also been holding discussions with Chase Bank owner JPMorgan since last year, so there are at least three potential companies in the running to take over the Apple Card from current partner Goldman Sachs.
Goldman...
Wednesday January 15, 2025 8:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
There is a good chance that Apple's first product announcement of 2025 will be updated 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models with the M4 chip.
Last month, Apple released macOS Sequoia 15.2, and in doing so it accidentally confirmed new MacBook Air models are coming this year (unsurprisingly).
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the new MacBook Air models will be announced "earlier" than some...
Thursday January 9, 2025 5:45 am PST by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
iPhone 17 Pro concept based on rumors
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of January 2025:
More aluminum: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models ...
The iPhone 17 lineup will feature a vapor chamber heatsink to improve thermal performance, according to a new report.
The news comes from Chinese tech news site MyDrivers, which claims that the entire iPhone 17 lineup, consisting of the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, will adopt the improved thermal heat spreader.
Vapor chamber technology is already used...
Friday January 17, 2025 5:30 am PST by Joe Rossignol
2025 promises to be quite a big year for Apple, with the company rumored to be planning more than 20 product announcements this year.
Apple's rumored smart home hub will be its second all-new product to launch in as many years, following the Apple Vision Pro headset last year. And of course, we will get several new iPhone and Apple Watch models, like every year. Beyond that, Apple could...
And with that, any reason to get this over the Mac Studio is now gone. There is now ZERO reason at all to buy a giant Mac Pro over the smaller Studio
"But the Mac Pro can be rack mountable!"
So can the Mac Studio, even moreso since it's considerably smaller so you can mount a lot more
"But I need the Mac Pro for the PCIE to put my BlackMagic cards in!"
Do you? Do you really? Because BlackMagic PCIE is slowly on it's way out as there's external rack mounted boxes that are performing better than the PCIE cards did.
Even Neil Parfitt, the audio studio pro who famously unboxed a fully specced Rack Mount Mac Pro, is saying the M2 Ultra Mac Pro is kinda redundant
So, compared to the old Mac Pro (on this one test), you're getting a much needed CPU upgrade.
The problem with getting excited about this is here is GB's averages for the i9-13900KS:
I don't even know what Xeon to compare to as trying to navigate those was a bit of a mess, but the 13900KS with 4 less cores and less threads is offering a SIGNIFICANT improvement in CPU performance.
Most of my experience with Mac Pro users have been people who rely on CPU performance above all. Data sciences running simulations, for example. The limitation of 192GB of RAM over the previous Mac Pro's 1.5TB combined with a better, but still not top of the line CPU makes me think the Mac Pro wasn't supposed to be this way. For all intents and purposes, it's a Mac Studio with internal PCIe. The amount of people who want a Studio with some external cards seems like an extremely small portion of the people who were buying Mac Pros. I feel like most customers at this point would either just invest into the Mac Studio as a much more compact and space saving workstation, or they would've moved onto custom Linux and Windows builds with these better Intel CPUs (provided they aren't using macOS exclusive software).
I feel like with TB4 that many of these PCIe cards outside of graphics cards can reach their full potential as well.
If you're someone who ends up buying a Mac Pro for a reason other than "I need macOS/macOS software", I'd be really curious as to why the Pro over the Studio or a more modular Intel/AMD PC.
