Now I know this is gonna disappoint a lot of you guys, but based on some leaks, rumors
and things that Apple have said themselves, I’m now confident that a very powerful Intel-based
Mac is coming this year, so prepare to be surprised because this is gonna get interesting!
Let’s begin with some very old leaks that didn’t really make much sense until right
now.
Now I know this is gonna disappoint a lot of you guys, but based on some leaks, rumors
and things that Apple have said themselves, I have a good feeling that the next Mac Pro
is gonna be coming with an Intel-based XEON chip instead of switching to Apple Silicon.
So in this video, I’m gonna explain why this makes sense for Apple to do by putting
a lot of puzzle pieces together, so let’s get right into it!
Now I don’t know if you remember this, but over a year ago, twitter user Rogame discovered
some very interesting bits of code within macOS beta pointing to brand new Navi 21 graphics
card support coming to the Mac.
And then getting even more interesting, after Apple announced MacOS Big Sur at their WWDC
event in June, more code was discovered pointing to even newer Navi 31 graphics support coming
to the Mac.
So you’re probably thinking, oh yeah, that was all meant for the 27” Intel-based iMac
which was released in August, but the best graphics card option in that iMac is the 5700
XT, which is actually based on Navi 10, not 21 or 31.
That basically shows that Apple is gonna be adding support for those newer architectures
in the future, which would be totally weird.. UNLESS they’re planning on releasing another
Intel-based Mac before the transition to Apple Silicon is completed.
And I believe that’s exactly what Apple is gonna do.. Mostly because of this quote
from last year’s WWDC event:
“We plan to support new versions of Macos for intel-based Macs for years to come. In
fact, we have some new intel-based Macs in the pipeline that we’re really excited about.”
Yes, Tim Cook mentioned “Some” new intel-based Macs, and as we all know, the only one they’ve
released so far is the 27” iMac, which shows that they’ve got at least one more coming
in the future.
And as of right now, after seeing how incredibly good Apple’s very first and weakest M1 chip
has been performing compared to Intel chips, like the slaughterfest that happened in one
of our latest laptop comparisons, everyone already knows that they should stay away from
Intel on the consumer-level Macs because Apple Silicon is just too good!
However, this is still one Mac that could potentially fit the bill for getting an Intel-based
chip, and that is of course, the Mac Pro, so let me explain why.
The current 2019 Mac Pro is now the only Mac that’s available with a XEON chip, and that
chip is extremely important for specific workflows like high-end mathematical and scientific
computation, since XEON chips are fine-tuned to run complex tasks with very wide bit depths.
And of course, the ECC RAM is very desirable for those workflows as well, and it’s exclusive
to high-end machines like the Mac Pro.
On top of that, it supports up to 1.5TB of RAM, which is absolutely overkill for 99%
of the people out there, but there are very specific workflows that can actually utilize
it, and there are huge corporations that will pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for
a machine like the Mac Pro.
And if you really think about it, it would be a shame if Apple spent years on research
and development, as well as tons of resources on all of the custom tooling and custom components
in the 2019 Mac Pro just to completely ditch all of it when the new Apple Silicon Mac Pro
is released.
And we know for sure that the new Apple Silicon Mac Pro isn’t gonna be using this huge cheese
grater chassis because it’s overkill with the huge motherboard and everything else.
And by simply looking at the 24” iMac, we know that Apple wants to go smaller with their
new Apple Silicon Macs.
So what I’m trying to say is that it totally makes sense for Apple to reuse the current
Mac Pro’s design for at least one more Intel-based Mac Pro refresh, and we’ve actually got
quite a few leaks and rumors to support that conclusion.
A couple of months back, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, a very reliable Apple analyst,
claimed that Apple was working on two new Mac Pro high-end desktop machines.
He even mentioned that one of them will be a refreshed model which will continue to use
Intel processors, which is what this video is all about, and of course, there will be
a second version that will use Apple’s own chips and be less than half the size of the
current Mac Pro.
So based on that and everything else I already mentioned, the Intel-based Mac Pro is definitely
happening, and here’s why I think it’s gonna be released this December.
First off, Apple’s super high-end machines like the 2013 Mac Pro, the 2017 iMac Pro and
the 2019 Mac Pro were always released in December, because it’s targeted towards large businesses
who need to get tax write-offs before the end of the year by investing their extra profits.
And the reason I think it’s coming this December and not next year is because I believe
that’s when the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is gonna be released, right at the end of their
two-year timeline for the transition.
But the even more telling reason is because of this massive leak that recently showed
up!
An Apple Mac Pro exclusive AMD Radeon Pro W6900X GPU has randomly popped up on Geekbench,
with the highest Metal score ever seen in this test, even beating out the regular 6900
XT, which this X card is based on.
Now there are some people out there that say this is a fake result that’s actually using
a hackintosh system because it’s noted as using an Intel Core processor, but I actually
think it’s legit, and here’s why.
That i9 Core chip is using Intel’s latest Cascade Lake architecture, but since the latest
XEON’s haven’t yet made it onto store shelves, I think that Geekbench didn’t recognize
the new XEON chip, so it defaulted to that 12-core chip that it does recognize.
On top of that, if it was a hackintosh with a regular 6900 XT, how would it be able to
get a score that’s quite a bit higher?
The test result clearly shows a W6900X, which can only happen if support for that card is
already built-into macOS, which we saw with those previous leaks within beta code, and
the WX cards use Apple’s custom MPX slot which can’t be put into a hackintosh, so
this is likely a legit leaked Geekbench result.
And just a couple of weeks ago, support for this new Navi 21 generation of AMD GPUs was
finally added to macOS, showing that Apple is working on the software for these new cards,
and likely for this brand new W6900X for the Mac Pro.
And if you’re wondering how it’s able to get a higher score than the other cards,
it’s likely because it’ll be coming with 32GB of VRAM instead of the regular card’s
16, and we know this because Apple’s W5700X in the Mac Pro has 16gigs of VRAM compared
to only 8 on every other 5700 XT card on the market.
Going even further, I have two very good reasons for why this new Intel-based Mac Pro is gonna
be released this December.
First off, AMD’s new 6000 series desktop GPUs like the 6900 XT are already on the market,
so if Apple waited even longer to release a Mac Pro with the W6900X, it wouldn’t feel
as fresh and powerful anymore.
And second, Intel finally launched their new 3rd gen Xeons last month, based on the 10nm
Ice Lake architecture, which should give it some pretty good advantages that Apple would
definitely want in their refreshed Mac Pro, but here’s the problem..
These new XEON chips require a brand new socket, which also requires a brand new motherboard.
This means that Apple can’t simply refresh the listing page for the current Mac Pro and
add these new Intel Chips. They literally have to redesign the motherboard to add this
new socket, which means it has to have a new part number, which in turn means that it’s
likely gonna be named the 2021 Mac Pro.
So yeh.. If you take all of the information in this video, everything points to Apple
releasing a new Intel-based Mac Pro this December, based on the current cheesegrater chassis.
And if this happens, we can expect the price to start at the same $6,000, with the base
model getting a 12-core XEON chip, and there’s even a chance that AMD is working with Apple
to debut a brand new GPU based on Navi 31, maybe with HBM2 or 3 memory, but due to the
chip shortage, I’m not sure if that’ll be possible at launch.
So there you guys go, that was all of my reasoning for why we’re getting a new Mac Pro later
this year, and if you totally disagree with me, comment your thoughts down below, but
if you enjoyed it, click that circle above to subscribe! Thanks for watching, and we’ll
see you in the next one!