Apple announced its most powerful Apple Silicon processor, the M2 Ultra, today. The Ultra’s unveiling followed the M2 Pro and Max earlier this year and rumors that Apple will eventually introduce the M2 generation to the Mac Studio and Mac Pro. After all, the M1 launched the Ultra chip in the highest-end Mac Studio.
Like the M1 Ultra, the M2 is two M1 Max dies welded together. The M1 Ultra has 20 CPU cores, 64 GPU cores, 32 Neural Engine cores, and 128GB of unified memory.
The 5nm M2 Ultra, with 134 billion transistors and 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores (60-core option), and 32-core Neural Engine, will have 24 CPU cores. In addition, 16-next-gen high-performance and eight high-efficiency cores make up the CPU.
Image: Apple
The M2 Ultra provides 192 GB of unified memory with 800GB/s of bandwidth. The new chip’s CPU is 20% quicker than the M1 Ultra, its GPU is 30% faster, and its Neural Engine is 40% faster. Apple claims it can train and run a big language model without a GPU. The new processor supports six Pro Display XDRs. 100+ million pixels.
“M2 Ultra delivers astonishing performance and capabilities for our pro users’ most demanding workflows, while maintaining Apple silicon’s industry-leading power efficiency,” said Apple senior vice president of Hardware Technologies Johny Srouji. “With huge performance gains in the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, combined with massive memory bandwidth in a single SoC, M2 Ultra is the world’s most powerful chip ever created for a personal computer.