Apple M7 Ultra Chip Planned With Up to 1.5 TB of Unified Memory

Apple is overhauling its M-Series chip plans, skipping the M6 Pro and M6 Max to jump directly to the M7 series, with the M7 Ultra chip expected to support up to 1.5 TB of unified memory for Mac Pro and Mac Studio systems. The base M6 SoC will launch with improved CPU, GPU, and NPU performance, while the M7 series, manufactured on Intel's 18A-P node, will arrive from 2027 to 2028, offering significantly higher memory bandwidth and AI processing capabilities.

Apple has recently overhauled https://www.techpowerup.com/350307/apple-to-skip-m6-pro-and-m6-max-jumps-to-m7-series its entire M-Series chip plans, scrapping the launch of the M6 Pro and M6 Max processors and jumping straight to the M7 series. While the base M6 SoC is expected to launch, Apple is moving into the M7 series without the M6 Pro/Max variants, with plans to offer some of the most powerful computing solutions in the market. Apple is testing the M6 SoC in the base MacBook Pro model, featuring many improvements in CPU microarchitecture and NPU performance for local AI processing. Reportedly, memory is also being upgraded for higher bandwidth, now targeting around 200 GB/s, up from 123 GB/s in the current base M5 SoC. The integrated GPU will see a 20% increase in core count, featuring 12 GPU cores in the M6, which will be a noticeable improvement from the current 10-core configuration in the M5. However, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, in the PowerOn newsletter, confirmed that Apple's plans for the M7 Ultra chip include much faster local AI with more CPU, GPU, and NPU power, as well as a total memory capacity of 1.5 TB, a configuration only seen on the Mac Pro desktop systems. Next year's base M7 processor is expected to arrive in the first half of 2027 and will also upgrade memory bandwidth to about 240 GB/s. This is supposed to be the first Intel-manufactured Apple Silicon design, utilizing the 18A-P node. The M7 Pro and M7 Max will arrive in late 2027 with much higher bandwidth and performance. An M7 Ultra version will follow in 2028 for Mac Studio, which will be a 1.5 TB DRAM machine. With that unified memory, local model development and heavier tasks will be supported without hassle.