Apple’s most high -end M3 M3 chip is currently limited to Mac Studio, but a new leak has revealed that Apple also tested the chip in the MacBook Pro.
In a post today On the Chinese social media platform Bilibili, a user that we do not know to have found code references to 14-inch MacBook Pro models and 16 inch unpublished with the M3 Ultra chip, in an internal construction of iOS 18 operating on an iPhone 16 engineering prototype. More precisely, they declared that they had found code names J514D and J516D folder / apple internal / diags / tests /.
J514 and J516 are code names for MacBook Pro 14 inch and 16 inches models with M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, which were introduced by Apple in October 2023. However, these specific code names have a “D” suffix, which probably refers to an ultra chip. For example, the Mac studio with the M3 Ultra is named J575D.
Apple never left MacBook Pro with an ultra chip, so it’s a remarkable discovery.
Currently, the M3 Ultra is the fastest mac chip that Apple has ever published. It offers up to a processor of 32 cores, up to a GPU with 80 cores, and supports up to 512 GB of unified memory, so these could have been MacBook Pro specifications in an alternative universe.
Instead, Apple has updated 14 -inch and 16 inch MacBook Pro models with M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max Chip options in October from last year. Apple has probably decided not to make the M3 ultra chip available in the MacBook Pro, potentially due to the largest impacts of thermal lifespan and battery for laptops compared to desktop computers.
With the M4 Max, the MacBook Pro can be configured with up to a CPU with 16 cores, up to a GPU with 40 cores and up to 128 GB of unified memory.
Overall, it seems that Apple has at least considered the MacBook Pro models with the M3 ultra chip, but it is unlikely that they will ever be published.
