Apple to skip the M6 Pro and Max chips and focus on boosting AI for the M7 generation | Infinium-tech

According to a report from Mark Gurman, Apple is planning a change in its chip release strategy. The upcoming M6 family of chips will abandon the Pro and Max variants in favor of the speedier M7 series. This means we’ll only see the base M6 chip running inside iPads and entry-level Macs.

Due to the increasing demand for AI-enabled devices, Apple has been forced to change its roadmap and will try to make a quick transition from the M6 ​​to the AI-focused M7 series. The M7 chips are also said to offer significantly more powerful GPUs.

As a result, the standard M7 chip will likely arrive in early 2027, followed by the M7 Pro and M7 Max by late 2027, while the Ultra version, which is typically twice as powerful as the Max, will arrive with high-end Mac Studio models in early 2028.

However, the leap in performance from the M5 line to the M6 ​​is no mean feat. It is expected to deliver updated memory architecture, higher memory bandwidth, faster CPU, better GPU with up to 12 but not 10 cores, advanced video encoding and decoding, and advanced neural engine for AI applications.

The report also mentions that the M5 Ultra chip is still on the cards. Apple would not abandon it, but it was postponed due to supply chain and cost challenges.

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