Why the Apple silicon Mac Pro will be more than just a faster chip

Apple is in the midst of a two-year rollout of its own Mac processors, with the first Mac System on a Chip (SoC) blowing away expectations. The entire company’s consumer lineup is outfitted with the incredibly fast M1, and with the recent release of the M1 Pro and Max in the MacBook Pro, we got a taste of what Apple can do with its silicon to meet the performance demands that pro users put on high-end Macs.

When it comes to pro Macs, however, the model that most readily comes to mind is the Mac Pro, Apple’s high-end workstation. What optimizations does the M1 Max have that will dictate the demise of the old Intel guard? One important battle will come down to the graphics processor, which is traditionally the most power-hungry Achilles’ heel of workstations. Will optimizations in codecs such as ProRes, coupled